Chapter 329 (Patreon)

The desert had turned into a graveyard. For monsters.

Red sand stretched endlessly beneath the blazing sun, now soaked darker from pools of blood and monster remains. Torn limbs lay scattered everywhere. Broken fangs. Shattered bones. The heavy smell of death mixed with the dry desert wind until breathing itself felt unpleasant. Heat waves danced above the corpses, making the battlefield seem almost unreal, like the entire massacre was trembling beneath the sky.

Kana quietly moved through the aftermath while the others were distracted.

Whenever no one paid attention, a corpse vanished. A direwolf here. A desert lizard there.

One of the dungeon bosses disappeared next. Her fingers brushed lightly against her bracelet as her [Inventory] swallowed the monsters whole. She kept her expression calm, though her thoughts drifted elsewhere.

Roy might be able to use them. If his skill truly worked the way she imagined, these corpses could become something terrifying.

Or useful. Possibly both.

Above the battlefield, a shadow circled once before descending. Artin landed lightly atop the dune, feathers dissolving from his arms as he returned fully to human form. Suri and Chelle walked down behind him, shielding their eyes from the sun.

“Already checked the area,” Artin announced while dusting sand off his shoulders. “Everything’s dead. All cleared.”

A tired cheer rose from the knights. Some dropped heavily onto the sand. Others raised bloodied weapons into the air. One man laughed weakly before nearly collapsing from exhaustion. The battle had not been elegant. It had been brutal, messy survival beneath a merciless desert sky.

Then the cheering abruptly died.

Rose Light appeared. No one saw her arrive.

One moment the dune behind them was empty. Next, she stood there like a phantom carved from shadow and steel.

Compared to the others, she looked absurdly clean. A thin layer of sand dusted her black armor, but there was almost no blood on her at all. Meanwhile the knights looked like they had crawled out of a butcher’s pit. Boris was covered from head to toe in monster gore. Kana’s sleeves were stained dark red. Even the wind seemed unable to touch Rose properly.

“Good work,” Rose said calmly.

Her voice wasn’t loud, yet everyone heard it immediately. She glanced once toward the distant horizon where the death squad survivors had fled.

“Don’t worry about the remaining death squad members,” she continued. “I already gave them new instructions.”

Several knights blinked in confusion. Rose spoke as if commanding the enemy's powerful assassins was the most natural thing in the world.

“They’ll continue operating normally for now,” she added, “until I return there.”

Suri leaned closer to Kana while discreetly covering her nose with part of her cloak. “Kana,” she whispered, “she killed the faction master. Saw it earlier.”

Kana remained silent. 

Suri’s eyes widened slightly as realization fully settled in. “She’s the new faction master now,” she muttered. “Apparently that lawless city follows strength above everything else.”

Kana’s eyes flickered. For the first time since entering the lawless city, something faintly warm appeared inside them.

Hope.

“Then…” Kana whispered softly to herself, almost too quiet to hear, “we might still be able to save them.”

“What?” Suri blinked. “Did you say something?”

Kana immediately shook her head. “Nothing.”

Nearby, one of the knights suddenly groaned. His stomach growled loudly enough for half the group to hear.

The man awkwardly raised a hand. “Can we eat first?”

Several others instantly nodded in agreement. “Please.”

“I’m starving.”

“I think I swallowed sand.”

Rose slowly turned her head toward them. The knights stiffened immediately. Even the desert wind seemed to pause.

“No,” Rose said flatly.

The poor knight visibly deflated. Rose crossed her arms while scanning the filthy battlefield around them.

“We leave first,” she ordered. “Find water if there is. You must wash yourselves properly. First.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Then maybe we can eat.”

A collective groan spread across the group. Suri looked personally betrayed by the universe.

…….

The journey resumed as though nothing extraordinary had happened.

No one spoke much about the battlefield behind them. Not about the sea of monsters from the sands. Not about the faction master. Not even about the fact that Rose Light had casually taken control of one of the most feared cities on the continent..

