Chapter 309: Bandit Camp — The Knight Inside the Magic Beast and Burning the Corpses

Jier and the hunters were surrounded by layers of thick white mist; apart from that astonishingly loud screech from the Magic Beast earlier, there was not a single sound to be heard.

They could not see anyone, nor could they hear anything.

So they all stayed where they were, remaining vigilant of everything around them, waiting for this unnatural thick mist to disperse. Judging by the sound from before, that Magic Beast had already fled far away, and it was unknown whether Knight Lanisha had pursued it.

Knight Lanisha had crashed headlong into the soft sac at the rear of the Magic Beast's massive body. All around her were slimy, sweltering Magic Beast tissues, and many spherical glands were constantly secreting a translucent mucus, attempting to plug the wound she had just caused.

Around Knight Lanisha were many long, intestine-like things, bulging with whatever they were stuffed with. She discovered that it was not dark at all; many Magic Beast tissues, whose functions she did not know, were emitting intense Magic Power light as the beast moved.

She wanted to move closer to deal the Magic Beast a heavy blow, but it only provoked a more intense reaction. Two sharp legs actually forced their way in through the wound, undoing the efforts of that mucus, and a large amount of translucent mucus gushed out from the wound.

Then, those two legs accurately located Knight Lanisha, forcibly clamping her from the left and right, and dragged her out with brute force.

The female Knight used her iron fist to smash the hard legs clamping her, while her other hand kept swinging her sword to slash at the surrounding Magic Beast tissues.

But the Magic Beast was truly terrified of this Human, and without a second thought, it exerted force with its legs and flung her out from the soft sac at its rear.

Then it fled in a panic.

Knight Lanisha wiped the mucus off her helmet's faceplate, then hurriedly opened the faceplate.

As soon as the faceplate opened, a large amount of the translucent mucus that had been pouring in since earlier gushed out from the opening, and it was only then that the female Knight knelt on the ground, retching in disgust.

She was not injured, but the peculiar experience was still fresh in her memory, and she did not want to try it again. If she had known it would be so disgusting inside the Magic Beast's body, she would never have done that.

"Ptooey! Ugh-ooh-oh-oh-ugh. Damn Bards, there isn't a single word of truth in their mouths. Ugh-ooh-oh-oh-ptooey." After spitting out a mouthful of the mucus that had poured into her mouth, Knight Lanisha proceeded to vomit up the little bit of food she had eaten earlier.

When she was fighting just now, she had recalled a legendary story sung by a Bard she had heard in her girlhood. In the story, the hero would root out evil and support the weak, exterminating fierce beasts and monsters; one of the stories involved him jumping into a monster's wound while wearing armor, following the body inside the monster, and destroying the massive monster's Magic Power heart in one fell swoop.

She had been struck by a sudden inspiration just now and wanted to emulate the hero in the story, but only after she got inside did she realize she had been deceived by those Bards. Not only were there numerous muscle tissues inside the Magic Beast, but it was clearly not suitable for human survival; after she crashed in, the large amount of Magic Beast tissues around her squeezed her armor so tightly that she could barely move.

Moreover, something resembling Magic Beast blood kept pouring in through the faceplate; fortunately, this stuff was non-toxic, and it appeared to be brimming with rich Magic Power under her Magic Perception, seemingly harmless.

If it were a monster with highly poisonous blood, she would likely have died inside the Magic Beast's body by then.

Thinking of this, Knight Lanisha awkwardly hammered her fist into the ground, a boom causing the accumulated snow on the surrounding ground to explode outward.

After standing up, she still felt unsatisfied; it just so happened that the area was filled with the mist released by that Magic Beast, and no one else could see or hear what she was doing. She raised the sword in her hand and slashed toward a large tree nearby.

With a series of cracking and popping sounds, there was no way that large tree could withstand the Knight's rapid slashes.

Before it could even slowly fall, it was beaten into a pile of fragments by the successive slashes.

"Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo." After venting, Knight Lanisha, whose entire body was made uncomfortable by the Magic Beast's translucent blood, panted as she walked toward her subordinates.

