Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 79. Zakar’s Revenge.
“Are they about done?” Laien leaned out from the carriage’s window. It had been around two hours already; if they wanted to make it to the closest fortress-city of the Ruishi Federation, then they would need to either set out within the next thirty minutes or seriously hurry up along the way.
“Not at all,” Kasha replied from the coachman’s seat, where she was resting and recovering her strength. For a second, she felt like complaining to Laien and asking him why he didn’t help out with healing all those people, many of whom still required treatment, but she gave up on the idea just as quickly as it popped up in her mind. Laien was a little master; it was fine if he wanted to help out of his own volition, but it wasn’t up to her to be complaining in case he didn’t feel like doing so.
Laien let out a sigh and allowed himself to fall down on his butt, on top of one of the many pillows loitered around the carriage. “There are no trees here, only hills and mountains,” he complained aloud. He didn’t mind to spar when his friends or people he liked were looking, but making a scene for all and everyone to stare at for no reason wasn’t to his liking in the slightest.
“We can skip one day,” Yin said lightheartedly. It would be a problem if being a bit lazy turned into a habit and escalated, but he doubted that either he or Laien were in danger of becoming complacent.
“I guess we can,” Laien agreed with a sigh. Those days he had been feeling as if his spear arts were on the verge of a breakthrough, so he was reluctant to skip practical training. However, he also knew that forcing himself to train in circumstances that weren’t to his liking would not only prevent him from making any worthwhile progress but also potentially serve to hamper his growth in the following days. He had already gotten rid of the darkness in his heart and had seen Yin do the same, so he understood the effect one’s mental state had on his progress far better than the most.
Listening to yet another confusing exchange between Laien and Yin, Arslan paid it little attention while Albert tilted his head, wondering what those two were talking about. Sometimes, it truly seemed like Laien and Yin knew each other’s thoughts; it was a mysterious thing.
To the side, Reian wanted to ask Jasmine if they should go and help out with everything, but he noticed that she was still in the middle of a deep meditative training. He sighed quietly. It was without a doubt that Jasmine would be angry with him if he disturbed her for a silly reason, so he wisely swallowed the question he had been about to ask.
“Hm?” Yin perked up all of the sudden. “More than a hundred riders are galloping over,” he said, his voice containing a clear warning.
“Let’s see,” Laien said right afterward, in contrast to the others not doubting Yin’s sense of hearing at all.
When the two of them jumped out of the carriage, Reian also heard the sounds of the quickly approaching horses. “Hisan Horses, all of them!” he recognized immediately. Having almost his whole life in the military, he could easily tell apart the race and quality of the horses just by the sound of their hooves as they galloped. This time around, he was sure that the oncoming horses were all the Arkarian ‘Hisan’ breed and they were of the highest quality!
“Teacher, wake up! There’s trouble coming,” he said and shook Jasmine’s shoulder lightly. He only waited to confirm that Jasmine opened her eyes, then turned to Arslan… who at this very moment was jumping out of the carriage!
“Is he following those two? He is so careless!” Reian complained silently but followed after Arslan without delay. A second later, Jasmine got out of the carriage too, followed by Albert and Johan; joined by Kasha, all of them hurried to the north-western road from where the riders were coming from.
A short moment later, the rumbling sounds of horses approaching were beginning to be clearly audible to everyone and as a result, more and more of those who hadn’t left their carriages before were now getting out to see what was going on. Were those riders new members of their group, or was it a border patrol of some kind? They all wondered, but none of them was worried. They weren’t taking the worst option into consideration at all. They all assumed nothing bad could happen since it was thanks to Mustafa that they were safe; they couldn’t imagine there would be Ikarians who would dare to oppose the orders of one of the Grand Yimars.