The wagons simply kept moving across the endless red desert. However, the entire company now smelled horrific.

The mixture of dried blood, sweat, monster guts, and burning desert heat clung stubbornly to everyone. The knights had tried washing themselves earlier in the small spare water they found, but it barely helped. If anything, the wet armor had trapped the smell even worse beneath the scorching sun.

Suri sat with part of her cloak wrapped tightly around her nose. Beside her, Chelle looked equally miserable.

“I think,” Chelle muttered weakly, “the smell is inside my lungs now.”

“It is,” Suri answered immediately. “We’re going to die from this.”

Across from them, Kana had already given up resisting. Her [High Awareness] made the odor ten times worse for her, yet strangely, she no longer reacted much. Her face had settled into the calm expression of someone who had accepted suffering as part of life.

Boris suddenly stood up while Thorne who was sleeping peacefully on top of his head flinched for a moment then went back to sleep.

He approached Kana while Suri nearly recoiled in horror.

“Absolutely not.” She immediately moved away from him, nearly dragging Chelle with her.

Boris blinked. “What?”

“You smell like something died,” Suri said.

Boris scratched his cheek. “A lot of things died.”

“That’s not the point.”

Even Thorne, resting lazily atop Boris’s head, smelled faintly metallic from dried blood between her scales.

Boris ignored their complaints and instead sat beside Kana, the wagon creaking slightly beneath his weight. Unlike the others, his expression looked oddly serious.

He lowered his voice. “I got the text of god message you mentioned before.”

Kana turned toward him immediately. The rattling wagon suddenly felt quieter. Boris reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded parchment, keeping it hidden from the others before handing it carefully to her.

Kana unfolded it. The moment her eyes scanned the contents, her heartbeat skipped. For a brief second, genuine surprise crossed her usually calm face.

“So those things…” she whispered.

Then she abruptly stopped herself. Her thoughts began moving rapidly. The desert outside blurred slightly as possibilities formed one after another inside her mind. The monsters earlier had not been dungeon-born creatures. They were summoned by a man. Created through the faction master’s class.

Which meant technically… they should not have been granted experience at all. Yet Boris received new class options. It means he leveled up.

Kana’s fingers tightened slightly around the parchment. If summoned monsters could grannt exp…

Then theoretically… No.

Her mind immediately started building terrifying scenarios.

A tamer. A summoner. A monster breeder. Someone who could be capable of endlessly producing creatures.

If those monsters gave real exp, then dungeons themselves might no longer be necessary. Entire kingdoms would go insane over knowledge like that. Wars could start from it alone. But there were too many unknowns. Maybe only certain summons counted. Maybe the monsters needed true physical bodies from an evolved class.. Maybe it only worked because Ghin himself had permanently collected them.

Or maybe…

There were hidden conditions no one understood yet.

Kana slowly exhaled through her nose. Silently, she finally  read the parchment Boris handed over to her.

[New classes available:]

[Darkness Warrior]

[Spear King]

[Drake Champion]

[Great Hoplite]

[Phantom Legion]

[Elite Warrior]

Kana stared at the names for a few moments while the wagon continued rattling through the desert sands.

Even without explanations, the classes sounded powerful. Like titles carried by conquerors in forgotten stories.

Boris scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Good or bad?” 

Kana folded the parchment carefully before handing it back. “It’s good, I don’t think there’s a bad one.” she said quietly.

Boris grinned immediately. “Knew it.”

Kana glanced toward the endless desert outside before lowering her voice again.

“I’ll explain later what they might mean.”

She paused.

“At least… my understanding of them.”

Because the more Kana learned about the so-called Text of God, the more she realized something unsettling. Nobody truly understood it at all.

…..

Far behind the moving wagons, beneath the blazing desert sun, the battlefield remained silent.

The sand no longer shifted from combat.

No roaring monsters. No clashing steel. Only death remained.

