Chapter 18: Could you lend me a hand

Asa sprinted forward.

Three cavalrymen raised their swords and charged at him, shouting as if they were hunting prey. The tone of the envoy from earlier had made them eager to achieve merit.

As they closed in, Asa raised his hand and a fireball struck one cavalryman squarely in the face. The cavalryman tumbled off his horse, and the other two cavalrymen were taken by surprise. This gave Asa a chance to leap onto one of their horses, and use the horse's head as a springboard to vault over them and continue his charge.

Ahead lay the circle of cavalrymen who were slaughtering the villagers. The grass had already been soaked red with blood, and the villagers' screams were starting to diminish. Asa dashed straight into the chaos, leaped onto a horse, and swiftly struck down two more cavalrymen. The remaining cavalrymen immediately panicked, their formation scattering as they attempted to regroup against him. Asa seized the opportunity to burst through the gap in their ranks.

The envoy and local official Dorte were ahead watching the carnage from their horses. It was impossible for Asa to fight so many cavalrymen alone. He needed to control their commanders first.

Before the two officials could react, Asa rushed forward, pulling them off their horses with one hand each. He immediately placed his blade against the envoy's throat and shouted, "Don't move!" The cavalrymen immediately froze.

Among the blood-soaked ground, only a few children remained standing, covered in blood and crying, evidently uninjured for now. The villagers had shielded the children behind their bodies. Only the hunter, Levin, had managed to wrest a weapon from one of the cavalrymen, struggling valiantly even as he had sustained several wounds, kneeling on the ground and gasping for breath. The low moans of the wounded echoed through the clearing.

Surprisingly, the envoy, held at knife-point, did not seem overly panicked; he maintained a scholarly demeanor and authoritative tone, speaking condescendingly, "You wouldn't dare harm a single hair on my head. The soldiers here all see you; if you dare to harm a envoy appointed by His Majesty, you will become a wanted criminal throughout the entire empire. And even your family…"

He was suddenly interrupted mid-sentence by a scream more agonized than that of a dying animal as Asa broke one of his fingers, coldly saying, "I've never been interested in harming anyone's hair."

After a few moans, the envoy struggled to retain his composure, trying to speak with a haughty tone. "How dare you harm a man of God? Such a crime will lead to—"

He was cut off again by a sharp pain in two of his fingers, the joints suddenly wrenching at unnatural angles, sending shocks of agony through his arm, causing it to spasm uncontrollably. He let out another animal-like scream.

"Tell them to dismount and drop their weapons. Now!" Asa tightened his grip on the envoy's fingers.

"Dismount! Drop your weapons!" The envoy screamed, tears, snot, and spit covering his face.

The cavalrymen hesitated for a moment, then all hurriedly dismounted, casting aside their weapons in fear.

Asa glanced over at the remaining villagers, noticing several were seriously injured. Even if he let them escape, they wouldn't get far.

He released the envoy's hand and pressed the blade tighter against his throat, demanding, "Do you have any seals, documents, or tokens? Show them to me."

"I—I do!" The envoy stammered, trembling as he reached into his robe and pulled out a seal, appearing more submissive than a well-behaved child.

Rodhart had finally managed to sit up. Seeing the corpses strewn across the ground, his heart sank. Just the day before, he had been excitedly fostering hope among these villagers. Now they were being slaughtered like livestock in the very place they had longed to call home. He buried his face in his hands, shaking his head slowly, his voice choked with grief, "How could this happen…"

Asa suddenly kicked him in the face, yelling, "If you want to cry, go somewhere else! Are you trying to cry these people to death here?" Asa moved slightly, and the blade sliced a shallow cut across the envoy's throat, eliciting a horrified scream from him, soaking his trousers.

Rodhart, knocked to the ground by the kick, rolled several times before lying still on the grass. After catching his breath, he suddenly stood up.

His eyebrows knitted together in anger, he bit his lip so hard it drew blood. His face, streaked with tears, twisted into a tragic yet heroic expression. He swiftly picked up the seal, hurriedly tending to the wounded villagers, leading them to a few horses.

Asa noticed the remaining horses of the cavalry and turned to Hunter Levin, asking, "Are you badly hurt? Can you move?"

"I'm not dead yet," Levin replied, holding his wounds, blood oozing from several deep gashes, but he was strong enough to withstand the pain. Asa signaled him to approach and placed a hand over his wounds, exerting his utmost in a healing spell. Although he wasn't very experienced in healing magic, this was the best he could do.

He instructed Levin, "Drive all the horses away, as far as possible. The farther, the better." The village was far from the city, and riding would take at least half a day. As long as he drove the horses away, even if he lost control of the situation, it would buy the fleeing villagers some time.

