At this moment, a guard came rushing in to report, "Your Majesty, there is an urgent matter to report."
Rossweise lowered her gaze, her voice cold and authoritative, "Speak."
"Of the 27 hidden sentry posts arranged along the eastern border, only 26 remain. According to nearby sentries, they didn't hear any sounds of battle at the time. Only discovered it during a shift change."
Hearing what the guard said, Rossweise furrowed her brows.
The eastern border was the first place she inspected a few days ago when she brought Leon along for a patrol.
Back then, everything had been perfectly fine.
Afterward, following Leon's suggestion, she had made improvements to the camouflage of the sentry posts and added some more patrol stations.
But now, a guard was saying there were only 26 posts left?
"So, a sentry post vanished for no reason?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
A thought flashed through Rossweise's mind, "Let's go have a look."
This wasn't some minor issue.
A sentry post disappearing into thin air. There were many possibilities.
It could be an enemy infiltration, or perhaps another internal traitor had emerged.
No matter the reason, Rossweise needed to go see for herself.
She lifted her skirt and walked down the stairs. Before she even stepped out the door, she saw Leon returning, covered in dust from travel.
Leon looked at her, then glanced at the nearby guard and asked, "You're headed to the eastern border?"
Rossweise paused, "How do you know?"
"No need to go. I just came back from there."
Leon waved the camera in his hand, "And I brought back some important clues. You might find them interesting."
———
In the room, Leon placed the camera on the table and sat down beside Rossweise.
"The 27 hidden sentries on the eastern border are now down to 26, right?", Leon asked.
Rossweise nodded, not speaking, quietly waiting for Leon to continue.
"And there weren't any sounds of fighting at the time, which means the sentry was taken out silently."
Leon continued, "Usually, only top-tier assassins can pull something like that off."
"But even the best can't possibly sneak past all your patrol posts without a trace. Whether they planned to continue lurking in the dark or retreat after the strike, they would've left some kind of clue."
"But the situation on-site was exactly like that. The sentry basically 'vanished into thin air,' not a single trace left behind," As he spoke, Leon activated the camera's preview magic projection.
Rossweise took the camera. These were all shots Leon had taken in the forests along the eastern border, including the original location of the vanished sentry.
It was a patch of shrubbery. The sentry's camouflage method was half-submerged underground, using the bushes for cover.
But now, the outside of the bushes looked completely unchanged. Yet the sentry within had mysteriously disappeared.
"Keep watching," Leon said.
Rossweise continued flipping through the camera and moved to the next image.
It showed the scene after the camouflage was lifted, a deep pit. The sentry had hidden in that pit at the time.
"The intruder made the sentry vanish without damaging the bushes or causing any fight or struggle."
Leon spoke slowly, "Sounds creepy, doesn't it?"
"It is a bit strange…"
"And this wasn't even a sentry post located right at the forest border. It was slightly toward the center. Which means the intruder slipped past at least eight to ten sentry points before taking care of the one in the bushes."
Leon said, "Such advanced stealth skills. Even dragons skilled in camouflage would have a hard time pulling this off. Or rather… it's impossible."
Rossweise had encountered sentry attacks before.
But most happened at posts close to the border demarcation line, as those were easiest to hit, either out of provocation or as a diversion. There was always a clear reason.
And none of the previous attacks were this eerie.
Compared to those, this attacker felt more like a… ghost.
Rossweise stared at the camera's projection, unconsciously biting her lower lip, "Any other clues?"
"Of course."
Leon said, "Remember a few days ago, when we went to the border together and I asked you to assign more people?"
"Yeah, I remember."
"The reason I asked was because I noticed a very, very neat and obvious dividing line at the edge of your territory."
"A dividing line?"
"Yeah."
Leon flipped a few photos back on the camera, then handed it to Rossweise, "Here—this one."
Rossweise glanced over.
Sure enough, in the projection, there was a perfectly straight dividing line, like it had been sliced by a blade.
Though not very long, compared to the jagged, uneven surroundings, it stood out like a sore thumb.
"Of course, the world is full of oddities. Such a line might have naturally formed. So to figure out if it was just a coincidence, I visited several other locations in the back mountains over the past few days."
Leon swiped the projection, "As expected, I found similar marks at every vulnerable checkpoint. It's enough to confirm that these precise lines aren't natural."
"But what does this clue have to do with the missing sentry?", Rossweise asked.
"It's related," Leon flipped the projection back to the photo of the bush-covered post, then zoomed in, pointing to one edge of the bush.
"Look, while there are no signs of battle at the scene, one corner of this bush looks like it was cleanly sliced off. Very smooth, unlike natural breakage or decay."
"And the pit beneath the bushes also shows similar clean-cut traces."
Leon put the camera down and looked at Rossweise, "Like I said earlier, even dragons skilled in disguise couldn't manage something like this, this goes far beyond normal assassin capabilities. This isn't an assassination, it's more like a haunting."
