Chapter 306: Ran Away?
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Hao Ren still remembered the first time he saw Hesperides. Based on his impression, she was a slightly gloomy, mature sister with a steady temperament. But now, seeing her again gave him a fright. Hesperides looked as frightening as a hungry ghost who crawled out from hell. She had a visible, murderous aura around her body; her eyes were red and her voice was hoarse. The giant mace in her hand was covered in blood, which kept dripping to the ground. Vivian covered her eyes and whispered, "The second personality…"
"Have you seen the one-eyed man?" Hesperides looked as if she had gone mad but in fact, she had no problems indentifying the things around her. She stared at Hao Ren and Vivian, then said in a hoarse voice, "Leave him to me, leave him with me..."
"You've been fighting for too long. You should go back and rest." Vivian tried to calm her down but, after getting a vicious look from Hesperides, she shook her head helplessly and said, "The demon hunters didn't come this way. Those bastards, the shadelings are in cahoots with them. We're going to kill Bethanos now—do you want to come?"
"No, I'm going to look for the one-eyed man, I'm going to kill him." A reddish halo gradually rose from Hesperides' "battle stick". Under the shroud of the halo, its surroundings gradually became scorching hot, twisting in the heat. "I can feel it... I can feel him here in this city. It's right this time, it's absolutely right this time. My wound is burning like fire... Ah, the arrow in the wound must have felt the call of its master! It will take me to its bastard owner..."
Hesperides kept talking on and on like a lunatic while a silver glow seeped out the gorgeous jewelry on her forehead. At first, Vivian looked sympathetically at her delirious friend, but when she heard those last few words, her facial expression suddenly changed and she asked, "Wait a minute, you sense it this time?"
"Absolutely." Hesperides covered her forehead and laughed hoarsely. "He's alive, he's here, and he's going to die today!"
After saying this, Hesperides did not give Vivian the opportunity to continue asking her any questions. She turned into a sunset orange glow and dispersed into the air. Hao Ren found it strange and asked, "What's going on? Who's the one-eyed man?"
"The one-eyed man is the demon hunters' 'elder'," Vivian said as she turned and went towards the castle of shadelings. "We don't know what his real name is, we just know that he's blind on one side and he's the one who left the cut on Hesperides' head. I never thought that he would still be alive... For a demon hunter to live until now, he is definitely at least an elder or maybe even a saint..."
After Hao Ren heard this, he immediately asked, "In that case, does Hesperides need our help?"
"There are other elders in this town who will help her. Besides, we have more important things to do," Vivian said without turning her head, "and our top priority now is to catch Bethanos. I got a feeling… he's going to run away soon, and he's going to run far. If we don't catch him this time, it'll cause endless problems in the future."
Hao Ren nodded and stopped talking. However, Vivian could not help but mutter, "I never expected an elder of such level to be leading the demon hunters in purifying this city. What the hell is in this city, that it got them to do this?"
Vivian was still rushing towards the shadelings' castle, but inside, she was getting more and more puzzled. It was already so shocking that demon hunters and unusual creatures were ganging up. Then, to find out that the demon hunters' commander was one of the elders involved in the events of Olympus! It would still be understandable if it was a new generation demon hunter ganging up with the shadelings. But, a veteran demon hunter cooperated with Bethanos?
What the hell was in the city, that it got them to do this?
Vivian frowned. Although she had long neglected things related to unusual creatures, she still thought of a possibility. At the same time, the walkie-talkie on Hessiana's chest sounded again. They received a message from Hessiana's family base. "Mistress! A large number of demon hunters are storming into our side! The enemies in the neighborhood seem to have gathered together!"
"Storming our home?" Hessiana paused for a second and asked, "Did you fire too much and become too much of a threat to them?"
"I don't know. There's also news that the Lucas Family have been hit. The sentinels report that the demon hunters in the city, apart from those maintaining the rifts, have gathered into two troops and they are storming towards us as well as the Lucas Family…"
"Can you guys withstand the attack?" Hessiana frowned and asked.
The voice in the walkie-talkie was very firm. "No problem! Our ammunition is well stocked. The demon hunters are clearly not comfortable with our fighting style, and they haven't worked out an effective assault strategy yet. We have activated all the mines and the demon hunters won't dare to use their teleportation as they like."
Hessiana laughed and said, "Take it easy, don't blow up our own people."
"Are the demon hunters attacking the Hessianite and Lucas Family stations?" Vivian tilted her head, glanced at Hessiana and said, "Looks like I guessed correctly. They're here for the relic... and Bethanos cheated them."
Hao Ren was also pondering about this matter and figured it out at the same time as Vivian: What did the Hessianite and Lucas Family have, which was worth the attention of the shadelings and demon hunters at the same time, that they would come and rob them in such a big way? The answer was very obvious: it had to be the two key slates stolen by Bethanos. Whatever the truth about the ruins was, Bethanos had apparently told the demon hunters that the key slates were in the hands of the two vampire families!
However, the crafty scoundrel did not tell the demon hunters that he had snatched the key in advance.
The shadelings' castle was blazing with flames. After aerial bombings and subsequent attacks from the RPGs, two-thirds of the black castle, which had stood for thousands of years collapsed. Only giant rocks cracked by high temperatures and crumbling rubble were left to struggle and maintain the grand scale of the ancient castle. After the first wave of Daredevils bombed the castle, Hessiana sent another set of troops and the second group dropped a massive amount of white phosphorus bombs as well as a variety of high-performance incendiary bombs. They did not seek to burn the shadelings into ashes, but they wanted to destroy the castle completely. This was Hessiana's style. The seemingly lively little vampire had an exceptionally ruthless side. If she explicitly treated a person as an enemy, she would never stop until the enemy was crushed into powder. She had decided to destroy the shadelings' foundation and not a single brick would be left of it.
Anyway, this was the kind of war that occurred between the unusual creatures. These racially diverse and contradictory creatures were never afraid to completely exterminate their opponents when necessary. Therefore, the shadelings in the castle did not panic when they were confronted by this crazy attack. They did lament about how their home had been destroyed or regretted having brought such a big problemupon themselves. They just fought in silence with a near-numb attitude. The shadelings also managed to cause a lot of casualties among Hessiana's troops as there were disadvantages to air raids.
But that was as much as the shadelings could do. Hessiana's Family was almost as strong as and the family of shadelings. Now, Hessiana had the advantage of her trump card, and part of the shadelings had been successfully blocked by the Lucas Family therefore, the castle's force of resistance was almost done for.
Hao Ren and others passed through the castle's atrium, which was filled with smoke and the garden, which was strewn with corpses of shadelings as well as vampires; they suffered the last wave of attack deep beneath the castle. After Y'zaks blew these half-demons away with his real demon power, Hao Ren kicked the heavy stone door open.
It was also probably the last door in the entire castle that still remained intact—and now, that last door was gone too.
There was no Bethanos in the basement, only a door that was slowly closing and smoke still fuming from the remnants of an altar.
They did not see the key slabs, just some white debris scattered around the altar.
Hessiana trotted towards the altar and found some pieces of metal from the altar's wreckage. She was so angry that she laughed and said, "Haha... He blew up the door with a time bomb. That old bastard still keeps up with the times—but, is he not planning to come back out?"