She felt extremely uncomfortable, not because of injury or poison, but entirely because she was soaked from head to toe in this disgusting stuff. 'Need to find a place to tidy up,' she thought, and so she did.

Before the white mist dissipated, Knight Lanisha found the hunters under her command and the newcomer Jier; although their battle had not lasted long, the group still needed to rest.

Once everyone was found, the mist around them dissipated as well.

Knight Lanisha told everyone to rest. Because she needed to find a Bandit tent that was relatively clean to wipe off the Magic Beast blood that was slowly drying on her body.

As for the hunters, they needed to find the arrows they had shot earlier and inspect this Bandit Camp where everyone had died; after all, the place was littered with the Bandits' belongings, there were quite a few coins, and some good items looked decent as well.

As for Jier, he was constantly picking up the weapons dropped by the Bandits. Since Knight Lanisha had used one of his Long Spears to stab the Magic Beast earlier, he was granted permission to claim all the weapons here as his own, but if any hunter in the team needed a weapon, Jier would have to relinquish ownership of that weapon.

After all, they were currently in pursuit of a Magic Beast, and increasing everyone's combat power was relatively important.

Although the main force had always been Knight Lanisha herself.

Jier's brave charge just now to strike the Magic Beast's leg had also been seen by Knight Lanisha; she briefly praised the young man who had just joined, telling Jier to maintain this fierce spirit in future battles as well.

This Bandit Camp was neither large nor small, about the same size as the last Bandit Camp he had seen. The Bandits here had clearly been crushed by the Magic Beast after putting up some resistance; interestingly, the people in this Bandit Camp had basically died gathered together, and no one had attempted to flee during the battle.

Although they were damn Bandits like trash, this spirit of daring to fight to the death was still quite impressive.

Jier thought for a while and felt that perhaps these Bandits either didn't know how formidable the Magic Beast was, or they felt that since they had many people at the time, they could defeat this unclear beast hiding in the mist.

Looking at how most of these Bandits had been pressed to the ground and repeatedly smashed to death, Jier could imagine how these Bandits had been defeated by the Magic Beast.

It was likely that upon seeing this strange mass of mist approaching, these Bandits had vigilantly gathered together. Judging by the few corpses that had fallen in the direction the Magic Beast was advancing, it seemed that after losing a few men, these Bandits had all gathered together, attempting to use their formation to fight the unknown Magic Beast.

As a result, this Magic Beast sensed a good opportunity, moved directly above the group of Bandits, and then smashed down, crushing a large number of Bandits who didn't know what was happening.

Because the ground was covered in snow, there were definitely Bandits who hadn't been killed by the first smash; the Magic Beast must have discovered this, and then it was a matter of repeatedly lifting and dropping its huge, heavy body, lifting and dropping.

It smashed all these Bandits who dared to fight to death.

It was convenient for the Magic Beast, but it was a hardship for Jier, who was picking up the Bandits' weapons, and the hunters, who were picking up the valuable items on the Bandits.

They had to find wooden sticks in the camp to pry the flattened Bandit corpses out of the ground before they could start picking up the items on the corpses.

Several veteran hunters soon recovered more than half of the large number of arrows they had shot earlier; it was unknown whether the ones they didn't find had truly hit the Magic Beast's body, or if they had fallen into the snow and were then buried by the tree branches and snow shaken down when the Magic Beast cried out in pain earlier.

Fortunately, in a Bandit Camp of dozens of people, there were always one or two Bandits who used bows and arrows; beside their corpses were two full bags of crude arrows. Although they were not as good as the arrows the hunters made for their own use, they could still meet the requirements if used for battle rather than hunting.

In the Bandit Camp, Jier even discovered a light, small cart; this small cart should have been pulled by a mule or a donkey, and human power should have barely sufficed. The original draft animal was nowhere to be seen, leaving behind only a large amount of the animal's foul-smelling blood; it was clear that it had been eaten by the Magic Beast first.

