Ch. 27
Chapter 27: Traces of the Beastmen
Inside the passageways of the Underground Palace, four or five skinny beastmen, naked and green all over, were making their way deeper inside with excited expressions, noisily chattering among themselves.
In their hands were either stone spears or stone knives, and in their tiny green eyes, round like beads, greed and madness constantly glimmered.
In the darkness, silver light flashed. With a sharp swish, a longsword came screaming up from the depths of the Underground Palace.
In an instant, it pierced through the throats of two goblins.
The goblins whose throats had been pierced only managed to let out a few choking sounds before their life quickly faded away.
The remaining goblins were instantly overcome with terror. They hurriedly picked up the weapons dropped by their dead companions, turned around, and fled toward the outside.
At that moment, a cold gleam burst from the longsword, sharp and chilling.
In the next instant, it pierced through the chests of three more fleeing goblins.
A while later, a dim yellow light lit up the dark passage of the Underground Palace.
Jiang Lin walked over with a Kerosene Lamp in hand, his gaze sweeping across the corpses of the small beastmen.
These beastmen were even weaker than ordinary humans.
Even a common woman with enough courage could easily kill one of these goblins if she had a weapon in hand.
With that thought, Jiang Lin released his Divine Sense and began sweeping it outward beyond the Underground Palace.
At that moment, Trelis also recovered from the chaos. He still was not used to being a sword, especially a flying sword. The battle just now had shaken him so badly he felt like throwing up.
“These are beastmen, but the lowest kind of beastmen—goblins. A cursed beastman race that is small and greedy.”
As he spoke, he leaned in for another look, somewhat puzzled.
“How did these things get through Dusk Forest? That is too strange.”
“There are more outside,” Jiang Lin said. His eyes flickered, and with a casual grab, he seized the Sword of Trelis beside him and rushed out through the passage.
Under the sweep of his Divine Sense, he found more than a dozen goblins moving cautiously through the forest.
In the next instant, the longsword shot forward and pierced through the chest of one goblin, the force so great that it nailed the creature directly to a tree.
Jiang Lin’s figure also rushed out. Looking at the somewhat panicked goblins, he did not use Spiritual Power. With a flick of his right hand, the Cangwu Sword appeared in his grasp, and he charged into the ugly creatures.
Only a moment later, more than a dozen goblin corpses lay scattered through the forest.
Killing them was not worth wasting Spiritual Power on.
“It was probably just a coincidence. With the strength of goblins like these, there is no way they could cross Dusk Forest.”
Trelis emerged from the sword and looked at the goblin his blade was still pinning in place. Muttering to himself, he said,
“Especially when this is a group of goblins that do not even have proper weapons.”
“A coincidence?” Jiang Lin looked toward the depths of the forest. After extending his Divine Sense to investigate for a while, he found no more goblins or other beastmen.
These creatures were worthless even if he killed them all, so Jiang Lin did not linger any longer. In the distance, Magical Beasts had already caught the scent of blood and were closing in.
Jiang Lin pulled out the Sword of Trelis and returned to the Underground Palace.
Whether it was a coincidence or not, Jiang Lin still left behind a strand of Divine Sense to keep watch at the entrance of the Underground Palace.
After returning, Jiang Lin took out the remaining Magic Crystals.
After all this time, half of the Magic Crystals from before were still left.
Jiang Lin kept five in reserve, then decided to embed all the rest into the array.
As the Magic Array lit up with runes, Mana slowly began to gather within the Mana-Gathering Array.
No matter what happened, cultivation was still the most important thing.
This time, Jiang Lin intended to try restoring himself to the late Foundation Establishment Realm.
The Underground Palace once again fell into silence, the dim yellow lamplight illuminating the statue of Ancient Archmage Isno.
Other than that, only Trelis’s illusory figure remained, quietly watching Jiang Lin inside the array.
He could not understand it. Raising one’s strength in this way was even more boring and tedious than studying magic theory.
It required extraordinary perseverance and resolve.
But perhaps it was precisely because of this method that Jiang Lin was so powerful.
Trelis thought that if he himself had encountered Jiang Lin without any preparation,
he probably would not have lasted even a second in Jiang Lin’s hands.
Of course, the comparison was not entirely fair. Even an ordinary person had a chance of killing a mage.
And as a mage, one naturally needed many defensive magic tools to protect oneself.
As Trelis’s mind wandered, he gradually became accustomed to these silent and tedious days.
