Translator: Wuxia Dog Editor: Wuxia Dog
Moxinke, Cessacioun, and the others turned around when they heard a loud strange noise from behind, only to find a line made of eight or nine giant beasts roaring and stomping down the road, with Sunier and Han Jin on the back of the first one, looking down at them.
“What is this?” Moxinke asked in astonishment.
“Come on up first.” Han Jin stopped the giant tortoise.
They all climbed up onto the back of the giant tortoise. After a gesture made by Han Jin, the giant tortoise slowly stood up and moved forward at a good pace.
Moxinke looked back with his eyes narrowed, and saw all the villagers sitting on the backs of the other giant tortoises, huddling together. They might have felt too grateful or too excited, but some of them were even whimpering.
Keeley curiously sat next to Han Jin and stroked the rough head of the tortoise. “What kind of holy animal is this?” she asked.
“I don’t know either.” Han Jin shook his head. It was one of the Four Holy Beasts of Daoism. It was hard to explain to her.
“I… hate you, Raphael!” Moxinke said with his teeth clenched. “Why didn’t you use this thing earlier?”
“I asked the same question.” Sunier laughed.
“How did he explain?”
“He said he mastered too many magics and wouldn’t have thought of this if it were not for Reg’s reminding.”
“How many different kinds of magic do you know?” Moxinke shouted. “Show all of them to us now. We will remind you of which ones you should use in the future!”
“But my magic power has run out. Otherwise… believe it or not, I could turn a living person into a statue. Hm, who should I experiment that on…” Han Jin pretended to be thinking.
Moxinke’s facial expression changed dramatically. He suddenly realized that some of Han Jin’s spells needed a living person as a target before they could be cast. If he continued with this, Han Jin would undoubtedly make him the target once again. Moxinke immediately gave a dry laugh. “Ha ha… Don’t take it so seriously. I was just joking.”
“But I think what you said makes sense,” Han Jin mocked.
Moxinke became nervous and looked around. Finally, he fixed his eyes on Cessacioun and winked at him many times. Cessacioun was both amused and annoyed by him. “Raphael, it must have cost a lot of your magic power to summon these puppets. I never expected you… to be so tender-hearted,” he said.
“It’s not me.” Han Jin pointed at Sunier. He still felt pity for the energy consumed. “If it were not for her crying and insisting…”
“What did you say?” said Sunier reproachfully.
Han Jin laughed. Though they had cooperated well in the past, he had a sense of estrangement due to the mask on Sunier’s face. Now that he had already seen her real face, such a sense of estrangement had also faded. He even dared to make jokes with her now.
“Elves are really kind-hearted…” Moxinke complimented.
“Raphael, has your magic really run out? Can you still fight?” Cessacioun asked.
“No problem…” Han Jin replied smilingly, but his smile suddenly froze on his face. He sensed that a dense flock of vampires had broken into the array of mirrors and was now flying toward their direction.
“Heaven and Earth, light of nine grids. Go!” Han Jin uttered the activation incantation in a low voice.
In the distance, columns of light suddenly soared into the deep sky from the nine mirrors. The flock of flying vampires felt dizzy all of a sudden, and the whole world seemed to have changed. Around them were all dots of light that shone like stars, disturbing their sense of direction and messing up their formation. They didn’t know which way they should fly.
It was the last thing that pilots or migratory birds wanted to meet when flying over the sea at night. The former might suffer a fatal crash, while the latter were likely to fall into the sea in flocks. When their sense of direction was disturbed, tragedies would occur without a doubt. Such phenomenon was called ‘Graveyard Spiral’.
For the vampires, they had never experienced anything like this since they had learned how to fly. Their formation was in total chaos, and they kept colliding with each other. Those with poorer physical statuses dropped down like stones. They would flutter their wings and fly into the sky again, but only to be slammed down again. Even their leader was totally confused.
Some vampires locked onto one star and tried their best to fly toward it. Normally, it would be a good strategy, but unfortunately, the positions of the flashing stars themselves kept changing; the vampires kept flying in circles. Some flew in circles up and down, and some left to right. They all thought their own direction was right and screamed to tell the others to follow. The result was was even more chaos.
Sunier discovered the abnormal expression on Han Jin’s face and worriedly asked, “What’s the matter?”
“The vampires are catching up.” Han Jin exhaled a long sigh.
They all jerked their heads backward, only to find nothing behind.
“What are you looking at? They are all stuck in my magic array for now.”
“Stuck?” Cessacioun exclaimed with both surprise and excitement. “How long can you trap them?”
