Chapter 229: Comeback?

When the Twilight Empire's delegation reached the cave their leader had directed them to, he entered first, followed by the two Sixth-Rank men, while the others spread out around the entrance. Sunlight reached part of the floor, and their eyes needed a moment to make out the deeper interior, but they found none of what they had expected after the message.

The cave was empty of bodies, blood, and discarded equipment. A few scratches and scuff marks marred the stone, but they were insufficient to identify who had left them, and none suggested a battle capable of killing so many orcs.

The leader moved farther inside and closed his eyes, narrowing his search to what he had been told. Without the message, he might easily have left after a brief inspection, but knowing there was a specific trace to find made him persist until he finally detected the faint remnants of a pulse of life that had ceased in this place.

He opened his eyes and lowered his gaze to an empty patch near the center of the cave.

"The camp's commander died here," he said.

One of his companions approached and looked at the same spot, then crouched to examine the stone more closely.

"There's nothing here," he told his leader. "Are you certain, sir?"

The leader did not answer the question, merely gesturing toward the surrounding space.

"Search for the others."

It took longer this time, but the two Sixth-Rank men returned with confirmation of other residual traces, faint and scattered, indicating that the bodies of more orcs had been here. What they had failed to find was any trace of the person responsible for all of this, whose identity remained entirely unknown.

"Only orcs?" the leader asked, despite having reached the same conclusion himself.

"Every trace we could distinguish belonged to the orc race, yes."

One of the Seventh-Rank men shifted near the entrance, hesitating before speaking. "If their commander was the last to die, and there's no trace of anyone else, could he have been the one who gathered them here?"

The Sixth-Rank man turned toward him, then looked around as though testing the idea despite himself.

"He gathered them here to kill them, erased his camp, then returned to die with them?"

The man who had asked fell silent, but he was not the only one who had considered it. The traces they had found made the orc commander the only possible perpetrator they could identify, yet accepting that explanation required them to ignore more questions than it answered: why would he slaughter his own soldiers, and how could he erase all their bodies, then erase his own from existence as well?

"He never had the power to do this in the first place," the other Sixth-Rank man said, irritation creeping into his voice. "He was an Eighth-Rank orc, nothing more."

The leader listened without interrupting. He no longer doubted the commander's death; its pulse of life had ceased, and the trace the Ruler had guided him toward confirmed it, but knowing where it had died brought him no closer to identifying its killer. A hundred and fifty orcs, including their commander, had ultimately vanished inside this cave without leaving anything that could be collected or examined, as though they had been a mirage scattered by a powerful gust of wind.

'No, someone else was here.'

The Fifth-Rank man raised his head, his conclusion finally settled. None of the orcs stationed in that camp could have done something like this, least of all the weaklings whose traces remained here.

"It's clear," the leader said, voicing what everyone had hesitated to say. "Someone did this, and we have simply failed to find him because of his skill in erasing both his own traces and those of his victims."

His two companions looked at him, and he continued, gesturing toward the ground.

"Killing the soldiers alone doesn't explain what we've seen. Concealing their bodies doesn't explain the missing metal and ash, and burning the camp doesn't explain how they all ended up here without a clear trace of whoever moved them."

One of the Sixth-Rank men went still, then spoke hesitantly. "Do you mean this was..."

"Fourth Rank, at the very least."

The leader did not raise his voice, but his words made every man at the entrance turn toward him.

"A human Nation's Wing has entered the conflict on this front. That is the assessment we will submit until we find evidence to the contrary."

One member of the group instinctively looked toward the forest in alarm when he heard a wild animal tread on a fallen tree trunk, then caught himself and resumed a rigid stance. The leader noticed but did not reprimand him; the possibility that they were lingering near someone stronger than all of them was now something he had to take seriously, even without evidence that the individual was still nearby.

"I don't want a report leaving this delegation claiming that the orc commander killed his soldiers simply because the evidence here seems to suggest it. We will state what we have verified and include our suspicion of Fourth-Rank involvement, while the perpetrator's identity remains unknown."

The two Sixth-Rank men nodded, then followed him as he headed toward the entrance. Neither was comfortable with the conclusion, but they had no better explanation, and that had troubled them more than anything else since entering the cave.

Before leaving, the leader cast one last glance at the place where the orc's life had ended. He did not know which Law had been used or how its wielder had achieved this result, but he was convinced that what he saw went beyond ordinary aura and magic, something his Fifth Rank did not grant him the ability to understand or trace.

It was...

The power of Laws.

...

At the gate of the human camp.

The guards drew their weapons and leveled them at Ravian, advancing more slowly this time after realizing there was something wrong with the young man's behavior, and that underestimating him could cost them dearly.

That was what they expected... and it fell far short of how disastrous taking another step would truly be.

'Ugh, I just slaughtered an entire orc camp, and now I have to teach a bunch of idiots not to underestimate someone who looks weak.'

Ravian simply clenched his fists, not even bothering to retrieve his weapon, which only aggravated the guards and their commander further.

The commander raised his hand and gave the order.

"Seize him—"

He abruptly stopped, his eyes widening as he stared at someone standing behind Ravian, and all the soldiers immediately lowered their weapons and stepped back.

'Ah, DAMN!'

Ravian cursed inwardly, with no need to turn around to know who stood behind him. The soldiers' expressions made it obvious enough.

He turned anyway, giving them his back as he faced the person behind him.

It was exactly who he had expected.

A tall, broad-shouldered man who appeared to be in his forties, carrying a spear on his back and a sword at his waist, both shifting with his movements. Gray mingled with black in his hair, telling of the years that had passed, and his face bore a stern, cold, displeased expression, yet concern and bewilderment never quite left it as he looked at the disciple whose appearance had changed so much, yet whose manner seemed no different at all.

The man standing before Ravian in all his imposing presence was his master...

Commander of the company and the eastern battlefront, Marquis of Dmitri, and the hero of the City of Light:

Karius Dmitri.