“Are those people of Yimar Maar’s?” Reian wondered as he made his way through the crowd of over two thousand people. “No, that shouldn’t be possible. Our patrols were assigned along the border and there are one hundred members of our White Guard making sure nothing happens to Arslan,” he reminded himself but immediately asked another question; did something truly unpredictable occur? Something that made those one hundred abandon their post? But if so, then why didn’t he receive any information? Were their flying magical beasts all killed or intercepted?
“No time to ponder,” he murmured as their small group left the crowd. He stopped by Arslan’s side, waiting for the riders to make their appearance. Seconds later, they emerged from behind a small hill. “Yimar Furi’s men!” he exclaimed in shock and confusion. He wouldn’t mistake the characteristic black uniforms of the men and the black-golden clothes of those in the front, those riders were almost certainly the experts of the City of Masalle. However, what in the world were they doing here?
“They are strong…” Yin said softly, just loud enough for those close to him to hear. He could tell that all those two hundred or so riders were strong; especially those four in the front. He didn’t think he would be able to defeat any of those black-golden clothes ones in a head-on clash.
“We should talk first,” Ruan reminded as he joined Laien and Yin with the rest of the old guards of theirs. He had been around Yin long enough to recognize the readiness to battle in the tone of the youth’s voice, so he couldn’t help but worry. “We still don’t know why they are here. Maybe they are just passing by, or…” he began saying but was interrupted by a loud, Qi-enhanced shout.
“I am Yimar Furi! I’m here to bring justice to the Djinn spawn that killed the innocents of Ulme Village! Give him up without resisting and your lives shall be spared!”
As Yimar Furi yelled, he brought his horse to a stop just around thirty meters away from the foremost line of people that stood in his way. “The youngest one should be Arslan. There are three White Guards by his side… and the fourth one approaching.” He took a note to begin with. From the information he had acquired, it seemed like Mustafa’s son was traveling in the company of another group, which supposedly included a youth capable of releasing a devastating ice-element magic. Their goal was to kill that youth and to capture Arslan, but it didn’t mean they couldn’t go about it in a smart way instead of starting a massacre immediately.
The Qi-enhanced yell brought the five thousand people of the caravan into a state of turmoil. The many people began whispering to each other nervously, some of them considering the option to try and flee now before it was too late. They hadn’t expected any trouble and that was why they were so frightened when it appeared out of nowhere; as strong as they believed Arslan’s guards to be, they had doubts whether they would be able to fight off two hundred of those scary-looking people.
“Calm down! Back off and wait!” Sarah shouted, helping herself with just enough Qi to make herself heard clearly, but not to become overly loud. “If they want to kill us we won’t be able to escape anyway! Back off from them and wait!” she shouted again, causing the faces of thousands of people to grow extremely pale. Yet, she did stop the panic from erupting; the two thousand new members of the caravan began withdrawing hurriedly, taking their carriages and joining the ones further at the back of the crossroads.
As they hurried to distance themselves, those people kept sneaking nervous glances at those two hundred riders to see if any of them wouldn’t suddenly start chasing them down. Only after all of them got almost a kilometer away from those riders did they calm down a little.
“Johan, stay close to Arslan,” Reian instructed in a whisper, seeing as the boy didn’t move to join the others immediately. He didn’t want to provoke anything like Johan being killed off to anger their group to happen, but since Johan was just a kid, it wouldn’t make much of a difference if they needed to protect both him and Arslan; the two just needed to stick closely together.
Johan nodded and took two steps, situating himself closely behind Arslan, slightly to the side. He swallowed nervously; would everything turn out all right? Those two hundred readers seemed to be confident enough to act so brashly… there was so many of them too. Would Reian, Jasmine and the others be able to beat them? They would, right?
“This black-haired one should be that ‘Ice Devil’,” Yimar Furi mused. He could hardly believe that a kid so young was capable of destroying a small village with a spell. Wouldn’t it make more sense if it had been one of Arslan’s guards who was responsible and the kid was only bragging to make some underserved reputation for himself? Possibly he was.
