The other soldiers became shocked and confused again. Too many twists had happened in the last hour.
First, Zero was outed as a traitor.
Then, Zero defeated the officer.
After that, Zero proved his innocence.
And now, Zero was a traitor again?
Some of the soldiers became fearful. They weren't stupid, and they knew that something didn't make sense here.
Was this Commander Stage warrior a traitor?
Then, wouldn't they be killed?!
Shang only looked at the superior with a smirk.
The superior took out his sword.
And then…
The superior fell to the ground, unconscious.
Once more, the soldiers became shocked.
What was going on?!
A second later, the soldiers noticed that a new person stood beside the unconscious superior.
This person was an older man with grey hair and grey robes. A grey Focus with two circlets was floating beside him as he looked at the unconscious superior.
Most of the soldiers didn't know who that was, but a couple of them could guess his identity.
"An Inquisitor?!" one of them whispered in shock.
Right now, everything was silent, which made the soldier's whisper echo throughout the surroundings, surprising the others.
An Inquisitor was here?!
What was an Inquisitor?
An Inquisitor was a True Mage loyal to Duke Whirlwind. The requirements to become an Inquisitor were stringent, and they had to go through many evaluations to make sure they weren't traitors before they could get that role.
To become an Inquisitor, one first needed to be a very talented Early True Mage, at least.
Second, one needed to have great knowledge of Mind Magic, which was a category of Magic that didn't require an Affinity since it dealt with pure Mana and the mind.
The job of an Inquisitor was to find traitors and extract information from their minds, and they were very good at it.
A second after the superior fell to the ground, his Space Ring left his finger and flew over to the Inquisitor.
The Duke's emblem was taken out of the ring, and the Inquisitor looked at it for about two seconds.
Then, the emblem floated back to Shang, who put it away. "Thanks," he said.
Shang had known that an Inquisitor would be watching.
Why?
Because he had called them.
Shang's job was to root out traitors and to inform the relevant authorities, which were the Inquisitors.
Shang's job was never to kill the traitors.
When Shang had won against the officer, he had taken out an emblem filled with Magic Circles from his world.
Luckily, he didn't need to summon it into his hands to activate it. As long as he destroyed it, it would send a signal to any Inquisitor in a radius of about 100 kilometers, who would then communicate with each other.
Because of that, Shang summoned the emblem into his boot and simply stepped on it, which was enough to destroy it.
Duke Whirlwind had told Shang that about two to three Inquisitors were always on standby on the battlefield. As long as Shang broke the emblem, one of them would arrive in, at most, ten minutes.
But most of the time, they would only take three to five minutes.
The Inquisitor looked at Shang. "You can step away from him," he said.
Shang looked down and noticed that the officer below him had also lost consciousness.
Shang grabbed his sword and stepped to the side.
"Are there any other traitors?" the Inquisitor asked evenly.
"One masked guy fled to the north a couple of minutes ago," Shang said. "He is also a traitor."
"Finding him won't be a problem. I marked him with the Inquisitor's Dust earlier."
"We know," the Inquisitor said. "He should have already been apprehended."
Shang nodded.
Before Shang had met with One and Two, he had stealthily taken out a small bit of dust, which he had then put on himself.
The Inquisitor's Dust acted like a beacon for Inquisitors. Nobody else would notice it, but the Inquisitors could feel it.
And the best part, as long as anyone came into contact with one person covered in Inquisitor's Dust, the surrounding people would also be contaminated by it.
This meant that every single person that had been on or near the hill for the past 30 minutes was now trackable by Inquisitors.
At that moment, the quiet sound of something being pulled along the ground could be heard, and the people looked over.
At the foot of the hill was another man with grey robes and a grey Focus. In comparison to the first Inquisitor, this one looked much younger.
Surprisingly, the second Inquisitor was pulling a chain with three unconscious people attached to it.
Shang looked over and saw that One was one of them. The other two were two of the soldiers that had been chasing One to apprehend him.
"I found two corpses of Early General Stage warriors on my way," the second Inquisitor said.
When the soldiers heard that, a pit appeared in their stomachs, and they glared at the three unconscious people.
It was obvious what had happened.
One had fled, and two other traitors acted like they wanted to chase him so that they could also flee.
However, two innocent soldiers followed them. They only wanted to help apprehend One.
Sadly, as soon as they left everyone's field of vision, the two traitors dealt with the two innocent soldiers before fleeing with One.
The soldiers almost couldn't believe that there were so many traitors!
About a quarter of all the soldiers stationed here were traitors!
That was insane!
"A Pest Queen will fill her nest with Pest Cats," the older Inquisitor said as he glanced at the superior lying beside him.
Shang also glanced at the superior.
The superior was probably the one that had command over the northeastern region of the battlefield, and with his authority, it wasn't very difficult to allow more traitors to join.
His plan had probably been to slowly kill off all the loyal soldiers at the northeastern part of the battlefield and get more traitors to replenish the ranks.
Like that, they could destroy the land and deliver resources to Duke Mithril.
"Are there any more traitors?" the older Inquisitor asked Shang again.
"There is one I suspect, but I'm not sure if he actually is one or not. It's just a feeling," Shang said. "I leave it to your discretion on how to proceed on this matter."
The Inquisitor kept looking at the gathered soldiers. "You were the one stationed here. You know these people far better than us."
"If you are not certain, you can ask for a Mind Read of that person. However, if the accused is proven to be innocent, you will have to pay an expensive fine," the Inquisitor explained.
Shang hesitated for about two seconds, but in the end, he decided to trust his feelings on this one.
"I would like to request a Mind Read on this person," Shang said as he gestured to a bald man amongst the soldiers.
The soldiers looked with shock at the bald man.
This was the leader of the Idealists!
The bald man looked with shock and anger at Shang. It was like Shang had just accused him of being a traitor, which was actually exactly what Shang had done.
