"The number of people killed in the incident has risen to 142..."
"The four acolytes who went to investigate have been confirmed killed in action, let us observe a moment of silence for our fallen companions."
"The impact of the transcendental event in the village of Aulia is officially assessed at Level 4-Legendary..."
"Before the Holy Order was dispatched, Her Highness decided to send professionals to deal with it first."
"Witcher has departed, so let's expect the other side to bring us back good news."
...
Eleazar, who had been on the train all day and all night, finally arrived in the Odaheer area of South County.
Instead of going immediately to the village where the accident occurred, he first came to the convent in the city where the bodies were collected to view the victims.
Dozens of white cloth-covered corpses filled the entire floor of that spired building.
Eleazar walked slowly past the neatly arranged bodies, still crouching down now and then to turn over the white cloths and examine them.
"The only thing they have in common is the loss of their heads."
The cardinal in charge of this zone, his gaze was wooden.
Eleazar half crouches his body in silent contemplation, "Well, there aren't any other fatal injuries to be seen, not even scrapes from escaping falls or resistance..."
"It means that the other party is so powerful that ordinary people don't have the slightest bit of resistance."
Eleazar stood up and craned his head to look at the bishop.
"What about the four murdered acolytes?"
"This way."
The bishop replied calmly, leading him to another room.
In a prayer room where a skylight casts a white light, four corpses, dressed in white robes, lie on the stone floor as if in a deep sleep.
Three men and one woman, with smooth, tight, vibrant skin on their arms, didn't look very old.
Eleazar silently walked up to take a look.
The wound on the neck was smooth and flat, the flesh was bloodless, it looked like the blood had already been drained, and most importantly, the holy light in their body was still full, indicating that they were also caught off guard, and were directly lynched by someone else with a single slash, chopping their protective holy light along with their necks off like cutting tofu, and killing them on the spot.
Eleazar examined each of the wrists, the bare feet, and the back, the places most likely to leave traces of his actions.
After a moment's silence, he said quietly, "You guys are too confident in the Holy Light..."
The bishop calmly returned, "This is the only faith we have."
Eleazar mused, "This malicious targeting of holy light defenses is a very orthodox Shadow Council power."
Throughout, these corpses expressed only one thing, the other side was powerful.
Getting no more useful clues, Eleazar prepares to leave for that village.
The bishop said calmly toward his back, "Please, bring back the heads of my four children."
Eleazar raised his arm and waved without looking back.
...
A somewhat rickety locomotive, traveling on a suburban highway, made an ear-splitting roar.
The driver of one of the wagons it overtook turned his head to see that the young man driving the locomotive had his whole body slumped over, looking like a scared newcomer, but with no loss of speed whatsoever.
The figure, glowing with metal, swept past to the end of his sight in the blink of an eye.
The driver spat out the window, "Shit, don't want to die..."
Riding the steel beast beneath him, Witcher, who had conjured the cursed armor, was rapidly recalling the operating manual in his mind.
"Well, what's stopping the car?"
"Release the gas pedal, wait for the speed to drop to a safe yardage, and slowly apply the footbrake..."
Following that temporary memorized operation, he was very successful in parking his car.
Stopping not far from an abandoned gas station on the side of the road, Eleazar pulled out his map again and looked at it, comparing locations.
"Well, it's a few more kilometers, almost there."
Pushing the locomotive into the gas station and parking it, he was going to walk the rest of the little distance on foot.
The village of Aulia, was empty and deserted, with hundreds of lives lost in a single week, the already small population of this gathering place finally erupted into uncontrollable panic, the surviving villagers all fled, and it is rumored that they are now housed in a nobleman's manor a dozen or so kilometers away. Eleazar slowly stepped into this village full of wreckage.
Perception opened up, and in the end, only a few wisps of blood mist that hadn't dissipated were traced.
In the stables, a wooden post had a few drops of blood left on it, along with carvings into the wood.
"A very precise control of power, and after chopping the head off it gathered its remaining strength, this is an intelligent creature."
"Dark creatures born of intelligence, or simply Dark Sequencers?"
Eleazar blushed contemplatively, "No, it's just intellect, not even close to wisdom, the Dark Sequencer wouldn't just commit a random crime in the Church's hinterlands and leave a trail of certain death, is that why the Church is certain it's the work of a monster?"
Turning on his senses, he checked out the other distress sites one by one.
In a cellar, Eleazar finds traces of the Holy Light.
Another splintered cask with the ale running out of it.
"Well, at that time, this acolyte finally tracked down a little trace, probably because of splitting up, and finally walked into the cellar alone, then just after lighting up the holy light for illumination, he was sneak attacked by a monster that swooped down from the ceiling, there were slight signs of struggle, the monster knew the properties of the holy light well, and in the end, the acolyte didn't even manage to call for help before he collapsed on the kegs and was decapitated,... It was the female acolyte with the swollen back."
Eleazar silently analyzes the signs of a struggle around him and again determines that the two sides probably didn't even get a few moves in before the acolyte woman was knocked down onto the keg and decapitated the next second.
Look silently at the weapon scratches.
"Unlike the stake above, the other side has changed weapons again."
"This is a humanoid monster..."
"There's intelligence, and the power to restrain holy light..."
Eleazar contemplates taking a step out of the cellar.
"Plus the habit of collecting heads..."
"The Cursed One - The Headless Horseman..."
"In his life, he was a brave knight, due to his unfortunate death on the battlefield, his head was cut off by the enemy, after being awakened by the evil power, he went around looking for his lost head, and whenever he saw a person who looked similar to him in his life, he would chop off his head and bring it back to him, and he possessed the same strong fighting power as in front of his body..."
"Ugh, it's those damn grave robbers again..."
Issue first, change later -------
"We are not native to this world, our ancestors once lived on a rich and highly civilized high-dimensional world populated by High Elves, Orc Goblins, Titan Dragons, every transcendent race you've ever heard of, a world that was founded where star towers that drew their energy from the Void were everywhere, and magical corridors encircled the entire planet... "
"We humans failed and escaped."
"An organization led by warlocks, who carried out the most information, they were not willing to be wandered like that, so they started to study those like crazy and managed to reproduce most of the transcendental creatures as well,"