Pioneer Lord: Starting From Daily Intelligence

"Then where is he now?" Su Li was full of expectation; this fit perfectly with his next step—conducting an in‑depth investigation of the ghost nest and gathering intelligence.

Demster answered at once, "He’s waiting just outside the council chamber, my Lord. Knight Carlos... he’s spent years in the company of ancient tombs, so his temperament is a bit odd. I hope you won’t mind."

"No problem." Su Li waved his hand and said, "When it comes to talent, I’m especially patient. Let him in."

With Su Li’s signal given, a middle‑aged Mole Knight was quickly brought into the council chamber. His gear leaned more toward that of an explorer: light but tough leather armor covered by a dark traveling cloak bearing the Mole crest, and a bulging tool pouch at his waist filled with probes, rubbing tools, and small Holy Emblems. The weapons he carried were more like symbols and instruments—a ritual short sword engraved with runes that soothed the dead, and a pathfinding staff tipped with a soul‑sensing, ghostly blue crystal.

He stopped about three steps in front of Su Li. He did not immediately salute; instead, he tilted his head slightly, his gaze resting on Su Li for several seconds as if confirming something.

Only then did he, with a near‑mechanical elegance, lay his right hand over his chest and perform a standard knight’s salute. His voice, however, was low and flat, devoid of inflection, like reciting an ancient inscription: "’Voice of the Tomb’ Carlos Vidal, by the will of Mole, heeds your summons, my Lord."

He raised his head; those gray eyes met Su Li’s as he added, in a tone utterly without ripple, "Your Soul Fire is very stable, my Lord. No recent signs of harassment by Vengeful Spirits. Good."

This opening remark made Hilude’s eyebrows twitch, almost imperceptibly. Su Li, on the other hand, regarded him with keen interest, not taking offense at this peculiar "greeting."

"Welcome to Rapids Castle, Knight Carlos." Su Li got straight to the point. "Demster told me you discovered the nest of those Green Ghost Cavalry at the bottom of Blue Mirror Lake, and that you apparently... know their origin?"

Carlos did not answer immediately. He slowly took a flat object wrapped in oiled cloth from the leather tool pouch at his waist.

Then he directly undid the oiled cloth, revealing a palm‑sized stone slab with jagged, irregular edges—clearly a fragment. The slab was dark as ink, its surface coated with a thick layer of scale and some dark‑green, moss‑like accretion, yet faintly visible beneath were extremely ancient, crude lines and several symbols that were hard to discern.

He laid the slab flat on his palm and extended it toward Su Li, but did not actually hand it over, merely displaying it.

"My Lord, the answer is not in my mouth, but in the silt at the lakebed, in the sighs of the dead, and in this... forgotten fragment of a Boundary Stone." He paused, his fingers gently brushing a blurred symbol that resembled three crossed long lances on the slab. "Through [The Word of Mole], I listened to several ancient, lingering remnants of souls at the very deepest part of the lakebed, their consciousness almost gone. Their memories are scattered like loose pearls, and this fragment of Boundary Stone, eroded by ghostly power, is the thread that strings them together."

Carlos’s gaze seemed unfocused and yet as though it pierced through time from the black fragment: "My Lord, the reason for this cavalry may be far different from what you imagine. They are not common Vengeful Spirits, much less evil creations, but something akin to Green Knights. It all goes back to a time long, long ago—so long that this land was still in swaddling clothes, and the stars stood in places unlike today... back then, this place once faced a calamity great enough to tear the world apart. As to the specifics, the remnants’ memories can no longer describe them clearly, leaving only broken words like ’Chaos Rift’ and ’Doomsday Judgment.’"

His fingers brushed lightly again over that symbol of three crossed long lances; this time, the symbol seemed to flicker under his fingertips with an extremely faint green glow.

"A great Knight Order, forgotten by later ages—answered an ancient vow and the call of the Holy Sanctuary Knights." Carlos’s voice still lacked any rise or fall, yet his words carried epic solemnity. "They were not the army of any kingdom, but a band of knights composed of the purest and most fearless of that era, who volunteered. They knew this march would have no return, yet stepped into the Chaos Rift in Blue Mirror Lake without hesitation."

