Chapter 381: Myths
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Anfey liked nights. Some people were energetic during the day but very sleepy in the evening. They could not stop yawning after midnight. Anfey never felt that way. He seemed to be more alert and sharper at night. He also liked to travel at night.
After connecting with Heart of Nature, he acquired super-sensing ability, which allowed him to become the king of the night. What others could not see or hear, he could hear and see very clearly. The utmost in the natural world displayed in front of him without any secrets.
At that moment, Anfey could clearly see about 30 elves sleeping on three tall ancient trees about 600 yards away. The three trees formed an equilateral triangle. From wherever one group was attacked, the other two groups of elves could come to their aid right away.
No elf need to be on watch on two of the trees while just one elf was on watch on the third. It was close to dawn, which was the time people felt sleepiest and most tired. The elf on watch seemed to be affected by the sleep cycle. She leaned against the tree, falling asleep once a while. She leaned her bow behind the tree. She unconsciously kicked it with her heels. As a result, the bow slowly leaned, and finally fell on the grass. The sound of the falling bow did not wake the elf up. Instead, she seemed to fall sound asleep.
The elf seemed to be right in front of Anfey. He could even see the hairs on the elf’s face. Over 20 mercenaries talked quietly around a bonfire about 200 yards away from the elves’ camp. They looked fresher than the elves. The mercenaries planned to leave in the early morning and attack the elves and Tiger of Tawau mercenaries. They were still discussing the details of their plan. Ozzic and his group were concerned about fighting over 30 elves, since they had no idea how many arrows those elves could shoot from the beginning of the fight to the end. Anfey and Shinbella were not concerned with the threats from elves, but regular mercenaries had to be worried. Ozzic expected that more than one hundred mercenaries would get hurt or killed in the fight. Anfey decided to change the plan, because he did not want to see unnecessary casualties even though they all knew they made a living by risking their lives, and being hurt or killed was inevitable in battle. Anfey decided to leave early, around midnight, and start the fight before dawn. Ozzic and Shinbella would take their two groups of mercenaries to surround the elves. Anfey’s job was to get to the camp first to kill all the onlookers.
Anfey did not expect his plan would actually affect many people. The so-called equality was a lie made by bards. They never enjoyed equality. A king had a bunch of government officials and noblemen, while those same officials and noblemen had their own people working for them. When the country was under siege, the king was never the first one in danger. The king would not spend so much money on the military for nothing. Ozzic, for instance, could not run in front when they were in a tough battle. Ozzic could be considered an official, so he had people who would sacrifice themselves for him. It was rare to see leaders like Anfey who would go into the enemy camp on their own for the sake of the whole team’s safety. They only knew the size of their enemy, but had no idea how many top powers were there and what kind of difficulty they would encounter. Even Ozzic and Shinbella saw Anfey differently.
Anfey knew himself well. He was confident of travelling in the dark. He felt like he was going to have fun instead of completing a mission.
For a short time, Anfey had easily walked behind the elf who was on watch without any of the anxiety an assassin would normally feel. He looked more like he was visiting a friend. Anfey paused for a second before he bent down to pick up the bow. He looked at the elf and observed that the elf did not notice him.
Anfey carefully drew his bow and aimed at the elf. He let his finger go and the arrow flew hard at the elf’s neck. When the elf opened her eyes after feeling the pain, Anfey had turned the bow around on her neck. He grabbed the back of her neck with his left hand while he pulled the bow back with his right hand. The bowstring choked the elf and cut deep into her neck. A trickle of blood oozed out. The elf only struggled a little bit before she slowly fell unconscious on Anfey. Anfey was very strong, and he cut through the elf’s blood vessels and trachea in the blink of an eye. She went limp and died.
Anfey slowly lay the elf’s body with her stomach on the ground. He carefully looked around and found elves still sleeping while mercenaries were still chatting. Nobody noticed Anfey. The place was lightly guarded, but that made sense. Prey had to be alert at all times, but predators did not have to be as tense as prey. The elves and mercenaries undoubtedly both thought they were the predators.
