In the North, on this vast land still dominated by ice, snow, and savagery, an unprecedented, systematic order, carrying the scent of steel and fire, was slowly crushing southward in an unstoppable manner.
This was a giant net, invisible yet undeniably real.
The weaver of this net was the Countess Isabelle von Adler. And every thread that made up this net was interwoven with the sharpest blades, the coldest hearts, and the greediest desires.
Isabelle personally led a thousand-man contingent of the Nite Kite Knights, sitting at the center of this giant net like a heavy and sharp iron hammer. They were the backbone and core of the entire operation, ensuring that this massive net would not break due to any accidents.
The broader mesh of the net, extending infinitely to both sides, consisted of those dozen or so slave-hunting parties that were notorious in the North yet extremely efficient. They were like a pack of hyenas that had smelled blood, numbering over five thousand in total. After receiving the Countess's personal promise of a great reward— "The first to discover the 'nest' shall receive half of the spoils within, and I shall personally petition for a knighthood for them" —this group of desperadoes fell into complete madness.
Wealth, and that unattainable noble status that could allow them to leap above others, were like two of the most potent poisons injected into the veins of every one of them.
Under the "supervision" of Captain Carter, which was mixed with fear and severity, this massive torrent, gathered from chaos and greed, was forcibly divided into three huge, fan-shaped attack fronts.
From the east, west, and north, like a giant iron comb slowly closing, they pressed inch by inch toward the south, into the region marked as "Unknown" on the map.
This was no longer the hit-and-run, disorganized plundering of the past.
This was a systematic clearing and search operation, premeditated, organized, and with a clear strategic goal.
Isabelle's orders were executed without a single deviation.
They meticulously searched every valley that could possibly hide people, every seemingly quiet forest area, and every inconspicuous cave on the cliff walls they encountered.
All small demi-human settlements discovered along the way met their doom.
Those who resisted were slaughtered on the spot in the most direct and cruel manner. Their crude bone spears and stone axs were as fragile as children's toys in the face of humanity's fine iron weapons.
As for the old, weak, women, and children who chose to surrender or had no time to resist, they were bound together in strings with rough hemp ropes like livestock, branded with the mark of a slave on their faces, and left to wait for the follow-up teams to escort them to the territory, to that Black Stone Mine that never saw the light of day.
One tribe after another turned into burning torches behind them, the billowing black smoke standing like tombstones of sin, lingering on the pure white snowfield for days on end.
The wind of the North no longer carried only the scent of snowflakes; it was mixed with the pungent, nauseating stench of burning and blood.
The unknown and vast region, under the ruthless combing of this iron net, was systematically compressed and explored bit by bit.
Any unusual trace, such as a totem that did not belong to any known tribe, an abandoned camp with a certain unique architectural style, or even a standardized arrow that was completely different from those they had seized before, would be carefully recorded by the slightly more observant leaders among the slave-hunting parties, and then reported at top speed to Isabelle's command center located at the heart of the army.
A massive parchment map, drawn by the army's cartographer, was laid flat on the huge campaign table that several craftsmen had worked overnight to construct for Isabelle.
The Countess did not stay in that warm and magnificent tent.
She simply stood quietly before this map, wearing her jet-black, beautifully contoured knight's armor.
Her long silver hair fluttered gently in the biting cold wind of the North. Her breathtakingly beautiful face was devoid of any expression, save for a pair of ice-blue eyes, like two of the purest sapphires, calmly watching everything that changed in an instant on the map.
One after another, dust-covered messengers rode mountain horses that were nearly exhausted, galloping in from all directions. They dismounted, knelt on one knee, and respectfully handed her the scribbled parchment notes filled with the latest intelligence.
Isabelle would personally take every note.
She read very quickly, scanning ten lines at a glance. Then, she would pick up the red quill on the table, representing "clearing," and gently cross out, one by one, the areas on the massive map that had been thoroughly "purified."
As time passed, the vast white blank space on the map representing the "unknown" was being rapidly swallowed and filled by the crisscrossing red lines at aible and ever-increasing speed, toward its final target, named "Blackwood Fortress"!