He said "haunting" in a cheerful tone, and the heavy look on Rossweise's face softened into a faint helpless smile. She turned her head toward Leon,
"So what you're saying is, the intruder didn't use any conventional assassination method we know of. But one we've never imagined or encountered before?"
A joke is still a joke, meant to briefly lighten the mood, but Rossweise still picked up on the message behind Leon's words.
Leon nodded, "Aside from investigating these traces, I also dug through tons of materials in the archives. That book of yours, A Brief History of the Dragonkin, really helped me out."
Rossweise raised an elegant eyebrow, "Oh? How so?"
"It describes almost every dragon clan in a praising, flattering tone. The author clearly didn't want to offend any dragon kings."
Leon said, "And in one chapter, I found this passage:"
"The Star-Wanderer Dragon King, Ravi, achieved great mastery in spatial magic. In his hands, space was not just a concept, but a form of art."
"As Ravi further refined his spatial magic, he began applying it to daily life, for example... construction."
"All the buildings of the Star-Wanderer clan were perfectly precise. It's said they never used any tools for cutting, grinding, or blasting, because Ravi's magic could precisely slice away any unnecessary parts."
"After reading that, I looked deeper into spatial magic and found it could be used for far more than just building houses."
"Silent attacks, undetectable retreats, perfectly uniform slicing traces, these are all things spatial magic can do."
"So let's make a bold assumption: it was Ravi, or someone else proficient in spatial magic, who used this technique to attack your sentry."
"They're also the ones who created those clean dividing lines at your borders and checkpoints."
Leon concluded, "Rossweise, the attacker wasn't a ghost, and it wasn't some haunting. It's a type of assassination we've never encountered before, spatial magic."
Rossweise followed his line of thinking, "Indeed, if we consider spatial magic's traits, then everything starts to make sense."
She paused, then asked, "But there's still something I don't get. If the enemy is already this skilled at spatial assassination, why only take out one sentry and draw a few neat lines?"
Leon helped her analyze further, "In my view, there are two possibilities."
"First, spatial magic has heavy limitations and a fixed range. Within a safe radius, the enemy's limit was just taking out that one sentry deeper in the woods."
"Second, this is a declaration of war."
"…A declaration?"
"Yeah."
Leon's expression turned serious, "They're telling us that the next attack, one far greater than the battle against Constantine, is about to begin."
———
Twenty kilometers outside the Silver Dragon border, atop a tall general's platform, a man approached the Star-Wanderer Dragon King, Ravi.
"I told you, intimidation doesn't work on Leon Casmodeous. Your 'ghost' didn't scare him. In fact, all those traces only made him prepare in advance."
A few days ago, Ravi had used spatial magic to silently eliminate a sentry hidden in the Silver Dragon forest.
It was supposed to serve as a warning, to gauge what kind of opponent they were dealing with.
But as expected, Ravi had underestimated the opponent's meticulousness and battlefield instincts.
Almost the same night the sentry was taken out, the Silver Dragons had removed all independent posts and switched to mobile squads of five.
Each squad kept a twenty-meter distance, forming a hundred-meter formation, giving the "ghost" nowhere to hide.
Ravi's spatial magic no longer dared to act rashly.
But Ravi only snorted disdainfully at the man's after-the-fact criticism, "How can you be so sure that tactic was devised by Leon Casmodeous?"
The man shrugged casually, "He used that exact strategy when he worked for the Empire. It's one of his classic anti-ambush tactics."
"Your spatial magic has a limited range. His formation spreads over a hundred meters, with everyone watching each other. You can't make a move."
"Heh… If you ask me, we shouldn't have tried this psychological warfare nonsense from the start. Should've just brought in Star."
The Radiant Star Dragon King, Star—among dragons, his seniority even exceeded Constantine's.
Ravi slowly pulled his gaze back from the Silver Dragon territory and looked at the man beside him.
His voice was low and faintly threatening, "Nacho Salaman, the Empire and our dragon race are allies, not superior-subordinate. Know your place. The Radiant Star Dragon King is not someone you can summon at will."
It was clear that Ravi deeply respected Star.
But Nacho didn't care.
He simply sneered, "It's not me calling Star, it was 'that lord's' order."
At the mention of 'that lord,' Nacho's face turned reverent, as if that person was right beside him.
Ravi frowned slightly.
He knew the only reason this message-bearer Nacho acted so arrogant before a dragon king was because of the power behind him, this so-called "lord."
Ravi's presence here was also by this lord's order.
The "lord" had said that although the Radiant Star Dragon King was strong, they needed a backup plan. Just in case.
That backup plan was Ravi.
But Ravi simply couldn't understand, 'How can there be a human in this world capable of defeating Star?'
'They only beat Constantine, and now they dare label themselves "invincible"?'
'Humans… in the end, such a narrow-minded species,' Ravi thought.
"By the way, Ravi, that secret weapon you, Bly, and Jaggs were working on… it should be complete by now, right?"
═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═
patreon.com/AmbitiousTranslator
🥳Joining Patreon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰 You can access upto 20 advance chapter through Patreon.
https://discord.gg/bYAfGyp98y