Bodies of monsters blanketed the dunes like a grotesque sea of flesh. Orc corpses piled over shattered lizard creatures. Broken wolf-like beasts lay half-buried beneath red sand. The heat had already begun cooking the blood beneath the sun, releasing a thick metallic stench into the air strong enough to make ordinary men vomit.

Then shadows appeared across the wasteland.

Five figures cloaked entirely in black stepped quietly through the graveyard of monsters. Their faces remained hidden beneath deep hoods, their movements cautious despite the silence surrounding them.

One of them stopped beside the torn remains of a desert beast and glanced around uneasily.

“Are you sure this is the place?” he asked, voice low and rough.

Another crouched near the ground, fingers brushing lightly against blood-soaked sand. Unlike the others, he moved with strange confidence, almost like a hunting dog following an invisible trail.

“Yes, Captain,” the thin-voiced man replied. “The scent leads here.”

One of the others grimaced beneath his hood. “How in the world can you still smell anything?” he muttered while covering part of his face. “Everything reeks.”

The thin man ignored him completely. He stepped carefully between corpses before suddenly kneeling beside the split-open body of a large orc. Flies buzzed violently around the wound. Blood and rotting organs spilled onto the sand as he shoved his hand inside without hesitation.

Wet sounds echoed sickeningly.

One of the cloaked men cursed softly and looked away. The thin man continued rummaging calmly through the corpse as blood splattered across his sleeves. Clearly, this was not his first time digging through bodies.

Then his fingers finally caught something.

“Aha.”

He slowly pulled out a folded parchment soaked crimson with blood. Triumph flashed across his hidden face.

“Finally found it.”

The captain immediately stepped back. “I’m not touching that.”

The thin man snorted before unfolding the parchment carefully. The others gathered closer while the desert wind howled softly around them.

He began reading aloud.

“Rose Light possesses a skill capable of rendering her invisible. Possibly similar to [Camouflage]. She also possesses a barrier-type skill forcing both parties into a fight to the death.”

His voice grew quieter. “I heard, though it remains unconfirmed, that skills cannot be used inside the barrier.”

The group fell silent immediately. Even among assassins, Rose Light’s name carried weight.

The man continued. “She engaged faction master Ghin personally while I wrote this. Kana remains extremely dangerous with ranged weapons and is now capable of using curved swords native to the empire. She is probably better at using it than the rest of the empire.”

He flipped the parchment slightly, stained fingers leaving darker marks across the page.

One of the cloaked men muttered a curse beneath his breath. The thin man inhaled slowly before reading the next section.

“The largest issue is Suri.”

The desert wind suddenly felt colder somehow. “She can materialize illusions into reality. She eliminated the majority of monsters present in this battlefield.”

One of the cloaked figures stiffened. “What?”

The thin man nodded grimly beneath his hood. “There is also an unknown side effect,” he continued. “Targets affected by her attacks lose control and begin attacking allies and nearby monsters.”

A very uncomfortable silence.

He added,“I cannot confirm whether this affects humans.”

Nobody spoke after that. Far across the battlefield, something large creaked as hot wind shifted a dead monster corpse.

The thin man finished the report. “Artin is also present as one of the escorting royal knights.”

He lowered the parchment.The captain stood motionless for several seconds while staring toward the distant desert horizon where the wagons had long vanished.

Then he grunted quietly. “Rose Light is the problem.”

His voice carried genuine irritation now.“Very bad news.”

He slowly looked toward the battlefield surrounding them. “Too many of our people already died because of her.”

No one disagreed. Among spies, scouts, and assassins, there were stories about Rose Light. Stories whispered carefully. Stories usually told at night.

The captain clenched his jaw.“We must report this immediately.”

“At least now,” he muttered darkly, “we know which route they’re taking.”

Post note:

Boris new class!Our little spy finally pulled it off.

First chap of the week!

Hope you enjoy the chap! 🙂

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