Chapter 665: The Darkest Moonless Night (Part 2)

The Bandit wearing Banlan Vertical Chop took a long way around and quickly ran back to the Shulin where their group was hiding.

"It's me, don't attack!"

As soon as he approached, the blade of a Long Sword extended from the shadow of a tree trunk beside him, pressing coldly against his neck.

This Bandit swallowed a mouthful of saliva and carefully used his fingers to slowly push away the metal blade on his neck: "You could tell it was me just by the sound of my footsteps, yet you still play these kinds of jokes; it's not funny."

A burst of low, nasty laughter rang out from the shadows, and a hand reached out from within to shove his back: "The boss is already impatient, why were you so slow?"

"Pah, those %￥% things, they don't have much skill, but they sure have big airs. Especially that so-called King of the White Wall, I spit on him, King of the Shit Wall more like it! He even wanted me to kneel to him! Does he really think he's a Noble? Even if he were a Noble, I'm not some farmer who would accept Noble rule."

The Bandit wearing Banlan Vertical Chop wore a look of disgust; his opinion of that so-called King of the White Wall was even lower than that of the other two crude Bandit Leaders.

Because that person's mannerisms reminded him of things from his youth.

Back then, it was precisely because his family had been bullied and framed by the lackeys of a Noble lord that he had killed someone and fled to become a Bandit.

He could accept being spat in the face, but he could not accept someone who was clearly a Bandit yet still put on the airs of a Noble.

Muttering and cursing, the Bandit hunched over and trotted to the place where they had set out from earlier.

Here, their leader, that sturdy, middle-aged man, leaned against the shadow of a tree trunk, his eyes carefully sizing up the young Refugees talking and playing by the campfire not far away.

"Just like a group of grazing animals looking for survival in the dry season, and we are the predators waiting to eat them."

After sighing, the subordinate he had sent out to contact the others returned.

"Boss, I'm back."

"How was it? What did they say?"

The Bandit wearing Banlan Vertical Chop squatted in the shadow of the tree trunk and said in a mocking tone: "Fatty can't wait until midnight; he's going to launch the attack as soon as it gets dark. And it looks like he intends to leave this place once this job is done. I heard this from his own men."

"Hmph, as expected. Continue."

"That guy, the Desert Snake, doesn't care; he says they can attack whenever. If Fatty makes a move, he'll follow and charge. But he said this time they won't follow the old rules for splitting the loot; whoever grabs it keeps it. As for his plans, he explicitly said he also intends to take his people and leave once this job is finished. But he didn't say when he's leaving or where he's going."

"That spineless snake with no ideas. What about the King of the White Wall?"

"The King of the Shit Wall is still putting on his airs as usual. He didn't say whether he would follow your plan or join the other two in the attack. He also had no objections to the distribution of the loot from this job, but he doesn't seem to intend to leave here afterward. He told us to just leave, saying that a dried-up creek can't support so many fish."

The Bandit Leader nodded: "His old routine. Alright, I understand everything. Hmph, wanting to strike first, they overestimate themselves too much and underestimate their opponents—a bunch of idiots. Still wanting to leave here to develop elsewhere? Brothers, do you think those two are thinking too highly of themselves?"

A burst of low, mocking laughter came from behind the dark tree trunks in the surroundings.

"Everyone blow your whistles together to send a signal to those idiots in the south. Since they want to strike first, let them fight to their hearts' content. It'll be the perfect chance for us to take a huge bite out of the other two before we leave."

The middle-aged Bandit Leader excitedly licked his lips, then took the lead and blew his whistle first.

Whew——————

Following that, all the Bandits in the area followed suit and blew their whistles.

Whew, whew, whew————————

The loud whistling disturbed the quiet, dark Shulin, scaring the nocturnal birds into flapping their wings and taking flight; the insects fell silent, and the roar of a predatory beast echoed from the thick tree branches not far away in response.

Awoo-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh—

In the Shulin across the creek to the south of the clearing, the burly Bandit Leader who was leading his men to charge out of the woods changed his expression upon hearing the series of loud whistles coming from the woods past the northern clearing, and then turned red with anger: "%￥%￥, those guys who were planning to wait until midnight to move were just talking big after all. Brothers, charge! They're just farming Refugees; whoever catches someone, that person is theirs to deal with! Kill————"

He roared, pulled out the Spear handed to him by a Bandit behind him, and swung it forward vigorously.

