Chapter 16: The Bane

Sunier jumped down from the tree, looking up at the sky and mumbling: “Something’s wrong!”

“What’s wrong?” Cessacioun asked quickly.

“The human-faced eagles came from that direction, and they should have come back after such a long time, unless…”

They gaped at each other dumbfoundedly. The only possibility was that all the fifty or sixty human-faced eagles had been killed! But, who would have such great power?

“Let’s go and have a look.” Han Jin said lightly. He’s still thinking about the magic crystals contained in those human-faced eagles.

“No, don’t be hurry…” Cessacioun’s face was full of hesitation. In this world, sometimes human beings were fiercer than holy animals. Since those unknown guys had the ability to kill all these human-faced eagles, they could also wipe them out with minimum effort.

“The fight there has been over for a long time.” Sunier said slowly.

“How can you be so sure?” asked Cessacioun.

“My hearing is always good.” Sunier replied with confident expression.

“Then let’s go and take a look.” Moxinke said.

Han Jin woke Steelberg up and they climbed towards the top of the mountain one following the other. The sunlight of the noon plummeted down, sweeping away all the haze and darkness along the road, making the marching speed of the group much faster.

About half an hour later they had arrived at the top of the mountain. Below them some parts of the mountain were quite abnormal. There were some blank places among the lush and dense woods, such blanks would only be formed by cutting down all the trees.

Though they had made their mental preparations, the messes of the battlefield still shocked them. Blood flowing like streams, bodies of both human-faced eagles and human beings were lying everywhere, most of which were incomplete. The scene with the limbs, heads, broken flesh, and the internal organs mingled with dirt and sand was so miserable for any one to bear seeing.

Faced with such a mess, their psychological qualities were tested. Han Jin and Sunier were the calmest. Cessacioun knitted his brows and tried to turn his head away. While Moxinke was apparently a bit of nervous when seeing such a bloody scene. The least gutty one was Steelberg. He was almost falling into a swoon. His body was shaking and his lips were trembling.

Sunier suddenly stopped in front of the group and observed the cracks on the ground carefully. All cracks were a feet in depth and about ten feet in length with rather smooth edges. She lowered her voice: “They have at least one high grade fighter.”

Moxinke leaned his body to have a clearer look at those cracks and then nodded his head slowly. The difference between a swordman and a fighter is that the latter has grasped the technique of fighting, while the force of fighting technique may be exerted only after one has substantialized his fighting strength into his foundation. The formation of sword radiance and the protective fighting strength are symbols of substantialization of one’s fighting strength. Such deep and smooth cracks on the ground could only be formed by sword radiance. At least Moxinke himself was unable to produce them.

“This way.” Cessacioun waved his hand as he found a road with blood. Those people might have retreated along this road while still fighting.

The group searched forward along with the road of blood. Sunier’s eyes were dazed slightly. Both of her temples protruded, as if something was hidden under her blond long hair. But at this moment, no one noticed this.

On the road there were all bodies of human-faced eagles, barely were there bodies of human beings. Obviously the weak human beings had been killed in the initial fighting, leaving behind the strong ones.

When they nearly reached the end of the road after turning right, a boulder two-man tall blocked their way. On this small square with an area of around several tens of square meters, ten-odd bodies of human-faced eagles were lying. And in the pool of blood there were also some bodies of human beings, two of which were totally shapeless.

At the bottom of the boulder leaned a man with a tall figure. His soft armor was intact, an overwhelming giant axe thrust into the ground beside him shakily. The upper part of the man’s head was away. Beside him was disordered flesh and bones. The boulder was red by blood. What a miserable scene. Around fifteen or sixteen meters away there lay another man. His body was wounded all over. A giant human-faced eagle crept on him. Its sharp beak thrust into his throat, while his left hand grabbed the neck of the human-faced eagle and his right hand stabbed a sword into the body of it.

“He’s not dead!” Sunier gave a little exclamation and stepped forward quickly.

The man who had tried to die together with the human-faced eagle was awakened by the sound. He opened his eyes hardly and tried to sit up when he saw the people in front of him. Moxinke hold down his shoulder quickly and said: “Don’t move, you are badly injured!”

In fact, it didn’t matter whether the man moved or not. His chest was almost penetrated and the weakly jumping heart could be seen. No one could save him, even the Kingpriest could do nothing for him.

