Chapter 339: Stranger in a Foreign Land

In the dead of night, Desen woke once again from a nightmare, finding his face soaked with tears.

The swaying cabin was cramped; only a dim gas lamp hung overhead, and in a space of just a dozen square meters, more than twenty people were packed.

The hot, humid air was laced with a nauseating sweat stench that stabbed at the nostrils.

A month ago Desen would have certainly vomited, but now he was gradually getting used to the smell.

He couldn't sleep, so he grasped the chain on his wrist, carefully sat up against the wooden wall of the cabin, lest he make a sound that would wake others.

Through the planks, the sound of waves came from outside the ship.

"This time, I don't know where I'll be sent…" Desen thought numbly.

The flickering light made his thoughts drift, recalling the nightmare just now, as if he were back to the disaster a month ago that ruined his family and turned them into slaves.

His hometown Mono Long was a small city in the eastern part of the Kemeier Duchy; his father ran a shop there, which, though not as luxurious as a noble's life, supported the family, sent him and his sister to school, and was comfortable—far happier than the farmers outside the city.

If nothing went wrong, after training with his father for two more years he could take over the shop, letting his lifelong-toiling father finally relax.

However, the arrival of the Weina destroyed it all.

Mono Long lay more than two hundred li from the border between the Kemeier Duchy and the Weina Kingdom; forts and troops guarded the front, yet the Weina somehow bypassed the defenses and suddenly appeared outside the city.

Desen still clearly remembers that day, when the Weina cavalry shattered the gates and guards in just half an hour.

Those storm‑worshipping fiends rushed in, setting fires and killing people; a city with centuries of history turned to ruins.

The horrific scene of that time will stay with Desen for the rest of his life.

His parents were both slain by the Weina blades; he and his sister hid in a cellar but still couldn't escape fate, were dragged out. He tried to resist, but the Weina who captured him was a transcendent, whose strength and speed crushed him; his sword never even left its sheath before he was subdued.

Then he and his sister were shackled and marched across the border into the Weina Kingdom, finally at a port they were blindfolded with a black sack and placed onto a slave ship.

When he removed the black cloth, two days had already passed, and he was starving to the brink of death.

An experienced tribesman told him that the place they were in was Thus: Thus: Shengangcheng.

Thus: Thus: Shengangcheng of the Oriense Empire!

Desen has always dreamed of visiting the Oriense Empire, to see with his own eyes one of the world's strongest empires, the mortal realm created by the legendary wizards comparable to gods. The nobles and rich of the Kemeier Duchy send their children to the Empire for training if they can afford it. It is said that even several princes and princesses of the Grand Duke of Kemeier grew up in the Empire's capital Nuosiruier.

He lacks such conditions, but while at school he spent years learning the Aurelien Language, yet never got the chance to go.

He never imagined he would come to the Empire as a slave.

Even more disappointing, he could not see Thus: Thus: Shengangcheng's appearance at all.

From the slave ship he was taken straight into a prison‑like slave market overnight; towering stone walls and stern guards blocked his view outward.

The tribespeople were separated, locked in a dark, sunless cell.

Desen tried to escape but never had a chance.

The only consolation was that the slave owners here did not deliberately abuse them; they received two simple meals a day—never enough to be full, but not enough to starve.

Thus he drifted in a haze for a month.

Until a few days ago, when the guards dragged him out of the cell with chains, displaying him like cargo; he knew another moment had come to decide his miserable fate.

As he was barked to lift his head, he saw a man.

The man looked very young, just over twenty, probably about his own age, but the first glance left an extremely deep impression.

Desen had never seen anyone like him: a tall, muscular figure in simple light armor, a blood‑red cape fluttering behind, yet none of that compared to his radiant visage—an exceptionally handsome face with clear, steadfast eyes, an aura beyond ordinary, like a hero stepped out of an epic!

He stood in that luxurious great hall, surrounded by a crowd fawning over him; even a slave trader he had met once bowed and flattered.

Desen could not describe his feeling then; his mind was completely stunned.

That person scanned him and his tribespeople with an assessing gaze, eyes as calm as lake water, lingering on him for a fleeting instant; perhaps an illusion, but it seemed he was seen through completely, leaving no secret.

Then he heard a voice say, "Another batch."

And he was pulled back into the cell.

Desen thought he hadn't been chosen, which should have been a cause for joy, yet his heart felt oddly hollow, his mind replaying that man's look and bearing.

The tribespeople in the cell also whispered about the adult.

Many speculated, but no one could say for sure his origins; everyone agreed he must be a tremendously powerful transcendent, surely a noble of the Empire.

The day after that, Desen and all the tribespeople were once again loaded onto a slave ship.

This time the ship sailed farther across the sea.

It had been four days, still not at the destination; cooped up in the cabin no one knew where they would be taken. Some tribespeople, unaccustomed to sea travel, fell ill, but a pharmacist promptly treated them, as if fearing trouble with this batch of slaves.

"Father, mother…" Desen's Willpower waned, murmuring.

He listened to the sound of waves lapping the hull, and tears fell again without any sleepiness.

He thought he would endure the night, when suddenly a shrill alarm rang in the cabin.