“Hard to say. It depends on our luck,” Han Jin said with a wry smile. “If we are lucky enough, I can trap them until tomorrow morning. Otherwise, they may catch up with us soon.” What he said was true. The Nine Grids Magic Light Array he had set up was not up to its full potential due to the limited materials he had. Since the vampires were repeatedly falling, any one of them could crash into one of the nine mirrors by chance and instantly break the illusion. Even if the mirrors were kept intact, as long as the vampires falling onto ground kept moving with their eyes closed, they could still get out of the array. The key was when they decided to calm down.
“It depends on our luck? What do you mean?” Cessacioun asked in puzzlement. With his knowledge of magic, you were either capable or not capable. What did luck have to do with anything?
“Let’s discuss it later.” Han Jin looked back at Reg. “I need you to lead the way, Reg. The farther from the main road, the safer we will be!”
“Me… Can I control it?” Reg was surprised.
“You just need to show me the way.”
* * *
Han Jin was the last one to leave his fate to luck, as it always made him feel not in control of his own life, But this time, he had to make a bet, and it had turned out to be the right choice. They traveled until the spirit on the giant tortoises was used up, after which Han Jin made another nine of them. They kept running for the whole night without being caught up to by those vampires.
When a village was faintly visible from a long distance and the giant tortoises were once again near the end of their spirits, Han Jin jumped down. The whole line following him also stopped. He had no energy to make any more charms. The others could eat and sleep well the whole night, but Han Jin and Reg couldn’t.
Reg just needed to point out the way, while Han Jin had to use his mental energy to control the nine giant tortoises at the same time. He was completely exhausted.
The charms of Holy Tortoise had cost him nearly ten thousand Yuan’s worth of energy. His total energy was around one hundred Jia. Now that he had used nearly one percent of his total energy in one night, he would be lying if he said he didn’t mind it at all. However, when Han Jin saw the excited and grateful villagers, he felt a little gratified for doing so.
Sunier and Cessacioun also jumped down, but Moxinke was still sleeping like a pig on the tortoise shell. Beside him were Sylner and the other mercenaries. Han Jin felt a bit annoyed. It’s unfair! He waved his hand and the giant tortoise under those sleepers vanished all of a sudden. They directly fell down, hitting the ground with a loud thud.
Luckily, Moxinke was quite a sturdy man. He immediately jumped up after turning over his body and shouted, “What happened? Did the vampires come?!”
“No. It’s just that the spirit of the puppet beast vanished suddenly,” Han Jin said smilingly.
“Yes, quite suddenly.” Sunier let out a slight sigh.
Sylner did not understand the hidden meaning of their words at all and only complained about her bad luck. Moxinke stared at Han Jin and Sunier skeptically. “Why… the other puppets are still there, why did only ours vanish?”
“I don’t know either.”
“…” Moxinke opened his mouth wide. But considering their situation, he had to suppress his annoyance. Instead, he grumbled something before sitting down heavily. He was still very sleepy.
“Cessacioun, ask the residents of the town about where we are,” Han Jin said.
“Okay.” Cessacioun nodded.
“Wait, let me go with you.” Reg stood up.
“But your wounds…”
“It’s alright, I can walk.” Reg smiled. He felt ashamed for troubling them all the time, and wanted to do something in return.
“If so, you two go together. Be careful,” Han Jin said lowly.
Sunier watched Cessacioun and Reg as they walked away, then slowly said, “You saved us all.”
“I did this for myself.” Han Jin smiled.
“You escaped from hundreds of knights of Holy Crown City a few months ago. You had special kinds of magic that allowed you do escape, didn’t you? I am wondering… whether those vampires can hurt you at all?”
“To run away alone?” Han Jin paused. “My wealth is still here. Do you expect me to give up everything I have?”
“Wealth? You mean…”
“Steelberg, Moxinke, Cessacioun.” Han Jin cracked a smile. “And you and Keeley.”
Sunier was amused. If he was serious, which normal person would compare humans to wealth? But if he was joking, he had chosen to stay with his companions.
“Friendship is priceless!” Sunier gave him a disdainful look.
“Of course. That’s why I will never give any of you up.”
“You…” Sunier cast a glance at him. Six months ago, Han Jin was still an ordinary prophet with no ability of foreseeing. But now, he had set the magic arrays to trap those vampires and had released puppet beasts to carry all of them. Without him, their fate would have been too unbearable to imagine. He had become the pillar and bedrock of the team in such a short amount of time. It made her wonder how far he could go if given the chance.
