The soldiers didn't feel any more arrows hitting their shields. For a while, they didn't dare to look over the barricade. After all, what if their opponents were simply baiting them into looking past their shields to kill them?
The soldiers had heard several loud sounds, and they heard the screams of dying people.
After around twenty seconds, the first soldier looked past the barricade.
Nothing.
There were no arrows.
However, they also didn't see any corpses.
"Zero?" the leader shouted.
"I'm here," Shang answered. "It's fine. They're dead."
The soldiers looked at each other in shock.
Dead?
There had to have been over five guys, at least!
Was Zero suggesting that he had killed all of these people on his own?
Just a moment before the shout, Shang had been looking at the two corpses in front of him with a frown.
Something inside of him stirred.
A dislike.
Disgust.
It was a familiar feeling to Shang. He had felt this feeling whenever he had killed someone in the past.
But in comparison to the previous times, the feeling was much weaker today.
In the past, this feeling had enveloped all of Shang's being, encompassing his entire mind.
But now, it could only be described as an aftertaste.
'I did what I had to do,' Shang thought as he looked at the corpse. 'I don't like doing it, but it was necessary.'
That was when the leader's shout had arrived.
Shang had been pulled out of his thoughts and answered as he carried the corpses to the middle of the slope.
'Killing has gotten easier,' Shang thought.
'That's good.'
'Having to deal with an emotional trauma every time I kill someone is too much effort. Like this, it will be far easier.'
'I think this change is mainly due to the trial. I don't know if the humans in the trial have been real or fake, but they felt real.'
'I think the trial has helped me a lot with getting more comfortable with killing people.'
The soldiers slowly lowered their shields and walked forward, inspecting their surroundings.
Shang went to the other stone and pulled out the corpses of the enemy commander and the archer, putting them beside the other two corpses.
The soldiers saw what Shang was doing and released a sigh of relief.
Zero had told the truth.
The enemies were dead.
But at the same time, the soldiers' shock only increased.
This guy had destroyed an entire squad of people on his own?
At that moment, the soldiers were happy that they hadn't attacked Shang earlier.
Shang went to the five corpses of the archers he had killed with his ranged attack, but he didn't get them immediately.
Instead, he looked at them for a while.
A disgusting smell of burned human flesh entered Shang's nose.
The corpses looked like charcoal, coagulated blood visible all over their bodies.
It was a horrifying image.
Shang took a deep breath and pulled the burned corpses to the other ones.
'Death is death. The state of the corpse makes no difference,' Shang thought.
After some seconds, all the corpses were laid side by side on the slope.
Nine corpses.
The soldiers remained silently in shock as they looked at the corpses.
Zero had killed nine soldiers on his own?!
How?!
Shang also looked at the corpses, his brows furrowed behind his mask.
'Eight Early General Stage warriors and one Mid General Stage warrior.'
'Only five Early General Stage warriors have been sent here to defend the ice lake. The enemy has attacked with a force that should have won decisively.'
'Did they know that we were only five, or is this only a coincidence?'
'I don't think it's a coincidence. After all, their leader targeted me first, even though I was in the worst position for an initial target.'
'They knew about my power, they knew about my group's power, and they knew about the officer's Affinity.'
'Someone told them all these details.'
'I don't think that they have conducted long-range surveillance. Something like that can only be done by True Mages, and the Duke has certainly secured his territory against his enemies.'
'Someone in our outpost told them somehow.'
At that moment, Shang looked towards the west.
About two kilometers away, Shang saw something race towards his location, leaving behind a green wind.
'He's suspicious,' Shang thought.
'That first scout he killed could have been telling the truth. What if that scout has seen something that he shouldn't have seen? The officer could have killed him and acted like it was false information.'
'Additionally, he ordered us to let one of the students die when they attacked a Mid General Stage beast. Sure, I can get that they need to be taught a lesson, but letting someone die a preventable death will only weaken the outpost.'
'The only thing that seemingly didn't involve him was the delivery. I don't think he was involved in that.'
Shang looked away from the approaching officer and looked at the huge mountain to the north.
'But this ambush is extremely suspicious. They knew way too much about our power. They even knew about the officer's Affinity.'
Shang looked back at the approaching officer, who was now only 500 meters away from them.
The officer was passing beside the lake and charged at the five soldiers standing on the mountain.
When he saw that his soldiers weren't fighting, he slowed down until he eventually stopped.
A moment later, the officer noticed the corpses, and his eyes widened in shock for a second.
"Report!" he ordered the leader of the squad.
"S-sir!" the leader of the squad answered. "We've been attacked!"
"I know that!" the officer shouted. "I want to know what happened!"
The leader looked at the officer, at the corpses, at the mountain, at the lake, and then at the officer again with an uncertain expression.
"Sir, I can't report," the leader said.
The officer's eyes narrowed. "Explain yourself, soldier!"
The leader looked at the other soldiers, who only looked back with helpless expressions.
"We didn't see what happened," the leader explained. "We only hid behind our shields, defending against a storm of arrows."
"Then how are there nine corpses here?!" the officer shouted.
"That was all him," the leader said, gesturing to Shang.
"All him?" the officer repeated in surprise as he looked at Shang.
Shang's and the officer's eyes met.
Shang stood several meters higher on the mountain, his sword standing in front of him as he looked into the officer's eyes.
For just a moment, time seemed to freeze.
"Report!" the officer shouted. He didn't know why, but he didn't like the look of Shang right now.
"Some minutes ago, I was attacked by an arrow from a Mid General Stage warrior…"
Shang recounted the event, especially highlighting the suspicious parts. He didn't go into detail when it came to how he had killed his enemies, but he went into detail regarding everything else.
The officer became more and more agitated the more Shang said.
He didn't seem nervous or fearful but angry.
Why?
It was obvious.
Because highlighting all these suspicious parts of the ambush was like directly accusing the officer.
Everything pointed to him.
When Shang was done recounting the event, the officer and Shang only looked at each other, neither of them moving.
