Chapter 60: A Home Named Fenrir

Thirty seconds!

I have bought thirty seconds for myself... Ned and the others should have run a certain distance by now...

Salazar, whose team members' running footsteps could no longer be heard, grinned. He felt he was doing a pretty good job, at least much better than that dim-witted Crab. If he had known this earlier, he should have rushed ahead of that guy to tangle with this monster for a while~

Yet, it seemed he had almost reached his limit...

The lizardman with deep blue scales attempted to lift his left hand, but his body provided no feedback at all. This was expected, however; after all, his muscles were almost completely severed and his meridians slashed to shreds. It would be abnormal if he could actually lift it.

His right eye was blinded. Previously, just because the intense pain caused his movements to distort slightly, the fellow in front of him had directly crushed his pupil. Fortunately, he had jerked his neck back in time, otherwise he might have already fallen ten seconds ago.

His vision became a blur, and the slightly swaying figure in front of him could no longer be discerned. Taunting laughter echoed from all directions—not because his perception had fallen into chaos, but due to some deceptive footwork or other technique. In short, there was completely no way to properly judge the enemy's position now...

"Hey, little lizard, care to make a deal with me~" Banner's voice, sounding near and far at the same time, rang out beside him: "Let me pass, and I'll leave your corpse intact."

Thirty-five seconds...

Salazar desperately widened his remaining right eye. His pupils, largely covered in bloody grime, blinked slightly and re-locked onto Banner's position. Using a throat that had several times nearly been severed straight through, he let out a hoarse laugh and said, "Leave my corpse intact? Heh, if you said you'd spare my life, we could still consider it."

"Alright." Banner agreed readily. The way he spoke was very strange, which caused the voice that should have sounded immediately to have a slight delay, making it drift and elusive: "But I can't guarantee whether I'll settle accounts afterwards, you know."

Forty seconds!

Salazar let out a light breath, struggling to regulate his breathing. At this moment, every sliver of power was exceptionally precious, but even for a monk whose passive recovery ability was the most prominent, there was a limit. The "qi" within his body, which had once moved as smoothly as his own arm, was now completely in disarray. Although it was still stubbornly repairing his body—ruined like a broken doll—the effect was infinitely approaching zero.

Fortunately, it was still not zero!

Feeling that tiny bit of strength he could summon, Salazar slowly tilted his neck toward Banner: "Settle accounts afterwards?"

It was only forty-four seconds; this distance was still too dangerous. With this monster's speed, catching up to the others could be considered effortless. Therefore, he had to stall a bit longer, even if for just one second! Every extra second meant another fraction of safety for them!

"Want to stall?" Banner raised his hands once more. Six blades, seemingly inexhaustible, reappeared between his fingers as he said in a cold voice, "You have one second left to think."

Salazar sighed: "Fine, I've finished considering—"

Poof!!

Three silver sharp blades instantly pierced straight through his left chest, and then viciously twisted a circle. Banner's gloomy whisper sounded in Salazar's ear: "Sorry, you spoke a bit too slow~"

There was a reason why he had delayed here with Salazar for nearly a minute. Although Banner could have instantly killed this blue-skinned lizardman if he wanted to, he had always been somewhat wary of a certain technique that even a junior monk could master.

For example, Touch of Karma!

Under the premise of preparation, it could proportionately reflect damage back to the attacker, and most of the force could be retained. Banner, however, was an assassin whose raw strength and physical attributes were not entirely balanced. Although he did not fear Salazar's attacks, he could not simply ignore his own lethality.

He had long since made up his mind to slaughter this group of annoying small fry, so he did not intend to bypass Salazar to chase down Ned and the others. Besides, although the latter were not overwhelmingly strong, their reaction speeds were not slow either...

However, the most important point was that Banner thoroughly enjoyed the game of cat and mouse. The feeling of watching his prey successively die in despair never grew old!

When they realized that those bonds were meaningless and those struggles were worthless, the sense of despair generated was no less than a cup of iced dragonberry wine under the scorching sun!

Still, it was about time. This short minute had pushed this lizardman to his limit and was enough to let those little mice fleeing for their lives catch a glimmer of hope.

The rest was simply... tearing them to pieces!