“Are you the one?” Zakar moved forward on his horse, passing by Yimar Furi and his three commanders and stopping in front of them. “Are you the one who froze Ulme Village and killed everyone? Are you the one who killed my wives and my children?” he asked calmly, but with an indescribable fury resounding within his voice and seeping out from his eyes as he looked at Laien.
“Eh, as I thought,” Yimar Furi sighed in his heart. He should have expected his old friend to do something like that. However, the question asked was something he too wanted to know the answer to, so he did nothing to interrupt this flow of events.
The slight frown on Laien’s face grew in response to the man’s questioning. “You are that hunter, Zakar. I didn’t think you would be able to bring a Yimar and his people to try and kill me,” he said calmly, despite his heart beating wildly inside his chest. He and Yin had released the thin threads of aura the moment those riders came close and what they found out caused even them to grow nervous. Excluding Yimar Furi who was a dual expert, there were three other martial masters of the fifth rank amongst the riders. Then, there were twenty-three martial masters of the fourth rank, over forty martial masters of the third rank and over sixty martial masters of the second rank. Furthermore, there were around seventy spiritual masters located in the back, the strongest of whom were at the fourth Realm of Heroes while the weakest were at the second.
This kind of a lineup… as long as they were ‘average’ experts, Laien and Yin would be confident in their ability to resist given the help of the four White Guards. However, if those two hundred contained a number of supreme experts who not only had strong cultivation bases, but also a high level of insights… then everything would become one huge gamble. A gamble which they weren’t favored to win unless Reian, Jasmine and Sirius were much, much stronger than they gave them credit for.
“So you don’t deny it,” Zakar growled in a low, beast-like voice. “You realize that Mustafa’s son won’t be able to protect you? We will kill you regardless of what he thinks… so if this whole story is just your empty bragging, then you’d better spit out the identity of that Djinn’s spawn!” he snarled, barely keeping his thoughts clear enough to not attack Laien this very instant.
“You are going to ignore me?” Arslan asked almost instantly, his voice containing clear anger. “If you hurt my friends, I will have you killed! I will have all of you and your families killed! Your Masalle City will be burned to the ground if you touch them!” he threatened very much seriously. If those people attacked Laien, he would ask his father to slaughter them all without exception!
“He really is Mustafa’s son.” Jasmine revealed an ever so slight smile, very much in contrast to Yimar Furi’s men who all looked to be genuinely terrified.
Even though they knew there should be no way for Mustafa to intervene if they proceeded to capture Arslan according to the plan, they couldn’t not be scared when the name of the Grand Yimar Mustafa was invoked by none else than his son. The reputation Mustafa had accumulated during his six hundred years of reign was simply too terrifying. Thus, not one of them doubted that were they to fail in their task, then Arslan’s threats would become reality.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Stop panicking you fools,” Yimar Furi said with a snort, sensing the restless atmosphere which arose amongst his subordinates. He tugged his horse’s sides with his legs and rode a few steps forward, stopping at Zakar’s side. “Mustafa’s son, you relying on your father right now is a folly. Currently, Mustafa is fighting a losing battle at the plains to the west of here, close to the shore. If you think there is anyone rushing to your aid and you simply need to stall for a bit of time… then you are very mistaken,” he informed coldly, but even he couldn’t resist smiling a little when he saw the astonished looks on the faces of those before him.
“I’m here only because of the Blood Debt…” Yimar Furi said, his face once again expressionless. “If you give up whoever killed the innocents of Ulme Village, we will leave. If you do not, we will kill whoever gets in our way, including those four White Guards of yours,” he warned, hoping to make the inevitable battle easier for himself and his men. It would already be a challenge to defeat those four White Guards; if he could get rid of the rest of the martial masters here before that, he would be able to preserve more lives of his subordinates. That would be for the best.
After Yimar Furi’s words fell, the area was overcome with an unnaturally long period of silence, broken only by the whistling of wind and snorting of the horses.
