It hadn't rained for many days, and the sun was blazing high in the sky, shining brightly on the rammed earth walls, leaving a thin layer of floating sand on the earthy yellow surface. The breeze blew up the powdery sand, which blew onto the skin of passers-by.
"It smells like the sweat of a sentry." Roy covered his nose with a silk handkerchief and walked through the archway, complaining, "It's too dirty here, so I hate coming to the military control office the most."
An old plaque of the Military Control Office was hung on the yellowish archway. Passing under the plaque, one could see a large gray training ground. A large number of sentries were coming and going. Something was playing on an electronic screen on one side, and many people gathered around to watch the excitement.
Roy walked along the other side of the plank road, explaining to the people around him as he walked, "We are just going through the process, completing the formalities and leaving. If they make some requests that you don't like, you don't have to pay attention to them."
The person behind him heard what he said and hummed lightly in response.
It was a very young girl, wearing an exquisite uniform exclusive to the White Tower Guide Academy, an ivory brocade long skirt and a white silk shirt embroidered with gold thread. Layers of lace were revealed under the hem of the skirt, swaying with her steps.
She walked quietly in the sunlight, with a tender face, a slender body, and skin as white as porcelain and jade, like a flower covered with morning dew. She appeared at the edge of the flying sandy field, looking very abrupt.
This is a guide who grew up being carefully cared for in that tall white tower.
The passing sentries all seemed to suddenly feel awkward when they saw her.
They pushed and shoved each other, whispered and discussed in low voices, and all kinds of eyes could not help but glance over. The guy with a loud voice subconsciously lowered his shouting, and the shirtless soldier quietly pulled up the coat hanging on his waist because of the hot weather.
There were some sporadic sounds coming from somewhere.
"Did you hear? It's her... the guide."
"The engagement was broken off by the matching sentinel?"
"Do you think... am I hopeful... hehe..."
"Don't be silly. What's your rank? Are you a noble? There are so few guides these days."
"Can't you just think about it... Anyway, no one wants it..."
"… "
Roy felt angry when he heard these words.
"They don't even want a guide like this. Jiang Yangshuo, that piece of shit, must have a brain disorder." He thought so, and when his eyes fell on Lin Yuan, he couldn't help but feel sympathy. "Poor little girl, maybe she was hit too hard that she applied to do such a hard job as exploring the contaminated area? How pitiful."
However, the girl named Lin Yuan who was following behind him seemed to be completely oblivious to the gossip around her, nor did she notice the looks of pity from her companions.
She looked calm, with almost no expression, and her eyes were focused on something further away, as if she was looking at the other side of the training ground.
Roy followed her gaze.
On the other side of the parade ground, there was a row of eerie iron racks. One end of those rough iron racks was buried deep in the soil, and the part exposed outside was rusty, as if stained with blood that could never be washed away.
At this moment, there was a man hanging on the rack. The prisoner was shirtless, with his hands tied tightly and hung above his head. It was obvious that he had been hung here and tortured for several days.
Half of his face was covered in black blood, and his original appearance could not be seen at all. However, from the taut muscles, the lines of his limbs, and the various old wounds on his skin, it was clear that he was a very young sentinel.
The young but experienced sentry, who had committed some serious crime, was hung here for public torture.
Roy knew that public interrogations were a custom in the barracks.
The Sentinels are the toughest fighters, but also the most troublesome group.
They always go in and out of those nightmarish polluted areas, snatching resources from those deformed monsters, and living a life with their heads on their waists.
The overloaded senses and repeatedly suppressed manic emotions, the fate of being unable to survive without counseling or medicine, sometimes make those strong guys become as terrifying as monsters.
Those who turned into monsters, committed crimes, or did wrong things would be hung on these racks and publicly executed.
For the purpose of punishment, but also for deterrence.
Of course, given the corrupt character of the imperial officials, no matter what kind of serious crime you committed, as long as you pay enough money or find a strong enough backer, you can get away with it.
On the other hand, if one was a poor fellow from a remote outpost with nothing, even if he had only violated a tiny point among the hundreds of military regulations, he might be hung on such an iron frame and humiliated repeatedly, or even tortured to death.