Jier pushed the cart he had found and told the newly met hunters that they could put their harvest on the cart; he wrapped the metal weapons and items he had found in large pieces of Linen Cloth he had discovered and placed them on top.

Seeing this, the hunters also placed the things they had found on it; after all, carrying those heavy coins and valuables on their backs was quite cumbersome.

The hunters marked the spoils they had each found, while Jier did not need to, because the weapons on the cart were all his, so there was no need to distinguish or mark them.

During the process of rummaging through the Bandits' property, the biggest harvest was indeed in the Bandit Leader's wooden house; the hunters had no experience, but Jier gave them a lesson. He used a wooden stick to tap the floorboards in the wooden house, carefully distinguishing the sound produced after each tap, and soon, amidst the hunters' amazed praise, he found the treasure chest hidden by the Bandit Leaders.

Calling it a treasure chest, it was actually mostly filled with coins, quite a large quantity, and rather heavy.

Everyone worked together to load the found treasure chest onto the small cart. While Knight Lanisha was in the tent wiping off the foul-smelling Magic Beast blood from her body, they searched the entire Bandit Camp twice over, and the entire small cart was packed to the brim.

Every hunter was very happy; after all, the harvest here was not small, and the amount each person received was a significant sum of money, even enough for them to build one or two more houses for their families.

Of course, it could only be houses in the Cunzi; houses in Kendall City were not cheap, and even the prices of houses in the slums were not low, not enough for just this one harvest.

Afterward, it was time to deal with the Bandit corpses. Under the direction of several veteran hunters, Jier and the other young people became the main labor force. Everyone first cleared the floor of the Bandit Leader's wooden house, threw out the crude wooden beds, chairs, and cabinets, then stuffed the found Bandit corpses and the female corpses that might not have been Bandits inside. Then, everyone collected all the wood and other combustible materials they could find in the entire camp and piled them all together outside the wooden house filled with corpses.

"How is it, is everything ready?" Knight Lanisha had finally cleaned the disgusting Magic Beast blood off her body; she put her wiped-clean armor back on, and it even looked cleaner than before.

"My Lady, it is all done. The supplies harvested from the Bandit Camp have been piled onto the cart we found. And all the corpses that died in the entire camp have been piled into this wooden house. I must inform you, among the corpses are several people who were clearly not Bandits but kidnapped civilians; however, it is a pity that they all died in the Magic Beast's attack." A veteran hunter whispered to explain the situation to the female Knight.

"Is that so? It seems they were unlucky. Let it be, light the fire! May the souls of the Bandits be unable to return and just dissipate between heaven and earth. And may the innocent victims be reborn." Knight Lanisha waved her hand and said.

The hunters also said in unison: "May the Bandits' souls dissipate, and the innocent be reborn."

Jier vaguely followed along and said it too; he naturally did not believe that everyone's prayers had the slightest bit of use. After all, if saying a few simple words were useful, the people the Bandits kidnapped would have cursed them to death long ago.

So, words like these without supernatural power intervening were just empty talk.

A Hunter took a lit Torch and approached the wooden house piled with a large amount of combustibles, circled around it once, and then set fire to several rotten Tents specifically placed around the wooden house that were prone to burning.

As the flammable materials ignited, they subsequently set fire to other things like wood and clothing.

A large amount of thick smoke rose against the snowflakes falling from the sky, piercing straight into the sky in this gloomy daytime.

Soon, the charred, burnt smell of human bodies drifted over; Knight Lanisha blew a whistle, called over her beloved horse that was playing to the side, and led the party to continue tracking along the traces left by the Magic Beast.

Unlike before, they also brought a small four-wheeled cart, so their overall speed was a bit slower. However, the Magic Beast had also been severely injured; just looking at the long trail of frozen blood left on the snow where it had crawled, one knew it must be feeling terrible right now.

The Bandits in the middle of the Forest converged with two surrounding Bandit Groups, and with a number of about one hundred fifty or sixty people, they advanced toward the place where the Magic Beast's cry had previously originated.

