Chapter 86 - 31: [Ederic’s Wall]

Chapter 86: Chapter 31: [Ederic’s Wall]

The sturdy stone walls spanned across hills and plains like a dragon’s spine winding around the earth, stretching endlessly for thousands of miles. Watchtowers, beacon towers, and bell towers soared from within the walls, resembling sharp scales bristling along the spine of the dragon.

Thousands of blood-red battle flags bristled atop the walls, fluttering in the wind as they trailed the ramparts into the unseen horizon.

Painted on these crimson flags in pitch-black pigment were five swords pointing toward the sky, riveted together with iron hoops and nails to form a ferocious Iron Crown.

The Sword Crown and Iron Crown symbolized the decree: "The sword is power." The hilt of the sword was the scepter of authority, forging an unyielding, cold, and immortal monarchy through overwhelming military might. The five swords represented Ederic’s founding Emperor and the Four Knights who had followed him to lay the Empire’s foundations.

Ederic’s Wall was built after the Battle of the Heart of the Remains. For the Ederic Empire, a nation renowned for its military prowess, the original doctrine had always been "wherever iron hooves trample, there lies the border." Initially, they disdained the construction of something as ridiculous as a defensive wall.

However, the chaotic war of kings that swept the world transformed the fertile plains at its center into a cradle for plagues and the Undead, and the Ederic Empire’s vitality was severely sapped in this conflict. The gradual expansion of the Desolate Demon Realm meant that habitable land available for conquest was shrinking, making the maintenance of a massive army more costly than it was worth.

Accompanying the expansion of the Desolate Demon Realm, Demon Monarchs activated Magic Arrays one after another to obscure the sunlight with gloom. They utilized Earth-Devouring Demon Insects to excavate marching tunnels, frequently dispatching the sun-fearing Burrower Legions to the Empire’s borders in an attempt to conquer the frontier provinces.

Under such circumstances, the reigning Emperor ordered the construction of Ederic’s Wall. The towering walls and the Mages working in shifts to operate the Exorcism Arrays virtually eliminated any possibility of a Burrower Legion invasion.

But after the founding of the Adventurer’s Alliance, dream-chasing adventurers swarmed into the Barren Land. Relying on their elite individual combat strength, they infiltrated the Demon Monarch lairs within Underground Cities, wreaking havoc and looting with abandon. This constant harassment ended up restricting the Demon Monarchs’ military maneuvers, leaving them with no time to dispatch their legions for outward conquests.

Ever since the Alliance’s strongholds pierced deep into the Barren Land like long iron nails, the walls had not suffered a siege from a Burrower Legion in years. To continue allocating funds and troops to this thankless wall was clearly an incredibly foolish waste. The number of Guards was gradually reduced, and maintenance of the wall steadily fell into neglect.

As large sections of the ancient wall fell into disrepair over the years and collapsed in succession, many bandits and fugitives from both inside and outside the Empire began slipping through the borders. Although the Imperial Soldiers on duty at the frontier outposts could see them, they rarely bothered to intervene unless it was a special situation.

Ederic’s Wall, much like the Ederic Empire itself, had lost its original appearance. Its primary purpose now was likely just collecting tariffs from merchants traveling in and out, as well as...

"A large amount of magic quality detected." An Imperial Soldier wearing a spiked steel helmet and a fishbone cavalry coat raised a spherical glass bottle filled with Magic Potion Indicator to report to his superior.

The spherical Magic Potion Bottle was flashing with a blue light.

"These are high-level magic quality materials from the Valak Dungeon in the Kana Plain," the merchant caravan leader explained. "Here is the cargo manifest, sir."

"Inspect the materials and compare them with the cargo manifest. If there are no issues, pay the corresponding tariffs according to the Empire’s Customs Law." An officer draped in a pitch-black military dress coat stood with his hands behind his back on a flag pedestal by the gate, issuing orders calmly. "Also, inspect the people."

"The people?" The caravan leader was puzzled.

"These caravan guards are all adventurers," the duty officer explained expressionlessly. "Under normal circumstances, magic quality concentration roughly equates to strength. According to the Alliance’s third edition evaluation standards, adventurers above level five will have a relatively high concentration of magic quality in their bodies.

"Demonized individuals can actively hide their mutated traits, potentially masquerading as normal humans. However, their adventurer levels and backgrounds often severely mismatch their magic quality concentrations. Relying on the vast discrepancies between their self-reported levels, their histories, and the Magic Quality Indicator can help identify suspects.

"Some high-level members of the Demon Race will also try to use clothing to cover their traits and forcefully conceal their overflowing magic quality concentration. They sometimes disguise themselves as Advanced Adventurers above level five to sneak into the Empire. Therefore, Advanced Adventurers entering and exiting also require a simple routine inspection.

"However, since they’re guards hired by a shrewd merchant to accompany the caravan, it’s safe to assume their backgrounds and histories have already been vetted once. There shouldn’t be any serious issues. Given the large number of people, a rough screening will suffice. No need to interrogate them individually. Move quickly, breeze through the procedure, and don’t block the checkpoint."

The officer waved his hand. Several civilian officials jogged over to inspect the cargo, while dozens of Imperial Soldiers quickened their pace toward the line of carriages.

At a checkpoint on Ederic’s Wall, heavy iron-clad gates the size of hills stood wide open. The massive gates were wide enough to allow nearly a hundred carriages to pass through side by side. Heavy cables, as thick as a person, and winches were fixed to the towering gateposts on either side, connected to a power mechanism driven by a Magic Array.

Hundreds of Imperial Soldiers in spiked iron helmets patrolled on foot between the gates. They wielded heavy, long-handled Lances and wore Longswords at their waists. Draped in fishbone cavalry coats fitted with rib-like metal chest plates, their knee-length hemlines flapped wildly in the howling frontier winds, looking like hundreds of pitch-black battle flags.

Two squads of lancers riding warhorses galloped back and forth around the perimeter of the gates, observing the situation both near and far.