Laien and Yin were both quiet. There was no unnecessary tension in their bodies; the two of them were waiting for an opening to show itself. Their old guards were similarly saying nothing and only waiting for the battle to break out, though most of them involuntarily backed off by a little. With the exception of the black-cloaked man, Gahar, they were too weak to be of much use in a frontal confrontation. They understood this fact very well and as such, were planning to stay behind and make themselves useful by offering protection to Arslan and Johan. At the very least, they wanted to enable the four White Guards to fight more freely.
Sirius and Kasha weren’t planning to speak up either. The two of them had no delusions about what was going to happen, so they concentrated on recovering as much of their spiritual energy as possible. The two of them didn’t expect such trouble to arise, so Kasha had used up all her strength to heal the newcomers; at the moment, she didn’t have as much as one-fifth of her spiritual energy left. As for Sirius, he had habitually stopped treating people when he had used up half of his strength; he was an experienced people who had fought in wars many times. Thus, even though he hadn’t foreseen Yimar Furi or anyone else attacking them, he had enough spiritual energy left to fight efficiently; having recovered a little, he had about seventy percent of at the moment and with each second, he was absorbing some more from the natural energy that was all around him.
“He is hesitating, what a good kid.” Jasmine noticed the conflicted emotions on Arslan’s face and so did Reian. Arslan wanted to fight against Yimar Furi to save Laien, but he didn’t want to endanger the lives of his other friends to do so. In the end, he was but a child; he couldn’t help but worry about this thing since he saw no perfect outcome. Moreover, in the back of his mind, he was worried about his father… but he had no time to think about that matter.
“Reian…” Arslan said quietly. aiding himself with a little bit of Qi. His head was lowered as he gazed down at the ground and yet, his voice sounded surprisingly strong. “Jasmine, Sirius, Kasha…” he continued, the words his father had once said to him reverberating in his head. “As your master, I order you. Bring me their heads!” he said loudly and raised his head abruptly, looking Yimar Furi straight in the eye.
The sudden words of Arslan’s caused Yimar Furi’s mind to go blank for half a second. This tone, this look in that boy’s eyes… was this truly a child and not a Djinn playing around in the form of a human? How could a kid’s gaze cause him, a dual practitioner with both of his cultivations at the fifth Realm of Heroes, to feel such a strong fear?
“Yimar!”
“!” This split-second of daze caused Yimar Furi to fall into an immediate disadvantage. When he realized what was happening, Reian had already almost closed onto him. Moreover…
“Ateş!”
Jasmine took a step forward and made a spreading motion with her hands. A large amount of fire-element spiritual energy blazed in the air in front of her, stirring up the natural elemental energy itself. In the blink of an eye, a mass of scorching flames burst out, almost instantly catching up to Reian, washing over him and then smashing into Yimar Furi, Zakar and the two hundred riders.
The fire burned everything in its path, but as it had been unleashed with a simple one-word chant, held just barely enough power to wound the weakest of those present a little bit. With the strength of the protective Qi of martial masters and give the water-element affinity of most of the spiritual masters in the back, the magic of this level was relatively harmless to them. And yet, it most definitely wasn’t something the likes of Hisan Horses could easily withstand!
They were magical beast, but they weren’t the tough War Horses of the south. All of them began thrashing around and neighing as their skin burned with intense pain, revealing blood-red spots on their bodies where the high temperature scorched through their layer of protective fur. Only those horses in the back and to the sides were lucky enough not to be wounded heavily; the rest of them had been wounded badly enough to reduce whatever effectiveness in battle they might have had.
“Damn it!” Within the flames, Yimar Furi drew the scimitar at his waist, thanking his lucky star that he took the precaution of carrying the blade on his body. Seeing the saber-wielding Reian covered by a strange mix of red-white aura jumping at him, he roused his Qi and slashed out to meet him blow for blow.
