Chapter 481 - 471: Mulin
Deep within the Empire, along the official road leading to the Imperial Capital, Mulin City, the entire road was stained a dark crimson beneath the blood-colored sky.
A large slave-transport convoy of more than twenty cage-wagons was halted in the middle of the road to rest, the iron cages crammed full of slaves of various races with numb eyes.
Forty to fifty burly guards with weapons had set up camp among the wagons; the dried blood crusted on their blades and their vicious stares made other Demon Race travelers automatically detour through the woods.
When a luxurious carriage escorted by eight black-armored Knights approached, it did not detour like the others, but simply stopped in front of the slave convoy. The four nightmare beasts pulling the carriage stamped their hooves impatiently, and from the scarlet eyes beneath the Knights’ helmets it was clear these black Knights were all of the Blood Race, or at least half-bloods.
A Pigman guard with a face full of fat was just about to step forward and curse them, when his gaze suddenly froze on the emblem on the pitch-black carriage’s paneling!
It was an inlaid silver-edged bat crest, without any extra ornamentation, even a bit unremarkable.
But this very crest frightened the Pigman into stumbling back repeatedly, almost tripping over the haft of his own axe.
The slave convoy’s leader scrambled out of his tent in a panic, his greasy face piled with obsequious smiles: "I did not know the Lord Earl would be passing by here, this lowly one will at once...."
Before he could finish, the leading black-armored Knight flicked his hand and snapped out a serpent-bone whip. The whip tip tore through the air and lashed a bloody line across the leader’s face.
The burly man with the brutal face did not even dare to grunt, instead bowing his back even lower, letting beads of blood drip from his chin into the dust.
He turned and roared at his subordinates: "Are you all blind? Clear the way for the lord, now!"
The guards instantly scattered like a disturbed nest of soldier ants, brutally kicking aside anything blocking the road, even shoving several heavily loaded carts straight into the roadside ditch.
The slaves in the iron cages shrank together in terror, chains clanking. In just a few moments, the once crowded road had been cleared into a wide passage.
The leader wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve, knelt at the roadside and kowtowed repeatedly: "My lord, please, this way please..."
The Knights did not so much as glance at him, escorting the carriage at an unhurried pace straight through the chaotic camp.
Not until the carriage had gone did the slave convoy’s leader collapse onto the ground, clutching the welt on his face and baring his teeth in pain, yet not daring to hold the slightest grudge in his heart.
Just as this slave convoy could rely on numbers and strength to occupy the road, forcing other Demon Race travelers to detour through the woods, so too could the Blood Race Earl’s Knight Commander casually crack his whip and leave a brand of humiliation on the face of any who offended him.
Here, Power was truth.
As long as one did not violate the statutes the Empire explicitly forbade—such as openly slaughtering one another—no one would bother to interfere in these petty matters.
Yet the slave convoy would never have imagined that the one sitting inside that pitch-black carriage was neither the Earl nor any member of his family, and not even of the Demon Race.
Within the carriage reinforced by multiple layers of defensive and anti-detection wards, Tanaka gently lifted the velvet curtain of the rear window. Looking at the slave convoy members scrambling to restore order to their camp, he couldn’t help murmuring under his breath, "Now that’s domineering."
Beside him, Jiro lounged lazily into the soft fur cushions, eyes closed in repose: "Convenient along the way, isn’t it? That’s exactly why I was willing to spend the time helping that Blood Race crack the secrets on the treasure Scroll."
"But..." Tanaka lowered the curtain, a bit worried, "that set of legendary equipment forged specifically for the Blood Race—if that Earl really gets his hands on it, won’t it be terrible for humans?"
Tanaka, though Heartless when it came to fighting for humanity in order to save this world, was certainly unwilling to add fuel to the fire of humanity’s extinction.
"The Demon Race is likewise a Power we must leverage if we want to save this world." Jiro slowly opened his eyes, a trace of helplessness in his tone. "Them becoming stronger is not necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, it’s precisely because they’re not strong enough yet that so many things are such a hassle."
"You side with the Demon Race?" Tanaka was stunned.
"No, I don’t side with anyone. I only want to salvage this world, that’s all." Jiro paused, then continued, "Besides, you actually don’t need to worry about that matter. That whole set is buried in the Northern Territory, and as for the Northern Territory now... there’s no one left who can dig the treasure out of there."
At this, Tanaka nodded. The Northern Territory truly was frighteningly cold now. Before they left, that border city was already becoming nearly unfit for habitation.
He’d heard that several City Lords along the border had jointly dispatched a group to penetrate deep into the Northern Territory to investigate and deal with this anomalous weather, but Tanaka felt that a phenomenon on such a scale probably wouldn’t be so easily resolved.
With the Northern Territory’s current climate, even if one knew the approximate location of the treasure, there was likely no way to mobilize enough manpower to excavate it.
And by the time the weather problem was solved, the war might already have a victor.
Tanaka slanted his gaze up at the dark red sky. In his eyes, this sky carried a panel.
[Divine Artifact: Blood Calamity (Eternal life is a curse without an afterlife)]
This was the first Divine Artifact he had ever seen. When he had just entered the Mulin City domain earlier and discovered that this blood-colored sky actually had an Attributes panel, he had nearly jumped in fright, thinking the entire sky was a living thing.
Only after opening the detailed description did he realize he’d misunderstood.
Even so, a Divine Artifact capable of covering an entire Capital still shocked him with its might.
He had asked Jiro about Divine Artifacts. The latter told him this was the only fully intact Divine Artifact remaining in the world; the others had either shattered and scattered across the land or vanished without a trace.
Under the escort of the black-armored Knights, the carriage finally arrived at the Demon Race’s Imperial Capital, Mulin City.
The City Guard at the gate gave only a cursory inspection of the family crest on the carriage, then waved them through, not even checking the interior.
In fact, as the Empire’s Capital, Mulin City saw a complex and massive flow of people in and out every day, yet its entry procedures were astonishingly simple, not even as strict as many border towns.
On one hand, this was to speed up the flow of people; on the other, it was because no one could pull any tricks under this blood-colored sky without being discovered.
However, not long after Tanaka and Jiro entered the city, the gate’s City Guard received new orders: the entire city was to enter a state of lockdown, and henceforth all who entered or left would be subject to rigorous inspection.
Of course, this no longer had anything to do with Tanaka and Jiro.
"Lord Jiro, these places are all the master’s properties. Before he left, the master instructed that if you have any need, you can use this ring to have them cooperate." The leading Knight respectfully handed Jiro a slip of paper with several addresses and a ring set with a black gemstone bearing the crest.
"Thank the Earl for me." Jiro nodded and casually took them.
After parting with the black-armored Knights, Jiro didn’t even glance at the items before tossing both the slip and the ring into the roadside drainage ditch.
"You’re just throwing them away?" Tanaka felt it a bit wasteful.
"They’re useless." Jiro couldn’t care less.
In his eyes, that Blood Race Earl’s sole value had been to give them this ride.
"Now you should finally tell me what exactly you brought me here to do, right?"