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The soldier opened his mouth and tried to say something, but a puff of blood spurt out and choked his words. He had to lift his left hand quiveringly and then pointed at a bag at his waist.

Moxinke put his hand into the bag and fumbled out some magic crystals with the properties of fire and earth as well as a shabby book covered by sheepskin. His pupils shrunk suddenly. The two words on the left side of the book read: Fighting Technique. And on the right side, there read the words “River of Stars”.

Then the soldier moved his left hand with difficulty and pointed to the boulder before he suddenly grabbed Moxinke’s collar and stared at him. He tried to utter something, but no words spitted from his mouth. His wide opened eyes were full of praying, and his unwillingness to die and anxiousness face made Han Jin and the others feel grieved deeply.

“Ah…” Finally he spit out a word with no meaning. This became his last word. An arrow of blood shoot from his mouth to Moxinke’s face. Then his eyes dimmed, only the hand was still clutching Moxinke’s collar tightly.

“River of Stars, Fighting Technique. It seems that you have very good luck today, Moxinke.” Sunier said lightly.

Moxinke raised his head suddenly and glared at her. He was in extremely bad mood at this moment. All this tragedy was caused due to him. If he had not attacked the two human-faced eagles, nothing would happen. Though those people didn’t know why the human-faced eagles attacked them, he knew, and that’s enough. He couldn’t cheat himself. Guilty filled in his heart. Thus the normal dialogue in the past was now stinging his heart like needles.

“Someone’s behind the boulder.” Han Jin said in a low voice. His eyesight swept from the decapitated corpse and suddenly lit up. But in a flash he regained his calm.

Moxinke was stunned and then stood up quickly and strode towards the boulder. As expected, it was dark when looking through the gap between the boulder and the mountain. There must be a hole.

Moxinke dragged the headless body aside before he went to one side of the boulder and put his hands on it. The radiance of fighting strength appeared around his body. He roared: “Open!!”

The boulder began to shake more and more fiercely. Finally it rolled away and crashed down an oak tree three inches in thickness. On the mountain wall a hole one meter in height was seen.

Moxinke stooped and got into the hole. A moment later his anxious cry came out from inside: “Come in, quick! Raphael!”

Han Jin rushed inside immediately after hearing Moxinke’s shouting and saw, through the sunlight outside, a woman lying on the ground. He understood why Moxinke called him to come in at the first beginning. The woman was none other than Miss Keeley, whom he had talked about with Moxinke a few days ago.

A bitter smile crept on Han Jin’s face. He gazed at Moxinke. The first time he tried to help Miss Keeley, one of her servant was killed. Now Moxinke stole a back-feathered lizard from the human-faced eagles, and she suffered such calamity. Would it be that this was her unlucky year, or that Moxinke and he were her banes.

Sunier also got into the hole from outside: “What happened?” She asked.

“We … … We know her.” Han Jin stuttered.

Sunier squatted down and touched the neck of Miss Keeley before she turned over her eyelids, and said: “She was just knocked out.”

“Take her out first.” Han Jin said to Sunier.

“Such a good thing, you don’t do it by yourself?” Sunier joked.

“I’m in no mood for joking.” Han Jin’s expression was cold. Though he was quite mature in terms of mentally bearing capacity, he was not sure if Moxinke had the same ability to endure extreme negative emotions. He worried that if Sunier joked more, Moxinke would be irritated and even fight against her.

Sunier muted. She bent down and held up Miss Keeley: “I’m sorry, but … … things have happened. We’d better think about the rehabilitation.” Then she left the hole.

Back under the sunlight, Han Jin felt it was too glaring and said: “Let’s change a place. I am afraid she can’t stand it when she wakes up.”

“You are right, careful man.” Sunier nodded.

“What’s going on?” Cessacioun came to them and found the emotion of Han Jin was strange and Moxinke’s face was totally blue.

“Eh? Isn’t this Miss Keeley?” Steelberg exclaimed.

Cessacioun was stunned for a while and came to understand immediately. He was not stupid. The women in Sunier’s arm was none other than Miss Keeley, the friend of Han Jin and Moxinke. His face color changed too. If Han Jin and he didn’t object to the assistance, things might not gone like this.