Six-Armed Serpent Demon

Page 62

"So you sold me to the people from Samarachne, is that it?"

"Ivy-Beate" whispered in Al's ear as he trembled.

“At the city gate, the White Claw at the docks, and just now at the obelisk in the center of the port square, I saw that furtive Sanrachi woman three times, and I smelled that perfume three times too. Counting the scent on you now, that's the fourth time,” she buried her face in his neck, her nostrils flaring. “Let me guess, your ambush location is over there, in the direction of the warehouse. Right?”

The cold blade slowly rotated inside his body, not only intensifying his pain but also ensuring that it pierced deeper.

El's vision went black, and though his throat made gurgling sounds, he couldn't utter a single word. At this moment, his massive, armored body was entirely supported by Ivy-Beate's monstrous strength, making it appear as if he were embracing her.

"Here's a piece of advice, squad leader: when your accomplices are keeping watch, they should use different perfumes."

Chapter 74 The Final Battle at the Dock (Part 1)

Squad leader El had a very long dream.

In his dream, he was surrounded by all sorts of bizarre colors and patterns. All the scenery was constantly changing. Often, a pattern would appear, and before he could even distinguish it, it would turn into something else.

The only thing that remained unchanged was his fiancée, Ador's sister, who smiled gently at him.

However, all the colors and patterns darkened, along with the fiancée's smile, gradually disappearing into the darkness.

"Squad leader, squad leader," a woman's voice said in his ear, "Can you hear me?"

He recognized her voice; it was "Ivy Beatrice".

"Hello? Wake up."

El felt his mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood and coughed as he opened his eyes. He found himself in complete darkness, his field of vision as narrow as the visor of a helmet.

No, it's the sight glass on the helmet.

Ivy-Beate was supporting his body and kindly put a helmet on him to cover up the sight of him coughing up large amounts of blood.

The sharp pain under his armpit brought him to his senses a little more.

The sword was still stuck there, piercing straight into his heart through a gap in his armor under his arm.

But even now, he is not dead.

He clearly felt that when he was first stabbed, blood rushed into his body cavity from the heart wound, but now the massive internal bleeding was slowly stopping.

But the cold tip of the sword remained embedded in his heart.

Meanwhile, the wounds on the heart, blood vessels, and body surface are tightly gripping the blade and are healing continuously.

—Damn it, this woman actually applied a layer of ointment to treat fatal wounds to the blade.

Squad leader El couldn't move an inch, daring not to tense his muscles even slightly—the slightest mistake, even the vibration from shouting, could trigger the sword's edge, causing it to cut an even larger wound in his heart, and he would be doomed.

The emerald green vertical pupils no longer looked at the top of El's head, but instead stared intently into El's eyes at close range.

The woman's lips moved, and her clear, cold voice seemed to come from a very distant place, echoing in El's dying, delirious mind, with a unique, seductive charm: "Squad leader, tell me, who is waiting for me in the warehouse?"

"Charm magic..."

Al struggled to maintain the last shred of clarity in his mind, muttering to himself, "You... you're definitely not right..."

At this moment, the last squad of city guards jogged out of the warehouse area and saw the two of them snuggling intimately under the wooden pole. They all chuckled and whistled at them.

The imposter Ivy-Beate didn't look at the laughing and running soldiers, but instead stretched her arm out from Al's arms, raised it high, clenched her fist, and forcefully gave them the middle finger.

At the same time, the sword tip rotated slightly.

A sharp pain struck amidst an even greater wave of whistles and laughter. El's lips beneath his helmet turned deathly pale with pain, and he no longer had the strength to shout.

"I'll ask you one more time, who's waiting for me in the warehouse?"

However, charm magic has no effect on a steadfast paladin, even if he is on the verge of death.

Al laughed hoarsely.

“You, Beate…and Otucan, you noble families, and Gillesello,” he said weakly, “are all the same…corrupted by power for centuries, old and decaying cancers…all should be eradicated, uh—”

Another wave of excruciating pain made him unable to continue speaking.

“Let me say it again, I don’t consider myself Ivy Beatrice, and I’m not interested in your ideas or anything,” the woman said. “Actually, I can roughly guess even if you don’t say it. Right at the dock, next to the White Claw, the scent of my blood appeared with the perfumed Sanrachi woman, and I roughly guessed who was waiting for me.”

—The tip of the spear, made of cold iron, was soaked in dark blue-black, highly poisonous blood.

