Azure Scepter

Page 16

The pastor suddenly shivered.

"If you can't write poetry, then don't write it!" he thought to himself.

P.S.: I had classes this morning, did meeting organization at noon, attended a meeting in the afternoon, had dinner in the evening, and then had classes again in the evening. I really just managed to find time to write this...

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Chapter 25 Silencing

The collector rarely speaks, but when he does, it always expresses himself in the form of poetry, and most of these poems are terribly clumsy—Byron never saw the other person rhyme correctly or alliterate.

Reverend Byron suppressed a chill, a sharp smile spreading across his fat face: "Your Excellency, I believe the attackers are likely to take advantage of our impatience and ambush us instead."

"The attackers were not copper dragons, but a group of unknown fourth parties."

"Out of caution, I have chosen to wait and plan to meet with you before making any further plans."

"There is one survivor. I suggest we wait until he wakes up..."

A crimson light flashed through the gap in the collector's visor, and the head beneath the iron gauntlet immediately frowned, interrupting sharply: "Hesitation and cowardice are both poison!"

After saying that, it immediately stretched out its left hand and pointed its human head at the ritual array—its meaning was clear: it must move forward immediately.

Byron sighed helplessly: "Your will."

He had a strange sense of foreboding, so he decided to stay away from the ritual array later.

The collector nodded, and the two crimson spots of light beneath the visor vanished. It lifted Martha's head, intending to stuff it back into the monster made of human heads.

Martha's severed head suddenly screamed, a sharp and desperate tremor that tormented Byron's ears like wooden nails.

Suddenly Martha shouted, "Don't let me go back! I know who attacked the magic circle!"

The collector stopped what it was doing, silently turned its head, and stared at Martha's head.

Byron noticed that Martha's head was displaying a fawning smile, though the smile was horrifying due to the decay of her face.

"It's Trier and..."

“Trier?” The high priest’s impatient subordinate couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Do you know what you’re saying? When I saw him yesterday, he was almost dying. This outsider should be a zombie by now, and maybe Miss Noy has already purified him.”

The collector turned his head, his scarlet eyes peering through the slits at Byron's subordinates.

"That idiot!" Byron felt his mouth go dry.

"He's become a paladin!" Martha seemed to realize something; her voice suddenly quickened, as if she understood this was her last chance for liberation. "And he's skilled in ritualistic spellcasting!"

The subordinate was struck dumb, his mouth agape in astonishment.

Byron noticed the collector was becoming increasingly quiet and quickly interrupted, scolding, "Nonsense! I am the high priest, and in all my years I have never seen anyone spontaneously ascend to the rank of paladin. That is nothing but a fairy tale to deceive the ignorant."

"Besides, even if he really is a paladin, it's impossible for him to suddenly master ritual spells. The difficulty of this discipline is beyond your imagination. Furthermore, even if he really does know ritual spells, it's impossible for him to kill Loft in a few minutes! This is utter nonsense."

The Collector is a true bloodthirsty undead. Although he has many ridiculous quirks in his speech, his actions are not ridiculous at all. On the contrary, he is efficient and ruthless.

His subordinate just said something foolish, which could very well anger the collector, and then there's a high chance his subordinate's head will be ripped off along with his spine, becoming the collector's new possession.

Although Byron knew his argument was completely untenable, he had no choice but to say it in order to protect his subordinates.

Fortunately, the collector nodded in agreement, turned around, and roughly shoved Martha's head back into the Rémy Martin.

“And that elf, and my husband…” Martha’s desperate, shrill voice was swallowed up by the writhing human faces.

“That’s utter nonsense. We know far more about the survivors in the hotel than she imagines,” the priest said to the collector with a smile.

The high-ranking undead remained silent, then draped the horse made of human heads back in white cloth and led a large group of undead toward the ritual array.

Byron, unfazed by the spirit's indifference, sighed and decided to trust his instincts—to stay away from the ritual. He then instructed his men to have the others remain where they were and not to follow the listener and the spirit into the area.

He himself decided to hide in an even more remote place.

By now, Trier had left the south building and was walking lightly along the west street—dwarves and elves were waiting ahead of him.

