Chapter 613: Suspicion - 4
Chapter 613: Suspicion - 4
While moving in stealth, Kima observed Leo.
"There had only been a few instances when people had tried to attack us... and I can only account for 4 or 5 times when they managed to kill someone... But..."
"They were all at Peak 2-star, and one was even a Pseudo 3-star..." the demon muttered, trying to sense if they had mistaken Leo’s strength for something lower than it actually was.
But no matter how he tried, Leo was no more than Mid 2-star.
Kima simply shrugged.
"Who cares? He got captured—that’s what matters. And him killing those two was actually for the better. I can benefit more."
He looked at the wolf and boar.
"Better sell them to some Beast Tamer... Hmm, Gomu might be good. He was already looking for a good boar to strengthen his head. Hehe, I’ll keep all the money and visit the brothel."
With that, he travelled along a less-used path until he entered a secret underground tunnel a few kilometres back from Realm Gate, avoiding the other people who had made camp along the way.
Inside the secret tunnel, a few more people joined them. All were carrying unconscious people on the backs of beasts and on their shoulders. Even Patric’s party was among them.
"Kima, what happened to your friends?" one man asked as they continued walking down the tunnel.
"Don’t call those idiots my friends. Can you imagine? They both died to this one man while he was about to collapse."
The others looked toward Leo.
"To him? Pfft, hahaha. Wasn’t that one fucker a Beast Master? How’d he die?"
Kima just sighed.
"Idiot walked right in front of this human when he wasn’t assimilated with his beasts and got beheaded on the spot."
"Ah... is he one of those suspicious people who are wary of strangers helping them out of goodwill?"
"Might be. He was already telling us to stay back the moment we walked toward him, so I guess when we didn’t stop, his dizzy mind perceived us as enemies."
The others looked impressed.
"Looks like he has seen much of the world," one of them said.
"Bet. Don’t you see that old face? Must be over 50 already."
"Oh? Doesn’t that put him at Baron status according to our standards?"
The other simply waved a hand.
"Well, he is a human, and according to his strength, he is a Grand Knight."
Leo and Lily listened to their conversation as more and more people carrying unconscious victims filled the tunnel.
Leo had already instructed Shyra to stay inside the Realm until he came to pick her up. And if she saw the guards suddenly panic and move toward the Realm Gate, she was to execute them on the spot.
Since any sort of communication or sense sharing would be blocked when Shyra and Leo were on two different planes, Shyra could only react based on those instructions.
And he wasn’t even able to unsummon her because she was at a distance, and coming inside the tunnel alongside these demons could have exposed her presence in the small space.
In no time, the demons carried nearly 20 people to the Realm Gate during the 10- to 5-minute window when Adventurers didn’t come, and they quickly passed through.
And as Leo had guessed, the guards standing in the tunnel opened a secret door through which the carried people were carried inside.
They hastened their pace because stronger adventurers like Patric and Liam were already starting to regain consciousness.
Since Leo was surrounded by so many people, he refrained from opening his eyes. But through his [Spiritual Sense], he could make out that he, along with the others, was being strapped onto wooden boards as quickly as possible because people were beginning to wake up.
Somehow, Lily managed to control her temper while she was being tied down.
Though they couldn’t see, they could smell. Their noses were filled with the thick stench of blood that seemed to be a mixture of both old and fresh.
By now, even Leo had started pretending to wake up by breathing irregularly and twitching his fingers. As for Lily—since she was weaker—she didn’t start doing it until several minutes later.
When Leo opened his eyes, his pupils contracted.
The sight before him was gruesome.
There were already multiple piles of broken wooden boards scattered throughout the large dark room—the very same kind of wooden boards Leo and the others were currently strapped to.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
The floor of the room seemed soaked with coagulated blood. Not only that, but countless dismembered fingers, hands, and legs lay partially submerged in it.
Leo could swear he saw tongues, eyeballs, and even severed penises among them.
What the fuck?!
Leo’s eyes darted left and right in shock as he took in the entirety of the dark room.
The most unsettling part was the large runic formation in the centre of the room that resembled a goat’s face. The lines of the formation seemed to be made of blood, continuously absorbing it from the surroundings. At the same time, blood was also being released back out, keeping the surrounding pool fresh and flowing.
Many others, like Patric and Liam, had the same reaction as Leo, but their mental state seemed far worse than his, simply because they failed to notice that they themselves were trapped.
Leo’s first concern was Lily, since this might as well be her first encounter with such a horrific scene.
He looked toward her only to find her already looking back at him, as if she were far more concerned about him than herself.
He tried sensing her emotions, and aside from the small turmoil caused by the gruesome sight—which was expected—most of her attention was focused on Leo, as though she was worried his mind might be affected by it.
Her first encounter with such a horrifying scene, one that would most likely drive any ordinary person into extreme panic, had been completely overshadowed by her concern for Leo’s well-being.
Leo gave her a slight nod, conveying that he was alright, and Lily quietly sighed in relief.
Many people were still tightening the straps on those who had already started crying out. Meanwhile, a group at the far end of the room sharpened various tools with scraping metallic sounds, while one person, who also seemed to be the strongest—a Low 3-star—used his magic to charge the Runic Formation.
It was only then that Leo noticed a few already beheaded human corpses hanging upside down, their fresh blood continuously pouring into the formation. Second by second, the red and pink glow surrounding it intensified.
Leo looked at the trapped survivors strapped to the wooden boards.
These wooden boards can be broken quite easily... Oh.
Leo had just been thinking that breaking these body-sized wooden boards would be easy when he realised that most of the people were unable to exert any strength. Only their eyes and mouths moved in reaction to the horrifying scene before them.