Unlike other Bandits, these Bandits were quite Refining Qi; many of them had horses seized from merchants. Although mules and donkeys could also be ridden, everyone lived by the blade, and no one was embarrassed enough to ride such things out to plunder; otherwise, before even encountering a fat sheep, they would have been laughed to death by other Bandit Groups they met.

Many Caravans from out of town were different from the Caravans of Kendall County; they were mostly teams mixed with horses and donkeys. In every raid, the Bandits would find black-market merchants to sell the captured donkeys and mules, while the horses that could be ridden happily were kept for themselves.

Bandit Groups with a certain level of strength basically all had a small number of Refining Qi Bandits arranged to ride horses as messengers. The other large number of ordinary Bandits naturally still walked, and if the Bandit Leader did not have a need, they would usually walk on foot when leading the team out to plunder.

At this time, in this Bandit team of over a hundred people, there were at least fifteen horses. Because this was not raiding a Caravan, but dealing with an unknown Magic Beast, all the Bandits with some status and strength in the groups occupied the horses, walking slowly in the center of the team.

The other ordinary Bandits carried supplies, held weapons, and gathered around these people.

The three waves of Bandit Groups were distinct; in the middle was that strongest Refining Qi Bandit group. They had occupied this Forest year-round for a long time and had even built a permanent Yingdi in the middle of the Forest. They were originally a Bandit Group that plundered outside all year round, but after defeating and driving away the Magic Beast that had entrenched itself in this Forest many years ago, they did not go out to plunder much, but instead treated this Forest as their own territory, renting it to other Bandit Groups coming from outside to spend the winter.

At first, it was just some small Bandit Groups coming to spend the winter safely; after all, in the mountain forests in winter, Bandits who found it difficult to go out and plunder all agreed that robbing other Bandits was a faster way to make money.

So at that time, many small groups came here and received the safety protection of this Bandit Group. At first, some people felt it was a bit humiliating, but after this Bandit Group wiped out several large Bandit Groups that came to cause trouble, everyone began to accept the arrangements of these people.

After all, in the world of the Bandits, they only cared about how strong you were.

The change happened a few years ago. Knight Kela, who had served in several professional armies, was accepted as a Knight by the contemporary Kendall Baron and was appointed as the trainer and Commander of the newly formed Militia of Kendall City.

Those Militia, whose numbers were ten times that of the Bandit Groups, were not only numerous but also well-trained and uniformly armed; their flexibility in battle was far superior to these Bandit Groups that fought on their own.

Many Bandit Groups that had been formed for many years were wiped out; the executed Bandits were hung all the way south from Bingxun Pass to outside the county, and under the guard of the Priests of the Church of the God of the Dead, they hung for a full three months.

Only afterwards were they burned into ashes by the Priests and scattered into the river.

Every winter thereafter, in order to avoid the clearing by the Militia, the Bandit Groups that were lucky enough to survive would hide safely here for the entire winter.

There were inevitably some frictions between the various groups living here, which had always been "pacified" by this Bandit group with astonishing and outstanding strength.

But as time went on, the other Bandit Groups that had to pay expensive fees to this Bandit group every year had other thoughts.

You can become the manager and mediator of this Forest by relying on Refining Qi members; why can't we, these large groups with many Bandits, become the boss here?

Now, although the three waves of people looked like they were walking together, they were actually each going their own way, secretly refusing to submit to one another.

Previous disputes were all secretly rubbed and tested under the control of each Bandit leader; now, an unknown Magic Beast had come to this Forest, which could just be seen as a test question to see who among them could become the future "Lord" of this Forest for the Bandits to spend the winter.

This was the realization that arose tacitly after their leaders had briefly communicated.

The old leader of the middle Bandit Group sat on his horse, chewing on thin slices of dried meat, his eyes narrowed as he sized up the leaders of the other two Bandit Groups. Both he and his son appeared full of confidence; regarding this Magic Beast appearance incident, they viewed it as an excellent place to display their own strength.

And the other two Bandit leaders had more thoughts turning in their hearts.