Ozzic and Shinbella came down with their respective teams. Shinbella’s team was in charge of elves, while Ozzic was in charge of Tiger of Tawau mercenaries. Long and Ling took the lead, one for Shinbela and the other for Ozzic.
Anfey suddenly frowned. An elf sleeping on a branch opened her sleepy eyes and sniffed. She looked like she was smelling something. Anfey figured out the problem. Blood had a rusty smell. Elves were really sensitive to smell. She must have smelled something unusual.
Luckily, elves loved evergreens. Under the cover of the trees, the elf did not see what happened underneath her. Anfey carefully bent down and picked up the body. He turned around to the other side of the tree and put the body on the ground again. He dug some rotten earth and covered the elf’s neck, so the blood smell would spread more slowly and other elves wake up from it. Anfey could see every move of the other elf, so he was not nervous. He had not made a sound so far. The elf jumped off the branch. Anfey straightened his back and waited for an opportunity. Although the elf smelled something unusual, she did not necessarily know what the smell was, so she did not wake her peers up, instead deciding to check on it herself.
"Aika!" The elf looked around and called the other elf’s name.
Anfey squeezed his voice a little and answered her with a simple yes.
"You, little sleepy, I knew you would fall asleep!" The elf smiled and walked around the tree.
Anfey step forward diagonally as he quickly reached his left hand out to grab the elf’s throat. His strong grip not only closed the elf’s larynx, it also lifted her up by her neck. Anfey held his breath, watching to see if those sleeping elves would notice anything.
That elf struggled lightly for a moment. Unfortunately, she was lifted in the air and could not get out of Anfey’s grasp, not to mention warn her peers. She continued to struggle, grabbing Anfey’s hand. She scratched his hand and drew some blood with her final effort before her arms fell limp.
Anfey had turned himself into a statue, not moving at all. He did not let the elf’s body fall to the ground for a quite while until he was sure no elf had woken up. Anfey did not even care about the blood trickling from where the elf had scratched.
300 yards away, then 200 yards away, Shinbela and her mercenaries were quietly approaching as Anfey slowly closed his eyes. Just as he could dismiss the natural magic druids released, he could sense any living being with his telepathy and try to build a relationship with it in a very subtle way.
Anfey had killed two elves without anyone noticing, a hard feat for even a few hundred mercenaries. By the time Shinbella was about 60 yards away from Anfey, a few elves had already slowly sat up. They sensed something unusual and nervously looked down to check what was happening.
Anfey suddenly opened his eyes. The three big ancient trees where elves rested suddenly moved like gigantic savage monsters. The branches started to swing like crazy. No matter whether elves had been awake or asleep, they were suddenly swinging out of the trees.
Anfey moved so fast in the air towards the mercenaries about 200 yards away that he barely left any shadow. He thought there was no doubt Shinbella could take care of the elves now.
Anfey’s flying action was a signal. Suddenly, their animalistic screams and yells rose from everywhere. Shinbella rushed over with her mercenaries, while Ozzic led his mercenaries into the station of Tiger of Tawau mercenary group. The 20 or so mercenaries around the bonfire were stunned and jumped to their feet one after another. As they were ready to turn around to help their peers, a person rushed out of the forest and ran at them with extremely quickly.
If those mercenaries were not blind, they could tell it was Anfey glaring in the dark with a Fire Sword about eight yards long. Anfey ran so fast that the Fire Sword left a fire tail about ten yards long. The mercenaries looked at each other and screamed as they all pulled out their weapons and ran at Anfey.
The elf archers knew they were in danger. The ancient trees were tall and big. Some elves were tossed out diagonally, while others were tossed dozens of yards into the air. They fell down in different places with a thud on the ground. Besides a few good elf archers, most of them got hurt to a certain degree. Some even passed out. They did not notice how bad the situation was until they were ready to fight back. No one would sleep with bows on their back. That would be too uncomfortable, so they usually piled their weapons together. Now they had no idea where their weapons had been tossed. They were stunned and frozen there.
