Two days later.
In a certain city.
A sharp arrow whizzed through the air, whistling as it streaked across the sky. It flew across a long street to finally pin a man onto a wall.
“Save… me…” the man struggled and screamed.
“Save you?”
A female voice called out.
Crow descended from the air, looking down on the man with an eager expression.
The man begged: “I really am not a wraith, I’m just a civilian, please don’t kill me”
Crow drew her rapier and chuckled: “Unfortunately, I’ve never hesitated when it came to murder”
“I’m not lying…”
The man struggled to raise his hand, pushing open the door behind him.
In the house, a woman was holding onto a baby with a fearful expression towards Crow.
Looking at them, Crow had a complicated expression.
She turned towards the end of the street and shouted:
“Oy, are you sure there weren’t any mistakes? Maybe that bastard doesn’t hurt civilians?”
No one answered him.
A breeze blew past.
Perhaps it was because Crow’s voice was too loud but the baby started crying loudly.
Keeping her gaze at the end of the street, Crow complained: “This great one was born powerful, never have I ever come into contact with normal people—— what am I supposed to do with these civilians now?”
Suddenly, Gu Qing Shan’s voice sounded from next to her:
“Let me take a look”
Gu Qing Shan hung the bow on his back, placed one hand on the man’s chest and the other hand on a black handbook, chanting:
“The creation and destruction of all things are but a single moment, with my power of Condemnation, your suffering shall surely be atoned for——”
“[Divine Word: Cleanse]”
The man’s body lightly shook before going completely limp on the spot.
“No!” the woman screamed in sorrow.
She ran out of the house with the baby in her arms, hurriedly running towards the man.
Crow looked at the body, then at the woman, asking in shock: “Hey, that’s just a powerless person, what do we—–”
Gu Qing Shan didn’t answer and instead held the bow in his hand.
“Hey—–” Crow shouted.
Gu Qing Shan didn’t react to her and immediately shot an arrow.
A bolt of lightning shot out from the bow, piercing through the woman’s shoulder and pinned her on the wall.
“Aaaaee!” the woman screamed in pain while trembling.
As she was shot, the baby left her hand and seemed like it was flying into another wall.
Crow hurriedly went to catch the baby while Gu Qing Shan rushed forward, put one hand over the woman’s shoulder, and quickly chanted with the black handbook in his other hand: “The creation and destruction of all things are but a single moment, with my power of Condemnation, your suffering shall surely be atoned for——”
“[Divine Word: Cleanse]”
As the woman heavily shook, a black shadow escaped from her body and slowly faded away.
At this point, Crow had just caught the baby and was observing how Gu Qing Shan dealt with the woman.
“Leave that baby!” Gu Qing Shan abruptly shouted.
In Crow’s embrace, the crying baby suddenly thrust both hands towards Crow.
The baby’s expression was cruel, both of its hands had already transformed into sharp claws that could easily cut through anyone’s throat.
—–right as it was about to succeed.
A frigid wave of cold air appeared from Crow’s body to freeze the baby inside a block of clear ice.
“Scram!”
The duck plushie jumped out from Crow’s chest, kicking the block of ice away.
Noticing that it had lost its chance, a mass of black gas appeared from the baby’s body.
The gas converged into the form of a wraith wearing a red yaksha mask that was staring closely at Gu Qing Shan.
「 Rhode 」the wraith image spoke, 「 Almost 60% of the soul vessels of civilians’ from this world are under my control, you won’t be able to kill me 」
He then changed to a mocking tone: 「 Or perhaps you enjoy killing civilians? If that’s the case, I’ll satisfy your inner desires, I guarantee that no matter where you go, every last civilian will die 」
Gu Qing Shan casually replied: “These people are already dead, not even their souls remain in their bodies. Otherwise, after I dispel your technique, they should have continued to live, not die”
Crow had just now regained her senses, soaked in a cold sweat, angrily shouting: “Bastard, you’d even lay your hands on a baby, you piece of garbage”
She thrust forward with her sword.
