Chapter 59: Leave

It all happened in the blink of an eye...

No one had time to stop Krag, who activated his Bloodthirsty Frenzy the very second Ned’s voice faded. Though it initially looked like a forward charge, the moment his heavy boots slammed violently into the earth, his momentum halted completely, and he crashed straight into Banny...

Even less could anyone stop Banny. The inscrutable assassin didn't even move, simply allowing the recklessly charging Krag to lock him in position, using his maximum strength to firmly immobilize him on the spot. Banny only reacted when his own arms and neck were tightly locked in a chokehold...

Two flashes of bright, silver radiance flickered before transforming into streaks of crimson lightning. With just a slight exertion of force, Banny effortlessly shook off the orc warrior's hands. Then, his hands, gripping six crescent silver blades, began to dance frantically, conjuring dozens of bloody residual scars in mid-air in less than a second!

And Krag...

He didn't have time to think about anything. From the moment Banny casually shook him off, his consciousness was completely overwhelmed by boundless, excruciating agony. Each time those cold gleams, shifting from white to red, slashed across him, they made him want to scream out loud. The sensation of his body being gradually torn apart felt agonizingly long. Although it was just a fleeting instant, Krag felt as though he had lingered for countless days and nights in a hell known as slow dismemberment, until finally, a thrust that directly pulverized his heart restored a sliver of his awareness...

It felt as though a voice was coming from a very distant place. Through the haze, he strained to make out the sound, and as his body crashed heavily onto the ground, he finally recognized it. Krag smiled.

He heard Salazar roar at the top of his lungs. That smelly lizard, who usually acted like a cold block of ice, seemed to actually have a bit of human warmth after all. Tch, how could a guy with such warped aesthetics ever think a goblin girl could look better than an ogre young lady? Haha, that's right, he should just hold on to that sense of superiority and say goodbye to him...

He heard Yenna's gasp of shock. Tsk tsk, this elfin girl was always jumping to conclusions and bullying him for his slow reflexes, but she was actually quite thoughtful when it came to taking care of others. If she really could end up with the captain, that wouldn't be bad at all. She was a good girl, well worth living on...

That kid Heiban hadn't made a sound. The rookie definitely wasn't untouched by their grand feat; he probably just didn't know what to do. After all, he was a good egg. He knew what was right, but he must still be struggling inside. Truly, he had brought him trouble...

Shuangye—tsk tsk, to be honest, if she didn't look like an undergrown little bean sprout, she could barely qualify as his type. Well, no, no, an ogre loli was definitely cuter after all. Sorry, just forget about me...

Finally, he heard Ned, as if desperate to rush over. Was there shit inside the brain of that idiot who always tried to embrace everyone?! Here he was, finally getting to be a hero for once, and the guy didn't know how to cherish it at all. Sigh, but it was precisely because of his goody-two-shoes nature that everyone was willing to trust him no matter what, right? At least he, Krag, believed in it!

I've practically been killed by you, you bastard captain. You'd better not fail to fight with all your might and live on with my share too!

Krag was deeply grateful that both his ears were still intact, and quite satisfied that he hadn't screamed out during the seemingly infinite, lingering torture just moments ago. Tremblingly, he pointed a backhanded finger toward where he remembered everyone to be, clenched his fist gently, then slowly extended a single finger, pointed it at himself, and finally gave a slight wave.

"You all owe me one, but you don't have to pay it back!"

You'd better catch my drift. Aren't you all smarter than me...

With nothing but brute strength and destined never to achieve any great things in this lifetime, it was so rare for him to act as a hero...

"No!"

"Krag!"

"Clearly, it's just a bunch of silly data!"

Both Ned and Yenna instinctively stopped in their tracks, wanting to charge back. Shuangye turned around with reddened eyes and began brandishing her staff, but the other two desperately held her back.

"It's useless!" Salazar grabbed the heavily injured Ned with one hand and Yenna—who was not built for brute strength—with the other, gritting his teeth. "Let's go!"

Huan and Shuangye also pulled Shuangye away, giving a slight shake of his head. "Calm down. Move."