Anfey swung his sword into a crowd of about 20 elves. He was at a disadvantage in numbers, but his fighting ability was way better than all 20 of them together. He was like a lion to 20 rabbits. The quantity of enemies did not mean much to Anfey. In the blink of an eye, Anfey had killed most of those mercenaries. The only about 8 mercenaries left were so shocked by Anfey’s fighting ability. He knew they had no chance to fight against him and were ready to turn and run. Unfortunately for them, Anfey was about ten times faster than they were. In addition, Anfey’s Fire Sword could reach a large area. Even though they ran in different directions, he could still easily take all their lives with one swing of his Fire Sword.
Ozzic took his mercenaries to recklessly kill Tiger of Tawau mercenaries in the camp. Some Tiger of Tawau mercenaries who surrendered and dared not fight back were pulled to the side. The Tiger of Tawau mercenaries with lower fighting ability were countered by over ten of Ozzic’s mercenaries with axes. Ozzic’s mercenaries swung their axes at Tiger of Tawau mercenaries, who were no match in a one-on-one fight, not to mention one on ten. Tiger of Tawau mercenaries with higher fighting abilities were shot by crossbow arrows. The power of crossbow arrows made by Jacob could not be neglected. It was very hard for people to react to them in time because of their speed. Beside the speed, their humongous magic power had killed those mercenaries one after another, even though the mercenaries’ fighting ability was high.
Shinbella seemed to finish her job even easier. The bare-handed elves posed no threat to Shinbella’s team. As a result, elves were roughly pushed to the ground by mercenaries. A few elves who tried to save themselves with magic had angered Shinbella. She slayed them with her gigantic sword.
The battle ended fast. Ozzic caught over 40 captives. The rest of Tiger of Tawau mercenary group had been killed. Shinbella caught 17 elves alive. They only had to clean up the battle field, which was a great opportunity for them to collect trophies and get rich.
Anfey laid his eyes on the elves and slowly moved back and forth. Ozzic tried to learn from Anfey, and he looked at those elves as well, but they thought totally different things. Anfey wanted to find the answer for a myth to why Manstuly tried to kill him, while Ozzic looked at the elves with desire. Ozzic could not believe it they captured over a dozen elves.
"He even sent out dozens of elves to kill me." Anfey had an incredulous smile on his face. "Can anyone explain why are you trying to kill me? I did not think I had any conflicts with elves."
The elves were quiet. They were tied tightly and forced to kneel on the ground. Elves were too proud to surrender to their enemies. They were surrounded by many mercenaries. Other mercenaries were cleaning up the battle field, and about 20 of them were watching the captives of Tiger of Tawau mercenaries. Some mercenaries did not have room to stand, so they even climbed into the trees because it was rare to be able to see elves.
Anfey shook his head. He did not expect to get an answer from the elves. He could not decide what he would do to them. He definitely could kill a few to vent his anger. However, he had already killed over a dozen, and if he killed the rest, he might make a life-long enemy of elves. He thought he should not do that before he could figure out the real intention of Bruzuryano. If Bruzuryano wanted to take Manstuly’s side, Anfey could only find a middle ground.
Anfey suddenly felt element surges in the distance before he could say anything. Anfey could not help looking into the distance. He saw two black dots flying from a distance. While others could not even tell whether those two black dots were people or birds, Anfey had already recognized them. One was Blavi, and the other one was Riska. Anfey was shocked to see Riska there.
Blavi and Riska flew close to Anfey very quickly. They first flew up to make sure the group underneath them were their people before they landed. Neither Blavi nor Riska looked too good. They both looked exhausted, especially Riska. When Riska landed, he stumbled and almost fell. He could not wait to speak: "Anfey, we finally find you."
"What happened?" Anfey hurriedly asked after seeing Riska so nervous.
"Alice sent me here. Suzanna…" Riska suddenly stopped and said earnestly, "Anfey, don’t get too upset. You have to control it, ok?"
Anfey felt his heading ringing. Not only his face turned pale but also his lips. He usually thought more than others, and especially when Manstuly tried to cheat him in Suzanna’s name. He could understand Manstuly’s scheme, but Suzanna also might be able to now, which had worried Anfey for the past few days. Seeing Riska’s face, he instinctively thought the worst—that Suzanna had been killed.