The wraith image was instantly scattered, leaving sporadic voices behind:
「 Strange… Condemner… could it be that you aren’t… 」
The voices completely faded away.
——Red Wraith’s technique had ended.
Yu Juan examined the three corpses, then reported: “Still the same technique, completely undetectable initially, but as soon as it’s activated, it can eradicate the soul and turn the body into a remote-controlled puppet”
He shivered, muttering: “How could the Wraith realm have such a cruel technique? Our Void Library hasn’t discovered it at all”
Gu Qing Shan looked at the corpses on the ground.
A family of three.
Without the invasion of the wraiths, they should have been able to live a peaceful life, not laying sprawled all over as corpses.
…
Two days ago.
In the wilderness just outside Ramon village, a gathering of the strongest Combatants of Saint Spirit world eradicated a large number of wraiths.
Using some sort of technique, Red Wraith was the only one who managed to escape with his life intact.
That was only the beginning.
As soon as the truth got out, the Combatants of the world considered many solutions before announcing a total of seven distinguishing Holy Arts that would expose any hidden wraiths to help everyone eliminate them.
What they didn’t expect was that during the long years the wraiths have had to prepare themselves, a large number of aristocrats in the Saint Spirit world as a whole had been taken over, even civilians had gotten under their control.
War broke out.
One of the two great Empires, the Frost Empire, immediately announced absolute refusal to accept any examining techniques, declaring that everything was fake, and this was nothing but the top Combatants’ plan to destroy the empire.
From the uppermost level, the entire Empire began preparing for war. Many of the Empire’s Combatants also invaded its surrounding Duchies, declaring this to be the beginning of a war of justice to protect their home.
Quite obviously, the wraiths had taken over the majority of Combatants in this Empire, gaining actual control over them.
But the other Empire, the Roland Empire, discovered that very few of them had actually been taken over by the wraiths after the initial wave of panic.
Turns out, this had a lot to do with the customs of the two empires.
The aristocrats of the Roland empire believed that anything they were gifted from others must be offered to their Deities before using.
So any inheritance, spells, treasures, and armor that they received from the Wraith realm must first be plunged within the Sacred Spring of Deities as an offering for the Gods before they could personally use it.
The Sacred Spring of Deities had a natural cleansing ability, so all of the offered items lost their abilities to take over the users.
The wraiths didn’t really have a countermeasure against this, and they couldn’t really try to shake this religious belief either.
In the end, the wraiths decided to only gloss over their offerings to the aristocrats of the Roland empire, while focusing most of their efforts on the Frost empire.
The Duchy where Gu Qing Shan arrived at was indeed part of the Frost empire.
And now, the two great Empires had turned on one another——-
Or rather, the wraiths had finally shown their true colors.
War broke out without any hope of reconciliation.
And everyone was caught in it.
“The city is about to fall, should we put in some more effort?” Crow asked.
She and Gu Qing Shan buried the three corpses first before looking at the inner city.
There were a lot of people there.
—–people that have been taken over by wraiths.
The military, civilians, aristocrats, all of them were trying their best to defend against the Roland empire’s attacks.
All of them were actually wraith in control of other people’s bodies.
No one knew what kind of technique Red Wraith was using, but he was able to take over anyone at the scene in order to give orders to the wraiths.
The sound of exploding magic resounded without ending, echoing far into the horizon.
The ground and structures were all trembling, occasionally the sound of collapse could even be heard.
The sieging battle continued.
Gu Qing Shan sighed, replying: “Let’s return to the Roland empire first. The conferring ceremony is today, we need to hold actual authority in our hands to better deal with any issues”
Crow agreed: “That’s true, but after the conferring ceremony, I’m heading back here to continue killing the wraiths”
Gu Qing Shan looked at her.
Only to see her eyes full of unrestrained killing intent.