A large horde of undead had already surged into the explosion-sensing zone, with the strangely shaped undead leading the way, like an invincible champion knight.

There's no need to observe any longer; in a few minutes, they'll be reduced to ashes in the explosion.

“That undead must be the monster the copper dragon mentioned. Its strange appearance definitely isn’t a Boda Corpse,” the paladin thought. “What it is exactly isn’t important, because it’s about to be blown up.”

"This should provide a lot of experience."

"Paladin! Come here quickly!" Suddenly, the dwarf's voice broke his reverie.

He looked up and saw the dwarf staring at him nervously. The dwarf held a thin necklace in his rough hand, which hung in the air and emitted a red glow.

“Martha is nearby!” the dwarf exclaimed excitedly.

“Of course she’s there; her soul and head have been captured by that undead,” Trier thought. “That undead must be a high-ranking, intelligent one, with a rather twisted sense of aesthetics and mind.”

Futia said weakly, "How could this be a good thing? She had already run away, and now that she's suddenly back, she can only be a ghost."

"She loves me."

"Forgive my poor eyesight, but I can't tell." The elf glanced at the paladin, hesitated for a moment, and then continued, "She's probably even more indifferent than Noy."

The dwarf raised his head and tried to look directly at the elf: "Miss Noy is a good person! Martha is a good person too! Evil people cannot help a suffering town—they are both kind people like travelers."

“Kind enough to make the emblem shine,” Trier thought to himself.

The Traveller is also a poem that has been widely circulated in many countries, and its fame is comparable to that of E.B. White, the Master of Eloquence.

White the smooth talker?

Suddenly, a secret idea struck Trier's mind.

"Could that undead be White the Speaker?" he thought. "If White the Speaker is the one who came to hunt the dragon, then the behavior of the copper dragon can be explained. It may be subtly reminding us."

"Given Laurence Rothschild's unique sense of humor, the possibility of this happening is quite high."

“If we don’t think about it this way, it’s really strange that the copper dragon stopped us for no reason and asked us to tell a story. There’s no way to explain its motives.”

“What’s the biggest message of that story?” Trier frowned. He felt as if he was about to grasp some crucial information.

"Mr. Trier, please defend Miss Neu's reputation!"

The dwarf's voice rang out again, instantly interrupting Trier's almost-connected thoughts, and he felt a little irritated.

The blacksmith was too fixated on this pointless question.

The time traveler lowered his head and said in a cold tone, "Fodia is right."

The dwarf stared in disbelief, his mouth agape as if he were under a spell to silence.

After a long pause, the dwarf spoke in a weak, barely audible voice, "You...you don't love her? Ma...Masha..."

“Martha is dead,” Trier interrupted coldly. “I saw her head.”

The dwarf was struck dumb, and he shook his head in despair.

Futia also looked at the paladin in surprise.

"What about Hult and the sergeant?" she asked nervously.

The paladin shook his head: "I didn't see it—please cheer up, we have a tough battle to fight later."

At that moment, Byron was standing on the top floor of a building far from the ceremony, his hands behind his back, gazing at the listeners.

The air carried a faint scent of magic—the familiar scent of negative energy.

Some kind of large-scale spell is in the works.

"High Priest, the survivor has woken up!" His impatient subordinate rushed over and said hastily.

Byron suppressed his unease, turned his head, and said slowly, "Bring him here."

"Brought it!"

A rather burly man strode steadily toward Byron, his nose broken and a prominent bruise on his face, with slight cuts at the edges.

"The back of the sword struck his face at an almost parallel angle, causing him to lose consciousness," Byron concluded immediately.

"High Priest!" The burly man quickly bowed his head.

Before Byron could speak, the burly man continued, "A powerful warrior disguised himself as one of us, infiltrated the vicinity of the ceremony, and then suddenly began the killing."

The high priest nodded slightly.

—It seems to be young Harlan; that young heir is indeed exceptionally skilled in martial arts. But the question is, how did he know the location of the ritual's key point? And how did he manage to sneak in?

Byron said in a deep voice, "Tell me in detail, how did he sneak in? Who brought him in?"

