Chapter Four: The Mysterious Spirit

“Yut—!”

The chestnut Akhal-Teke horse stepped out from the woods, hooves striking the ground. Just as Chang Suian was about to spur his horse into a gallop, he was nearly thrown off balance by Du Huaishan’s sudden announcement.

The entire forest fell abruptly silent. Every soldier of the Reconnaissance Platoon Two, male or female, stared at him in astonishment.

“What did you say?”

Chang Suian thought he’d misheard. He gripped the reins tightly, his eyes wide.

“The demon that attacked our convoy—I’ve killed it,” Du Huaishan repeated.

In that brief minute of contact, he had already gathered a wealth of vital information.

First: the people in this world referred to those monsters as demons.
Second: the demons had breached Xintun City, and he had fled with the local garrison detachment.
Third: Whether by fusion or possession, humans gaining supernatural powers was a widespread phenomenon.

Because—

Du Huaishan had noticed that many in the Reconnaissance Platoon Two, like him, had heterochromatic eyes.

Some blue, some green, some violet.

Especially Chang Suian—not only were his eyes fiery red, but he possessed double pupils!

When they fought demons, their eyes would gleam—literally giving off light—their skin would shift in hue, their expressions would twist with ferocity, veins bulging, almost exactly as he himself had looked during his first mutation.

Since demon fusion was common, the system must be well developed. Yet, Du Huaishan knew too little—he had no idea what a “calamity level” meant, nor could he conceal his own heterochromatic eyes. If he tried to lie, there would be too many gaps in his story. If the army suspected him, their methods could yield a fate far worse than simply telling the truth. Better to answer honestly.

He quickly composed himself.

Meeting the gaze of everyone in Platoon Two, he recounted his encounter with the demon and how he had managed, through sheer luck, to kill it—omitting only the hallucinatory red light and the nine-tailed black shadow.

“Human torso with a horse’s body, tiger’s claws, a goat’s head, tiger stripes down its back, four horns… a fusion type!”

“Bigger than a heavy draft horse—the calamity level must be above Demon Nine!”

“This kid took down a fusion-type demon above Calamity Level Nine, and he doesn’t even have a guardian spirit?!”

“Didn’t you hear him? By the time he woke, the demon had already been hacked to pieces by the Xintun infantry company.”

“Wait! From the time we received the distress radio from Xintun, it’s only been a little over an hour. This kid already completed his awakening? Old Liu, back when we were recruits, what was the fastest anyone awakened?”

“I think… four hours?”

“Wang Wenshan, our top recruit, took over three hours for his first awakening. Is this for real? Could this kid be lying?”

The soldiers whispered among themselves.

By the end, many of their eyes were fixed on Du Huaishan—some with shock, others with suspicion.

Meanwhile, Du Huaishan was rapidly absorbing what he’d just learned.

“It seems the first fusion with a demon is called ‘awakening,’ and it’s a lengthy process. Afterward, one gains a guardian spirit. I was able to complete it nearly instantaneously thanks to the nine-tailed shadow’s help.”

“Fortunately, when I described it, I used the vague phrase ‘a long time.’ Still, I didn’t expect it would be this conspicuous.”

He remained calm, thanks to a year’s worth of on-field experience in his senior year—his coach’s mantra echoing in his mind: the more dangerous and tense the situation, the more you must keep your cool.

Still, he couldn’t quite make sense of fusion types and calamity levels.

Chang Suian narrowed his eyes, reassessing the armored youth before him. He had thought the boy survived by relying on a guardian spirit. Who would have guessed he’d fought his way out by sheer force?

If he wasn’t lying.

A fusion type.

And in the wild, unprotected.

Completing his first awakening in just over an hour.

It wasn’t an exaggeration to call such speed “extraordinary talent.”

“Do you remember the location where you were attacked?” Chang Suian asked, his tone neutral, giving nothing away.

“I remember.”

“Yan Xiaoman, get him on your horse! Platoon Two, prepare to move out!”

“Yes, sir!”

The soldiers barked in unison.

Horses neighed, and the sidecar motorcycles roared to life.

“Yut!” Soon, a single-lidded female soldier trotted over atop a black military horse. She grasped the reins in one hand, offering the other, her voice cool and clear: “Get on.”

Du Huaishan remembered she’d helped take down the ogre demon. He took her hand, mounted up using the stirrup.

Once astride, Yan Xiaoman didn’t look back. “Lead the way.”

“To the right.”

“Hold on tight! Hyah!”

As she spoke, Yan Xiaoman adjusted the reins, squeezed the horse’s sides, and with a sharp call, the black steed sprang forward in a burst of speed.

What power this military horse possessed.

Du Huaishan instinctively gripped Yan Xiaoman’s waist. She didn’t react; after all, both wore layers of thick fabric armor and could barely feel it.

His focus, however, was on her left forearm.

He’d seen, in the fight with the demon, that her arm guard could launch steel cables for rapid grappling—much like the hookshots in “Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice” or “Naraka: Bladepoint.”

Even “Attack on Titan” had similar maneuvering gear.

Undoubtedly, this greatly enhanced a melee soldier’s mobility—practically martial-arts-level lightness skills.

But not every soldier was equipped with one. The arm guard Du Huaishan had stripped from a body was just plain cloth armor.

He wondered where he could get hold of such a device…

So much in this world was novel to him.

With such questions in mind, Du Huaishan led the Reconnaissance Platoon Two in a rapid gallop.

No wonder cavalry was the pride of any army.

In just six or seven minutes, they reached the battlefield—his “point of origin.” Four cavalrymen instinctively fanned out to take up guard positions.

The ground was a sea of corpses, the stench of blood overwhelming.

An entire infantry company, hundreds of civilians—all dead.

Chang Suian’s eyes darkened as he gazed over the mangled remains. His grip on the reins tightened, then he dismounted and walked to a soldier’s body that was still mostly intact. He lifted the blood-soaked uniform to reveal red stitching on the undershirt.

Embroidered with the numbers: 68, 3.

“Sixty-eighth Brigade, Third Regiment… Xintun City Infantry.”

He gently closed the soldier’s terrified eyes.

Rising to his feet, Chang Suian snapped to attention. He stood tall, machine gun upright in his right hand, his left arm crossed to his chest, five fingers pressed to his heart, eyes fixed on the carnage—on every nameless, shattered corpse.

At the same moment, every member of Reconnaissance Platoon Two, save the four sentries, followed their leader’s example: eyes forward, rendering a collective salute.

The snow had stopped.

At last, the dying sun broke free of the clouds, casting a cold light across the battlefield. The tattered, blood-soaked Tiger-Dragon banner—long since reduced to rags—fluttered gently in the wind. Its shadow, under the wan sunlight, stretched long across the sea of the dead.