The judgment concluded, and Pierce sent men to clear the bodies and wash away the bloodstains.
As the townspeople departed one by one, the name "Leon Douglas" was frequently on their lips.
On his very first day in Eldenborg, he had essentially purged all the town's nobles and wealthy merchants.
Such a display of power was truly terrifying!
In front of the Rose Cathedral.
Leon ordered Baron Pierce to temporarily house the liberated slaves within the town, with the costs to be covered by the seized assets.
Furthermore, Leon instructed Baron Pierce to take the families of those nobles and merchants and put them to work as laborers to help rebuild Eldenborg.
The principle that a family should not be punished for one member's crimes only applies if they did not benefit from those crimes.
While Leon did not execute the families, they still had to repay the privileges they had enjoyed through the crimes of their relatives.
After giving these orders, Leon finally let Baron Pierce leave.
However, soon after reviewing several pages of documents and records, Leon called Baron Pierce back.
"The coastal village to the southeast hasn't sent word in three days?"
Leon asked, pointing to an incident recorded in the documents.
To the southeast of Eldenborg was a small coastal village. Usually, people from the village came to Eldenborg every day to sell seafood and conduct small business.
But since a heavy rain three days ago, not a single person from the village had come to Eldenborg.
The townspeople found it strange and reported the matter, and Pierce had included it in the records.
"Yes, Young Master Leon." In private, Baron Pierce still addressed Leon as "Young Master." He continued: "People from that village come to town every day, but we haven't seen a single villager since three days ago."
"I was worried something had happened to the village, so I issued an adventure commission and asked passing adventurers to go and check it out."
"The day before yesterday, an adventuring party took the mission..."
Speaking of this, Pierce's brow furrowed.
The small village was not far from Eldenborg—only about an hour's journey at a fast pace.
But it had been two days now, and the adventuring party that took the mission had yet to return...
"Could something have really happened?"
Baron Pierce remembered that the leader of that adventuring party was a Bronze rank mage.
Although he was just a rural mage who only knew two or three first-circle spells like Fireball, he was still a transcendent.
Unless they encountered some other supernatural force, it shouldn't have been impossible for them to send back even a shred of information.
"No need for groundless speculation," Leon said upon hearing this.
"I'll take some men to check it out tomorrow morning."
Hearing his words, Pierce breathed a sigh of relief.
If Leon was willing to step in, that was for the best.
However, it felt quite strange to Pierce that a young master like Leon would personally set out to check on the situation of a small village.
Logically, shouldn't a young master from a ducal family leave everything to his servants and guards while he stayed comfortably in his manor, being served by maids?
Pierce couldn't understand it. He could only assume that Young Master Leon was the type of ducal heir who had transcended low-level pursuits and preferred to do things himself, perhaps as a way to cultivate his own abilities.
...
The sun rose, and the horizon brightened.
Early in the morning, Leon wrote a letter to Bishop Miles in Stormveil City.
Then, he set out with Alicia and sixteen Falcon guards toward the small village in the southeast.
The Sage King had sent Leon to the Far South of the empire for two reasons: first, to stabilize the situation in the south, and second, to allow Leon to complete his super-evolution through actual combat.
This also aligned with Leon's own goals.
The divine art panel's requirement for audience feedback meant that Leon could only improve quickly through combat. Thus, after discovering the anomaly in the small village, he decided to go personally to see if he could grind some divine art experience.
It wasn't just the small village; Leon planned to personally handle all the matters recorded in those hundred-plus pages of documents, aiming to rapidly level up his divine arts through frequent combat.
Riding light horned horses and leading his guards, they soon reached the location marked on the simple map.
However, what appeared before Leon could no longer be called a village; it was a ruin.
The fences surrounding the village had long been trampled and destroyed, the tall trees at the entrance had been pushed over and snapped, and the wooden houses lay collapsed and skewed on the ground, with scorched marks from fire everywhere.
Seeing this, Leon's heart sank, knowing that the villagers likely met a grim fate.
He led the guards into the village and saw many signs of battle.
Broken blades remained under collapsed houses, and dried black blood stained the sandy soil.
In addition, there were large patches of pale blue fragments scattered along the village paths.
"These are... sea crystal fragments! Young Master, these are likely sea crystal fragments dropped from mermen!"
A well-traveled Falcon warrior said.
"Mermen..." Leon looked at the sea crystal fragments scattered on the path and ordered: "Stay alert. Follow the trail of these fragments."
The guards received the order and moved to protect Leon in their midst. Alicia also drew her dagger and stayed by Leon's side as they followed the trail of sea crystal fragments.
After walking five hundred meters along the path, passing through the village and nearing its outskirts, Leon suddenly ordered everyone to stop.
He frowned and asked the Falcon warrior who had spoken earlier: "What do mermen usually eat?"
The warrior was stunned for a moment but quickly replied: "Grains, sea fish, wild beasts... they eat almost anything."
Leon asked again: "Do mermen eat humans?"
The warrior shook his head. "Very few mermen eat humans. For most, humans are not on the menu."
Leon pointed to the village behind them. "Then why is there not a single human corpse in the village?"
"This..." The Falcon warrior also immediately realized something was wrong.
They had been so focused on staying alert that they hadn't noticed the complete lack of bodies in the village!
"Could it be... the villagers were all taken away by the mermen?" one Falcon warrior guessed.
But another warrior quickly countered: "Impossible. If mermen came ashore, the villagers would definitely resist, and resistance causes casualties. Mermen wouldn't bother taking the dead villagers with them."
As they spoke, Alicia's expression suddenly tightened. She gripped her dagger and said quickly: "Presences... around us!"
Leon's gaze immediately swept the surroundings, but he didn't sense any unusual presence.
However, Leon never doubted Alicia's intuition.
He channeled the mental power in his mind and activated a Light Prayer on the tip of his priest's scepter.
The Light Prayer Orb lit up at the tip of the scepter, and a Radiance Force Field condensed with Leon as the center, generating thirty small Radiance Orbs.
But in the next moment, seven of those small Radiance Orbs were triggered out of thin air, and the burning intensity of the Radiance Force Field surged sevenfold.
At the same time, everything within the Radiance Force Field was clearly transmitted into Leon's mind:
Monsters.
Over thirty monsters that achieved invisibility by refracting light were silently closing in on them!
The nearest one was only two and a half meters away from a Falcon warrior on the outer perimeter!
"Ka! Ma!"
Under the sevenfold burning, these invisible monsters let out screams of agony.
The nearest monster, driven by the pain of the burn, lunged at the Falcon warrior with a front claw that resembled a crab pincer!
The warrior had sensed something was wrong, but being unable to see, his reaction was ultimately too slow. He only felt a chilling wind rushing toward his face.
Squelch!
In the next instant, the expected attack did not land. Instead, a light arrow streaked past him from behind, intercepting the invisible strike in mid-air.
Leon raised his hand and plucked another light arrow from his 【Radiance Longbow】, shouting quickly: "The enemies can turn invisible! Everyone, tighten the defensive line!"
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