The God of Cataka
28
The rest of the journey continued with each person putting aside their pride and letting Shen Zhu manage everything, as none of them could think sanely.
The coachmen and their bodyguards were all lying, lying in pools of blood from the incision of the sicae that stuck to the flesh, hands cut off, stomach torn, and hands torn, and they knew exactly they would never be able to repair the torn body that was already dying.
There's nothing more to do. At least there's nothing they can do.
There was nothing anyone could do to prevent them from dying.
Bao Tiao was forced to accept Shen Zhu's offer to be his sais.
Because seeing his guards dead was an unbearable sight no matter what the circumstances, more than he could bear.
And because of that movement, walking away from the dead bodyguards and leaving them in the mud, had triggered something more than a sense of meaninglessness.
Like a crack crawling on a steep wall. It was the wall, and it was beginning to collapse.
Suddenly something slipped from within Tiao. The usual sense of tension, anxiety and anger spurred him all along, responding and acting rashly, becoming drooped like a parachute touching the ground.
He sees it now. The death of his sect members was face down by the side of the road, death in war was a different death from that of the dead in the streets.
Yeah, he's seeing it now.
We can actually go leave a body, leave that person in the mud, like a rotting animal.
The carcass was bleeding, half-naked because his clothes had been torn to pieces.
We can leave, or we have to leave so we can move on, because there are too many dead bodies or because there is nothing to do.
Death in the dust, on the ground, is always associated with the dead bodies, asking us to close our eyes, clean the dirt, wipe the blood, use our hands, lift it on our shoulders.
This is how the world of death looks every day in many parts of the world.
And the rest of the journey they passed in a long, puzzling silence.
Tianba and his partner happily volunteered to become Jialin's coachmen.
Lim Hua becomes the other coachman, while the other car is forced to be left on the side of the road along with sais and the dead guards.
It was unexpected that they would all be led by a young child who had always been seen as weak.
Unexpectedly in the most precarious conditions he is the only one who can still think sanely.
Moreover, Shen Zhu had actually even taken into account the worst possible.
The Sicarii Alliance was not an easily offended group. Killing their members was tantamount to challenging their group.
Sooner or later, the Sicarii's death will be known to the rest of the members. And sooner or later, they will be eyeing the Bao Sect.
But despite all that, Shen Zhu could sniff out the conspiracy behind the attack.
Someone has spent a lot of money to hire a hit man. And he knows what he's after.
The heirloom of the God of Catastrophe!
His teacher warned him about this.
"From now on you have to be careful. Your God seal is out. Your life may be threatened. People will be after your heirloom."
But Shen Zhu thought. A new seal of the doom god came out in college. Only insiders should know. There were even outsiders who knew about it, only Jyang Yue and her brother. Shen Zhu believed they could not possibly divulge the secret.
After all the Seal of the God of Cataka is the most targeted important heirloom. The insiders will not be willing to compete with more people.
Thus, the most likely to intend to seize his inheritance was the people of the Bao Sect themselves.
Given the situation earlier, Shen Zhu had already bagged four names that might be involved. The students of Dormitory Seven are not included.
But after Shen Zhu looked further into Bao Tiao's eyes, staring at the death of his bodyguards, he crossed out Tiao's name from the list of suspects.
The remaining three people on the exclusive train should be on the lookout in addition to the threat of retaliation by the Sicarii.
Just get the crystal! Complete this mission! his calm and savage self-admonition was tempered by the many losses that made him into the moons of circumstances, the side of him that has been helping him survive to uncover the rotten assholes who are after his family heirloom.
You'll be out of here as soon as possible, infiltrate the Knight Alliance Headquarters as an examinee and get a chance to spy on those bastards who have hoarded your family heirloom!
The faster he obtained the demon god crystal, the faster he could return to college and return to training. If he could pass all the procedures of the Knight Trials, then he could hunt down the knight masked robbers and carry out revenge.
By east—you touch my treasure, then your head will be at the end of my sword.
Shen Zhu steered the chariot-pulling horses down the gently sloping grass field and was struck by the dark green nightly scenery that spread widely around him.
The frothy air, so light as a cloud, caressed his neck. His long hair that was tied tight to the back, whipped like a ponytail.
He looked around.
At the other end of the field, the ground level again sloped and continued to decline. Skinny trees were lined among the weeds bushes as tall as the waist of an adult.
He could not estimate how wide the grass field was.
Three hundred and sixty degrees expanse of purplish blue and dark lands, mountains and valleys, where blue turns purple then gray and black.
It was just a moment, a single breath. One moment when things went up an octave and he felt a tremor in his spine.
After walking quite a distance, they finally reached the edge of the canyon, and found a wilderness that was darker than they could imagine down there.
The forest in that canyon valley was their destination.
Then simultaneously and without cueing, they all stopped the carriage and one by one everyone jumped down, and tethered their horses there.
It was late at night when they arrived at the edge of the canyon, while they were also too tired to hunt. And the forest down there is too dark. Too risky.
So they decided to rest waiting for the morning.
Shen Zhu made a fireplace, while his brothers and sisters took out their provisions from the carriage.
Jialin and Tianba broke away with their comrades as the Seven Dormitory troupe began to enjoy their dinner.
Bao Tiao pulled over quite far from his sister's horde with a depressed expression.
Shen Zhu watched them silently. Then smile cynically. "Will not join?" insinuations. "Can I be full just by swallowing my self-esteem?"
"You—" Jialin pointed his index finger at Shen Zhu with his jaw tightening. But then gasped as her brother stepped slowly past her without turning his head, then joined the entourage of Dormitory Seven.
Tianba and co were watching Tiao's back with squashed eyes, as the young man began to blend in despite being clumsy.
Jialin spontaneously dodged and twisted her body against her brother with a frown.
