Chapter 48: Chapter 48

Facing a mindless enemy that couldn’t crush them, as long as they could break through its defenses, it would be an absolute one-sided slaughter.

As time passed, the enemy’s transcendent physique finally began to decline, and the rate of this decline far exceeded Ron’s expectations!

Originally, Ron had assumed that even if the enemy’s constitution started to weaken, it wouldn’t possibly drop from nearly impenetrable to effortlessly breachable in such a short period of time. That simply didn’t conform to the general laws of progression.

Yet, such a thing had indeed happened.

Less than a minute after Ron sensed the opponent’s body beginning to weaken, Karel suddenly shouted, “I pierced it! I pierced its heart!”

Karel rapidly withdrew his sword, and a jet of blood spurted out from the wound on the enemy’s heart. This was the first time everyone had seen the opponent bleed so profusely.

The next thrust was taken up by Justin, and this strike directly severed one of the enemy’s major arteries.

Originally, even Ron hadn’t been able to cut through those blood vessels wrapped in tough membranes, yet now Justin’s strength alone was sufficient to sever them.

With the major artery severed, the enemy bled even more, and its movements visibly slowed. Following several successive thrusts, the enemy’s heart was completely shredded into pieces, with the majority of it already detached from the chest cavity and dropped onto the ground.

By this time, the enemy had collapsed onto the ground, twitching slightly, having completely lost all ability to resist.

Watching the life of this enemy drain away bit by bit, Ron felt somewhat conflicted. During the heat of battle, he hadn’t felt much of anything, but now that the combat had temporarily concluded, a myriad of emotions flooded his heart all at once.

The most prominent among these emotions was guilt. After all, the enemy’s outward appearance and internal structure were identical to a human’s.

If he hadn’t been told beforehand what was happening here, he would only assume that a horrific, inhumane murder had taken place, and the victim was a seemingly innocent human child!

Aside from guilt, what remained was mostly bewilderment. He didn’t know why they had to fight. This battle seemed entirely unnecessary. Was it really just for the sake of a trial?

However, there was one thing Ron was absolutely certain of: if he had to do it all over again, he would still make the same choice. He had no other option.

But if this question remained unresolved, he would likely remain deeply confused in the future. Who exactly were the enemies? And why were they enemies?

Just then, Morris’s voice came from behind Ron, and the content was enough to challenge Ron’s bottom line:

“Ron, cut off his head!”

“What?”

Ron turned to look at Morris, who was still sitting at the base of the watchtower, with an incredulous gaze. In the next moment, Morris spoke again:

“This is a permitted reminder!”

“A permitted reminder? Are there also impermitted reminders?”

Ron turned back to look at the enemy that had already lost all signs of life. The opponent’s tender face had now grown soft, no longer bearing the ferocity from the battle. Facing such an existence, Ron genuinely couldn’t bring himself to sever its head.

The hand holding the sword trembled slightly. Partly due to the exhaustion from the over-limit battle he had just endured, but undeniably, there was also Ron’s own internal hesitation.

“Why? Why must this be done?”

Ron was an adult on the inside. He completely understood the purpose of the Territory Guard’s training, which was to ensure absolute obedience from its members. But for an individual, was it truly impossible to have one’s own thoughts?

Order shouldn’t be like this!

This was the first time Ron had felt a sense of aversion toward the order of the Sis Territory. Previously, he had only felt that the Sis Territory was overly ahead of its time, creating a system of order and law in a classical era that far exceeded what they themselves could sustain.

But now, he saw the 【Unquestionable】 essence beneath this system of order.

At this moment, Ron finally realized that order could be both good and bad. Clearly, in his eyes, an 【Unquestionable】 order was a bad kind.

There might be reasons tied to the pressure of the larger external environment, but that was no excuse to willingly uphold an evil order.

In a certain sense, Ron was actually an idealist.

Or rather, having seen true light, one could no longer endure darkness.

On the surface, the Sis Territory possessed quite a few modern characteristics, but at its core, it was still a classical society forced to change under external pressure.

Once the external force disappeared, a territory or nation like the Sis Territory would very likely revert to its original classical form in a short period of time.

Modern societies, on the other hand, were modern because their order was internally generated. Once they reached that stage, it was very difficult to regress.

Using the theories Ron had learned in middle school to explain, it roughly meant that the productive forces of a modern society dictated that it must have modern institutions.

But a classical society, currently referring to the Sis Territory, lacked sufficient productive forces. Coupled with the additional factor of transcendent power, it was nearly impossible for an internally generated modern institutional framework, and the modern order shaped by such institutions, to emerge.

…

Just as Ron was hesitating over whether to carry out this command, a startled exclamation from Justin interrupted his thoughts:

“Ron, look! That guy isn’t dead!”

“What?”

Ron looked carefully, and sure enough, the spot in the enemy’s chest cavity where the heart was missing had begun to sprout wisps of granulation tissue. At a rate visible to the naked eye, it knitted together an outline of a heart, almost like someone knitting a sweater.

Clearly, if they didn’t take further action, this fellow’s heart would very likely grow back!

“So this is the real reason the instructor told me to cut off his head!”

But why didn’t he say so in advance?

In Ron’s understanding, such important information should definitely be communicated to the apprentices beforehand. Even the enemy’s identity and the reason for the battle should have been disclosed in advance.

Although they were called apprentices, they were in reality all quasi-soldiers.

If soldiers didn’t know what they were fighting for, how could they possibly have combat effectiveness?

Was unconditional obedience truly that important?

Ron didn’t understand, but at this moment, he also silently breathed a sigh of relief. This way, he wouldn’t have to face a dilemma. Since the enemy wasn’t dead, and destroying its heart hadn’t been enough to kill it.

Then he had no choice but to try severing its head!

“Wait, let me observe a bit more.”

Having made his choice in his heart, Ron didn’t act immediately. The various behaviors of the enemy before him had genuinely exceeded his understanding.

An extraordinarily powerful body, an extraordinarily powerful regenerative ability, and surviving even after having its heart cut out. Could humans truly achieve such a degree?

This was absolutely not an ability a normal Knight possessed!

Ron had been in the Sis Territory for over a month now, and in all that time, he had certainly seen injured Knights. If every Knight could possess a body as formidable and a regenerative capacity as potent as this enemy’s, then how could they possibly get injured?

Shouldn’t they have fully self-healed before even returning!

So he raised his sword and prodded the enemy’s heart, which had already self-healed to a preliminary outline. With a slight push, he punctured it again. This time there was less bleeding, but the blood vessels had indeed reconnected to the heart, and blood circulation had even resumed.

“This kind of body… is simply too powerful!”

Ron studied it for a moment, to the point where even he felt somewhat twisted. But since he didn’t have a background in biology, all his researching didn’t amount to any conclusive findings.

To avoid any further complications, he used his sword to slice open the skin on the enemy’s neck, repeatedly cutting through the flesh, and finally followed the gaps between the cervical vertebrae to deliver a heavy severing blow.

Only when the head and body were completely separated did this absurdly powerful enemy finally cease its regeneration.