Chapter 807: Flame Rising and Setting Off Again

The young man, tied to a fresh tree trunk and being burned by the high heat of the flames, no longer tried to seek rescue from his kin; instead, he loudly cursed at the refugee masses looming in the thick smoke, berating these people for no one coming to help him, and cursing these indifferent commoners to eventually meet the same fate as his own.

This barrage of cursing and swearing made many of the commoners emotionally agitated. Many cast their gazes toward Knight Jier and Priest Bata'er, and faint sounds of pleading arose, unclear, as if they wanted the two lords, the Knight and the Priest, to change their minds.

Jier was somewhat unable to hold his composure and turned his head to look at Priest Bata'er, who was standing on the high ground beside him.

The Priest shook his head slightly and said in a low voice, "That monster cannot just hide its form and be burned to death; it will eventually be unable to endure. Warrior Jier, wait a little longer, trust me."

Jier swallowed a mouthful of saliva, took a breath, and nodded: "Fine, I trust you."

Afterward, Jier shouted loudly toward the crowd: "Please trust me and the Priest! Please trust us."

Jier's voice was very loud, far suppressing the curses of the young man being scorched by the flames, as well as the faint pleas of those in the crowd who sympathized with the young man.

The Armed Civilians within the Armed Squad naturally trusted Jier; after all, they had just fought against the monster, so someone took the lead and shouted: "I trust you, Lord Knight."

Another person shouted: "But not because of your strength and status, but because of the kindness you showed in leading us away from the Baishi Chengqiang Guanka."

"We trust you! We trust that you won't harm us, because we don't have any property."

"That's right, we only have this one life that can't even be traded for a small handful of copper coins."

"And you defeated so many bad guys along the way!"

The Armed Civilians, at least a hundred of them, all shouted in unison: "We trust you!"

Soon, following the stance of the Armed Civilians, the religious masses in the group who had faith in the God of Agriculture also shouted one after another: "We trust Priest Bata'er!"

"That's right, everyone, don't forget where the food you eat every meal comes from! It was all given to us poor people who fled our hometowns by Lord Priest himself, representing the great God of Agriculture."

"He didn't even take a single Iron Coin!"

"How generous!"

"And every time Lord Priest treats the wounded, he gets so tired he collapses on the ground! I was injured fighting bandits, I know Lord Priest is a good man!"

"He won't hurt us!"

More and more commoners raised their heads, looking at Priest Bata'er with burning gazes; most of them were commoners who had been injured after setting out, or who had sought treatment from the Priest for headaches or bodily discomfort: "We trust you!"

Jier's face on top of the carriage was a bit red, while Priest Bata'er had the experience of preaching in the Cunzi, so he was not shy or embarrassed by the praise and tribute from the crowd, but instead puffed out his chest.

The Priest noticed Jier's unease, so he said: "Warrior, please puff out your chest; you deserve to accept this trust and praise with composure."

Once Jier heard this, he realized it was indeed the truth, so he puffed out his chest, this time staring intently at the young man in the flames.

Perhaps Priest Bata'er had said it right or guessed it, or perhaps the instinct for survival was the greatest instinct of life. Under the scorching heat of the flames, the young man no longer cursed or swore, but instead began to struggle and convulse abnormally.

The fire blazed, and because the wood was fresh, the smoke also gradually lessened, allowing more people to clearly see the young man in the center of the flames.

At this moment, when he should have been screaming in pain, the young man just silently kept shaking his head and neck, and his face opened its mouth wide, revealing a terrifying expression that made one feel horrified. The mouth opened to an angle that was impossible for a normal human to reach, making all the commoners who looked over feel a chill run through their bodies.

It was as if they were no longer looking at an innocent, suffering young Human, but at a Monster that was similar to a human, yet not a human.

Subsequently, under the gaze of many, plant roots similar to tentacles reached out from the young man's wide-open mouth, as if testing the environment outside.

Some commoners with sharp eyes discovered this and could not help but gasp, hurriedly pulling on their companions nearby to make them look at the young man's mouth.

"What is going on?"

"The God of Agriculture is above, look! This is truly terrifying!"

"Lord Knight and Lord Priest really didn't lie to everyone."

"Nonsense! What would they gain by lying to everyone? A few days ago when we broke into the bandits' lair, Knight Jier didn't even care about the people who went with him, just rummaging through the bandits' spoils."

