Translator: Wuxia Dog Editor: Wuxia Dog
The atmosphere in West City suddenly became tense. In the morning, Michelle went out to buy some wheat flour to make bread. He needed to make a sufficient amount in preparation for their way to Ninth Town, but he came back with bad news. The street was full of guards who were strictly interrogating each of the pedestrians. Within the ten minute walk from the market to the courtyard, Michelle had already been checked several times. Given his honest appearance and the bag of wheat flour on his back, none of the guards hassled him.
The news shocked them all. Han Jin got Michelle to gather all the information near the city gate immediately. This time round, the news that Michelle brought back made them even more nervous. The day before this, people from inside the city could still go out easily, and only those who wanted to come in would be checked. But now, the situation was different. They instantly decided to hold a discussion about it. Sunier had previously served in the army, thus she was very decisive. Han Jin was not an irresolute man either. They both agreed to leave as soon as possible, since they had already decided to leave.
They didn’t have much to pack. In the afternoon, the team was divided into two groups, and both successively left the courtyard. Han Jin and Moxinke walked in the front, while the others followed them, keeping a distance of about one hundred meters from them.
Moxinke was too conspicuous due to his physical features. If any accident were to happen, he would definitely be the first one to be discovered. Therefore, Sunier, Cessacioun, and Reg were a team, and kept their distance from them, because they could still stay out of the fight in order to protect the non-combat members such as Keeley and Steelberg.
The two groups sneakingly hid themselves within the pedestrians, and passed through several streets. Everything seemed to be going smoothly and nothing happened. They walked for another several hundred meters along the street, and the city gate was just at the next corner. Just then, a group of knights came from the other side of the corner.
Han Jin was right. No matter how hard Moxinke tried to keep a low profile, he was still eye-catching due to his shape and temperament. One of the knights frowned when he saw Moxinke. The next moment, his eyes fixed on Moxinke who was behind Han Jin, and glimmered with a murderous light. “Don’t move!” he roared without even alerting his companions first.
All the pedestrians on the street froze. Han Jin looked up and was startled. He knew the knight. When they had been escorting the trade caravan to Holy Crown City, Han Jin had a severe conflict with this knight. They had confronted each other for a long period of time until Han Jin had killed the hostage and had escaped using a charm of Earthmeld.
But why had they come to the West City of Beitman? Han Jin was puzzled.
“Arrest them!” The middle-aged knight growled. “Lord Dismark has given us an order: whoever catches them alive will be greatly rewarded!”
The other knights were furiously staring at their leader. They came here for cooperation, not to cause any trouble. Plus, the middle-aged knight was just a demoted leader. Therefore, all of them disrespected him, but the word ‘rewarded’ excited them. The great reward promised by Lord Dismark would, by no means, be an ordinary reward!
After a simultaneous roar, the knights unsheathed their long swords and rushed to the opposite, one after another. The pedestrians were shocked and ran away in all directions, causing chaos. Sunier and Reg retreated with the others, and hid themselves accordingly among the crowd as they had planned, not catching any attention from the knights.
“Go!” Han Jin let out a loud shout. His fingers swung out like flying butterflies. Three charms of fire were thrown out toward three directions.
“You’re asking me to go?” Moxinke was confused. As a fighter who would usually charge in front and cover the others in retreat, he had been prepared to wield his long sword and rush forward. That was why most fighters couldn’t live long.
Among the three Charms of Fire, two were cut into pieces by the sword-radiance released by the knights, but the charms still exploded. The rapid expansion of fire, and the huge blast, tentatively blocked the rushing momentum of the knights. One of the fire charms even hit a horse and smashed its head in an instant. The knight on its back was thrown off the head-less horse and heavily thudded down on to the ground after flying through the flames.
“Cut the crap and go!” Han Jin shouted again. He was now more aware of the meaning of the sentence: To get rid of the grass, you must pull it up from the roots! To leave your enemy alive was definitely the least wise decision; it was unpredictable when your enemy would return and bring you unexpected damage.
Moxinke abruptly turned around and dashed straight onto the lane. They weren’t unprepared when they had decided to leave in the afternoon. Reg’s participation in the team had changed their way of actions. First, they needed to decide which city gate they were going to leave from, and second, they had to be familiar with all the lanes of the streets they were going to pass through, which was already done by Michelle in the morning. They had to imagine all the possible solutions that they might face, their plans to cope with various emergencies, and the meeting point if the worst situation really happened. Thus, they knew what to do at this exact moment, and even Little Joseph and Steelberg showed no trace of hurry and panic.
As a previous private detective, Han Jin knew the importance of an organised preparation, but he wasn’t even familiar with this world, let alone be able to make a plan by himself. Sunier had served as the commander of a troop who emphasised planning even more than Han Jin, but this team was not a troop, and they were not soldiers. All they wanted to do was find a quiet place to live peacefully, rather than fighting against someone else. Thus, it would be a fuss if she made plans for everything. Moreover, most of the dangers that they had encountered were emergencies, and had nothing to do with what they planned.
