Moonlit Killing

Beneath the black night sky, silvery moonlight spilled down.

Outside the little house, a group of black-clad soldiers who had noticed the commotion in the "pigsty" surrounded the place. But Lynn's overwhelming pressure soon forced them to their knees.

Lynn paid no attention to his surroundings. He raised his left hand high, holding aloft the black-clad soldier who had humiliated Kasa, and looked at Kasa with deep concern.

"Your big brother came too late."

The voice reached inside the little house. Bathed in moonlight, Kasa heard the familiar voice, froze, and tremblingly raised his head.

When he saw that it was Lynn, a flicker of excitement crossed Kasa's pale, weakened face... followed immediately by disbelief.

"B-Big brother." Kasa suddenly smiled, his whole body relaxing.

There was nothing more to say, and nothing more needed to be said.

"I'll take you to get revenge!" Lynn's voice was low and resolute. He pointed a finger, and a sharp stream of Dou Qi sliced through Kasa's limbs, severing all the chains that bound him and restoring his freedom.

Now free, Kasa didn't get up right away. Instead, he looked toward the black-clad soldier in Lynn's grasp and asked:

"Where are you keeping my cousin?"

"N-Next door. P-Please spare me..." The black-clad soldier in Lynn's hand gasped out the words with difficulty, looking at Lynn with pleading eyes.

Lynn turned to look at the soldier. Recalling what Kasa had just endured, he could no longer suppress his anger. He tightened his grip and crushed the soldier's skull with one hand.

Red and white splattered everywhere. Lynn paid it no mind, his expression utterly cold.

"Anyone who touches my brother dies!"

After speaking, Lynn swept his icy gaze over the black-clad soldiers kneeling around them.

"Lord of the Saint Domain, we were only following orders," said a black-clad soldier dressed like a commander, straining against Lynn's pressure, his face tense. "And the person behind us is also a powerful Saint Domain expert. Please spare us."

"Spare you?"

Hearing the plea, Lynn let out a derisive laugh.

People weren't tools. If someone hurt another with a sword, the sword itself was blameless. But if someone ordered another to hurt someone, the one giving the order was guilty. Did that mean the person who actually caused the harm was innocent?

People weren't tools. They had minds of their own.

Now that these black-clad soldiers were facing disaster, they actually hoped to escape Lynn's killing by using that sort of logic. It was laughable. They had been following orders, but did that mean the people they captured deserved to die?

As for the Saint Domain expert the soldier had mentioned, Lynn wasn't afraid in the least. Having comprehended the Fate Law to the limit of the Saint Domain, he feared few Saint Domain experts!

"I've decided to kill you. Not even a Saint Domain expert can save you!"

As Lynn spoke, seven enormous serpents made of flame appeared out of nowhere behind him, and the terrifying heat distorted the air.

"Kill!!"

The seven giant fire serpents rushed toward the soldiers on all sides. Terrifying flames surged as crackling filled the air and the soldiers' cries of agony rang out without pause.

In just a few minutes, blood and flames had consumed the battlefield. The soldiers lay sprawled across the ground, their bodies burned to charcoal, like rows of dry firewood.

Lynn, consumed by rage, had long since lost his usual gentleness. He chose the cruelest way to burn the soldiers around him alive.

At the center of the base, Ming Hong had been sleeping with a tender young woman in his arms when the sound of an explosion woke him.

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"

The beat of war drums, accompanied by the soldiers' tense, hoarse shouts, set Ming Hong's nerves on edge.

"Damn it, which blind fool of a faction is attacking us now?" Ming Hong put on his armor and walked out of his tent, looking impatient.

Unlike the ordinary soldiers, Ming Hong, an Eighth-level Warrior, was already used to attacks like this.

Since the Three-Eye Church had come to the Dark Night Principality and clashed with the local slave factions, the base had been attacked more than a dozen times.

But the Dark Night Principality was not very powerful.

The strongest among the attackers were generally around the level of a Level Seven Mage. Eighth-level Warriors were rare, and only two had appeared so far. These attacks could kill ordinary soldiers at most; they posed no threat to high-ranking Three-Eye Church members like Ming Hong.

"Boom!!"

The pitch-black night was suddenly illuminated by an orange-red glow.

In an instant, daylight replaced the darkness.

As Ming Hong stepped out of his tent, the sudden glare made him squint. In his pupils, he saw enormous fireballs burning across the sky.

In the next instant, the fireballs fell from the dark clouds. Each was as large as a house, its blazing flames dancing as they played a requiem for the dead. Trailing waves of scorching heat, they crashed toward the ground with an overwhelming force.

The watchtowers surrounding the base were the first to be struck. The fireballs hit the ground and became a massive ring of flames, enclosing the entire base.

The tents in the encampment caught fire one after another. The black-clad soldiers were thrown into panic by the sudden "natural disaster" and fled in every direction, but how could mere human bodies outrun the pursuing fireballs?

Guided by Lynn, the fireballs struck the crowds with precision. In mere moments, the base had become a wasteland. Apart from the dungeon holding ordinary people and the pigsty holding mages, every other area had been reduced to ash.

"Is this the Fire-element forbidden spell—Meteor Volcano?"

Kasa had watched Lynn cast the spell from beginning to end. His mouth hung open in shock as he stared at Lynn in disbelief.

"B-Big b-brother, weren't you only a L-Level Seven Mage a year ago? How are you already in the S-Saint Domain?" Kasa was so stunned he could barely get the words out.

Hearing the question, Lynn—who was used to answering it—nearly blurted out, "Luck." Fortunately, he caught himself just in time.

Forcibly stopping his left hand from reaching up to touch his nose, Lynn answered firmly, "Talent and hard work."

"Uh..." Kasa gave Lynn a doubtful look. He couldn't help feeling that his big brother wasn't telling the truth, but he didn't think much of it. After all, Kasa trusted Lynn not to hurt him.

"Let's go home!"

"Yeah!"

Then, wrapped in Lynn's Dou Qi, the two rose into the air and disappeared into the distance in the blink of an eye.

"Did we forget something?" Kasa glanced back at the ruined remains of the base and asked uncertainly.

"We killed the men and rescued you. There shouldn't be anything we forgot," Lynn added.

"Yeah, you're right!" Kasa nodded.

Kasa's cousin: ??

Not long after Lynn and Kasa left, a black figure flew into the territory of the Dark Night Principality.

It was the Three-Eyed Winged Human, Elmer.

Elmer was in a very good mood. Because the two great churches on the continent had gone to war, the Soul Essence harvested from the bases across the continent this time far exceeded what it had before. Each one had yielded more than a hundred thousand units.

"The Soul Essence I've accumulated has now exceeded twenty million units—enough to condense a Soul Gold Bead."