As Lin Gui continued his approach toward the Carter Royal Capital, the number of corpses along the road increased.
However, the amount of wealth grew smaller and smaller.
The first bodies lying by the roadside were nobles dressed in opulent robes.
There were silks, brocades, gold-inlaid belts, and gemstone rings still adorning their fingers.
Further ahead were wealthy merchants.
Their clothing was of slightly lesser quality but still exquisite, with coin pouches hanging at their waists—some of which had spilled a few gold coins onto the ground.
Continuing forward, they were commoners.
They wore coarse cloth garments and worn-out boots, and their hands held nothing at all.
The corpses grew more densely packed and their attire more meager until they paved the very threshold of the Carter Royal Capital.
This was not the result of the Dark Tide's ruthless trampling.
It was the cold-blooded slaughter of an assassin.
A bloody scroll of massacre had been unfurled along the road leading to the capital.
Lin Gui could easily imagine the scene.
After surviving the harrowing first phase of the disaster...
Countless citizens of the Carter Royal Capital had fled for their lives through the city gates.
They had hoped to use the Golden Period to escape a homeland destined for destruction.
Then came the images of them being mercilessly slaughtered by Caleb.
Lin Gui sat atop his staff, floating at a low altitude.
He passed over the fallen corpses, the abandoned wrecks of carriages, and the treasures scattered in the wind.
At the end of his vision...
The Carter Royal Capital, formed by six high walls, finally appeared before him.
It still stood amidst the mountains.
...Completely unscathed.
The high walls designed to defend against demons remained upright.
There were no claw marks, no cracks, and not even a single brick had fallen.
Even though he had confirmed the capital's existence through the System, Lin Gui still felt a sense of daze upon seeing it with his own eyes.
How could a city at the very center of the Dark Tide have actually survived the first phase?
Within his mind, Shadow Blade Lynn's voice sounded, filled with equal confusion.
"The Carter Royal Capital..."
She paused and looked around at the high mountains surrounding the city.
"While these mountains can provide some defense against demon riots, they shouldn't be able to stop an assault from such a vast and powerful demonic force."
There was a hint of disbelief in her tone.
"The Carter Royal Capital..."
She thought for a long time.
"Even Mosenburg couldn't withstand a demon riot of that scale back then."
"How did the capital of this minor border kingdom manage it?"
Sitting on his staff, Lin Gui slowly drifted over the capital.
He looked down from above.
The entire city was deathly silent.
The streets were empty; there were no pedestrians, no vendors, and not even the sound of a barking dog.
There were only squads of knights dressed in peculiar uniforms patrolling the streets.
Their armor was pitch-black, and their chests did not bear the Lion Crest of the Carter Royal Capital.
Instead, it had been replaced by an unfamiliar, blood-red sigil.
Occasionally, a commoner would peer out from a gap in their window.
Upon seeing the knights approach, they would hurriedly close the window and draw their curtains tight.
The entire city felt as though its breath was being stifled by some invisible force.
Lin Gui frowned.
He maneuvered his staff downward, flying first toward the First Ring.
This was the noble district of the capital.
But at this moment, it looked exceptionally strange.
It looked as though a series of great battles had taken place here.
Corpses lay scattered across the streets.
They were not nobles.
They were knights.
Knights wearing the standard-issue armor of the Carter Royal Capital were piled in street corners, lying in pools of blood.
Some still gripped their swords, and some remained in combat stances, yet all were devoid of life.
The blood had already dried and turned black; clearly, they had been dead for some time.
Lin Gui frowned as he passed over the bodies, his gaze scanning the surroundings.
He locked onto a familiar mansion in the distance.
Elvia's Princess's Mansion.
The gates were wide open, and there were clear signs of damage on the courtyard walls.
There were also dried bloodstains at the entrance, extending all the way into the courtyard.
Lin Gui drifted inside.
He searched every room.
The living room was empty, chairs and tables were overturned, and broken porcelain was scattered across the floor.
In the bedroom, the bedding was in disarray, and the wardrobe doors were flung open with clothes tossed about haphazardly.
In the study, bookshelves had been toppled and papers were strewn across the floor, some marked with footprints.
There was no Elvia.
There was not a single person.
Lin Gui stood in the empty courtyard, his brow tightly knit.
Judging by how ambitious that girl had seemed when she left, she had acted as if she were about to move into Stellar Mountain and become the King of Carter immediately.
It was impossible that after a few months, she hadn't even managed to take back her own Princess's Mansion.
If she wasn't here, where would she be?
Just as Lin Gui was considering how to find Elvia, he heard a sound from outside.
It was very faint.
And very furtive.
Lin Gui's figure flickered as he vanished into the shadows of a corner.
A few small figures snuck in through the side gate of the mansion.
There were three boys and one girl.