The burly cultist remained unfazed, touching the bruises on his face. "Freg brought him in. I saw through his disguise because I know him. His name is Trier."

My heart suddenly started racing.

“I must not let the listener know about this,” Byron thought.

He reached for the dagger hidden in his sleeve, the cold touch sending a jolt through him.

Byron gave a smile that was the kind of awkwardness that comes with being fat, but it was genuine: "Well done."

The burly man immediately lowered his head, while Byron slowly walked towards him.

Suddenly, the light dimmed, as if the sun had been suddenly blocked out.

The high priest instinctively looked into the distance, and his face immediately showed horror.

"It really exploded!?" That was his first reaction.

"No need to silence them." That was his second reaction.

P.S.: I've been quite busy lately, sorry about that...

Chapter 26 Small Explosion

Suddenly, a dazzling white light rose from the distant constraint node array.

The intense light momentarily stunned Byron, and the world seemed to freeze. But the next moment, the earth began to tremble, twist, crack, and surge! The building on the south side of the magic circle was abruptly cut in half, and the fragments of the building tumbled in the sky like vines growing from a corpse.

The temperature was rising steadily, but strangely, as the heatwave blew across Byron's face, he felt a chill that went deep into his bones.

Time seemed to have passed for a long time, yet it also seemed to have passed in the blink of an eye, when suddenly the world resumed playback from its pause.

The cold, cobalt blue flames burned, and a deathly silence drifted through the streets on the wind. An indescribable stench mingled with the aroma of roasting meat, and everything in Byron's field of vision was tinged with the cold blue flames.

The entire street seemed to have entered a deathly black and white quagmire, with the only color being a chilling blue flame.

“I’m still alive.” Reverend Byron raised his hand in surprise. The dense procession of the dead in the distance had disappeared, and dark, charred shadows were reflected on the ruins of the buildings.

A lone, armored zombie stood on the street, wandering aimlessly before collapsing to the ground with a thud.

Only then did Byron realize that the sun had disappeared—a drizzle of cold, black rain pounded heavily at his feet.

"What happened?" He looked up blankly, raindrops dripping into his eyes, and the pastor shivered.

He hurriedly looked towards the ritual circle, where all 50 carefully selected spirits had completely vanished, leaving only the emaciated Listener standing alone at the center of the explosion.

The next moment, rain accompanied by a cold wind blew, and the listener suddenly turned into a black afterimage. The priest was dazed for a moment, then realized that the last dust of the high-ranking undead's remains had been completely scattered by the wind.

At this moment, he felt neither shock nor fear. The scene before him was so bizarre that his brain had completely shut down, and the numbness and dullness made him feel exceptionally comfortable.

However, with a hysterical, madman-like wail, the priest's mind resumed functioning.

It wasn't until his throat hurt as if someone had shoved a razor blade into it that he realized the frantic roar was coming from himself.

"There was a huge explosion." He blinked, confused. "They're all dead."

The next moment, his thoughts uncontrollably surged towards the cause of the explosion: "Why did it explode?"

“It’s divine punishment.” The brain instantly came to the conclusion. “The Radiance believes that our theory has strayed too far from the right path, so it has decided to carry out divine retribution.”

An uncontrollable smile spread across the pastor's face—this was all too absurd; I must be dreaming!

"Wake up, wake up! High Priest!" The impatient subordinate's voice brought Byron back to his senses.

The tinnitus suddenly exploded in my ears.

"It's Corpse Explosion!" the subordinate shouted.

"Nonsense!" The priest could barely hear his own voice as he instinctively retorted like a zombie, "This is divine punishment!"

“Look at those blue flames, look at the origin of the explosion—that’s an incredible corpse explosion spell with immense power and range!” The subordinate shook the priest’s shoulder. “You taught me this, remember? Caution and patience!”

Byron shuddered violently, as if he had suddenly woken from a nightmare. He suddenly realized a cruel fact—he was not dreaming; everything he saw and heard was cold reality.

"High Priest, what should we do next?" the burly man asked in a steady tone.

The pastor took a deep breath, revealing an expression that suggested he had expected this. He sneered, "Don't worry, everything will remain the same."