"Their mission was not to suppress the Rift itself—that lay beyond mortal strength." Carlos’s gray eyes seemed to reflect the ghost‑light of the lakebed. "Their mission was simply to use their own souls, lives, and eternal vow of vigil to construct a ’spiritual levee,’ sealing at the bottom of the lake the foul Power leaking from the Chaos Rift, preventing it from corrupting the land and its living beings. They succeeded. The price was... that all of them slumbered beneath the cold waters, their souls and Advanced Mounts fused into one, becoming undying Spiritual Bodies, like a Jade Forest rooted in the lakebed, becoming the ’Gatekeepers’ of that levee."

"Wait, did you just mention the Holy Sanctuary Knights?" Su Li’s eyes lit up. The Holy Sanctuary Knights were the Empire’s mightiest knights, yet they were always elusive, seen in legend but never in the flesh.

Now, hearing that name again at last, Su Li’s interest surged, surpassing even his curiosity about Blue Mirror Territory and those Green Knights themselves.

Carlos shrugged, with a sort of cold humor: "Yes. If your ears did not mishear, and I did not misspeak, then yes, I mentioned the Holy Sanctuary Knights."

Su Li asked at once, "So these ghosts at the lakebed actually saw the Holy Sanctuary Knights and followed them into the Chaos Rift to fight?"

"Yes, my Lord. Though their memories are blurred, there is no doubt it was precisely the influence of the Holy Sanctuary Knights that turned them into these near‑Heroic‑Spirit existences." Carlos spread his hands. "Obviously, they are a levee guarding the secret and peril at the lakebed. It would be unsuitable for us to simply use the Watchtower Gate to drive them all away. That could easily undo the seal on the Chaos Rift and trigger an apocalypse."

At these words, Su Li’s brows furrowed tight, and he could not help a deep, inward sigh.

This dark, hopeless broken world—everywhere you look, something that could wipe out the world is hidden. The Hesse Territory has that Undead Dragon remains comparable to a Holy Sanctuary Knight; Blue Mirror Territory has this sealed Chaos Rift.

This world is practically a program piled together from countless shit‑mountains, and the highest rule of a programmer’s work is: when a program is barely still running, never try to modify it.

Even deleting a single symbol might cause the entire shit‑mountain to collapse. And even if you write that symbol back in, there’s no guarantee the program will run again.

So what Carlos had just said almost completely scrambled Su Li’s deployment.

Originally, he planned to have the Mole Church use a Watchtower Gate‑like ability to counter those Ghost Cavalry beneath Blue Mirror Lake.

At that time, the Caster, relying on his deep understanding of the essence of souls and his guidance of Mole’s Divine Power, would construct within a specific area an invisible barrier solidified purely from Soul Energy. This barrier would have almost no effect on the material world—wind could pass, arrows could fly, people could walk freely. But to pure Spiritual Bodies—for instance, those green ghosts—it would be like slamming into a Wall of Sighs!

With that kind of ability, the Knights of the Fiery Sun Goddess were especially adept at luring enemies into predetermined battlefields. Then, when the ghosts rammed into this barrier, it would be like crashing against an unbreakable Shield of the Soul. When they plunged into the Wall of Sighs, the Watchtower Gate, their Spiritual Bodies would crumble to dust; their entire force would dissipate.

But that beautiful prospect had obviously evaporated with Carlos’s account.

The Holy Sanctuary Knights may have set up a Boundary Stone here; as for themselves, he did not know where beyond the Chaos Rift they had gone. These Green Knights, however, were affected by them, transformed into Ghost Cavalry, still maintaining the seal on this Chaos Rift, blocking Chaos Corruption on the far side of the fissure. If they were all cleansed and ferried on, who knew what kind of disaster that might unleash.

Su Li, brows knotted, asked, "If we can’t purify these Green Knights, then what do we do? Are we just supposed to stand here helpless?"

He truly did not want to act recklessly and lawlessly, tearing open some ancient seal and unleashing world‑ending Demons.

Yet he absolutely did not intend for some Heroic Spirits from God‑knows‑what era to obstruct his grand design of unifying Blue Mirror Territory.

Fortunately, Carlos now gave Su Li an answer that was very comforting: "My Lord, indeed we should not cleanse them all away. But that does not prevent us from dispersing them. I’ve spoken with the ancient souls in the lakebed. These Green Knights are not unbeatable."