However, things were a little different now. They now had Reg on the team, which had changed the fundamental style of the whole team’s actions. Due to his persistence, they had discussed all the possibilities that they might encounter; only Moxinke was impatient throughout. In his words, no matter how detailed their plan was, they could only rely on their own swords to fight their way through difficulties in front of them!
The fact was that no one agreed with him, so he had to sit down and reluctantly listen to their discussion.
“He is a magician!”
“Arrest him!”
The knights shouted and quickly divided themselves into two groups, with one group attracting Han Jin’s attention in the front, while the other came from the side.
“Don’t give him any chance, quick!” The middle-aged knight shouted from the front, with his eyes bloodshot red. He knew that Han Jin had some kind of strange magic. However, the other knights were all confused. A chance for what?
Han Jin sneered. After waving his arm, three other fire charms were thrown out and targeted at three knights respectively.
The speed of the middle-aged knight showed no reduction at all. He quickly wielded his long sword as if he were driving away flies. In an instant, the fireball was cut into sparks. The battle steed between his legs neighed in a heartrending way. He had the strength of fighting to protect himself, but the horse had nothing and was easily hurt.
“Go to hell!” The middle-aged knight raised his long sword and thrust it with all his strength toward Han Jin.
Rays of sword light were sprinkled toward Han Jin. Before the light touched his body, Han Jin had already felt the chilliness going into the depths of his bones. His pupils shrunk into two dots, and his body moved back at an extremely fast speed.
The sword light fell on the ground, and countless frost flowers which were visible to the naked eyes went sprawling in all directions. After using the Art of Spirit Possession Operation, Han Jin’s strength, speed, and eyesight were all greatly improved. He could even see the winged insects that froze and fell down onto the ground.
Han Jin retreated at a fast speed, but the middle-aged knight chased after him at an even faster speed. The knight’s thighs tightly pressed against the waist of the steed, and he crazily drove the steed forward while it neighed heartrendingly.
Another ray of sword light spread out, and Han Jin did not dare risk his own life to resist it, for he had no idea how mighty the technique of fighting was. He quickly moved his body aside, burst open the door of a courtyard nearby, and directly rushed inside.
The middle-aged knight followed him, but the moment he was about to rush in, Han Jin’s figure suddenly rose from the wall and dashed out toward the other knights.
The six fire charms were not released in vain. At least, Han Jin had made a clear estimation of the strength of all those knights. Except for the old foe, all the other knights were only third or fourth-grade warriors, which did not surprise him at all. If all the team of knights under Dismark were made of sixth or seventh-grade professionals, Dismark would have made a clean sweep of the whole mainland by now.
When faced with the sword radiance that glimmered with a cold light, Han Jin showed no fear. His toes slightly touched the ground, his body flew up as light as a feather, and he dashed toward the radiance.
The knight opposite him was startled with his eyes wide open, while a wooden giant abruptly appeared out of nowhere and blocked the sword radiance with its own body. The next moment, Han Jin’s fists passed through the shoulder of the wooden giant and heavily pounded on the knight’s face.
The knight’s body was still moving forward due to inertia, but his head was heavily punched backwards. His neck was badly distorted until he fell from his horse.
The wooden giant didn’t stop. It jumped up and stretched out its arms, targeting the next knight. Seeing the way his companion had died, the other knight was frightened into sweats. He desperately wielded his long sword at the wooden giant.
His speed was actually quite fast. When the wooden giant came in front of him, it had already been cut at least three times with deep wounds on its body, but these were just mere wounds. The wooden giant stretched out its right arm to surround the knight, and abruptly dragged him down from his horse.
“Help…” the knight screamed. Suddenly a chilly feeling came running down his spine. Han Jin suddenly appeared beside him, and thrust a long sword deep into his body.
“Bastard!” With a loud shout, a lance came thrusting toward Han Jin from the right like a viper, and headed straight for his neck.
The knight was very confident that he could kill Han Jin by choosing such an attacking position. However, he did not expect how terrifying Han Jin was after turning ‘wild’.
He agilely dodged the lance with a slight backward movement, and abruptly grabbed it before he bent down with a deafening roar. The knight on the other end of the lancer was lifted up, whirled a half circle in midair, and thudded down.
Though he had the strength of fighting to protect himself, he still couldn’t withstand such a dramatic collision, and blood came out of his mouth.
Before he could stand up, Han Jin had already jumped next to him and had started hammering punches on him. “Boom! Boom! Boom!” After three times, the knight’s helmet was already out of shape. His legs trembled for a while, and the knight finally stopped breathing.
The rest of the knights were all dumbstruck. Was he a magician? A puppet manipulator?? Or a barbarian???