Everyone was startled awake.

Bang bang bang!

The ship's guards hammered the hatch so loudly that it shook the sky, shouting, "All rise! We've arrived, prepare to disembark now. Anyone who dares to stall, watch out for the whip!"

Desen quickly stood, waking several still‑dazed tribespeople.

Moments later the ship shuddered lightly and stopped.

The fierce guards entered the cabin, chaining the slaves together, brandishing whips, driving them onto the deck.

Outside it was still deep night, the sea wind cool on their skin.

"It's already late autumn."

Desen greedily inhaled fresh air, tightened his linen shirt, looked outward and instantly saw the slave ship moored in a massive port.

He had never seen such a huge port; in the darkness the view stretched endlessly, hundreds of ships docked, the pier ablaze with light, many workers laboring diligently. Prosperous districts rose along the dock, taverns and inns spilling noise, people reveling through the night.

Looking up toward the distance, vague silhouettes of towering buildings pierced the sky, their lights flickering like stars.

Desen noticed an unusually pitch‑black cloud mass higher in the sky.

Though the darkness made details vague, a glow within the cloud illuminated faint outlines, as if hiding something massive.

"Where is this?" Desen muttered absentmindedly.

Not only him, all the slaves stared curiously, involuntarily slowing their steps.

Snap…

The guards cracked their whips, producing a whistling sound in the air, and barked, "What are you looking at? Move along!"

The slaves huddled their necks and, one by one, disembarked with trembling hearts.

When they reached the dock, they discovered more than a dozen massive buses parked there, their bodies heavy and long, larger than any vehicle in the Principality of Kemuier; the compartments held rows of seats that could accommodate thirty to forty people, with room to squeeze in dozens more.

Someone recognized it and whispered, "This is a public bus; only the Empire's big cities have them."

Desen widened his eyes; he had long yearned for the Empire and naturally knew what a public bus was, and today he finally saw one.

The slaves were pushed aboard, packing the whole bus to the brim.

Desen was lucky enough to snag a window seat; the hard iron chair was uncomfortable, but it was better than standing in the aisle.

One batch after another of slaves disembarked from the ship and boarded the bus.

Moments later, every bus was packed; amid a roar of steam, the buses slowly set off, crossing the wide roads of the dock and leaving the harbor.

Desen noticed that the guards who had brought him to the port were gone, replaced by a group of mercenaries and centaurs.

Each mercenary was a transcendent, clad in armor and wielding weapons; they rode on the centaurs' backs, running alongside the bus convoy.

The public bus sped through the night, the road smooth with only a slight jolt.

Desen curiously gazed at the world outside the window.

He could already confirm that this was still the Empire, but he didn't know which city; several guesses floated in his mind, none definitive.

Suddenly, the public bus turned onto an even wider road; as it moved forward, a vast expanse of tall buildings appeared on the right. Even at night, several miles away, the lights revealed a brilliantly illuminated world, like a city that never sleeps!

Especially three skyscrapers that rose into the clouds, their tops invisible when looking up, like three massive pillars standing beneath the night sky.

This captured all the slaves' attention, prompting a chorus of awe.

"I know, this is Mo Du!" a slave shouted suddenly. "My uncle once came to Mo Du; he told me those three towers were modeled after the Wizard Tower and belong to the estate of the Earl of Glamorgan."

"So it's Mo Du…" Desen thought, a sudden realization.

He calculated from the slave ship's travel time, silently counting the Empire's coastal cities, and guessed that he was either in Mo Du or one of the nearby major cities.

The bus continued on its route.

After about an hour, the public bus entered a massive estate—more precisely a large farm, since the autumn harvest had just passed and most fields lay empty. Near the manor house stood several big warehouses, and the bus stopped on the open ground before them.

"All down!"

Someone outside shouted, and although the tone wasn't as harsh as the slave guards and there were no whips, the slaves still dared not delay, disembarking in orderly rows.

Once all the slaves had gotten off, the public bus immediately set off again.

People were already waiting in front of the warehouses, all looking like robust transients; they divided the more than a thousand slaves into five groups, each with over two hundred, and assigned them to five large, factory‑like warehouses.

Inside the warehouse, Desen found it had been converted into dormitories, partitioned with wooden planks into dozens of rooms. Each room contained a row of wide beds that could comfortably accommodate seven or eight people side by side, with blankets and clothing provided, and a section of the warehouse housed washrooms and toilets.

Though the conditions were still crude, they were countless times better than a prison or a ship's cabin.

Every slave was assigned a bed and blankets and clothing.

The mercenaries unlocked the slaves' shackles and chains, seemingly unafraid they would flee.

Suddenly free, Desen's first thought was to find a chance to escape, but he glanced at the mercenaries guarding the warehouse entrance; he couldn't defeat any one of them. Even if he rallied dozens, or even all the people in the warehouse, it would be a suicide.

The gap between ordinary people and transients is too great!

Desen dutifully queued, took a quick wash, and felt much more comfortable. Lying on the bed, inhaling the cotton scent of the blanket, his mind finally relaxed and he drifted into sleep.

This time, he didn't have any nightmares.

(End of chapter)