His subordinate Bandits drew their weapons from their Sword Sheaths and scabbards one after another, roaring as they formed into familiar small squads and ran out of the Shulin in twos and threes.

The roaring of the group shook the tender green leaves in the Shulin, causing them to tremble incessantly; a Squirrel shrank into its tree hole, a wild rabbit scurried back into its burrow, and a Poisonous Snake that had been preparing to hunt froze between the branches, motionless, trying to disguise itself as a brown tree branch.

Just as Fatty's men were roaring and charging out of the Shulin, hearing the loud whistling from the north, this group of Bandits ambushed to the south of the clearing also stood up from the bushes and flowers, howling, drawing their knives, swords, and Daggers, and charged straight across the creek—which was only deep enough to submerge their calves—toward the group of hundreds of Refugees.

They knew very well that even though there were hundreds of Refugees—dozens of times more than their group of Bandits—when it came to a real fight, the difference between having weapons and not, having the intent to kill and not, being organized and not, and the difference between roaring and being in a panic, was something they understood all too well.

These Bandits were dressed in a motley fashion; some had painted terrifying patterns on their faces, and on their bare arms, they had tattooed patterns of wild beasts and Monsters using hollow snake fangs. Not to mention jumping out suddenly in the dark, even in the daytime, just looking at them like this was enough to scare some timid farmers into silence.

The King of the White Wall sat where he was, and after hearing the loud whistling from the north side of the clearing, he waved his hand and sent out one of his squads of Refining Qi Bandits.

His group looked like Bandits and did the things Bandits do, but in reality, they were all being trained according to the model of training Soldiers.

Every time he led his team out to raid people, the goal wasn't entirely for those valuable goods, but for the women in the group.

Because unlike other Bandits who entrenched themselves on both sides of the Shanglu at the mountain pass, he had his own specialized Cunzi and territory in the mountains to the south. Raiding passing merchants was both to train the Soldiers he had raised from childhood and to capture young women to provide for the reproduction of his subordinates and Soldiers in the Cunzi.

When the Cunzi was first established in the mountains, it consisted of the commoners who were willing to retreat with his ancestors, but later it gradually became dominated by the people he had captured.

Upon hearing this person's order, a Captain standing behind him took a Wooden Whistle from his neck and blew a rhythmic whistle signal recognized by their own unit. Then, the whole unit checked their weapons and equipment, and as they passed by the King of the White Wall, they shouted things about offering their loyalty before trotting out of the Shulin in an orderly fashion.

Three groups of Bandits attacked simultaneously, all heading toward the south side of the clearing where Jier and the others were.

"What's that noise?"

"Where is that whistling coming from?"

"The north! It's the whistling from the Shulin to the north!"

The many Refugees were chatting by the campfires when suddenly, rhythmic whistling erupted from the direction of the pitch-black Shulin to the north.

Just as everyone was filled with confusion, human roars that terrified everyone to death came from the south.

"Kill!"

"Kill anyone who resists!"

"Charge!"

The continuous roaring even drowned out the suspicious discussions of the Refugees. The few gang-affiliated Refugee groups at the very south were the first to see the reflection of metal weapons in the darkness, and then they screamed at the top of their lungs: "Attack! There's an attack!"

"There's an attack! It's Bandits! So many of them!"

"Retreat! Retreat quickly!"

"%￥%￥, where did these Bandits come from!"

"￥%% Knight! I ￥%￥, you framed us!"

The gang-affiliated Refugees scrambled to their feet in a panic, subconsciously wanting to retreat into the crowd, but the clearing wasn't very large to begin with, and because they had been specifically asked to prepare extra campfires, the space was even more cramped.

After all, once the campfires were lit, the people warming themselves around them had to keep some distance; being too close to the fire would result in being burned to death.

Therefore, these gang-affiliated Refugees who subconsciously wanted to retreat into the crowd were directly blocked by others who were equally panicked.

Just when there was nowhere left to retreat, those bandits who had been lying in ambush behind the bushes and flowers south of the clearing had already sprinted up the slope by the creek and charged in.

"Fight them! Retreat while killing!"