The strange red-white Qi around Reian’s saber hissed when it collided with the water-element Qi of Yimar Furi’s. The loud clang of steel clashing rang out and to his disbelief, Yimar Furi felt his hand and his whole body being forced back as he struggled to keep himself in the saddle of his panicking horse. Then, when he thought he managed to somewhat recover, he gasped inwardly when a portion of the red-white Qi split from Reian’s saber and went along with the momentum, slashing at his forearm and chest!
His throat clenching, Yimar Furi gathered all his strength and pushed Reian away. The act itself was easy enough since Reian was mid-air, but in spite of the defensive layer of Qi covering his body, Yimar Furi could only curse as the red-white Qi slashed through it and left a fairly large, bleeding wound at his right forearm and a smaller one across his chest.
“That’s fire and wind…! He mixed them perfectly!” Yimar Furi felt like shouting in his fury. He had thought he alone would be a good match for Reian, he had even though he stood a chance at defeating him… but he had been too preposterous! He was an exalted dual practitioner, but from this clash alone Yimar Furi could tell that Reian was considerably stronger than him!
“He’s two ranks lower than me and yet…!” Yimar Furi gnashed his teeth. He had reached his current level of strength through an endless amount of work, but he couldn’t match the twenty-something years old Reian! It was a serious blow to his confidence. Still, he began quickly healing the two wounds he received; he might not be able to overpower Reian, but he was more than capable of tying him down for a period of time!
There was no need for orders to be given out, or so Yimar Furi thought when Jasmine’s flames cleared out and he spotted the two twelve-year-old kids attempting to flee. He jumped off his horse and focused on Reian, getting ready to receive another attack from him at any time.
Simultaneously, the over one hundred martial masters of Yimar Furi’s were just about to join the battle against the White Guards with some of them intending to chase down Laien and Yin, but at this very moment, the two youths they thought were trying to flee turned ninety degrees.
Laien raised his right hand, holding his white spear in it. Then, a wave of grayish mist quickly spread out from his hand. At the same time, Yin raised his left hand, adding even more of the grayish mist into the mix, creating a large grey cloud in the air above the two of them. The sight confused the two hundred riders and put them on guard. However, those of them who were in front, close to Laien and Yin, had their eyes bulge out when the cloud transformed into a huge mass of elemental stones!
Laien smirked, transforming the spiritual energy he had released alongside the grayish mist into the water. The process took practically no time at all thanks to his exquisite control and thanks to the lack of need to make the mass of water be strong by itself. He waved his spear forward, sending the water and the two thousand elemental stones inside it at the flank of the two hundred riders.
The martial masters in the front attempted to release their techniques to deflect the oncoming attack, but regrettably for them, there wasn’t one person amongst their ranks who had a nearly-instantaneous area-of-effect technique he could use. The three black-golden clothed commanders of theirs could have done just that, but they were at Yimar Furi’s side, about to attack the four White Guards with him; there was no way for any of them to help out in time.
As for spiritual masters in the back, how could they possibly use their magic so quickly? It was already far beyond their comprehension to see that black-haired Devil control and make use of spiritual energy on a large scale with such ease and in no time at all. They couldn’t possibly react fast enough.
As a result, the water flooded over the flank of their formation; to those covered by it, it seemed as if time itself had stopped for a few seconds. They could clearly see the water-element and lightning-element stones lit up. Then, when the light reached its apex, the flow of time seemed to have returned to normal as a great explosion occurred.
The pressure of water exploding and hitting everything in proximity from all sides threw many horses down to the ground, along with their riders. This alone, however, wouldn’t have done all that much in the grand scope of things; the elemental stones Laien and Yin threw were all of the mid-grade. Be it a thousand of them or ten thousand of them, it would be hard to use their firepower to injure a martial master. Yet, when the daze caused by being trashed around was joined with the assault of lightning from the stones added by Yin, the effects became considerable!
