Translator: Wuxia Dog Editor: Wuxia Dog
While the battle was in its most intense period, a group of men and women stealthily shuffled forward along the root of the city wall. On the walls, there wasn’t a single soul in sight because almost all of the troops in the city had gathered together, and only a few sentries were whispering in the watchtower while shrinking their necks. If the vampires were to attack the city through here from several directions, they would definitely bring a great mess to West City. However, they didn’t have any more military strength to do so. Beitman still maintained its independence, but in this world dominated by human beings, dark creatures such as vampires were always hated and jointly resisted. In other words, vampires had no favorable geographical and human conditions at all. This battle was bound to be an extremely hard and bitter one for the vampires, which would cause them great sacrifices.
The voices of the sentries’ whispering disappeared. A moment later, a head popped out from inside the watchtower. It was Reg, and he made a gesture to his companions.
Han Jin and the others climbed up the city wall in a hurry and hung a rope down. Moxinke climbed down by grabbing the rope first, followed by Cessacioun. When they had ensured that it was safe down there, they sent Keeley, Steelberg, and the other non-combat ones down.
It might be considered a bliss for them to be out of this well of misfortune. They had not been caught even though they had been on the city wall for such a long time. Inside the two magic towers, there were lots of magicians nearby. If they had looked down at the city wall, they could have easily found Han Jin and the others on the city wall. However, the magicians had been paying attention to the sky and all the flying dots in it. Even if they had found the furtive figures, they would have had no energy to meddle in such an irrelevant business.
Han Jin was the last one that climbed down the rope. After running for a long distance along the bottom of the wall, Han Jin released a charm of Holy Tortoise. They climbed onto the shell of the giant tortoise, which then ran toward the country field under Han Jin’s control.
Voices of rebuke and laughter came from behind them, but there were no attacks which followed them. It must have been from the magicians who had been hiding in the towers, thinking that they were just a group of timid mercenaries who were fleeing away from the battle, and freely letting them go after scornfully laughing at them.
The day when they had come to West City, they had all been excited and had enjoyed the feeling of sitting on the shell of the giant tortoise, but now everyone was in a deep silence. The super strength Gerald had burst out at the critical moment had greatly shocked all of them.
Moxinke was wiping his sword again and again with a piece of cloth. His action was firm as if he were venting. Reg was leaning on the neck of the giant tortoise, looking at the night sky and deep in thoughts.Sunier placed her long bow on her legs, bouncing the bowstring with her fingers from time to time, making clear echoes in the air.
If there was someone who could see through their inner thoughts, he would find that they were thinking about the same thing: to become stronger! They had never been so eager to possess something.
* * *
In order to avoid attracting any attention, they changed their lifestyle and slept during the day and travelled to Ninth Town during the night.
This day, they had arrived at a spring whose name was unknown to them. The city was filled with a winter bleakness, but this spring was filled with an air of the season of spring. The two sides of the spring water were covered by a layer of verdant grass, and all kinds of wildflowers were budding. The morning sun reflected in the water, covered it with countless golden scales. Due to the slope of the spring, the water flowed down at a fast speed, causing numerous bubbles.
They sat against both sides of the spring, talking and laughing in low voices. Michelle and Steelberg were preparing their meals. Though the sun was rising, for them, it was supper rather than breakfast.
“Do you think the vampires can occupy West City?” Cessacioun asked. This question had bothered him for a few days.
“It would be difficult,” Sunier replied. “Now that Gerald and Lord Winston have cooperated with each other, it’s difficult for Caroline to have the upper hand. She would only have the upper hand if Betty comes to help her, which is a very low probability, for the conflict between the two vampire kings is very deep.”
“Caroline must be mad to attack West City with only her vampire guards and without any other troops helping or supporting her,” Reg said. “I am sure that the vampires will suffer great losses.”
“Let’s stop talking about this and say something interesting,” Han Jin interrupted them and looked at Sylner and Keeley. The two girls were splashing water against each other on the other side of the spring. Keeley was not as strong as Sylner, thus she was obviously at a disadvantage.
“You’d better be careful. It’s still chilly these days. Don’t get yourselves cold!” Sunier shouted to them.
Hearing this, Sylner stopped first, but Keeley was unwilling to be defeated like this. She poured more water on Sylner with her hands to.
“Ah…” Sylner screamed and covered her forehead with her hands. “Why do you keep hitting me with stones, Keeley?!” she angrily shouted.
“I didn’t,” Keeley explained, but suddenly remembered the heavy feeling when she had been pouring out the water. She felt sorry and carefully looked around. Finally, she found something suspicious in the grass. “Look, what’s this?”