Recalling the spear that the natives had used to severely wound him, the six-armed serpent demon, now transformed into Ivy Beate, was consumed by rage.

"But if you don't speak now, you'll die," she said calmly. "Once you die, you can't do anything; you'll just become worthless experience points, and even the loftiest ideals will be nothing but empty words. So this is your last chance to choose: will you die with your ambitions unfulfilled, or will you tell me how your accomplices plan to deal with me?"

El was determined to die, but her words, though not imbued with any magic, seemed to possess a kind of enchantment.

Finally, he hesitated, then nodded slightly to her.

The blade retreated slightly, detaching from El's heart.

El took a long breath.

He felt that as the blade withdrew, the wound to his heart completely closed under the effect of the ointment that healed fatal wounds, and it was still healing.

The cold blade remained inside his body, its sharp tip still gently touching his heart.

The chill in his heart reminded El that she could open another gaping hole in his heart at any moment.

“Losques-Otukan,” Al said, “I can tell you everything the Samarachians have planned, but you must kill Losques-Otukan for me, that’s my condition.”

His voice was extremely weak, but his spirit was exceptionally high. He spoke in one breath without pausing at all. "You don't need to feel indebted to him just because you ran away from the marriage. Losques is also your enemy. Without that silly boy from the Gilero family, you would be burning at the stake today."

"Why did you kill him?" she asked curiously. "Wasn't he your benefactor?"

El gave a bitter laugh.

"You mean, my slave owner?"

El coughed violently, and specks of bright red blood spurted from the gaps in his helmet, landing on the woman's snow-white cheeks opposite him.

The imposter Ivy Beatrice had to tilt her head slightly to the right to prevent blood from splattering into her eyes.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, a short sword silently slipped from the sleeve of the uniform into the right hand of Squad Leader El.

He only has one chance.

If the first strike misses, Ivy Beatrice's sword will cleave his heart in two.

“After you and Ador ran away, the Ottokan family manipulated public opinion to attack my fiancée and his mother,” Al said in a low voice. “Losques took their anger out on them because of the two of you. And then there was the Boktura who did it. You are all my enemies.”

His voice grew quieter.

She had to put her ear close to his mouth to barely hear him, and shook her head helplessly.

"I've said it countless times, I am not Ivy Beatrice."

“Alright, alright,” El’s helmet drooped lower and lower, his voice growing softer and softer, “Since that’s the case, I’ll tell you… the Samarachian people’s plan is…”

The six-armed serpent demon sighed and had no choice but to bring its head, covered in thick red hair, closer once more.

She seemed completely unaware that squad leader El had already gripped a short sword tightly in his right hand, which was hidden behind his back.

Patrick yawned.

Now he has changed into the city guard uniform left by El and is sitting idly in the green house to the right of the warehouse district gate.

Squad leader Al left Patrick with twenty sets of uniforms, but in reality, he misjudged Patrick's numbers: the former mercenary hadn't been idle during this time, gathering a full sixty men, all of whom were hardened mercenaries.

There have always been a large number of mercenaries in the City of Flame.

The number of Bronze Dragon Paladins in the City of Fiery Earth has remained around 1,500. Five hundred guard the city, serving as the backbone of the city defense force and forming the mobile elite force of the central legion. The remaining 1,000 paladins are assigned to various legions. At first glance, the number seems large, but the conditions for becoming a paladin are very strict, far from enough for the frequent external wars.

Each time the City of Flame Earth launches an external campaign, it mobilizes an army of 30,000 to 40,000 men. Less than a third of them are city warriors led by holy knights; the rest are mercenaries.

They were a savage race from the area surrounding the City of Flame, a mixed bunch of people, including humans, lizardmen, goblins and dwarves, as well as pterodactyls and Araquo eagles, and even snake people who had long since disappeared.

It can be said that, apart from the elemental races, there are all kinds of races.

Although most of these experienced bloodthirsty individuals were stationed at various outer legion bases, Patrick, as a former mercenary of the Northern Legion of the City of Flames, knew better than anyone how to find other like-minded people in the city.

He hired only the best and brightest people he could find.

They gathered early in the morning in the green building at the entrance to the warehouse district. Nineteen of the human mercenaries, like Patrick, had changed into city guard uniforms and were waiting for the city guards to withdraw from the warehouse district so they could take over the gatekeeping duties, looking no different from the actual city guards stationed there.

