Great Demon Hei Ze!

The Cangxi City Enforcement Guard took the discovery of dozens of skeletons extremely seriously.

At the young lady from the enforcement team's prompt, Zhang Lie opened the video.

Dozens of stark white, chilling bones appeared on the screen.

The Enforcement Guard captain personally led a team to the Great Wilderness Mountain Range, while an Expert Team of various specialists arrived soon afterward.

The Enforcement Guard met Zhang Lie. Led by him, they passed through a cave and entered a valley—or rather, half a valley.

At the sight of the snow-white bones, every Enforcement Guard member present felt that something major was about to happen.

After a preliminary survey, they found a total of forty-seven skeletons here.

Zhao Guoyan, captain of the Cangxi City Enforcement Guard, furrowed his brow. His square face made him look especially imposing.

Expert Liu Chengchao looked at the skeletons on the ground. Adjusting his glasses, he frowned. "The ground is ordinary red soil. These bones received no special preservation treatment and were left exposed to the open air. Normally, they would rot into mud in around five years."

Within one hour of death, a body became stiff, then cold.

Thirty hours after death, large numbers of maggots and bacteria appeared within the human body, gnawing through and decomposing the organs and flesh until nothing remained but bones.

Skeletons left exposed to the open air weathered and decayed quickly, and generally could not be preserved for many years.

If buried in dry ground, however, bones could generally be preserved for more than three hundred years.

If specially treated, a corpse could be preserved even longer.

"Based on that estimate, these bones are only three years old. But... where are the clothes? The accessories?"

"Could someone have stripped them after killing them and dumped them here?" Zhao Guoyan, captain of the Enforcement Guard, offered his opinion.

"These bones all belong to adult males, roughly between thirty and forty years old."

Determining the sex of skeletal remains mainly relied on the pelvis and the skull, especially the pelvis.

The pelvis connected the lower limbs, enclosed the abdominopelvic cavity, and housed the pelvic organs.

Men did not need to bear children, while women needed to accommodate a fetus and serve as the birth canal, so the two had obvious differences.

A woman's pelvic inlet was wider across than from front to back, forming a horizontal oval, and its outlet was wider than a man's.

"Go investigate recent missing-person cases." Zhao Guoyan immediately instructed the team member beside him.

At that moment, his expression was exceedingly grim.

These were forty-seven skeletons. A case this heinous could reach the highest authorities and was bound to cause an enormous uproar!

Given the national circumstances, every development in such a major case had to be publicly announced online.

It would be fine if they could solve it, but if they could not, the whole of Cangxi City would be shaken to its foundations.

"Captain, there's a stone stele here."

Suddenly, Xiao Wu, a member of the enforcement team, called out.

Zhao Guoyan and Liu Chengchao immediately turned their attention toward him.

Since arriving here, they had found no significant clues apart from the skeletons.

Yet there was actually a stone stele here.

Several people walked over, and a granite stele came into view.

Rather than a stone stele, it was more like a stone that resembled one.

Crooked, twisting characters were carved onto it.

"Do these symbols have any special meaning?" Zhao Guoyan, captain of the Enforcement Guard, knitted his brows tightly.

"This is Wolf Clan writing. No—it's Ancient Wolf Script." Liu Chengchao looked at the stele and took out his phone. "I'll take a photo and send it to my friend. He's a professor of linguistics."

"Alright." Zhao Guoyan nodded, his face full of puzzlement. "Ancient Wolf Script—is that from the Wolf Clan of legend, the one with Giant Wolves?"

"That's right." Liu Chengchao explained, "The Wolf Clan lived around the Taxian Grassland. They were a nomadic people, first recorded in the Annals of Great Feng. The Wolf Clan was powerful and repeatedly invaded our people. At their peak, they even nearly succeeded in seizing the Nine Cauldrons and taking the throne.

Back then, the Great Feng Kingdom was weak, and the Wolf Clan nearly reached the capital, Feng'an, and replaced it. But strangely, the Wolf Guard—the Wolf Clan's strongest elite force, which should have appeared on the battlefield—vanished without a trace and never joined the battle.

Many historians debated the Wolf Clan's defeat. There was something fishy about it.

But a hundred years ago, during the world war, the Wolf Clan was wiped out."

"I don't know much about the Wolf Clan, but I've heard stories about Giant Wolves.

I heard that the Wolf Clan's Giant Wolves were taller than horses, and among ancient cavalry, they were some of the finest mounts." Zhao Guoyan said.

"That's right. The Wolf Clan's strongest force was its cavalry, and their Giant Wolves had an overwhelming advantage over ordinary horses." As Liu Chengchao spoke, he examined the stele. "This stele is probably at least several hundred years old. It should have nothing to do with this case."

"A message came in." Liu Chengchao's phone screen lit up. He looked at it and fell into hesitation.

"Old Liu, what do the words on this stele say?" Zhao Guoyan asked curiously.

"Great Demon Hei Ze."

For some reason, those four words struck everyone's hearts like a heavy hammer.

"My friend told me that the term 'Great Demon' held an extremely special meaning among the Wolf Clan, especially the Ancient Wolf Tribe.

Great Demon meant enemy—but not an ordinary enemy. It meant the enemy of an entire tribe!"

The hatred of an entire tribe was hatred that could not exist beneath the same sky.

For one person to become the enemy of an entire tribe was absolutely terrifying.

Had such a person existed in history?

"Sigh. Under normal circumstances, I'd be curious who this Hei Ze was, but now..." Zhao Guoyan looked at the bones beside him, his brow tightly furrowed.

Forty-seven skeletons, forty-seven lives!

They had died just like that in such a remote place, without causing even the slightest ripple.

This was an age of peace and prosperity.

"Captain, another skeleton has been found here. There should be many more skeletons buried in this soil."

A voice came from nearby, and Zhao Guoyan's heart could not help trembling.

More victims?

Zhao Guoyan and Liu Chengchao hurried over.

"The skeleton was found inside the mountain, buried beneath the soil."

Zhao Guoyan stared at the rocks and soil ahead, momentarily stunned.

The new skeleton had been pressed inside by the cliff?

That was rather bizarre.

"We kept digging into this mountainside. There are more bones inside—not just one..."

Before them stood what could be considered a short but steep mountain.

Its cross-section was smooth and flat. No person could possibly climb it.

Why bury corpses at the foot of these steep cliffs?

Zhao Guoyan could not understand.

The other skeletons had all been casually left out in the open. Why had someone gone to such trouble to bury these in the soil?

Just how many more were inside?

Could what they were seeing now be merely the tip of the iceberg?

Not just forty-seven skeletons—perhaps more than fifty?

More than fifty adult men had quietly died like this. Who among those present did not feel a chill run down their spine?

At that moment, Liu Chengchao looked at the skeletons, as well as the soil and rocks beside them.

"Strange. This soil hasn't been disturbed at all in recent years.

How were these bones and corpses put inside?"

As soon as he said that, everyone present felt puzzled as well.

How had these bodies been buried?

"Could it be that these skeletons weren't from a few years ago? But rather..."