Sylner bent over, picked it up, and found that it was a piece of a jade pendant which was covered with cracks. No one knew whether it was originally like this, or if it was because it had hit Sylner’s head.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you. I didn’t know this was in the water,” Keeley apologized.
While Sylner was still studying the jade pendant in her hand, Little Joseph suddenly shouted from another end. He had found a space ring while he had been washing his hands.
“A space ring!!” Cessacioun exclaimed.
Little Joseph was startled. He blankly held the ring, not knowing what to do next. Han Jin stood up and exchanged eye contact with Sunier. “Sunier, Cessacioun, go upstream with me. The others, stay here,” he slowly said.
The higher they went, the thicker the woods. After walking about several hundred meters, Han Jin and Sunier saw two dead men lying on the ground with swarms of flies swirling and buzzing over them.
Sunier’s face color suddenly changed. Dead bodies were not unfamiliar to her, but one of them was lying in the water which she had drunk downstream just now. She felt sick in her stomach and nearly vomited.
Cessacioun chanted a few incantations and threw out a large ball of fire which passed through the swarm of flies, burning most of them into ashes. But some flies still survived and continued swirling above the bodies. This time, Cessacioun released a wave of flames. The buzzing sound finally disappeared.
“What’s the matter?” Moxinke quickly moved his figure and rushed toward them. Cessacioun’s successive magic had implied to him that something had to be wrong. When he saw the two corpses, his face color changed even more dramatically than Sunier’s, because he had also drank the water downstream.
“This is unethical! You should at least bury the bodies after killing them! What did you throw them into the water? Trash, dog shit…” Moxinke angrily cursed.
Han Jin carefully examined the two corpses, both of which were naked. Judging from their conditions and the current climate and temperature, they must have been dead for over three days. The one lying in the spring water had been quickly killed, for that his head was directly cut off from his neck. No other wounds were on his body, and his head must have been washed away by the spring water.
On the other hand, the man lying at the waterside was covered with wounds of all sizes. His body was curled up into a ball, revealing a painful appearance. He had likely gone through an extremely ruthless torture before death. Han Jin turned the body over with a kick. There were also lots of wounds before his chest, but none were deadly. Therefore, it was difficult for Han Jin to tell the guy’s cause of death.
Moxinke’s voice attracted the others as well. As all of them went over, and their expressions all changed when they saw the scene, especially those who had played in and drank the spring water. Keeley immediately turned dreadfully pale and tightly dragged her own clothes. If there were no guys here, she would have torn off all her clothes and thrown them far away.
“Raphael, do you feel that this face is vaguely familiar?” Cessacioun asked slowly.
“Oh?” Han Jin couldn’t help but cast a clearer glance at the corpse. It was indeed a little bit familiar. But neither of them could remember where they had met this guy.
Sunier constrained her vomiting feeling and came to have a look at the body. Though the guy had been dead for a few days, she could still recognize his face. A figure popped into her mind. “Do you remember the magician who had asked Moxinke to join his team when we were at the Association of Mercenaries in Isolated Cliff City?”
“The high grade sage Cabri? Why was he killed like this?” Cessacioun was stunned. “Moxinke, come and have a look. Is this guy Cabri?” he shouted.
Moxinke immediately stopped his cursing and strode over to them. “Which Cabri?” he asked while walking.
“The magician who asked you to join them when we were in Isolated Cliff City.”
Moxinke carefully looked at the body. “It does look like him. But how is this possible? The guy is an eighth-grade professional. How could he have been killed like a dog?”
“Humph, an eighth-grade professional is just a nobody,” Reg snorted. “If he meets a guy like Gerald, he is the same as a dog,” Reg mocked. Though he was nearly an eighth-grade professional worthy of the title, the shield strike Gerald made had seriously hurt his self-esteem, and he had not recovered from it yet. Thus, as long as anyone thought highly of an eighth-grade professional, he would utter some sarcastic words to them and to himself.
“How lucky I am is due to my strong will. If I had listened to the guy and joined them…” Moxinke cast a glance around and continued, “I would have been lying here too.” He had said this to encourage himself.
“Let’s… leave…” Before Keeley could finish her words, she could not control her vomit any more.
“Sunier, take them upstream and look for a clean place to wash up.”
This was exactly what Sunier had desired. She immediately nodded and took Keeley and Sylner upstream. “Wait for me! I will go with you!” Moxinke shouted and followed them.
“Anyway, we have met this guy once.” Han Jin said in a low voice, “We’d better bury them. Burial brings peace to the deceased.”
This scene reminded Reg of something. “I… want to go back to my hometown and have a look, Raphael,” he suddenly said after being dumbfounded for a long time.
“Hometown?”
“Yes. It’s not far away from here. At most, one hundred miles.” Reg lowered his head. “My father was buried there. I… I haven’t been back for a few years.”
