Ten People (End)

"How was he?" asked another of Gelosk's guards. His teammate was another Divine Grace Knight, and the guard's expression was exceptionally grave. He had clearly already learned that the other two guards were dead.

"I used the Breathing Method to regulate his rhythm. His life has been saved, but he still needs treatment as soon as possible. Otherwise, he may never wake up for the rest of his life." Chris rose to his feet.

Rivers was slumped against the house, his eyes tightly shut, already unconscious. Sacrifice Gift had drained him far too severely. If Chris had not arrived in time and used the Breathing Method to ease the aftereffects, he would likely have been a corpse by now.

On the other side, the Divine Grace Knight kept his knight's sword drawn, preventing the captured Crow Man from escaping while preparing to interrogate him for information. After all, the previous Crow Men had all looked ready to lay down their lives for Negary, yet this Crow Man was crouching there. When he noticed Chris looking at him, he even gave Chris a pleasant smile.

"Could you spare me? I can tell you anything. Spare me, and I'll leave Rea at once. I'll never appear before you again." The Crow Man hunched over, trying his best to make himself look pitiful as he spoke in an exceedingly humble tone.

"Weren't Negary's Crow Men supposed to be fearless in the face of death?" Chris asked pointedly.

"Lord Negary chose Crow Men to complete himself, so anyone with a strength in their character could be selected." The Crow Man said rather proudly, "Compared to those lords, I may not measure up in combat ability, but my will to survive is the strongest of them all."

"Complete himself?" Chris narrowed his eyes. "Explain in detail. Tell me everything you know about Negary, as well as information on the other Crow Men."

"I'll talk. I'll tell you right away." The Crow Man forced a smile. He seemed to possess a kind of magic that gradually made everyone who saw him abandon their hostility, because every movement he made landed precisely where you felt most comfortable, making you want to spare him without even realizing it.

"As for Lord Negary, I don't know much. Being selected as a Crow Man was an accident in the first place, and I have met Lord Negary only a few times." The Crow Man spoke carefully. "Back then, Lord Negary was not yet as... eerie as he is now."

"Back then, he merely gave people the impression of being domineering, like a king who made others unable to resist following him. But as enemy after enemy died at his hands, as Crow Man after Crow Man offered themselves to him, he became more and more powerful, less and less human."

"To be honest, unlike those who desperately wanted to crowd closer to him, I wanted to stay farther away from him. Because whenever I stayed by his side, I always felt an urge to offer my life to him."

"Therefore, my advice to you is to leave this place. Truly!" The Crow Man looked at them with extraordinarily sincere eyes, sincerity so intense it was terrifying. "Lord Negary... has already surpassed humans as a species!"

"Every time he saw me, he would tempt me into killing myself, into offering my will to survive to him. And every time I broke free of his enchantment, I could feel his delight, like a farmer seeing his crops grow lush and strong."

"Even now, there is still a voice in my mind reminding me to hurry up and kill myself, to offer myself to Lord Negary. Then there would be no more troubles or fears."

"Don't you agree?" The Crow Man's eyes widened, madness spilling from them. His boneless body contracted, and in the next instant, like a venomous snake striking at prey, most of his body lunged at the Divine Grace Knight. He spread his hands, and two sections of black bone extended from the holes in his palms.

"For Lord Negary!" the Crow Man screamed madly. As he described Negary's terror, he had involuntarily recalled Negary and the moment Negary had reached out a hand to him. This time, he had not endured it.

The Divine Grace Knight had already been holding his knight's sword, wary of the Crow Man pulling some trick. When the Crow Man suddenly charged him, he instinctively brought his sword down.

Without bones to protect him, half the Crow Man's body was easily cleaved away. He collapsed to the ground, and the pain brought him back to his senses. Tears, snot, and blood streamed down his face as he used the last of his strength to crawl toward the Forbidden Land Tree.

"Lord Negary, I don't want to die yet! I can still keep growing! Save me, Lord Negary!!"

"No. You are already ripe!" A voice appeared in the Crow Man's mind. "Right now, your will to survive is at its strongest!"

"Lord Negary!" The Crow Man begged for mercy until his very last moment, but he still could not escape death. His life came to a complete halt, and black Black Crow Pathogen slowly flowed from the holes in his hands, seeping into the ground and continuously flowing toward Negary.

"This..." The three people present stared at it all in shock. A man who had tried so hard to live had launched a suicidal attack merely because he recalled Negary. The shadow called Negary silently expanded another measure within their hearts.

"I'll take this knight back for treatment." The guard's lips moved slightly as he lowered his head and spoke. He felt deeply ashamed. He truly was afraid. He could vaguely sense an extremely ominous aura, and saying he would take Rivers back at this moment was merely fleeing in another form.

"There's no need to feel ashamed. It is only human nature." Chris smiled. He had traveled for so long; what sort of people had he not seen? After witnessing Negary's strange terror, the man's choice was perfectly normal. Demanding that others must brave death and sacrifice their lives for so-called Justice—that kind of Justice was not Justice at all, only moral coercion.

Watching the guard carry Rivers away, Chris sighed. That left only ten of them. With two Crow Men gone, and the Scale-kin free and no longer needing to be counted, the other side still had four Crow Men and three Scale-kin, judging from the force they had shown that day.

He wondered how the others were doing, and how the group from the Kingdom of Roas had fared.

"Let's go support the others. We can't afford to lose any more people, and we aren't far from where Negary is." Chris spoke to the Divine Grace Knight. The two moved through the darkness, hurrying toward the others.

Upon the Bone Throne, Negary rested his chin on one hand, a delighted smile on his face. It was the smile of a hard-working cultivator harvesting abundant fruit.

Suddenly, Negary raised his head and looked ahead. Someone there was stepping over white bones as they advanced rapidly.

"They've finally come? Then let me see what you're made of. Heh heh heh!"

Thanks to xiaotang246, This Qin Is Not This Qing, Beikui Turns Toward Warmth and Never Regrets, and Lisen · South Wall for the tips. Thank you.

There would be another chapter later.