Starting with the defeated female knight

pat.

The dagger fell to the ground.

My mind went blank.

Suddenly, he lost all strength and collapsed to the ground, trembling slightly.

On the other side, the girl in the black robe smiled very happily.

He gently reached out and stroked the orc's face on the ground, speaking with a hint of pride.

"How about it? Isn't the ring your master gave me beautiful?"

"Heh-heh-heh-"

The orc trembled even more violently as he felt the gentle touch on his face.

Even the crimson in his eyes gradually turned into the color of fear.

Unfortunately, due to the ring's effect, she was unable to do anything.

Even thinking, or even feeling fear, becomes unusually sluggish and difficult.

"Are you scared?"

Edith blinked and gave a genuine smile.

"Don't be afraid, the adult is a powerful yet gentle being."

"You'll understand when you see it."

"And when the time comes, they might cry and beg to be the adults' good children."

The orc trembled even more violently, and the fear in his eyes almost shattered.

Edith frowned slightly.

Why does it seem like the more I try to comfort her, the more scared she gets?

This set of equipment is clearly very useful for the children in the cathedral.

Even in Dawn City, the current way to coax children is that if they behave well, they might one day be spotted by a tentacle on the street, kidnapped, and taken to a tentacle cave to become an adult's obedient child.

If you don't behave, even the tentacles on the roadside might ignore you.

Moreover, judging from the orc's emotions and reactions, I was worried that if she continued to be afraid, something might happen.

Even though she was an enemy, even though she had just tried to kill her, Edith was still a kind-hearted girl.

Seeing that she was too terrified, he let go again, and the coin fell.

Gently sway in front of her, guiding a miracle as you sway.

With gentle words, he invaded her mind, infiltrating her brain with a field of pleasurable cognition, which slowly spread.

The fear was dispelled.

Although fear was seeping out faster and faster, it couldn't keep up with the speed at which pleasure was invading.

Finally, after her mind was completely filled with pleasure.

Her mind gradually relaxed, and her consciousness began to blur.

"So...happy..."

Seeing that the orcs were no longer afraid, Edith smiled.

After putting the coins away, he patted her head.

"It's okay, go get some sleep first."

Under that gentle caress, the orc, with a blissful and content expression, slowly closed his eyes.

And before plunging into darkness, looking at the smiling girl in front of him, he heard her last words.

"When you wake up, you'll become a good child like everyone else."

------

PS: This is the third update. 15,000 words today. Goodnight!

Volume 1: Chapter 132: Dawn City Flying Soldiers

The night is over.

When the sun rose the next day, Dawn Territory began operating as usual, as if nothing had happened the night before.

As for those orc squads...

Besides those discovered and killed by patrol teams, many others were noticed by people on the defensive line.

At first, when they realized they had been discovered, the members of the red-eyed orc squad didn't react much.

Because they could clearly sense that the people coming and going on the defensive line were not on the same level as the patrol teams outside.

They certainly couldn't afford to mess with those monster patrol squads outside, but a small team composed of low- to mid-level bloodlines like this, even if there were more of them, was not...

Ta-ta-ta-ta.

Click click click.

Rows and rows of dark gun barrels stood upright.

Although their physical condition was not good enough to support the high-recoil, high-powered firearms used by the patrol teams outside, they were not even allocated explosive ammunition.

But what about penetrating rounds, armor-piercing rounds, tearing rounds, incendiary rounds, and the like?

They were still allowed to use it, and they even had some in their pockets.

Moreover, it's not just the muzzle of a gun.

Among those dark gun barrels were some mage apprentices holding staffs, whose muscles weren't particularly muscular.

After spotting a relatively large orc scout squad, a magic ball was thrown towards their location.

But after the explosion, it did not cause any harm to the orcs who were instinctively on guard, nor did it leave any mark on them.

It was simply a flash of light in the darkness.

Then a circle with a cross mark was formed in the air.

Then--

boom!

The precision-guided magic cannon hit the bullseye with a single shot.

They turned all the members of that orc scout squad into character fragments.

Even the spreading magical energy directly swept away the gray mist, leaving only a still-smoking crater on the ground.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the smaller orc scouting squads were also being pierced, torn apart, and even melted by the saturation fire of the improved muskets from various projectiles.

Finally, dawn broke.

Let alone orc squads, the number of character fragments that can be pieced together to form a character is extremely small.

Of course, there were survivors.

Besides the orc squad captured by Edith, other patrols also managed to catch one or two survivors.

And after the battle, they were all handed over to the tentacles.

but......

"...They're all dead?"

In a sense, yes.

But to be more precise...

They never truly lived.

The essence of fog is scattered cognition.

It couldn't even be described as a lingering soul or an obsession; it was simply a ripple caused by a single thought.

We save it through some means, and once we have a larger quantity stored, we materialize it through some unknown means.

It turned into a visible gray fog.

As for these created orcs, although after examination, it was confirmed that there were no physical problems.

It has everything—skin, bones, internal organs, and even the brain—and all of them function normally.

But what it lacks is the ability of 'cognition' that all beings in this world possess.

Or, it can also be called the soul.

To be honest, Green had been curious about this before.

So far, all the beings he has encountered, or rather all life forms, after confirmation, even wild beasts, seem to possess a certain degree of 'cognitive' ability.

What about those who don't have this ability?

And now, Green has met him.

The reason these red-eyed orcs were able to move and seemingly have consciousness was because their brains were injected with gray mist.

Using the gathered, scattered cognition and thought, it temporarily serves as the soul.

And after being captured, especially after being dragged into the tentacle hole.

As the gray fog rapidly dissipated, the red light in their eyes quickly dimmed.

It didn't last long before it became completely hollow.

Its entire body slumped limply to the ground, unresponsive to any manipulation by the tentacles.

But that's not the worst part.

Most critically, after the gray fog dissipated, Green discovered that their bodily functions were also rapidly deteriorating.

Blocked blood vessels, bone breakdown, muscle deformation, even cardiac arrest and intracranial hemorrhage...

In this world, cognition has power.

Those high-precision magical instruments, not to mention their use, must even be stored in an extremely stable and demanding cognitive field.

So, what about biological processes?

Life itself is, to some extent, a highly sophisticated instrument, especially certain organs and structures, such as the brain.

Although in the normal world, even without cognitive abilities, as long as one is physically healthy, one can live a normal life.

But in this godforsaken place, if you don't have a soul, if you don't have enough ability to restrain and stabilize your own cognition, or rather, the ability to distort reality.

Then let alone living.

In just a few seconds, the soulless body will be torn apart, destroyed, or even annihilated by the omnipresent, distorted, and insane unstable cognitive space.

That's why Green said that these orcs never actually lived.

Because from the very beginning, they were nothing more than pieces of flesh pieced together, driven by scattered perceptions.

Even their brains are merely containers for those scattered perceptions and thoughts.

And because those perceptions and thoughts were too scattered, they were forcibly brought together.

Even without internal bleeding, it had already been damaged long ago.

Even so, these orcs were still very valuable to Grimm.

After a thorough and detailed examination of the orcs' bodies, Green confirmed his earlier suspicions.

That is, after several months of research, Gray Mist did indeed crack the Orcs' Shit Mountain code to some extent.

Especially those special orcs that Edith captured—you don't even need to examine them closely; just a glance at their appearance is enough to tell how beautiful they are.

Simply put, they are orcs.

But it's not like Morphia or Ella, which are incomplete products born from forcibly combining human and orc features.