Chapter 24

"Your Majesty, what on earth did you do? You scared all these villains to death! Especially their leader—what a gruesome way to die..."

Gerald wiped the Bone Bracelet with a leaf. He looked at the orc corpses strewn across the ground, then at "Blood Hand" Luer, whose face was twisted beyond recognition and whose body had been emptied of its bowels and bladder. Even dead, Luer made people instinctively keep their distance. Gerald felt not only disgust, but also a great deal of curiosity.

"To be honest, I don't know myself. I just gave this guy a light tap." Sui Xiong pointed at Luer's corpse. "As for the others, I didn't even touch them. I have no idea how they died."

"Oh, wait. I do know they were scared to death. They were so terrified that even after dying, their souls went mad and turned into wraiths."

As he spoke, he pointed to a mass of writhing black mist beneath the trees a short distance away.

Faintly visible within the mist were a number of frenzied figures, sometimes screaming and sometimes laughing foolishly.

Gerald tilted his head and listened curiously. He had barely caught the sound of a mad laugh when his heart suddenly clenched. He hurriedly stopped listening to the eerie sound and found a topic to distract himself.

"Your Majesty, I just counted. There are only about thirty bodies here, but there were around thirty-five or thirty-six bandits who attacked yesterday. What should we do about the rest? Would you like me to hunt them down?"

"No need to go to all that trouble." Sui Xiong smiled. "Giving someone a chance to live is only natural. Whether they can seize that chance is up to them. But it won't be easy to seize, and they certainly can't do it by running away. Anyone who was here just now won't truly escape, even if they managed to get away for the moment. I can sense that one of them will be coming back to die soon. We just have to wait here a little while."

Gerald was stunned. From the moment he had left until he returned, they had only had time for a short chat and a couple of pieces of roasted meat. Yet in that brief span, without the sound of fighting or any sign of battle—or even a drop of blood—twenty orc bandits had already been dealt with. Even the ones who had fled wouldn't survive.

The boundless might of a god was truly beyond imagination!

In fact, only one of the orc bandits had escaped from the area.

A figure raced through the woods, feet flying, panting like an ox.

He was the shaman of the Orc Wolf Rider Band, known as "the Accountant," Burke. He ranked just below the leader, Luer, and usually served as the band's steward.

He was the oldest member of the bandit gang. Usually taciturn, cold, and easy to overlook, he generally appeared beside Luer only after a robbery, when it was time to divide the spoils. He would appraise anything that wasn't cash, calculate the cost of the operation, and then work out the profits so Luer could decide how to divide the loot.

He never asked for a share of the spoils, and he never spoke to anyone other than Luer. Even when acting as the accountant, tending wounded bandits, or taking part in a fight, he kept his lips tightly pressed together and didn't say a word.

But at that moment, his face was filled with panic. His lips trembled as he ran, his teeth chattering.

A little while earlier, Burke had been doing what he usually did: sitting quietly in a safe place and watching Luer—the powerful orc he had brought out of their tribe, who had grown so quickly that he was now the one giving Burke orders—use hard-nosed, crafty methods to extort a rare treasure from a kindhearted giant who had little experience with the world.

It was a brilliant victory, one worth celebrating. The Beast Driver—the god of healing and schemes in the Orc Pantheon—would be pleased, too. Compared to simple plunder by force, the god preferred acquiring spoils through threats and trickery.

As one of the few orc shamans who worshipped the god of healing and schemes, Burke usually kept quiet because he preferred to think and pray in silence, devoting his mind to plotting and prayer.

In his view, Luer's method of acquiring the treasure had been too crude and direct, lacking the beauty of violence. This time, though Luer's methods were still somewhat rough, they had changed in quality. Compared with the past, it was like night and day.

Burke had been delighted. He thought Luer had finally caught on.

But his joy lasted only a short while.

After Luer hung the giant's bracelet around his neck like a collar, Burke clearly saw a blue-white glow rise from it. It transformed into a strange shape he had never seen before and gave off a suffocating presence. Its indescribably powerful pressure made him feel, for an instant, as though his heart had been crushed.

The orcs around him were almost instantly scared out of their wits. They screamed and scattered in every direction, but before they could take two steps, they clutched their chests and fell, one after another. Thanks to the formidable will he had built up over many years, Burke managed to hold out for a little while without immediately losing his composure.

But that might not have been a good thing. It meant he saw everything clearly: the strange thing merely extended a tentacle and gave Luer a light pat. The fierce and brutal Luer was then overwhelmed by terror. He had tried to stay calm at first, but soon broke down completely, unable to resist any longer. The incomprehensibly powerful force drove him toward death—all in the space of a few moments.

Gods! What kind of monster lived inside that bracelet?

The only thing Burke could do was kneel and take out his holy symbol to pray.

"Beast Driver, please protect my mind. Let me think clearly and keep me from fear and madness!"

As usual, divine power swiftly descended, filling his body with a chill like a cold wind. His thoughts cleared and steadied, and he broke free of his panic.

Then he turned and ran without a moment's hesitation.

