“Ha ha ha…”
Parkes, who had been walking forward slowly, suddenly looked ten years older, his smile bitter and his face pale.
Ever since he first saw the ring on Lin Nuo’s hand, he had already factored this all in.
‘Dared not kill, couldn’t win in a fight…’ Parkes admitted, he couldn’t even outsmart this young man he had looked down upon.
Facing someone who once could be crushed with a single stomp and who had no magic at all, leaving him so passive and powerless… he wondered just how strong the other would become once he learned magic.
“If I were thirty, forty, or fifty years old, I’d risk my old life to take you out, Lin Nuo Clemence. None of the prodigies from other marquis families ever scared me as much as you do…”
Parkes looked at Lin Nuo and said, “The Angekesai House won’t allow the Clemence Family to have a junior like you alive. But I’m already seventy-seven. I’m not going to gamble on something so uncertain.”
He pressed down on Ruding’s shoulder and said, “Do you still want to embarrass yourself here? You’re outmatched. Come with me and take your punishment.”
“Cough, cough!”
The Elven Kin surrounding them sheathed their weapons and withdrew the killing intent they had shown.
Amidina immediately stepped forward to support Lin Nuo’s staggering body, still clutching his dagger tightly.
As Amidina loosened his clothes and began healing his wounds with Healing Magic, Lin Nuo turned his head one last time to gaze at the children who, under the control of the ancient texts, had no choice but to leave with Parkes after completing their mission brilliantly, even rushing up in the critical moment to help block Ruding’s blows…
And then, that madman, staggering forward with his head down and uneven steps, walking straight from the dense forest toward Parkes…
Vitz.
“Shh…”
As the magic power of the Healing Magic began to soothe the agony twisting Lin Nuo’s insides, he propped himself up, pulling Amidina’s hand away and standing.
“We might both die here…”
“Chirp chirp?”
“What are you saying?” Amidina was confused.
“The real enemies aren’t those two,” Lin Nuo shook his head without explaining.
“Of course, they might be the first to die… if nothing unexpected happens, we’re all going to die… just depends on who runs faster later, cough cough!”
Even injured like this, Lin Nuo hadn’t stopped thinking or dropped his guard even a little.
At first, he wasn’t sure, but when Ruding told him obsessively, “If I can’t have it, no one can,” Lin Nuo gained some clarity.
Seeing Parkes hold back the reckless Ruding, who wanted to risk everything in a one-for-one fight, and telling him to go back and accept punishment, Lin Nuo was completely certain.
With Parkes protecting Ruding so fiercely, Ruding simply couldn’t die under normal circumstances.
Ruding, trained by Parkes and gifted, had developed an extreme “if I can’t have Amidina, I’ll destroy her” mentality toward Amidina.
In the original storyline, he would have definitely appeared as a villain, competing with Feng Aotian, who took Amidina from her.
But…
In the original storyline, neither Ruding nor Parkes appeared at all.
That could only mean that even in the original story, they hadn’t succeeded in taming the Magic Whale at this stage.
They were probably already schemed against and killed by someone cunning in their own team.
Then, who would have killed them?
Lin Nuo pressed his hand to his chest, trying to steady his ragged breathing.
“Peewee…”
“Chirp chirp?”
“Did you see the Storage Ring glowing on that person’s middle finger? The last move is on you. I really… really have no strength left…”
Lin Nuo smiled faintly, guessing that the person was about to make a move.
Of course, he would too…
“Pst!”
The sound of something piercing flesh rang out clearly even amidst the torrential rain.
“Vitz!”
“What the hell are you doing?!”
That was Ruding’s incredulous, panicked shout.
Amidina, who didn’t understand Lin Nuo’s meaning at all, blinked in confusion and turned to look behind her.
There stood Vitz, facing Parkes, as if abandoning his usual mad, unstable demeanor.
Just as he approached, he suddenly drew a sharpened tree branch hidden in his arms and stabbed it straight into Parkes’s unguarded abdomen.
Blood and rainwater pooled on the ground beneath the shocked, disbelieving eyes of Ruding and Parkes.
“I said it—I will kill everyone who ever bullied me! Kill everyone who stepped on me! Heh heh… of course, that includes you. My respected… Lord Parkes, whose arrogance destroyed all my plans!”
Vitz let out another evil laugh, but unlike before, it carried the desolation and hatred of someone whose countless efforts were shattered.
From his mud-stained clothes, a Jade Buckle hanging around his neck fluttered, radiating an eerie, unfathomable powerful magic.
The black energy enveloping him was…
“The power of the Demonic God!”
Opportunity!
“Quick…” Lin Nuo’s voice was so faint it was almost inaudible.
He tapped Amidina on the shoulder: “Nock an arrow. Shoot the Storage Ring on his middle finger…”
“Swish—”
Amidst the sound of Ruding’s single-armed sword cutting through the air, Parkes, who had just been stabbed, was able to create some distance from the suddenly transformed, extremely dangerous Vitz.
He pressed his bloodied abdomen with a horrified expression.
In the rain-filled noise of his ears, Lin Nuo’s voice faintly echoed.
Just as Parkes thought Lin Nuo and Amidina were coming to help him resist the oncoming Vitz, he gripped his sword’s hilt, ready to confront the evil god’s power on Vitz’s body.
Suddenly, sharp pain shot through his finger.
Then, trembling, his eyes watched as Amidina shot an arrow that severed his middle finger along with the Storage Ring, which fell to the ground.
Parkes still had no time to react.
A Bird flew from Lin Nuo’s shoulder, swiftly snatching the Storage Ring with its claw, then spread its wings and soared into the sky.
“Run!”
With Parkes’s magic no longer empowering it, the Elven Kin, free from the mind control, immediately obeyed Lin Nuo’s shout.
They carried the remaining children, along with their knocked-out, tied-up companions, and scattered into the mist, moving toward Lin Nuo once more—who had given them unimaginable hope again.
Everything changed in the blink of an eye.
“Damn! That hurts!”
“Seriously… burned out…”
***
“Here, I’ll carry you!”
Amidina couldn’t even count how many times this man in front of her had shocked and amazed her with his resolute will in such a short time.
She didn’t have time to ask Lin Nuo more questions now.
Seeing him stop, pale-faced, she grabbed his hand and placed two fingers on his wrist, feeling his pulse carefully.
“Consider it adding insult to injury this time…” Lin Nuo murmured weakly to himself.
“Of course, if we had died first, Parkes would have done the same to us… but we don’t have to run anymore… cough cough!”
“Now I finally understand why that lunatic didn’t kill me first…”
Lin Nuo coughed, opening his hand to reveal a clump of jet-black bloodstains: “He poisoned me…”
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.