Roy asked Lin Yuan: "What's wrong? Is it someone you know?"
Lin Yuan retracted his gaze and shook his head, "I seem to have seen it before, but I don't remember it."
The two men crossed the parade grounds and walked up the steps of the administrative building.
I saw the electronic screen next to the rack, playing a blurry video.
There is a strange-looking instrument connected to the screen.
There is a transparent hemisphere made of unknown material on the top of the instrument.
From the height at which Roy was standing, he could just look through the sphere and was horrified to find that inside the transparent cover was actually a human brain that had been separated from the body.
The human brain was stimulated from time to time by some fine electric currents, and it even made slight vibrations.
Roy stood on the steps, looking at the trembling piece of human tissue from afar, and found it really creepy.
This strange instrument, called the Cylinder Brain System, is a relic from the old days. Its function is to read some memories left in the brain after a person dies.
At this moment, the image playing on the screen is the memory of the brain in the tank. It is the last image left in someone's mind before he died.
Roy actually didn't understand why so many people in this world liked to read the memories of the dead. He wasn't interested in it either.
Unfortunately, this thing is very popular among the powerful and wealthy in the empire, even though humans today are no longer able to produce such sophisticated instruments.
They sent Sentinels to venture into the contaminated area and search for it among the relics of the past.
Those people took it and looked at various memories of death, and they never got tired of it.
It has also been developed for a variety of uses. Even here in the Military Control Office, you can see one like this.
Countless sentinels were crowded under the screen to watch.
The image on the screen was blurry and weird, and looked like a contaminated area full of monsters. There was a lot of blood, strange shadows swimming back and forth, and sharp and weird screams.
These images are different from what we see with our eyes every day. Sometimes the images are extremely colorful and clear, while other parts are blurry and chaotic.
This is the perspective of the dead. The most terrifying and impressive things left in the dead person's mind before death are particularly bright and clear in the picture. Otherwise, it will appear blurry.
At this moment, a sentry's face appeared clearly in the center of the picture.
Young, bloodstained, red-eyed, and furious.
The sentry looked down from above, holding a gun in his hand, his face as gloomy as a devil from hell.
He held the black muzzle of the gun, motionlessly pointing it in the direction of the screen. The screen was shaking constantly, but the gun, with its intense color, remained pointed steadily in front of his eyes from beginning to end.
There were intermittent voices coming from the background. It was the dead man speaking, with distorted cries mixed in with his mournful pleas for mercy.
He begged, cried, and urgently muttered words for mercy over and over again.
From a first-person perspective, it sounds particularly pitiful.
"I give it to you, all of it."
"It's worth a lot of money. A lot of money. I'll give it all to you and I'll spare my life."
"Please spare my life. Leave me a way to live."
"Please, please... wuwu."
The dead man's hands kept rising up, trembling, and he repeatedly held up a fist-sized, amber-like crystal.
The stone was radiant and restrained, and upon closer inspection, it had a breathtaking beauty, and it seemed as if there was a living thing moving in the center. He offered this priceless treasure and begged the death god in front of him to spare his life.
However, the muzzle of the gun on the screen was firm and indifferent, slowly approaching, making people feel suffocated.
Next, the screen went black.
After a snowflake-like screen, the scene returned to the beginning.
This is the only short segment in the entire video that is played over and over again.
Victims crying, wailing, trembling in fear.
A cold-blooded, gloomy, murderous murderer.
It was pitch black, and the muzzle of a gun was slowly approaching, making people despair.
Despair and death are played back and forth.
The onlookers felt the same way and couldn't help but feel sad for the deceased.
A sentinel recognized the crystal and gasped, "Is that insect jade?"
"Yes, energy stones. They are very valuable."
"I've never seen such a large piece of live insect jade. How much is it worth?"
"No wonder, he killed and arson gold belt. Just for this, he cruelly killed the whole team."
For a moment, the sentries watching the scene were almost in an uproar.
It was said that a whole team of sentinels entered the contaminated area, and eventually all the members of the team, including the researchers assigned by the Empire, died inside.
The only one who came out alive was a young and powerful captain.