At least things were better now than before. Jiang Lin was here, and there was still someone he could talk to.
What he did not know was that this sort of cultivation was simply the norm for cultivators in Zhongzhou.
Cultivators all pursued the Great Dao. If one could not endure even this bit of loneliness, if one’s will was not firm enough even for this, then what right did one have to speak of cultivation?
Even Jiang Lin, the sword prodigy of the Divine Sword Sect, had cultivated for more than three hundred years before reaching the Mahayana Realm.
The sun and moon turned several times, while outside, who knew how much time had passed.
Jiang Lin slowly awoke from cultivation and let out a long breath of turbid air. Sword Intent flickered within his eyes, his bearing seeming perfectly formed by nature and yet restrained within.
His black hair drifted without wind, and his entire presence had become even more detached and transcendent.
“How long was I cultivating for?” Jiang Lin asked calmly, turning to look at Trelis beside him.
“About... five days, I think...” Trelis racked his brains for an answer. In a place like the Underground Palace, judging the passage of time was extremely difficult.
Jiang Lin nodded. After expending all the Magic Crystals, he had now reached the late Foundation Establishment Realm.
But to recover to the next realm, he would still need much more Spiritual Energy, and he would also have to condense his Golden Core anew. That would undoubtedly be a much slower process.
“It is time to go outside and take a look,” Jiang Lin thought. Then he turned to Trelis and said,
“Come with me.”
Trelis was instantly thrilled. Finally, finally, he could go out and see the world again.
Pulling out the longsword along with Trelis, Jiang Lin walked toward the outside of the Underground Palace.
The Magic Crystals had been consumed far faster than he had expected. He had originally thought they would at least last a month or so, but now they were completely gone.
Without Magic Crystals, the Mana-Gathering Array in the Underground Palace was useless, and Jiang Lin had no intention of staying any longer.
When he stepped out of the Underground Palace and arrived in Dusk Forest, it was already pitch-black outside.
As was his habit, Jiang Lin released his Divine Sense to sweep the surroundings. Yet the moment he did, he instantly sensed nearly a hundred figures moving in groups through the forest ahead.
They were those goblins again. And among their ranks were more than a dozen huge, savage beastmen that looked like a mutated breed of goblin.
Those giant goblins were all clad in steel armor, practically fully armed, each carrying a spiked club or some other heavy weapon.
Even the smaller goblins were mostly wearing battered armor.
They were moving through Dusk Forest in full fighting formation, and their destination was Wheatfield Town outside the forest.
“Are they planning to invade the town...?”
Jiang Lin’s expression shifted slightly. In the night, his entire figure shot forward at once.
At the same time, the Cangwu Sword and the Sword of Trelis flew out instantly, erupting with powerful Sword Intent. Like cold flashes of light, they shot straight into the goblin force.
Slash! Slash! Slash!
The Cangwu Sword instantly pierced through several goblins in the rear, immediately drawing their attention. At once, the enormous Ogre Goblins roared and howled, wildly swinging their weapons all around them.
The twin sword shadows flickered back and forth, their sharp Sword Intent humming through the night.
They continuously reaped the lives of the smaller goblins.
At that moment, Jiang Lin had already charged into the fray. The Cangwu Sword dropped instantly into his hand, and in the next moment, the sword art erupted.
In the pitch-black forest, only Jiang Lin’s eyes shone with ripples like autumn waters, clear and bright, while killing intent surged within them.
“Heaven’s Autumn Rain Falls with a Mournful Cry!”
The Cangwu Sword Art was unleashed in an instant, and his voice also reached Trelis’s ears.
It sounded like some obscure and incomprehensible incantation, and Trelis could not understand a single meaning.
That was because Jiang Lin was not speaking the common tongue of the Atre Continent, but the language of Zhongzhou.
To Trelis, it sounded even more like some kind of Forbidden Spell.
The sword shadows within Jiang Lin’s movements carried an almost breathtaking beauty, yet the power they displayed was incomparably sharp and chilling.
Trelis had never seen such fierce swordsmanship before. It was unlike knights, and even more unlike warriors.
At that moment, Trelis felt that compared to the sword Jiang Lin wielded now, both of those paths were little better than apprentices. They had not displayed the true essence of the sword at all.
And in every one of Jiang Lin’s movements, Trelis could sense Sword Intent that seemed ready to burst forth.
It was a mystery and majesty steeped in an unmistakably Eastern aura.