Chapter 0529: Tale Of A Small Village
Wow!
A greenish-gray mist hung outside the town walls, coiling around the perimeter like an ethereal concertina wire. Within the smoke, figures flitted here and there, and the villagers' eyes darted back and forth, desperately trying to track their movements.
Finally, they emerged from the gloom, wolf-like creatures with eerily human faces and four limbs looking like human hands.
Their human eyes glittered with feral malice, fixed on the walls that were keeping them out.
They prowled the outside perimeter, held temporarily at bay by a faint, golden light that covered the walls. The source of this power was a Golden Tiger Talisman that floated in mid-air, surrounded by small, golden fangs.
Occasionally, an Other would cry out like a baby and then leap on the talisman.
And the fangs would immediately shred it into black pulp.
This resulted in a growing pile of foul pulp-sludge at the bottom of the talisman, which was horrid to look at.
A disturbance in the mist. The villagers shrank back fearfully, and a tall man-wolf walked out. This one had two faces!
"A two-faced man-wolf!" the villagers shouted in dismay.
"Commander, we're doomed now! The tiger talisman probably can't hold it!" They looked towards a middle-aged man with a grim face for guidance. He pumped a well-muscled arm.
"We have to hold the line, no matter what!" he exhorted. "If we fail here, everyone in the village will die! I don't want my mom to be eaten by all those foul things. Do it for your families! Come on!" The others nodded grimly and tightened their grips on their weapons, summoning what resonant power they could.
He heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing the morale go back up and then turned back to the front with a frown.
This man's name was Huang Lou. He was an Earth Fiend cultivator, at the first Fiend Palace Tier. He was a city defense commander in the Blackwind Empire's heyday. But all of that had disappeared into smoke once the Other Disaster had broken out.
Order in the empire had fallen almost overnight.
All the powerful factions with a place to flee to were already fleeing without a backwards glance.
He had left the city where he worked as well, bringing some close friends with him and establis.h.i.+ng a new base in this hamlet. But eventually, the Other Disaster spread here as well.
With his Fiend Palace Tier strength and the Golden Tiger Talisman that he had stolen from the city rulers, he had managed to protect this village up till now.
But before long, the Others grew stronger.
And now the two-faced man-wolf.
His instincts told him that it was trouble. Big trouble.
Could they hold out even with the lower gold-eye treasured artifact that was their Golden Tiger Talisman?
The two-faced man-wolf made a keening baby's cry, and the other man-wolves rushed forward as one.
The green-gray smoke moved forward with them, bringing with it a nauseous stench in the air.
Huang Lou immediately activated the Golden Tiger Talisman.
Roar!
A golden tiger leaped out from the talisman and roared a ring of power that vaporized all of the man-wolves.
But the Others showed no fear. They were single-minded killing machines, charging on even as their comrades fell.
More and more man-wolves came surging on, and the tiger's roar rang out a little more weakly with each pulse of power. It did not have infinite energy.
And just as the tiger started to weaken, the two-faced man-wolf leaped forward. Both of its mouths shot a jet of sticky, black sludge that flew like arrows, timed perfectly to hit the golden tiger in between roars.
Hooo!
The tiger whined in pain, and its golden light was extinguished by the black sludge. It disappeared back into the talisman.
Now there was a new purplish-black stain on the talisman, as though it had suffered corruption.
"d.a.m.n it all!" Huang Lou swore, hurriedly stowing the Golden Tiger Talisman away.
Without the golden barrier to protect them, the way was clear. The two-faced man-wolf led the way, brackish saliva dripping down its jaws as it made its eerie, baby-like screams.
"Prepare yourselves!!" Huang Lou cried, drawing his sword.
They were the last line of defense for this village. If they were broken here, the village would be slaughtered completely.
"Charge!!" The few dozen defenders on the wall shouted, in part to try and blow away their fears. They had faced the Others many times before, and many of their comrades had fallen before their very eyes. They had watched once-beloved brothers warp and twist before them, turning into monsters.
Behind them, other villagers were watching in abject terror. They knew that if the defenders fell, all of them were in for horrible deaths.
No, compared to being corrupted by the Others, perhaps dying was the far more preferable option.
Boom!
Huang Lou's gray-white resonant power flared into life as he watched the two-faced man-wolf charge straight at him, then his skin hardened.
He was a stone resonance user.
Bang!
Huang Lou led the charge, his sword in hand as he chopped down powerfully at the head of the two-faced man-wolf.
The two-faced man-wolf blocked it with a human hand that had wolf claws for fingers. Putrid bile dripped from the fingernails.
Clang!
The clash of steel on claws sent sparks flying.
Huang Lou's face changed. He could feel the monstrous strength behind his foe's defense. As a stone resonance user, physical strength was supposed to be his specialization, but even so, he could feel that he was completely outcla.s.sed here.
Bang!
The claws flicked out with brutal strength.
Huang Lou was sent flying backwards, cras.h.i.+ng hard into the castle wall. A crack appeared on the wall and blood dribbled out from his mouth.
"Commander!" The hapless cries from his men.
Huang Lou staggered to his feet. From their first clash, he could tell that the two-faced man-wolf was probably an Earthly Disaster-cla.s.s, equivalent to a Fiend Body Tier expert, the second tier of the Earth Fiend stage.
"This is going to be troublesome," he muttered to himself. As a Fiend Palace Tier expert himself, he would have to go all out against an enemy that was a tier higher than himself. Regardless of the result, he would pay a heavy price here.
It might well be his last fight.
He did not fear death, but there were many people in the village that he had hoped to protect, including his infirm mother who could not walk far.
"This is life, and this will be death. The circle is unbroken." Huang Lou sighed. He lifted his sword and watched the two-faced man-wolf's eyes turn red. Its fur bristled and turned a blood-red color.
The next clash was about to break out, when a blinding golden light suddenly lit up on the horizon.
A single blazing comet of gold was flying against the velvet-blue night sky, like a wis.h.i.+ng star had come to their rescue.
A cool voice came from behind it.
"World of Light."