Chapter 1009: Life-stealing Hands
“Why not?” The girl was puzzled.
Anwen replied, “It’s clear that this place has been attacked recently, and it’s the best opportunity for us to step in. Unfortunately, the natives inside are too many and too strong. I fear we won’t be able to escape after going in. I really have no idea who attacked them. I think they might’ve become food for the natives if they’re from the Empire.”
Bai Kongzhao made no reply. Keeping her gaze locked onto a group of natives who had just left the stone keep, she jumped down, lowered herself to the ground, and followed them like a cat. Anwen didn’t call her back and could only follow along helplessly, lest she starts a fight alone.
The young girl approached the group in complete silence and then suddenly pounced onto the last native warrior.
Anwen hadn’t expected her to attack so barbarically. Startled, he fell into a combat stance and got ready to help. However, the warrior collapsed to the ground, unable to move or offer even the slightest bit of resistance.
Only the sound of rustling clothes could be heard during the entire process. There wasn’t even any vibration, and the warriors in front never noticed what had happened.
Once the first warrior had fallen, the girl leaped toward the one in front who, just like before, immediately fell limp and collapsed. The girl pounced on one native after the other like a hunting leopard, felling eight of them in the blink of an eye. Anwen was promptly startled.
The two four-armed warriors at the front finally noticed that things were too quiet behind them. They turned back at the same time, but one of them wasn’t able to react before the young girl hugged his head.
The four-armed native also collapsed like the others before him, but he still had the power to swing his arms and legs before going down. The girl clung tightly to his head and refused to let go no matter what. The strange thing was that no matter how hard the four-armed warrior punched or kicked, he couldn’t hit the girl very often.
The other four-armed warrior drew her sword and cried out loudly. She was just about to attack when a red light flickered past, and her head flew into the air.
The four-armed woman’s head saw Anwen during her last moments, and her eyes actually lit up as she sprayed out a cloud of white mist.
Anwen was shocked out of his wits. He had never imagined that a severed head would attack like so. He knew how powerful the white mist was—he spun his sword once more and swept the mist away with another beam of sword radiance.
Only after that did Anwen breathe a sigh of relief and pointed his two-meter sword diagonally toward the ground, adopting a matchless posture. However, he immediately noticed something different—the long sword in his hand had vanished, replaced by the slender blade the little girl had given him. Anwen was tall and handsome, but that toothpick of a sword made him look somewhat effeminate.
At this moment, the young girl clambered up from the body of the fallen four-armed warrior. The victim seemed to have no injuries, but his eyes were now vacant, and his limbs were still moving about instinctively. Anwen could see that this four-armed native was already dead. It was just that his vitality was so strong that his body still had the power to move despite the lack of consciousness.
The girl glanced at the body of the four-armed woman and said to Anwen, “Thanks.”
The demonkin was surprised by the girl’s gesture. “What’s there to thank? We’re friends, and friends should help one another.”
“Friends?” The young girl shook her head. “Many people have called themselves a friend, but they would always try to stab me from behind.”
“I’m different from them!”
“How so?”
Anwen couldn’t reply for a good while. At first, he wanted to say that a demonkin young lord would always keep his word, that there was no way he would do anything like that. Besides, there weren't a lot of people in this world worth his friendship. He would naturally cherish those he did commit to because there was no way those who had gained his recognition would fall short.
This long string of reasoning was so detailed that it would take half a day to explain. It was just that the puzzled little girl had no concept of hierarchy or his status as the demonkin young lord.
She had actually run over to the passage entrance to suggest that they kill their way in, completely oblivious to the fact that the entrance was being guarded by the Eternal Flame or that the demonkin were the commanders of the garrison.
In her eyes, all she knew was that there was a great fortune on the other end of the tunnel, something she had to go and obtain. She had only suggested they fight their way in because she was willing to share it with Anwen.
This sounded funny, but Anwen was extremely moved. This meant that her acknowledgment of him had nothing to do with his status.
Anwen had no shortage of followers at his side throughout the years and could no longer tell if they were there for him or for his status. He didn’t care much about that before this. No matter what their motives were, it was fine as long as they were willing to work for him and promise a certain degree of loyalty.
It could be said that she was the first person who was completely ignorant of his identity.
That was why Anwen didn’t explain everything; he wanted to maintain this simple relationship. He had a selfish hope that the girl would never realize what being a demonkin young lord entailed.