"Besides, what use are our lives to them? Anyone with sense understands that along this journey, we have delayed them so much and caused so much extra trouble. Anyway, if it were me, I would have abandoned everyone and run away long ago."

Amidst the discussions of the commoners, the crying of Ka'er's sister stopped; after all, she was closer to the others, and looking from a close distance, the plant roots extending from Ka'er's mouth were becoming more numerous and thicker, looking increasingly terrifying and frightening.

When Ka'er's neck became thick and his abdomen collapsed abnormally, it further signaled that something was about to emerge from inside Ka'er's body.

Ka'er's sister could only weep silently at this moment, feeling sorrow for her younger brother's fate, feeling apologetic for having wronged the Knight and the Priest, and even harboring some worries about her and her husband's future survival because she had cursed the two leaders of the group due to her previous emotional agitation.

As for her husband, he let out a heavy breath, his palm no longer having the strength to grip the hilt of his Short Sword, and his body collapsed limply to the ground. He reached out his palm toward his wife, and the two gripped each other tightly, seemingly comforting each other, or perhaps relying on one another.

More and more people noticed the changes happening to the young man amidst the discussions of those around them, and everyone looked with terror at the young man's thick neck and his mouth, which was opened like a snake's. Not only that, but from the young man's nostrils, eyes, and ears, large amounts of slender plant roots also emerged first; these things were quite afraid of fire, yet they did not want to stay in the young man's body and wait for death. They gathered on the young man's face, intertwining with each other, using their thick and sturdy parts on the outer layer to resist the high-temperature air around them, keeping the slender and fragile plant roots in the middle, forming a hemispherical shape clinging to the mouth, preparing to welcome and protect the thing about to emerge from the throat.

The sheer number of plant roots emerging from the young man's head and face was exceptionally startling; many people looked at the young man's head, which had shrunk by more than a circle, and then, thinking back to the swollen appearance of the head just moments ago, they directly bowed their heads and retched in disgust.

Some timid women among the commoners even closed their eyes and turned away, only listening to the discussions of others around them to know the situation afterward.

"It's coming out! That Monster is coming out!"

"Ugh, how disgusting. If I were to have a Monster burrow into my body, I hope my companions would just chop off my head and give me a quick death, rather than being occupied by this kind of Monster."

"Me too, I am a Human; even if I die, I am a dead person. I don't want to have my body controlled by a Monster."

"Thinking about it this way, this young man was begging for mercy and cursing just now, but was the person who was shouting just now really the young man himself? Could it be the voice issued by the Monster inside him controlling him?"

I don't know who asked this question, but it immediately made a large crowd around them fall silent; many people trembled all over at the thought of Humans being parasitized and controlled.

At this moment, Jier felt the situation was appropriate and was about to take action, unable to hold back, when Priest Bata'er stopped him: "Wait a little longer, let everyone see clearly what exactly it is that we are fighting against."

Jier exhaled and nodded, while his right hand beckoned toward the Tianxuecao behind the carriage; although he did not speak, this small movement was sensed by a weapon.

That was the meaning of a summons.

Consequently, a weapon trembled, slightly springing up from the Weapon Rack on the horse's back, and flew directly through the air into Jier's hand.

The Long Sword on his left waist vibrated, seemingly wanting to fight, but was calmed down by Jier.

"You didn't want to act just now, so there shouldn't be a problem now, right?"

Jier muttered in a low voice, but the blue axe held in his right hand clearly heard him. The blue light on the axe rose and contracted like breathing, and the Monster head on one side of the axe face also whispered and rustled, discussing something in a voice that ordinary people could not hear.

Unlike the other Monster heads, the Spider-type Magic Beast that occupied a large area on the axe face greedily peered at Jier's arm; even though it only saw cold, hard metal, no one knew that it could clearly sense a strand of power that originally belonged to it, sealed beneath that metal, and even within Jier's body.

That was its power, yet now it was locked within the body of a Human like Jier. The image of the Spider-type Magic Beast trembled, wanting to take action, but in the end, it did nothing.

Because the blue light emitted from the surface of the axe suppressed all the Spirits imprisoned inside the axe.

When Jier summoned the water-crossing head to his right hand, the foreign object that had caused the young man's neck to bulge had already reached inside his oral cavity.

And it was not just that thing; it seemed that besides the Core Human Face of the parasite, there were some other things following behind, squeezing into the poor young man's neck, still keeping the young man's neck bulging and unable to return to its original state.