Whether it was the lizard in front of him who could no longer concentrate, or the hope of those little mice!

Yet...

"No, it's you who moved too fast."

Salazar, whose heart should have already been pulverized, did not fall. Instead, he grabbed Banner's left wrist with a death grip.

"You—!" Banner's reaction was swift. The moment Salazar grabbed his wrist, he shattered that blood-stained claw. However, with the opponent's premeditated determination, he was ultimately a fraction of a second too slow!

A surge of kinetic energy, brimming with purple lightning like electric current, spread from Salazar's chest onto Banner, slowing down his movements by less than a second due to numbness.

Thirty seconds! (1/3)

"Spinning Qi Blast!"

Salazar's body, which hardly had a single intact spot, burst with countless sprays of blood almost instantly. The application method of this near-self-destructive technique yielded immediate results; the moment it was triggered, it almost completely tore the user's body apart.

Spinning Qi Blast was not some high-difficulty skill that was hard to master. Its principle was simple: it detonated the qi energy—either guided or stimulated—outside the body, unleashing a powerful shockwave while simultaneously producing a splash damage effect that spread out like spinning blades.

What if the detonated qi energy belonged entirely to the monk's own body, rather than the tiny fraction that was merely stimulated?

The answer was self-evident...

The berserk and out-of-control qi energy would destroy every single place within the monk's body containing "qi" during the first round of the explosion, and then, after secondary destruction, radiate outward into the surroundings!

Banner, delayed twice, ultimately failed to dodge in time. Under Salazar's near-suicidal attack method, he was swept through by the raging torrent of the exploding qi vortex...

Meanwhile, Salazar, whose internal organs had practically been blown to pieces, fell straight backward onto the ground. Beneath him lay a spiral ring of blood, resembling a blooming crimson flower—harrowing and brilliant.

He could no longer feel pain; his whole body felt light and weightless...

Before Crab kicked the bucket, was this what it felt like?

Mm, not too bad.

Tsk tsk, thought everything was fine just by aiming for the vitals... As it turned out, I shifted my heart aside long before you struck. Although doing this meant I was definitely going to die a sure death, it at least allowed me to pull off a grand finale after being pierced clean through.

No loss at all. Trading a fatal act of self-mutilation for a few extra seconds of life, and then using a life already gambled away for a self-destruction—the trade-off was simply too profitable...

The sky is so blue~

How strange. Even though I can't feel any pain, I can still experience the comfort of being caressed by a warm breeze...

How I miss basking in the sun with everyone. Though I've always disliked talking and was often called a mood-killer...

Salazar grinned with the corners of his mouth, now exposed with white bone, and slowly closed his eyes.

His hands, hanging by his sides, curled slightly at the same time, and finally extended their thumbs simultaneously—pointing toward the place where Crab had fallen and the direction where the remaining members of the Fenrir Squad had fled, respectively...

He stopped breathing.

After a long while...

Stepping out from a patch of deep shadows, Banner walked over with a ferocious expression. With a kick, he sent Salazar's corpse flying several meters away, tilted his head back to down a bottle of pale purple potion, wiped the corner of his mouth, and gritted his teeth fiercely: "Meaningless struggle... it will only make the companions you want to protect die even more miserably!"

...

Salazar had bought a total of three minutes.

During this time, Ned, Silverna, Mordan, and Ziye ran without uttering a word in the opposite direction of the Marshall Fiefdom. Everyone silently and desperately endured, unsure whether they were enduring the relentless waves of sorrow or the urge to turn back and live or die alongside their comrades... or perhaps both...

As for fatigue and exhaustion—things traded for with the lives of others—there was no need to endure them.

No one spoke along the way. The scene of Crab falling earlier still lingered vividly before their eyes, and the chances of Salazar—who had stayed behind alone just minutes ago to entangle with Banner—surviving were practically... No, thinking rationally, it was zero...

Yet, even Mordan and Ziye, the two most rational players, were unwilling to dwell for even a second on the scenery they had left behind.

"Stop for a moment..." Ned, who broke the silence first, suddenly halted before a giant tree. He propped his notched sword onto the ground, looked at the three who had also stopped, and suddenly smiled faintly: "I'm a bit tired."