The oldest looked to be no more than twelve or thirteen, while the youngest girl might only have been seven or eight.
They wore tattered clothes, their faces were smeared with dirt, and their shoes were so worn that their toes poked through.
The boy in the lead looked around warily, and after confirming no one was there, he beckoned to those behind him.
"Get in, quickly!"
The four small figures scurried into the courtyard.
They were clearly entering such a luxurious noble mansion for the first time; their eyes went wide with wonder.
"My god... this courtyard is bigger than the entire street where we live!"
One boy touched the carvings on the courtyard wall, his face filled with awe.
"Look, look! There's a pool here!"
The youngest girl ran to the dried-up fountain and crouched down to touch the porcelain tiles at the bottom.
"Forget that broken fountain! Get inside! Find something valuable!"
The lead boy waved his hand, and the four little ones charged into the house.
Lin Gui followed silently behind them.
They ransacked the place, taking whatever they could find.
One boy picked up a silver candlestick and grinned. "How many steamed buns can this thing get us?"
Another boy pulled down a hanging painting, rolled it up, and stuffed it into his shirt.
The youngest girl crawled under a table and pulled out a dusty jewelry box.
Upon opening it, she found a few silver rings and a pair of earrings.
Her eyes lit up, and she stuffed them all into her pocket.
The oldest boy was even more direct; he pushed open the bedroom door and began rummaging through the wardrobe.
He pulled out a silk robe, threw it on without a word, and twisted back and forth in front of the mirror.
"Hahahaha! Don't I look like a noble lord?!"
The other two boys also crowded around, vying to try on the clothes.
The girl clutched a silk dress tightly, muttering, "Mine, this is mine..."
As they rummaged through the items, they chattered amongst themselves.
"Hey, did you guys hear? Prince Warren actually became the King of Carter!"
"Duh, who doesn't know that? He killed off all those noble lords; if he didn't become the king, who would?"
"Heh, his army is seriously impressive. The Dark Tide was so terrifying, but they actually defended the city!"
"I heard the adults say that Prince Warren's army is like a pack of monsters; those demons couldn't even break in."
"It's a good thing they held it! Otherwise, we would've been eaten by demons long ago!"
The oldest boy, wearing a noble's coat that was clearly too large, said smugly:
"Prince Warren—no, I should say His Majesty the King—began a Great Purge as soon as he finished defending the city."
"Those noble lords who used to ride over our heads were dragged out one by one and beheaded!"
"You know Duke Joseph? Beheaded!"
"Prince Charles? Beheaded too!"
"I heard that when they died, they were crying for their mothers; they didn't have an ounce of backbone."
Another boy leaned in and lowered his voice. "I heard the old cripple at the street corner say that on the day the King was killing people, blood flowed from the First Ring all the way to the Third Ring. It didn't even dry for several days."
"Serves them right!"
The oldest boy spat on the ground.
"Those noble lords treated us like livestock."
"Did they ever care when we were starving or freezing to death? It's better that they're dead; at least it's clean now!"
The youngest girl clutched the dress and asked timidly, "Then... has the Dark Tide really passed? The adults say the true Dark Tide hasn't arrived yet and that we won't live much longer..."
The oldest boy walked over and rubbed her head.
"Who cares! We'll eat our fill one day at a time!"
He grinned.
"If the Dark Tide hadn't thrown everything into chaos, we'd never have been able to enter the First Ring in our lives, let alone eat white flour buns!"
"Exactly!"
The other two boys joined in the cheering.
"I ate three meat buns yesterday! That meat was so fragrant, I'm drooling just thinking about it!"
"I even drank a whole bowl of mutton soup! The soup was so thick, mmm..."
The little girl was also cheered up, swaying back and forth with the dress in her arms.
The oldest boy suddenly thought of something and looked around.
"Hey, whose mansion was this again?"
Another boy thought for a moment.
"I think it was... that princess's? El-something..."
"Princess Elvia!"
The youngest girl blurted out the answer.
"I heard an old grandmother at the street corner say that the princess was a good person."
The oldest boy was stunned.
"A good person?"
The girl nodded vigorously.
"Yes! The grandmother said that when the Dark Tide was coming, the princess took all the money from her house to buy grain and distribute it to us refugees."
"So many people got a full meal that day!"
"Really?"
The oldest boy scratched his head.
"There are actually good people among the nobles?"
"It's true! Uncle Wang from next door said so too; he even saw the princess with his own eyes!"
One of the boys chimed in, "Hey, so what happened to the princess? Was she killed by the King too?"
The girl shook her head.
"I don't know."
"Maybe she went into hiding."
"After all, it's a tradition in our Carter Royal Capital for the new king to take office and slaughter his own kin."
"If she didn't want to die, she's probably hiding in a sewer somewhere."
"Just like the stinking ditches we hide in when we steal things."
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