The plant roots on the young man's face suddenly expanded, and a protected object burrowed inside. Afterward, the large mass of plant roots on the human face swayed, grabbing the young man's head and face, and began to move toward the top of his head.

And on the mouth they had moved away from, a string of things firmly grasped by plant roots began to be pulled out from the young man's mouth one after another.

The people nearby immediately let out a gasp, because a heart, firmly gripped by many plant roots, was being pulled out of the young man's mouth by the monster. Those with sharp eyes could even see fresh blood emerging from the severed blood vessels of the heart as the monster pulled it out, while some of the slender plant roots binding the heart were greedily catching this squeezed-out blood and constantly smearing it onto the surfaces of other surrounding plant roots.

It was clearly being used to resist the scorching temperature nearby.

And when the plant roots enveloping the Parasitic Core climbed along the top of the young man's head onto the tree trunk, the plant roots dragging behind pulled a new piece of human viscera out of the poor young man's mouth.

It was as if it couldn't bear to leave these fresh human viscera behind while fleeing, dragging them along as it pulled them out from inside the young man's body. It turned out that the previous atrophy of the young man's abdomen was caused by this monster dismantling the viscera of the parasitized human and intending to take them away.

"What now? I can't stand it anymore..."

Jier watched the parasitic monster, which was still greedy even while fleeing, with a cold gaze, and tightened his grip on the axe handle in his right hand.

The Priest scanned the crowd below, noticing that people were either gritting their teeth, terrified to death, panicked, or looking at the two of them with expectation. Only then did Bata'er Jiaoshi say: "Finish off that monster; we have been delayed here for a bit too long."

As soon as his words fell, he saw Jier throw the Blue Axe in his hand forward, and at the same time, one could hear a sharp shout from Jier.

"Is this thing a human or a monster? Give me an answer!"

It was unclear who he was talking to.

The axe whistled and began to spin in the air, and quite abnormally, instead of flying forward in a parabolic arc as one might imagine, it spun horizontally, circling levelly in the air.

The people all looked up at this scene, not knowing what was going on with this axe of Knight Jier.

Jier also frowned as he watched the spinning Two-handed Axe, but before he could make a move, the clump of plant roots that the monster had entangled together climbed to the top along the tree trunk, dragging a long string of human viscera behind it, which was very terrifying and disgusting.

And seeing this scene, Ka'er's sister fainted to the ground in tears. After all, it wasn't as if just anyone could see their own relative's viscera being pulled out one by one from their mouth by a monster right in front of them and not be agitated enough to faint.

At this moment, the head-like object that had been dancing in the sky for several circles paused in mid-air, and the next moment, it spun and slashed diagonally downward, instantly hitting the connection point of the plant roots where the monster was dragging the human viscera.

With just one strike, it neatly severed the sturdy plant roots, and then turned upward to flick the screaming monster within the clump of plant roots into the air.

The next instant, the axe spun rapidly, slashing toward the monster clump falling in the air, instantly destroying the monster's core body into a large number of fragments.

In the mist of pale purple sap, the severed pieces of plant roots fell to the ground and lost their life after a twitch, while the core of the parasitic monster, that parasitic human face, was chopped into several pieces and fell to the ground.

Jier looked at the piece of human face about half the size of a palm, snorted coldly, and raised his hand in a beckoning gesture; the axe flew back into his hand after the strike.

And the large amount of viscera that the monster had pulled out of the young man earlier fell into the flames, and together with the corpse of the already dead young man, they were burned to ashes in the gradually rising fire.

The group soon set off. Taking advantage of the fact that it was still afternoon, Jier hoped that the group could leave this mountain range before dark, at least reaching the plains ahead. It would be best if they could arrive at the town vaguely visible in the distance by dusk.

However, the attention of the people in the group was clearly not on the fast march; everyone was whispering to their companions about what had happened earlier.

As ordinary people of this era, most of them had seen in their villages the powerful Village Chief or leader, perhaps acting on some Kingdom decree, execute people who opposed them in the center of the village.

Some people had also seen with their own eyes the punishment of beheading or hanging on the execution platforms in towns.

But none of those could compare to the scene that had just occurred before everyone's eyes.

People discussed whether the young man who had cursed them after the fire started was a monster or the young man himself.

