Unwillingness

Seeing Chen Cheng, Fini, and the others flush red, already showing signs of being unable to hold on, Pembez, who was tangled up with the big brute, wanted to break away and go help them.

But how could the Alchemist let him have his way? The big brute's enormous body tore up a towering roadside tree and smashed it toward Pembez's back, while his other hand surged with battle aura, forming wave after wave of fist force that hammered toward the back of Pembez's head.

Feeling the icy chill at his back, he could only cast several basic spells that required no chanting at the nearby walking dead before turning around to face the big brute's attack.

Though this monster had no domain, the power generated by the blood and battle aura within him was already comparable to Platinum Rank. Even Pembez, who possessed a domain, would not be able to deal with him in a short time.

Hidden in the shadows, the Alchemist stared fixedly with his narrow eyes at the utterly ordinary Iron Sword at Chen Cheng's waist, because he knew that the supreme divine artifact lay within it.

Though he did not know why the symbolic divine artifact of the Thornflower Kingdom was on such a little slave, when the Alchemist thought of the little emperor Samlet had taken away back then, it seemed that his age was about right.

Yet the next moment, the alchemist laughed at his own thought. With Samlet's temperament and the fierce spirit of the Hops Lineage, they would never possibly come here and become slaves under some insignificant Baron.

If people of the Hops Lineage had possessed the courage to become slaves, then Fifteenth Thorn Blossom and his empress would not have died in the prime of their lives.

The Alchemist's only guess was that, during the pursuit back then, Samlet had discarded this divine artifact, which might have been tracked, in order to shake off his pursuers. Later, it must have been picked up by the slave tribe before him.

Though this guess was rather absurd—for instance, why had the Kingdom of Como's pursuers not found the divine sword and taken it back, or why had Samlet not returned to retrieve it afterward, and so on.

But when it involved a divine artifact, the Alchemist felt that all those reasons became perfectly reasonable.

Because research into divine artifacts within alchemist circles had shown that, in the unseen currents of fate, divine artifacts would leave masters unworthy of possessing them.

Retracting his gaze from the Iron Sword so that his sharp eyes would not provoke the divine sword, the Alchemist then turned his attention to Isabel, who was enduring in silence outside the academy.

He truly had not expected this little girl to be so patient. Was she still waiting for him to appear so she could play the oriole behind the mantis?

The Alchemist could not help admiring Isabel's courage.

Perhaps it was because of that courage that she had lost her leg.

But if Isabel truly threw caution to the wind and confronted him, though she could not defeat him, she could still rely on a warrior's powerful physique to hold him back for a while.

The Alchemist then looked at the instructors who were rushing back to help. He wanted a foolproof plan.

When Chen Cheng wanted to cast another Small Fireball, the flickering Magic Rune within his body dimmed at last. He knew that his magic power had already run dry.

He then looked around. Little Fatty Akasto's chubby face was covered in cold sweat, and he had dropped onto the ground on his butt. Several apprentices of the same grade who had already inscribed Magic Runes were in the same state.

After using up the last trace of her magic power, Fini's body could no longer hold on. She swayed unsteadily, about to collapse.

Seeing this, Chen Cheng hurried to Fini's side and supported her. When Fini looked up and saw it was Chen Cheng, she wanted to say something, but in the next moment, her depleted spiritual power caused her to faint outright.

Looking at her somewhat pale pretty face, Chen Cheng slowly laid her down. He then took out the wooden box Wilson had given him earlier and placed it beside Fini before supporting his weak body and drawing the Iron Sword at his waist.

Looking at the walking dead that was already less than half a meter away, Chen Cheng roared and brought his sword down directly upon its head.

These walking dead had savage faces and moved exactly like the zombies in movies from Chen Cheng's previous life. This swing was less a slash than a smash; the iron shell on the outside had not even been sharpened in time.

After relying on the physique he had built from childhood by eating vicious beast meat and drinking vicious beast milk, a physique stronger than that of ordinary people, to smash several walking dead to death, Chen Cheng finally ran out of strength. Leaning on the Iron Sword, he watched the walking dead charge toward them.