Banny rubbed his nose, casually tossing aside the six completely blood-soaked blades between his fingers, and clicked his tongue. "Ah, how touching. Not a single sound even when not a single patch of good skin was left on him. It's been a long time since I've run into a fellow like that. No need to rush, everyone; if you want to hold a memorial service, I can wait for you~"

"Go!" Ned let out a roar bordering on a howl, then grabbed Yenna and spun around, shouting to Huan and the others at the same time, "We have to make these bastards pay! Go first!"

Yenna followed behind Ned, completely hollow-eyed, while Shuangye, finally regaining a semblance of calm, put away her staff. With a magic scroll gripped in each hand, she joined the others in continuing their escape.

Unflustered, Banny fished two more blades from his waist, shook his head, and then stepped forward to resume his 'entertainment', only to find that the moment he took a step, his ankle was grabbed.

...

A large, pitch-black, blood-soaked hand!

Krag's breathing was barely audible now. The trauma he had suffered was beyond saving, even if high-orcs of the Holy Coalition had rushed over in person. Yet this limp, fallen orc warrior still gripped Banny's ankle for dear life, despite the muscles in his entire arm being nearly torn to shreds, and even the slightest movement causing agonizing pain...

"Stalling for time?" Banny sneered disdainfully, slowly crouching down to stare into Krag's gradually scattering eyes. "A tenacious prey is certainly amusing, but when a prey becomes way too tenacious, it simply becomes annoying!"

...

Not far away.

"Hasn't he chased after us?" Yenna, finally stopping her tears, ran side by side with Ned, her slender hand supporting his body which looked ready to collapse at any moment. Choking back a sob, she asked, "Krag, he..."

Salazar, running on the left side of the pair, shook his head. "He fulfilled his dream of being a hero."

Huan and Shuangye ran in silence on the right, struggling to keep up with the others, uttering not a single word...

"It's all my fault." Blood was currently trickling from the corner of Ned's mouth; he ground his teeth nearly to powder. "If it weren't for me..."

"He wouldn't blame you." Salazar supported Ned, who had nearly tripped over a root, and said softly, "Can you tell us the reason now, though? Anyway, you don't have to worry about us being killed for hearing secrets we shouldn't know anymore, right?"

That was true. From the moment the entire Fenrir squad launched an attack on Banny, such concerns no longer mattered.

"I am indeed cooperating with the Fireclaw Territory," Ned sighed, his voice hoarse. "In fact, it was precisely because of this that I joined the Marshall Autonomous Army."

The others listened in silence, none of them interrupting or asking questions...

As they hurried along, Ned briefly shared that experience from his youth with the others—the incident where one-third of the city's population disappeared overnight, including his father and his closest friend.

"I've been investigating this matter all along," Ned said softly. "But a person's strength is ultimately limited, so later on I joined several mercenary groups, traveled almost the entirety of the Southeast Continent, and finally tracked down a few clues..."

"There is a slave-trading phenomenon on this land, something that should have been eradicated thousands of years ago." Ned pointed beneath his feet. "And every single clue pointed to one place: my hometown, the Marshall Territory of the Violet Empire."

Shuangye forced herself to calm down, repeating in a low voice, "Slave trading?"

"That's right, in an era where slavery shouldn't even exist anymore." Ned gritted his teeth. "Snatching innocent civilians or vagrants, turning them into slaves, and then..."

"And then what?" A nightmarish voice sounded right beside him. Banny had materialized between Ned and Salazar at some point, walking as leisurely as if on a stroll while asking with a smiling expression, "And then selling those pitiful wretches to evil alchemists, dark mines that require labor, necromancers who need countless living subjects for experiments, and all sorts of places willing to pay a hefty price for live humans?"

Slash!

A deep bloody gash suddenly appeared on Salazar's ribs.

"So what? Is that the reason you and those fools cooperated?" Banny's pace remained unhurried.

Yenna, guarding Ned's flank, had her back grazed by a flash of cold light; the fair skin beneath her tree-armor was left with a deep wound.

Two faint auras flashed—Resilient Prayer and Greater Heal were respectively cast by Huan on Salazar and Yenna. Huan continued running in silence, his focus reaching unprecedented heights. The Undefiled Shield in his hand, which had not yet entered cooldown, was ready to deploy at a moment's notice.