Silverna immediately reached out to pull him: "Captain, you..."

"So you guys go on first." Ned actually sat down right where he was: "I'm really tired~"

Mordan walked up to him and said softly: "Do you want Crab and Salazar's sacrifices to be in vain?"

Ziye did not turn back, but also spoke in a low voice: "Who do you think they did this for... Hurry up and get up, I still have a few scrolls in my hands..."

"They won't be in vain." Ned interrupted with a smile: "Two kilometers south of Folded Rock City, there is a section of an abandoned path from years ago. Because the village at the other end of the road was deserted long ago, the magic crystal lamps along that road were also abandoned. Inside one of the lamps with three engraved marks at the bottom, there is something. I need you to survive, find it, and hand it to the chieftain of the Fireclaw Fiefdom."

Silverna was slightly startled: "That is..."

Thirty seconds! (2/3)

"Intelligence and evidence concerning the capture and trafficking of slaves." Mordan sighed softly: "Am I right?"

Ned nodded, a faint smile still lingering on his face: "This is the final wish of Crab, Salazar, and the me you all unconditionally chose to believe in..."

"I understand." Silverna, whose emotions had been on the verge of collapsing, suddenly calmed down and spoke softly: "Your wish will be fulfilled..."

With that, the beautiful elven girl stuck out her tongue at the two players: "You guys hurry and go."

"You!" Ned was about to speak when he suddenly felt a gentle coolness on his cheek—Silverna had lightly kissed him.

"If you wish to be the final casualty of this tragedy," Silverna smiled gently, "at least let me accompany you. Do not refuse, otherwise it would be too impolite to a young lady."

For a moment, Ned didn't know what to say...

Meanwhile, Mordan clenched his teeth fiercely, then grabbed Ziye: "Let's go!"

"What are you doing!" The latter fiercely resisted, her flushed face covered in tear tracks as she cried out with reddened eyes: "I'm not leaving!!"

There is an enduring saying called "onlookers see clearly"...

When we watch movies or read many literary works, we often curl our lips upon seeing characters where one insists on leaving and the other refuses, silently cursing them as "idiots." After all, since the person volunteering to stay behind has already decided to sacrifice themselves to buy time for their lover, companions, or family, logically speaking, the latter should cherish that sacrifice and make a resolute and "correct" decision rather than lingering and wasting the former's good intentions...

Yet, all of this is "logically speaking"—it is "rational" and "correct."

And these very things often run counter to so-called "human nature"...

Human beings have never been purely rational creatures, nor do they only make correct choices. It is precisely these "foolish" traits that make our human identity complete.

Readers can be rational...

Audience members can be rational...

Passersby can be rational...

Because the people in those stories have nothing to do with us; they are merely names, the faces of movie stars, or a few simple, pale words.

Ultimately, no matter how immersed we are, we cannot truly be in their shoes to experience the emotions of those characters.

So, were the characters who acted as parties involved not foolish?

No, they were still foolish, impulsive, and incorrect. But this might not be because they lacked reason or threw tantrums; rather, it was due to things called "affection," "conviction," or "principles" at work.

Mordan could understand because he had experienced much... Although his personality at this moment was not unique, he could still think rationally.

Yet, no matter how smart, how genius, or how proficient in psychology Ziye was...

In the end, she was only an introverted, closed-off, and solitary girl.

She had already been rational enough, at least trying her absolute best...

But everything has its limit. In front of these NPC companions who were no different from real people, she no longer wished to keep "running" away. Even if it was self-deception, she wanted to live and die together with everyone.

Every day in the past, she had only been accompanied by that slightly clumsy artificial intelligence. In this place called the Fenrir Squad—she, a girl who almost never had contact with the outside world, had felt a warmth she had never experienced before.

And right now, that warmth was gradually drifting away from her...

Therefore, this legendary figure who reigned supreme in the hacker world, this veritable genius girl, this person who constantly talked about "AI" and "data," was now behaving just like an ordinary girl...

She didn't want to leave...

Not even a little bit... She didn't want to leave this fragmented "home" called Fenrir...

Chapter Sixty: End

Thirty seconds! (3/3)