Fire, gunpowder smoke, the scent of blood; the air was scorched and broken down by arcane energy, while rock and steel shattered apart.
Boundary Camp 22 had already been razed to the ground.
The Black Armored Knights stood in the ravaged ruins, silent as statues. Corpses from both sides lay crisscrossed across the battlefield. When the sun rose, howling cold winds swept over the plains in the morning light, carrying the stench of blood and smoke far into the distance.
Among the Black Armored Knights still able to stand, some had shattered armor that exposed equally tattered bodies beneath. Flesh torn apart by searing blades or rays trembled in the cold wind, while abnormal granulation tissue and sticky, grotesque growths writhed from the wounds' edges. It should have been a sight that filled ordinary people with terror, yet the knights seemed utterly unaware of it. They merely stood in silence, awaiting orders.
The Knight Order's commander, Count Moglok, stood atop a stone at the edge of the battlefield, silently surveying his latest victory. Within his muddy, agitated mind, where memories lay fragmented, he vaguely felt that he had done something truly terrible—but that thought was swiftly replaced by an even more fervent one.
He began devising his next battle plan, considering how to expand upon his current results. At the same time, he was somewhat surprised—surprised by the unexpected casualties Boundary Camp 22 had inflicted upon the Iron River Knights. He had never imagined that the incomparably powerful Iron River Knights would suffer nearly a quarter of their strength in losses merely to capture a border outpost. That was practically equivalent to the losses from directly assaulting a castle guarded by Supernatural Beings. Yet the enemies stationed here... had merely been ordinary people.
This outpost had only a single wall.