A leader of the refugee gang shouted this, holding a short knife and waving it about, leading people to block the side of the campfire.

"Get the f*** out of the way, you bunch of mud, get out of the way for me! Whoever blocks the path, I'll kill them!"

Of course, there were also gang refugee leaders who turned their blades on their own people; whoever dared to block him and his subordinates from fleeing north would have to take a slash from his knife on their arm.

"What is that! What is that thing!"

Others were terrified by the appearance of the bandits charging up: faces smeared with garish, strange makeup, arms covered in images of bizarre beasts and monsters, plus the bone clubs hanging from their bodies, skulls of beasts or humans, and long, slippery snakes coiled around them. Many people had their legs go weak, either kneeling to surrender as these half-human, half-monster bandits demanded, or wetting their pants and collapsing to the ground, unable to even hold onto the pieces of metal in their hands.

However, there were still those who resisted heroically.

"The stones by the campfire, and those burning logs, pick them up and throw them at them! Kill! Kill! Kill!"

A gang leader roared, knowing that the dagger in his hand was no match for the bandits, so he shouted wildly and grabbed a stone from the campfire that had been heated to a scorching temperature by the flames. As the heat tore the skin of his palms, he smashed the burning stone directly onto the head of a strange-looking bandit charging toward him.

The scorching stone, still stuck with half the skin of a palm, smashed directly onto the top of the head of a bandit who was attempting to use his cleaver to block the incoming stone horizontally.

But this bandit misjudged the weight of the stone and the speed at which it flew; if he had been to school and learned mathematics from a Mage or a scholar, he would never have attempted to block it with a cleaver.

Bang!

The scorching stone directly bent the shape of the cleaver, the bent cleaver flew out of his hand, and then the stone hit the bandit's face head-on without losing any speed.

The face caved in, and the size of the indentation was just right to firmly wedge the scorching stone into the bandit's head.

The bandit fell backward, tripping two other bandits behind him in the process, and they all tumbled down the slope by the creek in a chaotic scramble.

The scorching stone roasted the unfortunate bandit's sunken face, the vitreous humor flowing from his flattened eye sockets, sizzling as it was scorched dry by the heat.

The bandit's dyed hair on the front of his head also curled up in the high temperature, emitting a foul stench.

Human life is truly tenacious; even with his entire face smashed in by the stone, the bandit had not yet died, his limbs still twitching and flailing wildly. He slid sideways into the shallow creek, which was only calf-deep, and by some coincidence, his upper body became submerged in the spring creek water.

The stone was cooled by the icy creek water, but the unfortunate bandit drowned in this creek that couldn't even drown an infant.

Just like a joke played by the Goddess of Luck.

Jier was talking beside Bata'er Jiaoshi when the whistle sounded.

As soon as the disturbance began, he immediately drew his Hunting Sword and said to the Priest: "Bataer, send a portion of your men to support the south with the stones they've gathered. Use brave men; I am going over now to block the attack coming from the south. Remember, be careful of the woods to the north, and try to rely on our carriages as a defensive position."

Jier patted the Priest's shoulder heavily, with enough force that it even activated the Protective Divine Art on the Priest's shoulder.

"I leave this place to you; try to fight together with the others, don't get separated, and stay alive."

The Priest was somewhat flustered and nervous; this was his first time facing such a battle head-on. The last time a chaotic army attacked Changmai Cunzi, he had only hidden in the basement of the Church with the children of the believers.

But the result was the many days of pain that followed.

At that time, he had thought how good it would have been if he had been there during the battle. He wouldn't have had to suffer so helplessly.

Even if he were captured alive by the enemy, he could have used his Faith to soothe the confusion and sorrow of the villagers after being caught.

Today, although the people involved were different, the scene was remarkably similar.

He touched his lips with a trembling hand and, using all his Yongqi, shouted to Jier, who was pushing through the panicked crowd: "May the Nongshen bless you, brave Warrior!!!!!"

The young Priest then held his Amber Metal Long Staff high, along with his other hand clutching a Protective Sculpture, and shouted crazily to the true and false Nongshen Believers around him: "Fight! Brave farmers! Fight! Fight with everything! There is no way back! Use stones! Use your teeth! Use burning logs! Fight with everything we have! Nongshen is above!"