Originally, no one knew what was going on. After all, it was common for everyone to be wiped out in a contaminated area.
It just happened that another search team entered the place shortly afterwards and found the researcher's body, which had been shot, near the exit.
They brought back the brain of the dead researcher and were able to expose the villain's crimes by chance.
In fact, there are many such things.
The contaminated area is a completely closed area from the outside world. Once you enter it, it is difficult for people outside to know what happens or what you do inside.
That kind of closed and terrifying area is often like a real area. Before entering, everyone is a human, but after entering, in the twisted and dark world, some people become monsters.
"An entire team of our brothers was killed. This is too cruel." An old sentry said with gritted teeth. He was a veteran who had led a team and seen countless brothers die. He couldn't bear to see such a thing.
Someone else in the crowd spat, "I was defeated by this guy before. I was very convinced and thought he was a big shot. The Ice Blade, the Sword of the Empire. I admired him very much. Now, I can only blame myself for being blind."
"What Ice Blade? Bah!"
"I never thought he was easy before. He was just a little stronger and a little higher in rank, but his personality was very arrogant and he was annoying. Look, he turned out to be a despicable person hiding in the contaminated area to do such dirty work."
"I say, interrogator, the evidence is irrefutable. What else is there to interrogate? Sentence him to death and let him die to atone for his crime."
The sentinels became more and more angry as they cursed. As soldiers who had experienced life and death on the battlefield, what they hated most was people who stabbed their brothers in the back.
"In my opinion, the death penalty is too lenient for him." The sergeant in charge of prison training leaned over the table where the torture instruments were placed and announced to everyone.
He interrogated the prisoner for several days, using every possible means on him. But the prisoner was a tough nut to crack, and no matter how hard he tried, he still couldn't get any information out of the matter his superior had asked him to investigate.
I was just feeling very angry.
At this moment, the guards watching were very excited and it was time for them to vent their anger, so he said with a fake smile, "I think such a criminal should be sent to the Rose Camp. Let him sacrifice his life for the country and apologize until his death."
The Sentinels had various barracks numbers, but there was no real place called the Rose Barracks.
But everyone present knew tacitly what kind of place it referred to.
The guards watching the scene burst into laughter, and many of them whistled in vulgar ways.
The most popular topics in the barracks were pornographic and vulgar. Moreover, such humiliation was imposed on a strong man who was far beyond their reach in the past.
"From now on, the Ice Blade will be renamed the Ice Flower." The speaker was a female sentinel. She was very tall and her strong shoulders moved. She looked at the prisoner with an unscrupulous look.
"Don't worry, the brothers will take care of you." This other strong sentinel, with gnarled muscles and thick arms, had lost to the prisoner in the Sentinel School competition. Seeing his opponent in trouble, he could humiliate him at will, and he jumped higher than anyone else.
Just when he was about to speak without restraint, he suddenly shuddered all over.
An inexplicable creepy feeling welled up in my heart.
It felt as if the whole person was suddenly pressed under the coldest and darkest seabed, bearing a tremendous force.
In the distance, in the deep blue, it seemed as if there was a huge and terrifying whale slowly floating and looking over from afar.
With that one glance, he felt an overwhelming pressure, as if he was a prey being stared at by its natural enemy. He couldn't help but feel fearful. His bones went weak and his legs could hardly stand. He wanted to crawl to his knees.
The muscular sentinel looked pale and sweaty, and he gritted his teeth to avoid kneeling down in public.
He looked up tremblingly, and saw the prisoner in distress on the rack raising his eyes and glancing down coldly.
That gaze pierced through the blood curtain covering his face, like a bloody blade that had killed someone, cold and sharp.
He didn't look like someone who had been tied to the rack and tortured for days.
This... Is this the pressure from a high-level sentinel
How could he be suppressed like this? What level has he reached now
The sentry felt uneasy. Even though he couldn't believe it, he finally shrank back and quietly withdrew from the crowd. He no longer dared to hide in the crowd and say those insulting words.
Lin Yuan, who was already far away from the parade ground and walking up the stairs, suddenly seemed to hear a sound and turned around.
It seemed that I heard the familiar sound of waves.
(End of this chapter)