People discussed what would happen to Ka'er after he died, and whether he would enter the Underworld as the Church of the God of the Dead in town preached. With that kind of terrifying death, was it the young man or the monster that went to the Underworld after death?

People discussed how Bata'er Jiaoshi had discovered and been so certain about the parasitic monster in Ka'er's body, and whether he really had no way to deal with the parasitic monster?

People discussed that they hadn't seen Knight Jier use that axe much; it was very unfamiliar. But it looked like it was flashing with blue light, not losing to the Knight's Sword.

People discussed which of the two weapons Knight Jier preferred? And which one was actually more powerful?

Some said it was the Blue Axe; after all, it could fly around in the air and attack enemies on its own, so it must be more powerful and worry-free. Others said that since Knight Jier carried that Hunting Sword with him all day, he clearly preferred that weapon.

Still others mentioned the heavy, all-metal Long Spear on the Knight's warhorse, because they heard that when they first set out, during that night bandit attack, it was that Long Spear that finally defeated and killed the large number of bandits.

However, when someone finally brought up the battle that night, some of the people who had participated in the battle and survived to this day swore that those weapons were not Knight Jier's ultimate move, nor were they his most powerful weapon. The truly powerful one was a gorgeously decorated Dagger on the Knight's right belt.

On the night of the bandit raid, that Dagger had shone brilliantly, defeating a larger number of bandits at the most difficult moment.

It was just that many people were in a panic at the time, and except for the brave ones who were fighting with sporadic bandits on the front line, few people knew about this powerful weapon of Knight Jier.

Perhaps that was a Magic Weapon.

Regarding this, Jier, who was riding on his horse and hearing these topics discussed by the people, smiled helplessly. The 'Heart Fire' Magic Dagger was powerful indeed, but what it consumed was the Magic Power of the Magic Gemstone embedded in the Dagger.

Every time it was used, it was less like burning Magic Power and more like burning Gold Coins.

After all, Knight Kela, who was similarly troubled by the consumption of his own Magic Weapon, had once said that such Magic Weapons could generally only be taken to large cities where Mages existed, specifically spending money to beg Mages to infuse them with Magic Power and replenish their energy.

And many times, it wasn't just a matter of you bringing money to their door and them accepting it to replenish your Magic Power. Mages were not short of money, at least most were not; to replenish Magic Power, you had to see if the Mage had free time, and the relationship between the organization the Mage belonged to and the organization you belonged to.

For example, Knight Kela had said that the purchase and recharging of Kendall Baron's set of Magic Tools and Magic Weapons were handled through the connections of the Provincial Noble Council. After the Baron made contact with a certain Mage many years ago, he relied more on his own family knowledge and personal cultivation to maintain a good personal relationship with that Mage.

Therefore, he was able to collect a set of Magic Tools more easily than other Nobles, and even the Baron's eldest son had a set of Magic Weapons and tools for self-defense.

As for Knight Kela, although he could also use the Baron's relationship to connect with that Mage, he would more often go to the Imperial Border Knights stationed on the northern border of Kendall County to have his Magic Power replenished by a Mage he knew, who was his old leader.

Money was not the problem there, but unlike Kendall Baron, who worked and lived in the Province Capital all year round, Knight Kela could not leave the Kendall City he was stationed in at will to make a special trip to the northern border knight station for such a thing.

Although Kendall County was not very large, a round trip, even riding his monster-like six-legged warhorse, would take several days.

Considering the relationship between Kendall County and the Earl of the Province, this was clearly not feasible.

The people envied Jier's various powerful weapons, but as the owner of these weapons, what Jier was troubled by was their maintenance and recharging. Speaking of this, Jier was particularly satisfied with the Blinding ability blessed by the Sun God Church on the Hunting Sword; it could be recharged for free every day just by shining in the sunlight, which really lived up to the expensive cost spent when buying it.

The best part was that while possessing such a powerful and useful ability, he didn't have to be deeply involved with the Agricultural God Church; Jier hadn't even really met a person from the Sun God Church yet. People said that the Sun God Church used to be quite active, until something happened last year, and this church shrank its power and scale, reducing its various activities in society.

And the Priests of other churches took this for granted.

It was quite strange.

Jier had asked Bata'er Jiaoshi about this before, but having been stationed in the village to preach for many years, Bata'er Jiaoshi's news was clearly not very well-informed, and he didn't know about it either.