"And we are under the gaze of the Divine, being judged! He is watching us! Let us fight bravely! Those who eat the grain bestowed by the Divine shall be received after death and enter the Divine Kingdom!"

The believers, who had just been in a panic, were suddenly drawn in by the Priest's shouting, and they struggled to hear every word the Priest said amidst the chaotic cries.

But many could only hear the two sentences the Priest shouted the loudest: "Fight, brave farmers."

And: "Those who eat the grain bestowed by the Divine shall be received after death and enter the Divine Kingdom."

What was this? This was the highest spiritual pursuit in the life of a Nongshen Believer.

Born to toil, was it not for the sake of entering the Nongshen's Divine Kingdom after death? There, there were endless fertile fields; no labor was needed, one only had to scatter seeds to have a harvest grow in a single day.

Fruit Trees covered every part of the Divine Kingdom, and all kinds of fruits—seen or unseen, heard of or unheard of—from all over the world were available for those who entered the Divine Kingdom to enjoy at will.

Every day that passed, countless livestock would fall from the sky for people to slaughter and eat as meat. Countless poultry could be driven out just by pushing aside the weeds and flowers by the roadside, and there were countless eggs in the grass.

The gentle and leisurely believers would even take the endless grain and fruit to brew wine, letting every Spirit that entered the Divine Kingdom get a little drunk every day and heavily drunk every three days.

That was the Divine Kingdom for the laborers, a place they could never enter in the past. Today, the promise made by the Priest, who had received the Divine blessing, immediately made the surrounding believers excited and agitated.

"Fight! Fight, fight!"

"I want to enter the Divine Kingdom! Don't block me! I want to enter the Divine Kingdom!"

The excitement quickly turned into fanaticism. Bataer Jiaoshi waved his large hand, and the light of the Amber Metal Long Staff shone, pointing to the chaotic place of battle in the south: "The brave, grab stones and support them! Beat them back! The despicable bandits do not engage in production and are the filthiest of people! Kill!"

As soon as he finished speaking, dozens of people crowded together, pushing aside other panicked and helpless young refugees, and ran quickly toward the scene while holding several fist-sized stones.

Bataer Jiaoshi did not go with them; he still remembered what Jier had instructed—that there was another group of bandits in the woods on the north side of the clearing, especially since the other side was the one that first blew the whistle for the attack.

He had to be on guard.

He looked around, then shouted loudly to attract everyone who was secretly watching him in the panic: "Follow me!"

The Priest didn't say what for, but the surrounding young refugees were like a flock of sheep led by a bellwether; once the Priest shouted, they all swarmed over, and nearly three hundred people moved with him.

Bataer Jiaoshi didn't walk many steps with the people before arriving at Jier's carriage.

A small portion of the young refugees had already gathered by the carriage with Wooden Sticks, forming a Jiedian that looked capable of fighting.

If the people in the woods to the north really wanted to rush out and attack, they could at least stop quite a few of them.

The Priest waved his hand and said to the surrounding young refugees: "Find a way to move the campfire to the front as a wall of fire to block the attack!"

Immediately, people grabbed the ends of logs that hadn't fully burned, held them high, squeezed through the panicked crowd, and threw the log sticks toward the front of the crowd.

Dozens or hundreds of sparse logs were thrown to the north side of the clearing, near the Shanglu.

It couldn't be called a wall of fire for blocking, but at least it illuminated a large area on the north side of the clearing quite brightly.

Naturally, it also illuminated the figures of some bandits who had originally been hiding near the bushes on the north side of the Shanglu.

Having been discovered, those bandits no longer hid; they stood up one after another with malicious, ferocious smiles, holding various weapons, each looking very strong.

Especially these guys, their eyes reflecting the firelight of the burning logs, making them look to the refugees more like beasts and Monsters that had just transformed into human form in the mountains and forests, rather than humans.

That was the gaze of a predator looking at herbivores.

That was a gaze that wanted to swallow them alive.

A gaze that only the most cruel of people could emit.

The middle-aged Bandit Leader pushed aside the subordinate in front of him, opened his mouth, and made his upper and lower teeth clack together loudly.

"Brothers, let us begin the Hunting and feast!"

"Ooooooooohhhhhh!!!!!!"

The ferocious Bandits shouted and charged forward together.