The young warriors from the warrior academy were each surrounded by several living corpses, and they had no spare strength to save him.

Just as Chen Cheng was about to be pounced on by the walking dead, Isabel, hidden in the shadows, saw that the other instructors were already not far away.

In the end, she still did not want Melinda to return and see Chen Cheng dead, then be overcome with grief. She acted after all.

A streak of fiery light flashed past, and the savage walking dead charging forward were instantly split in two from head to toe.

Before the bisected corpses had even fallen, the Alchemist hiding in the dark knew that the foolproof opportunity he had been waiting for had arrived. Isabel had already made the first move, while the instructors rushing back were still some distance away. This was the best moment for him to deliver a single killing blow.

Chen Cheng only felt his vision blur as a face even more terrifying than those of the walking dead appeared before him.

Before he could react in any way, he saw the owner of that face stretch out a hand. Chen Cheng had no time to dodge before it seized the arm he used to hold himself up with the sword.

Then a bone-deep pain struck him. The Alchemist's nails sank deeply into Chen Cheng's flesh, and in the next moment, he was about to tear that arm off.

The Alchemist had waited for this moment for a long time, yet everything happened in the space between a spark and a flint.

As a Gold Rank warrior, Isabel's neural reactions could not be called slow. After swinging her blade to sever a living corpse's head, she immediately tried to change her move and block, but she was still one step too late.

Just as Chen Cheng's arm was about to separate from his body under everyone's horrified gazes, the Alchemist closest to him saw Chen Cheng's chest light up.

The next moment, just as he wanted to seize the divine sword, his body froze. Within his soul consciousness rang an unwilling roar. He had not expected to fail at the final step.

He only thought it was the divine artifact striking back at the malice on him. He believed that as long as he first abandoned his killing intent toward Chen Cheng, then used the emotional power within the Magic Crystal ball to corrupt the divine artifact's spirit, he could still succeed.

But before he could do anything, terror surged up from the depths of his heart.

The Magic Runes and circuits within his puppet body dissipated in an instant. They gave him no chance to resist at all, and this puppet body became scrap just like that.

Only then did he realize that this was not the divine artifact spirit's counterattack at all, because the divine sword had no ability to erase Magic Runes. Otherwise, he would have died long ago when he had peered into the divine artifact through memory.

His thirst for knowledge drove him to want to see clearly what the glowing object on Chen Cheng's chest was. It was a wondrous Magical Item he had never encountered before.

But the collapse of the runes exceeded his imagination. Almost instantly, the runes used to transmit his soul consciousness also began to collapse rapidly, and his soul consciousness started withdrawing from this puppet body at great speed.

All of this seemed to have taken a long time, but less than a second had actually passed.

Everyone only saw the strange man seize Chen Cheng, then, before he could make another move, Isabel reacted and kicked him flying.

Looking at the Alchemist, who had been kicked far away and smashed through a house, Isabel's face was filled with astonishment. She had not even had time to put force into that kick.

The timing and speed with which this man had appeared were enough to show that he was extraordinary, so why had he been kicked away by her so easily?

With doubts in her heart, Isabel did not dare approach rashly. She went to Chen Cheng's side, looked at his bleeding shoulder, and said coldly:

"Your arm isn't broken yet. Cover the wound yourself. Don't bleed to death."

Chen Cheng had not expected Isabel to remain so icy toward him. It was not as if he had ever done anything so heinous.

Chen Cheng did not dare argue too much with the frosty-faced Isabel. Besides, it was thanks to Isabel's kick just now; otherwise, he might have become the Yang Guo of this other world.

His thoughts then wandered, and when he thought of himself and Melinda, he suddenly felt that this plot really did resemble Guo'er's.

Chen Cheng shook the impractical thoughts from his head. At that moment, the smoke and dust slowly dispersed, and everyone fixed their eyes on the scene.

They saw a small figure sitting atop the strange man's body. As the dust cleared further, everyone finally saw the little figure's face.

It was Coles, who had fled long ago and vanished without a trace.

Coles was straddling the Alchemist's body, holding a broken piece of wood in his hand. One end was gripped in his fist, while the other had been driven deep into the Alchemist's heart.