Additionally, all fifty or sixty Hisan Horses that were caught up in the explosion of water and lightning ended up being seriously hurt, with many of them dying on the spot. Their riders had already been thrown around by the water, but then the chaos increased even more when their mounts began falling down one after another. None of those martial and spiritual masters ever imagined that two fleeing kids would turn around and launch such a devastating attack on them; thus, for the following seconds, there was no one capable of restoring order at their flank.
To those rider’s terror, a small and swift figure suddenly flashed with lightning as it slipped into their ranks. Before any of them comprehended what was going on, the flash of lightning slashed out three times, decapitating one martial master of the fourth rank and killing two martial masters of the third rank who fell relatively close to him after the explosion of elemental stones.
Frightened by the ridiculous strength of someone they had thought to be a helpless child, the minds of those dozens of men left went completely blank. It was all happening too fast; there was no one to give them orders and they were all too shocked for anyone to take command on his own.
The wounded spiritual masters in the back began retreating, scared silly by the devilish spawn that instantly slaughtered three of their martial masters; since even those body cultivators failed to react, the likes of them would be crushed like ants.
The few dozen martial masters on the other hand, despite all the chaos, were tough enough to stand their ground. There was no order in their actions, but most of them had similar thoughts; to attack that Djinn spawn en masse and kill him quickly! Their attention was fully focused on Yin… and because of that, they totally missed the very short period of time which Laien used to accumulate enough spiritual energy and Qi.
“Go!” Laien cried out in his mind and swept out with his spear. The mix of his Qi and spiritual energy erupted forth, transforming into a grey, freezing mist. He still wasn’t skilled enough to actively make use of the Profound Mystery of Inferno in a true battle, but he could employ his Profound Mystery of the Mist easily enough! With the power of his magic uplifted by his numerous insights, the ice mist was enough to seriously hinder martial masters of the second rank and cause some trouble to those at the third and fourth ranks!
With the grey mist enveloping the few dozen of them, those riders within it lost all the will to fight they had roused up within themselves. The weaker of them felt their skin turning into ice despite their utmost efforts to protect themselves with Qi, while the stronger ones had their combat potential reduced by almost a half. Most of them wanted to back off and get out of the area that mist covered, but… there were three martial masters of the fourth rank who thought more clearly.
“If we are suffering so much, then what about that other Devil? He was attacked by his own comrade! it’s the best chance to finish him off!”
With their thoughts like that, they moved forward instead of retreating. Thanks to their battle sense, they could pinpoint Yin’s position clearly even when they couldn’t see him. They brandished their weapons and prepared to use their martial techniques to kill their target… alas.
When they got close, they finally saw Yin; or to be exact, they saw a flash of lightning that moved in a mysterious, unpredictable way. It was Yin’s Elemental Sword of Lightning; Thunder! The full-strength blow slashed through the chest of one of them, who had attempted to guard with his own blade but failed. The sword of lightning slipped past his guard with ease and pretty much bisected his body, splattering his lungs, heart and breaking his spine. The body of martial masters of a fourth rank could endure a lot, allowing the man to stay conscious for another second… yet, there was nothing that could prevent him from dying right afterward. Not with a huge wound like that and with his heart and spine slashed through.
The remaining two martial masters were so shocked that they began retreating instead of looking for a chance to attack Yin while he was killing their companion. They could see that no frost covered Yin’s body at all! He was standing in this terrible freeing mist just like them, but he appeared to not be affected in the slightest! It was ridiculous; they could exert at most seventy percent of their strength and they were using up their Qi at a worrying rate, but this Devil was fine!
“Djinn’s spawns! Those two are really Djinn’s spawns!” one of them cried out, horrified out of his wits. It wasn’t possible for children to be so strong; it was without a doubt that those two were Devils who had taken a human form! Why did they need to offend those Devils?! What did they do wrong?! They could fight against normal people, but they absolutely didn’t want to make enemies out of those Devils and the Djinns who spawned them into the world!