As Levin turned to herd the horses, he passed by Dorte and suddenly stopped to beat him ruthlessly, only stopping when he had left Dorte crumpled on the ground. He then resumed driving the horses away.

Watching Rodhart lead the villagers to safety and Levin drive the horses into the forest, Asa finally let out a breath of relief. The suppressed rage he had been holding in finally erupted as he seized Dorte by the neck, yanking him over to kneel beside the envoy, placing the knife across their throats, demanding, "I've decided to execute one of you; the other will serve as a hostage. You two decide amongst yourselves who deserves to die."

"He deserves to die!" Both men shouted in unison.

"It was his idea to kill all the bandits; I'm just a minor official, I only followed his orders," Dorte stammered, his body shaking, his voice sounding like a pig squealing in fear. "I'm just a small official. It was all his doing!"

"I'm skinnier than him; I'd make a better hostage," the envoy piped up, realizing he had to emphasize his own advantages. He lifted his injured hand, which had already been broken by Asa, as if showcasing an impressive accomplishment. "See, look at me, I'm in this state! I… I don't want to die…" Tears and mucus flowed freely down his face.

Neither of their pleas nor their pitiable expressions fazed Asa. Unbeknownst to him, a figure in a red robe, originally standing at the edge of the Whispering Forest, had silently approached. He stepped into the midst of the villagers' corpses, unnoticed by the cavalrymen, who had lost their bearings entirely.

Dorte, who had originally been kneeling on the ground, suddenly found the courage and strength to spring up and run toward the figure in the red robe. He scrambled to the red-robed person's side and knelt, saying, "Sir, I've done as you instructed. I buried all the condemned prisoners from the city here."

The figure in red stood up and nodded, saying, "Yes, I have received the corpses. You've done well."

Dorte pleaded, "I know you're a magician; I've seen you use incredible magic. Please save the envoy from that thug!" He realized that even if he could save himself, if the envoy died, he would also be doomed. He had clearly heard the dozens of people here passing the buck just a moment ago.

The figure in red ignored him, gazing up at the sky.

Dorte reached out and grabbed the red-robed's hand, begging, "I implore you, you can have as many corpses as you want…" He suddenly fell silent as he saw the hand pulled out from within the red robe.

That was definitely not a hand that a living person could possess; rather, it looked like a rotting old glove worn over a skeletal hand. Through the tattered parts, the bone was visible—not white, but a deep gray, reminiscent of dead fish eyes.

"Sorry, I'm very busy," the red-robed man murmured, still staring at the sky. But that hand, which looked nothing like a hand, had already grasped Dorte's wrist, the dry bony joints sinking deeply into Dorte's fat, pale hand, as if squeezing a lump of over-fermented dough.

Dorte stared, watching his own hand, his mouth probably open wider than it ever had in his life. But anyone could see he wasn't in pain; he was in terror.

His once plump and white hand quickly shriveled up, like a leaf of lettuce wilting on a stove.

He probably tried to scream, perhaps something like a wail, but all that escaped his throat were strange gasping sounds. It wasn't him calling out; it was the air being expelled from his lungs as they withered. His entire body began to shrink like a deflated balloon. Everyone could clearly see how the flesh on his face slowly contorted and collapsed until it clung to the bones. Yet, his eyes still darted around, moving left and right, up and down. The muscles in his face had completely withered away, leaving his eyes to move about aimlessly, revealing nothing but that he was still alive, experiencing the slow process of dying.

Finally, even his eyes came to a stop. In just a few breaths, the once plump and pale Dorte had turned into a desiccated corpse.

The red-robed man released him with a sigh, as if he had just drunk a cup of not-so-good tea. He continued to stare up at the sky.

The sun above still shone brightly, casting warmth and light down onto the ground, treating even this suddenly bizarre grass with equal indifference.

Suddenly, a shadow appeared at the edge of the sun.

The red-robed lowered his head and shouted in a hoarse yet clearly excited voice, "Here it comes! This gate that opens once in a hundred years is finally opening." He casually raised that hand that didn't resemble a hand, as if beckoning to a pet. "Everyone, let's get to work."

The villagers who had fallen in pools of blood suddenly began to writhe, slowly rising to their feet one by one. Some had gaping holes in their chests, while others had necks and heads that were barely attached, maintaining the postures they had fallen in.

Witnessing this spectacle, the cavalrymen let out sounds usually heard only from women's throats. Several of them immediately collapsed, while the majority turned and ran. But as they turned around, they saw that the grass was cracking open in several places, with rotten corpses crawling out. These were the heretics that Dorte had specially buried here over the past half month. For a silver coin each, Dorte had killed with great zeal, burying more than two hundred corpses in this small patch of grass.

"Since you've come, you shouldn't leave. Everyone, please help me," the red-robed smiled at Asa. "Young man, could you also lend me a hand?"