"What happened to Suzanna?" Anfey’s voice slightly trembled.
"I was worried you would not be able to control yourself." Riska had a bitter smile. "You…"
"F*cking tell me!" Maybe it took Riska too long to speak, or Anfey cared about Suzanna’s safety so much that Anfey totally lost control. He screamed before he threw himself at Riska and grabbed Riska’s collar. Riska was only a mage and did not have a strong body. He felt choked by a steel grip and could not breathe. His eyes rolled immediately.
Everybody was stunned. Everybody said Christian was a gentleman, as was Anfey. No matter what happened, Anfey always looked nice. This was the first time any of them had seen Anfey lose his temper.
Blavi was the first to react. He immediately rushed over to grab Anfey’s arms. "Anfey, calm down, calm down!"
"F*ck off!" Anfey shook his shoulder. Blavi was hit and landed a few yards away. He flew at the crowd. Luckily, Shinbella held him in time. Anfey looked fierce and crazy. He stared at Riska and said, "Tell me!"
It was absolutely quiet right now. He yelled those two words instead of speaking them. Riska rolled his eyes and struggled to point at Anfey’s hands.
"Anfey, you are choking Riska. He can’t say anything." Blavi rushed back and gripped Anfey’s arms tightly. Everyone there was stunned, but only Blavi could come out to stop Anfey, because he believed they were friends in good times and bad, and he did not think Anfey would not hurt him.
Anfey took a deep breath and slowly let Riska go, but he still looked mad and crazy.
Riska gasped. After Anfey released Riska, he bent over and struggled for air.
"Riska, hurry up and tell Anfey. If you do tell him now, it will only make him more upset," Blavi sighed.
"An…Anfey, Suzanna is missing." Riska finally got to the point.
"Missing?" Anfey was shocked.
"Yes, she was lost after she left Violet City. The little unicorn was with her." Riska was afraid Anfey would go crazy on him again so he said hurriedly, "Alice has sent many people to search for Suzanna. Master Ernest found out about it and went to search for Suzanna as well."
"Then what happened after they searched for Suzannna?" Anfey asked.
"We found a trace of her. Master Ernest said a group of druids and elf archers must have attacked Suzanna, but it seemed that Suzanna escaped from them. They did not get her." Riska took some time to catch his breath. He continued, "Master Ernest asked me to tell you not to worry about Suzanna. She should be fine with her fighting ability as long as she remains alert. She might have gone back to Moramatch."
Anfey did not look so angry and fierce anymore. "Where is Uncle Ernest?"
"Master Ernest went to keep searching for Suzanna," Riska said.
Anfey went quiet for a while. He finally figured what had happened and forced a smile. "Blavi and Riska, I am sorry. I was just…"
Blavi patted Anfey on the shoulder and chuckled nervously, "What are you talking about, Anfey. I know you were worried."
"Anfey, if you had grabbed my neck with a bit more strength, I probably would not be able to hear you say sorry now." Riska was still a little scared as he rubbed his neck. The choking feeling was horrible, Riska thought to himself.
Anfey held his hand out and lightly punched Riska’s chest to show he was really sorry about what he had done. He did lose control of himself, and now he slowly was regaining composure. Ernest was right. The first surprise attack was the most dangerous battle for Suzanna. As long as she was alert, Suzanna should have the ability to protect herself. Even if she could not win the fight, she definitely could flee from danger unless her opponent was a top power.
Manstuly should still be in Maho Empire. Yolanthe would not let Philip do anything ridiculous. Other top powers had no reason to go after Suzanna. Suzanna never had any conflicts with them, nor did she have any conflict of interests with them. They would not risk being the enemies of other top powers to go after Suzanna. Thinking these thoughts, Anfey felt a lot better, even though he was still worried.
"Riska, take a quick rest. We have to leave soon," Anfey said quietly.
Riska shook his head. "I do not need it." He saw a row of elves kneeling on the ground. He asked in surprise, "Why are there elves?"
"They set up Suzanna and now want to set me up. It looks like they tried to catch all of us at once," Anfey sneered.