“Come, let’s go together” Gu Qing Shan said.
A wave of white fog suddenly appeared and enveloped the two of them in a flash.
They left the streets of the warring city.
…
The Roland empire.
The royal capital, City of Holy Crown.
Just as Gu Qing Shan’s group returned to their room the sound of knocking was heard.
“Rhode, his majesty summons you”
Gu Qing Shan opened the door and left with the guards towards the royal palace.
After passing through numerous checks, he and Crow finally reached the grand audience hall of the palace.
From afar, they could see the emperor of Roland currently discussing the war situation with other Combatants, occasionally someone would even arrive to report the newest war situation.
The sense of urgency that could only be seen in the middle of a war was naturally felt by Gu Qing Shan.
The guards had Gu Qing Shan and Crow remain where they were while they stepped forward and loudly reported:
“Sire, Rhode has arrived”
The sound of discussions stopped.
All the Combatants turned to Gu Qing Shan at the same time.
The solemn expression of emperor Roland also disappeared as he smiled and approached Gu Qing Shan.
“The first person to see through the wraiths’ plan was a young man, as well as a rare Condemner—– in reality, it has been a very long time since the last Condemner appeared on this continent, even the Church of Condemnation is nothing but an empty shell now”
He drew the ceremonial sword and lightly propped it on Gu Qing Shan’s shoulder.
“Rhode, I have a question” emperor Roland said.
“Please ask ahead, sire” Gu Qing Shan replied.
Emperor Roland questioned: “I wanted to know why you suspected the gift of the wraiths. As you know, this had already become a common custom for the last hundred thousand years, everyone had already gotten used to it”
Gu Qing Shan replied: “Sire, to gain without putting in efforts had always made me feel unsettled, and I simply did not mind assuming that there could have been malicious intentions behind it”
Emperor Roland fell into thought briefly.
“You are correct. We were deceived by the wraiths because our strength had afforded us the pride and prejudice we uphold up to this point, but I guarantee that won’t be the case any longer”
Saying that, he tapped Gu Qing Shan’s shoulder once each with the ceremonial sword, then recited:
“I, emperor of Roland, Friedrich, through this profound ritual, hereby confer Baron Rhode as a Viscount of our Saint Roland Empire. And by his salvation and contributions to humanity as a whole, confer him as Count White Night”
“May your heart shine like burning holy light and eliminate all darkness in this world; may the shroud of darkness from all living beings never descend”
Gu Qing Shan was a bit surprised.
Emperor Roland pulled the ceremonial sword back, patting his shoulder: “In truth, the rank of Count isn’t equivalent to your contributions, but you are only 15 years old. I cannot grant you too much authority, lest it would ruin you instead——– do you object?”
“I do not” Gu Qing Shan replied.
“Very well. As we are in the time of war, everything shall be simplified, but you shall receive everything that you deserve, my men will show you the way”
“Understood”
“Just a question, what do you intend to do from now on? The land I granted you was among the best vacation spots of the empire, perhaps you should take a look first”
“Sire, since it was I who first discovered the wraiths, I’d like to head to the battlefield”
Emperor Roland smiled.
The other Combatants also looked at Gu Qing Shan with a faint smile.
“A very decent little one” a beautiful woman with red hair licked her lips and muttered.
“Indeed, the new Condemner” an old farmer said emotionally.
Emperor Roland’s attitude also became much more friendly and said:
“Rhode, you are a very decent child who would definitely become a pillar of our empire in the future without questions, but you are still only 15 years old, you still need protection, as well as the test of time. Continue to train yourself, get to know trustworthy allies and friends who share your same views. I even hope that you will be able to attain love in this place”
Before Gu Qing Shan even said anything else, emperor Roland patted his shoulder:
“Don’t worry, with so many of us here, you can leave the war to us Combatants——- men, lead our new Count to his quarters, he will require a ceremonial garb suitable for his status”