He had no mount, because all the dire wolves had already fled with whimpers. Their tails tucked between their legs, they ran with all their might, as if the most terrifying beast in the world were chasing them. They probably wouldn't stop until they dropped dead from exhaustion.

In truth, he felt he wasn't much different from those beasts.

Run. As fast as possible. Get as far away as possible.

He didn't know what that damned Bone Bracelet was, but he was sure it was far more mysterious and powerful than they could ever have imagined.

The Orc Wolf Rider Band was finished. Luer was finished, too. Now all he could do was try to save himself.

Even that wasn't something he felt confident about.

The spell wouldn't last long. If he couldn't get beyond the strange bracelet's sphere of influence before it wore off, he was done for!

Burke ran with all his might, wringing out every last drop of strength he had. He didn't care what lasting damage it might do. His mind was fixed on just one thing:

Run a little faster! Get a little farther!

"What was that thing? What rose up from inside the Bone Bracelet?"

Incredibly, even as he sprinted, he could still spare a few thoughts for reflection.

"Powerful... immense... beyond measure..."

Suddenly, his pupils contracted. A hoarse gasp escaped his throat, and every muscle in his body went rigid.

He had guessed the truth about that thing.

But he would rather have been wrong—or never have thought about it at all.

His cheeks trembled and his teeth chattered. Terror coiled around him like a giant serpent, leaving him unsteady. His legs went weak in an instant. He could no longer run; he had to brace himself against a tree just to keep from falling.

"That is... that is... that is... a god!"

Burke, who had always been calm and composed, finally let out a bloodcurdling scream. His body trembled as if he had been struck by a fever.

"I have to run! I have to run right now! As far away as possible! Out of the Four Northwest Towns, out of the Desolate Mountains, all the way to the heartlands! I can't stop for a moment! If I don't run, They might come after me soon!"

"...No, maybe They're already on the way!"

At the thought, every hair on the orc shaman's body stood on end. The weather was warm, and he was dressed comfortably, yet he felt an unbearable cold. It came from within, making him feel as though he stood naked on a frozen plain in the dead of winter, about to freeze into a block of ice at any moment.

"Run! Run! Hurry, run!"

But he couldn't get his legs moving. They trembled uncontrollably and refused to obey. It took several attempts before he could even manage to stand steadily.

"No! I can't escape like this. I have to rely on the Beast Driver's power..."

He fell to his knees—which was easy enough—and shakily took out his holy symbol to pray.

But this time, Burke's prayer went unanswered.

The orc gods were fierce and violent. The timid had no hope of receiving an answer to their prayers.

Fortunately, he had some magical items in reserve. When he realized his prayer had failed, he immediately took out a gold-edged scroll, unrolled it without hesitation, and pressed magic into the crucial rune inscribed on it.

The expensive scroll burst into flames and became a golden halo that settled over him. His exhausted body quickly regained its strength, and some courage rose again in his heart, which terror had thrown into disarray.

And so the shaman, the hidden mastermind behind the Orc Wolf Rider Band, continued fleeing. His steps were swift. Several times, he tripped over a stump or a rock beside the path and fell heavily. Each time, he hurriedly scrambled back to his feet and kept running into the distance without daring to look back, as though something were chasing him.

No—he could feel it chasing him. It was impossibly vast, impossibly powerful, impossibly terrifying...

Without his noticing, the magic's effects had already worn off. Terror flooded his mind again.

He was going to be caught. He was going to be caught! Ha ha, no mortal could ever escape a god. The only reason he had made it this far was that the great being wanted to savor his fear and admire his insignificant struggle, enjoying a little amusement along the way.

What would happen next? Would he be turned to stone and spend long, endless ages alone in some remote part of the woods, unable to see or hear, surrounded by nothing but darkness?

Or would he be thrown into Purgatory, where sinners were punished, and made to suffer every torment without being allowed to die—until the great god took pity on him now and then?

Or would his body and soul be crushed to pieces and used to make a magical item? Before long, a knife or an axe might bear his screaming face, forever frozen into its surface.

Mad with terror, Burke gasped for breath. From running without restraint, he had pushed his body to its limit, and white foam spilled from his nostrils and mouth. Yet he had no intention of stopping. He kept running with all his might.

At some point, his eyes grew unfocused, his steps faltered, and his expression turned blank.

He could no longer see the scenery around him or hear the sounds nearby, but he kept running. His pace slowed and slowed until at last he couldn't go on and collapsed to the ground.

He seemed to struggle to keep going, crawling forward a few steps before letting out a crazed laugh.

"They're here! They've come to punish me!"

Those were the final words left by a hardened old villain who had traveled from the northern wasteland to the Four Northwest Towns, committed countless crimes, helped build a bandit gang notorious for its wickedness, and left behind a long record of horrors.

Then, amid terror and exhaustion, despair and madness, he breathed his last.

As his soul drifted upward, an invisible force seized it and hurled it into the mass of black mist nearby.

Inside the mist were already many frenzied souls, screaming and laughing by turns.

"See? The straggler's taken care of, too." Sui Xiong spoke to the dumbfounded Gerald.

The sun slowly rose. Seen from above, "the Accountant" Burke's trail formed a circle.

It began in that clearing and ended in that clearing—a great big circle.