The others lay in ambush opposite the warehouse gate. There was a small dock there, with two city guard boats. They hid on the boats.

Patrick had no intention of placing the trap inside the warehouse area; instead, he set up the ambush at the warehouse entrance.

He has a theory.

If someone suspects a location is a trap but must go there anyway, their vigilance will be at its peak the moment they arrive. Rather than that, it's better to ambush them as soon as they leave your house. If that's not possible, try to ambush them halfway there.

Patrick did not use his Arcane Eye for fear of alerting the six-armed serpent demon.

He squinted, looking towards the dock office in the distance. A man and a woman were walking towards them, and their striking red hair seemed to be their target.

He watched them walk under the wooden pole, and then his view was blocked by a city guard soldier running past.

As the endless stream of city guards disappeared at the end of the road, Patrick saw two figures almost overlapping each other walking towards him again.

[The target has been confirmed: it's Ivy Beatrice, and there's another person—the one who betrayed her to us.]

One of his mercenaries, the most observant scout, was communicating with him telepathically: "Looks like this job will be easier than I expected."

Patrick looked up at the sky.

The creature was an Araquo eagle-man, and at that moment it spread its wings and hovered above his head.

"Watch closely," he warned. "If you dare to poop on my head, I'll pluck your fur and make soup from it."

The two people got closer and closer.

Patrick's expression turned serious.

He squinted at Ivy Beatrice and Squad Leader Al approaching, alarm bells ringing in his mind. The two were practically embracing each other, like a pair of lovers.

—This isn't right!

[Something's wrong, everyone tense up.] Patrick telepathically sensed everyone, [These two are dangerous—]

Before he could finish speaking, the situation suddenly changed.

Patrick's eyes widened: the two people who were pressed together suddenly screamed and were separated, and the squad leader, Al, thrust his sword into Ivy Beate's waist!

At the same time, blood gushed from the armpit of squad leader El.

He was seriously injured and staggered before collapsing.

Meanwhile, Ivy Beatrice, who was also injured, covered her waist wound with her hand, lowered her head, and seemed to be rushing towards the warehouse gate in a panic.

Chapter 75 The Final Battle at the Dock (Part Two)

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, "Ivy-Beate," who had suffered injuries in a battle with squad leader El, staggered over, clutching her waist, and raised her beautiful face, contorted with pain, to the crowd.

She clenched her teeth, her emerald green vertical pupils filled with ferocity and tenacity. Her mouth moved as if she were about to cry for help from the city guards in front of the warehouse area. However, as soon as she opened her mouth, large gushes of blood gushed out.

Ivy-Beate collapsed to the ground, her legs giving way, but she still struggled to crawl toward the warehouse area.

For a moment, the ambushers, including Patrick, were stunned at the entrance to the warehouse area, and they all rushed forward to meet them. Even the Arakko eagles circling high in the sky flew up to the woman's head.

They wanted to capture her alive, not watch her die before their eyes.

There is only one exception.

Just then, the only city guard soldier still leaning against the warehouse gate raised his head, revealing a dark face covered in tattoos. It was none other than Tusu, the totem demon-slaying warrior.

"It's not her!"

He roared, "It wasn't her!"

Patrick had only taken one step when he heard Tusu's warning and immediately pulled his foot back.

As soon as his foot stepped back, a curtain of countless rotating force field blades stretched straight forward from in front of "Ivy-Beate," and the massive "blade barrier" covered half of the dock avenue right next to his nose!

Three mercenaries were the first to arrive.

Faced with the sudden appearance of the "sword-blade barrier," they hurriedly dodged to the left and right, but were still a fraction too slow.

In the blink of an eye, a man with a severed leg rolled into the water, screaming in agony. Before the splashing water had even subsided, a patch of blood had already seeped onto the surface.

The other man was swiftly pulled down by his colleague behind him, falling to the roadside. Even so, countless wounds still appeared on half of his body, splattering blood creating a cloud of blood mist around him. He cried out in pain, and at the same time, he and his colleague raised their repeating crossbows and fired at the woman lying prone on the ground. The two of them emptied their entire quiver in one go.

However, a second force field wall appeared out of nowhere, forming a ring around the fallen "Ivy-Beate".

Twenty cold iron arrowheads tumbled and rolled to the ground with a crackling sound.

What do you mean by "it wasn't her"?

Patrick stood at the door of the green house, neither attacking nor giving any instructions to his teammates.