But he had no way to reply to the girl’s question without going into these things. The demonkin thought about it for a good while before saying, “Anyway, I’m different from the people you’ve known in the past.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
Anwen looked upward with a somewhat guilty expression and never noticed that the girl was somewhat lost in thought, as though she were thinking about someone.
He put away the slender sword and began inspecting the native corpses. He was curious as to how the girl had killed them.
There were small, round holes on top and at the back of the four-armed native’s head, lethal wounds apparently. Anwen produced his dagger and cut open the native’s body layer by layer. On one hand, he wanted to observe the internal structure of the four-armed natives and find out their vital points. While on the other, he wanted to see what method the girl had used to kill them.
The girl moved closer to him and watched in silence.
Anwen’s hands moved nimbly—the dagger danced like a flying sprite as it dissected numerous muscle layers and revealed the secrets inside.
The more Anwen observed, the more astonished he became. The holes the girl had left on the natives’ head and neck punched right through to the bone, and the ones behind the neck extended directly through the spine.
The cervical spines of the four-armed warriors were different from the demonkin in that they were covered in small bony spikes. Some of them were poking out of the skin, while others remained buried in the flesh. These bony spikes were apparently there to protect the vertebra. The holes left behind by the little girl happened to pass right between two spikes to strike the spinal nerves.
Anwen knocked on the spine with his dagger and noticed a metallic reverberation. He swung the blade with force, but just as expected, he was only able to leave a gash the depth of a finger. He was far from able to slash through that bowl-sized spine. The sturdiness of the four-armed people’s skeletons was indeed shocking, so much so that they were even a bit stronger than demonic steel.
After checking on the spine, Anwen suddenly noticed that there were small punctures on the ends of some bony spines. Getting a sudden idea, he channeled his demonic power and cut one of the longer spines off. As expected, the interior of the bone was hollow, and there was a drop of white liquid at the very bottom.
Anwen tensed up at the sight of this white liquid. That was his body’s instinctive reaction to danger. This drop of white liquid wasn’t just poisonous—it was a venom that would be lethal even for himself.
The demonkin young lord was drenched in cold sweat. If he had been careless enough to touch these natives with his bare hands, he might’ve been injured by these malicious bony spikes. The poison within was troublesome even for someone like him.
But how did the girl know the layout of these spikes and how did she avoid the danger?
Anwen turned back and asked, “How did you kill him?”
What he didn’t expect was that the girl would actually stretch her bare hands out at him.
“Oh, I see.” Anwen continued to inspect the corpse, unwilling to associate those fair, tender hands with killer weapons.
The holes on the four-armed man’s head were similarly bone-deep, and there were visible ring-shaped cracks on the skull bone. Apparently, the girl’s fingers never managed to punch through, but the damage wasn’t small, either. The dispersion of force would produce waves of intense dizziness, stopping any resistance the four-armed warrior would otherwise have mustered.
This was probably the reason why the four-armed native was flailing about randomly after falling down.
Anwen moved to the corpses of the two-armed natives, all of whom had been killed with a single lethal blow. The girl had directly severed their control over their bodies, allowing her to kill them quietly one after the other. She was only forced to put in some extra effort while killing the four-armed warrior who possessed a different level of vitality and strength.
How did this girl know the anatomy and weakness of the four-armed natives? It was clearly her first time here. Was this her innate gift?
There was nothing special on the dead warriors. The girl picked up the four-armed man’s cleaver and threw it away after comparing it to her arachne limb blade.
Anwen sighed as he glanced at the cleaver. The weapon’s quality really wasn’t that bad, probably on par with a grade seven weapon outside of the Great Maelstrom. And that was only the weapon of an ordinary four-armed warrior. The entire area was filled with treasures—the timber from any random tree here could serve as the core structural material for a warship.
It was just that their spatial equipment had a space limit to them. Not to mention stones and trees, they couldn’t even bring a lot of the valuable white wine. In addition to the long sword, Anwen had protective secret treasures and demonic medicines inside this storage. There was really no more space after putting the four jars of wine inside.
After clearing out the natives, the young girl glanced toward the stone keep. Anwen said in shock, “We can’t handle that!”
“There’s something good in there.”
“I know, but we have no choice, there are too many enemies.”
“Kill them little by little.”
“That’s too dangerous, especially the white mist from the four-armed women. It’ll be extremely troublesome once we get caught.”
The young girl replied, “I’m not afraid.”
Anwen laughed wryly. “But I am!”