A soldier wearing the standard uniform of the Imperial Legion was given a blanket and a cup of warm honey water. He held the cup in both hands and spoke in a still somewhat trembling voice about the horrifying experiences he and a group of survivors had endured in recent days:
"The atmosphere in the city had been wrong for a long time. Those of us in the military could see more than the civilians—those Black Sword Knights gathered together, took over most of the command authority, and issued all sorts of strange orders. For example, they told us to move the city's foundation stone outside the city and bury it...
"Later, they banned all external communications, saying it was a special wartime restriction. Then the barracks began to be divided into isolated sections. We were split up according to our battalion organization, and they sent out one battalion after another, saying they were carrying out missions. But no one ever saw any battalion leave the camp. Those who were 'sent out' simply seemed to vanish into thin air.
"Then those battalions that had been 'sent out' came back. I saw them from a distance and felt that they had become something else from the inside... I don't mean their appearance. They still looked the same as before, but their eyes were strange, and their entire bodies gave off an unsettling aura.
"The disappearances in the city began increasing. Everyone started having nightmares, and the nightmares felt exactly like reality. In our dreams, we saw monsters covered in countless eyes and limbs. Sometimes, after waking up, we could even see those eyes on the walls. Some soldiers began to grow afraid, thinking they had been cursed, so they went to their commanding officers. The officers took those soldiers to the