"They have also suffered deeply!" Ned roared. "The Fireclaw Territory, adjacent to the Marshall Territory, has a massive population go missing every year. Isn't that your doing?"

Banny's figure appeared like a ghost on Ned's other side. As Yenna raised her hand to intercept, he gently slipped a silver blade into her shoulder, sneering, "Oh, yes. They are all very popular—whether used as coolies or experimental subjects, they are hot-selling commodities~"

An ice wall abruptly materialized before Banny. Shuangye tore open another magic scroll in an attempt to delay him as much as possible, but he deftly bypassed it.

"Don't be impatient~" His snake-like, chilling pupils locked onto Shuangye, and he extended his overly long tongue to lick the corner of his mouth. "I'll save you for the very last to savor, you damned little brat."

He harbored extreme hatred toward Shuangye for almost killing him earlier. Having confirmed that the girl possessed no similar tricks left, Banny had already decided to make her die an exceptionally painful death—perhaps finding some other amusement before she finally perished...

Of course, that was him overthinking things. After all, the system provided quite adequate protection for players in certain aspects; any vile behavior by NPCs or players was utterly impossible to succeed. If an NPC attempted it, the victim would be converted into white light and forcibly logged out without facing any penalties; if a player did it, they would be kicked offline, their account permanently frozen, and added to the relevant authorities' blacklist, with serious offenders potentially facing direct legal sanctions...

Thus, Shuangye had nothing to worry about. Instead, she simply said to Banny, "That village near the border being attacked earlier—that was fake, right? Now that I think about it, the people we found in that Fireclaw camp didn't look like plundered civilians at all, nor had they suffered any abuse. The only true prisoner was actually just that guy, right?"

She was naturally referring to that disheveled orc...

Beside her, Ned wasn't surprised. He had belatedly realized this fact himself, but it was already too late...

Banny, however, shook his head. As he lingered like a shadow around the group, he said, "No, no, no. The village really was attacked, and a huge number of people were looted away—and of course, a few died too... It's just that those Fireclaw fools weren't the ones who did it."

The implication was deafeningly clear...

"You beasts!!" Ned immediately prepared to risk his life fighting Banny, but someone else moved faster than him!

"You guys go!" Salazar suddenly accelerated, dashing in front of Banny. His hands unleashed multiple blasts of raw qi aimed straight at him as he yelled back over his shoulder, "Captain, you should have plenty of intel that those people fear! Do what you must do!!"

The lizardman monk was significantly stronger than Krag. While still far from enough to pose a true threat to Banny, his reckless, unreserved onslaught managed to momentarily bog down the assassin, slowing his speed right down!

"Raging Thunder Force!" The air currents surrounding Salazar shifted to a pale purple, swiftly fusing into his limbs and bones. At the same time, the opponent inflicted a dozen deep lacerations upon him, yet his tone remained as calm and composed as ever: "Don't stop, don't look back, please!"

Why...

Pale red tears slid down Ned's cheeks. He didn't look back; he knew what Salazar was thinking, and he knew what he wanted him to do. Yet even with that understanding—even having witnessed countless life-and-death partings—a frenzy born from the depths of his heart kept eroding that crumbling scrap of sanity...

Yenna didn't look back. The elf, whose face was always wreathed in smiles, had even cried her tears dry.

Shuangye didn't look back, though how much longer the fragile shell she barely maintained could hold out, she herself had no idea...

Huan didn't look back. He had never felt so utterly powerless. At this very moment, no matter which of his personas, no matter what kind of self he was, it seemed impossible to untangle the immediate dilemma, let alone escape unscathed. His emotions were beginning to slip out of control... yet the rationality forged over the years still let him know what he had to do. Think... he had to think... whether it was in vain or not, he had to keep thinking... Any method would do... He had to believe in himself...

Any tactic was useless now; healing and supporting skills couldn't even barely sustain their lives. Banny's strength had reached an entirely different realm...

What if he used strategy...

What if he used conviction...

It still seemed unviable, but could he try to imagine...

What would he do right now if he were in another state of mind...

Overwhelmed!

Yet... he couldn't stop thinking!

Chapter 59: End