“Lord Linley, as long as you are willing to assist, when we divide the treasures, naturally you will have a share as well. No. Two shares. What do you say? In my view, those treasures must be worth several million gold coins at least,” Shaq said in a low voice.
Shaq knew very well what an astonishing amount of wealth a royal clan possessed. Because in his own hands, there were five hundred million gold coins in magicrystal cards.
The Kingdom of Hanmu wasn’t inferior to the Kingdom of Fenlai. They probably possessed the same amount of wealth. How could the major treasures they carried out be of low quality?
“Fine.” Linley nodded. “When you plan to make your move, notify me as to what you wish.”
Hearing this, Shaq was extremely excited.
Perhaps when they were fleeing, magi were hindrances, but when they were able to engage in a battle, their power was astonishing. Linley was a dual-element magus of the seventh rank. With their opponents totally caught off-guard, he alone could probably kill half of them.
Linley carefully inspected those seven people on Prince Louis’ side. Right now, each of them were carrying four or five bags. In particular…
“Hrm?”
Linley suddenly noticed that the sound of hoof steps of one middle-aged man's horse was particularly loud. In addition, that horse seemed more tired than the other horses as well. More importantly, that middle-aged man had another horse running alongside him! He had two horses to himself!
Clearly, this middle-aged man needed to frequently change horses.
“These horses are both fine horses. Even if they were carrying three or four people, they would gallop like the wind. Why would this middle-aged man cause these horses to be so tired, to the point where he would have to frequently change horses?” Linley instantly understood the reason.
This middle-aged man was very heavy.
Or, to put it another way, the things he was carrying were very heavy. “But this middle-aged man is only carrying a short sword. Can it be that within his bags…” Linley’s only explanation was that the four bags the middle-aged man was carrying included something extremely heavy.
The wind howled.
Both Prince Louis’ and Prince Shaq’s men had retired for the night. No matter how strong one was, they would still need rest. Prince Louis and his six warriors all rested together, while Prince Shaq’s men were divided into four or five units. These two forces were located in separate areas.
“Master, when should we leave?” Prince Louis said in a soft voice. The other five men were all feigning sleep.
“Wait a bit longer. When they’ve all fallen asleep, we’ll mount and leave,” that middle-aged man said quietly.
Fleeing into the dark night was a very common strategy. It was a common strategy because many people used it… and many people used it because it was effective!
The thirty people on Prince Shaq’s side were feigning sleep as well. Not a single one of them was truly asleep. Everyone knew that there would be a battle they had to fight tonight.
“Lord Linley.” Prince Shaq was by Linley’s side. He called out to Linley in a soft voice.
“Hrm?” Linley turned to look at Shaq.
Prince Shaq continued, “Lord Linley, prepare to secretly cast a magic spell. This will catch them off-guard and make them suffer heavy losses. And then, my squad will charge over and finish them off. Lord Linley, it’s up to you now.”
“Fine.” Linley nodded.
A sudden sneak attack via magic at night was something which opponents definitely would not be able to foresee.
Linley’s lips began to move slightly as he quietly began to chant the words to a magical spell. By his side, Prince Shaq could only wait impatiently. Poor Prince Louis and his men actually wanted to wait a while longer and flee after Prince Shaq and his men had fallen asleep.
“Swish! Swish! Swish!”
In a circular area with a radius of ten meters, dozens of sharp earthen spears suddenly jutted out of the ground. “Ah!” A series of agonized screams sounded out as those sharp earthen spears suddenly pierced through those warriors’ bodies, and one of them was directly impaled through and through. That poor Prince Louis was instantly killed as well by those spears. He was, after all, the weakest person amongst them.
The thickly clustered array of earthen spears was enough to freeze one’s heart.
Earth magic of the seventh rank – Earthen Spear Array.
Four of the seven people in Prince Louis’ party died in agony on the spot, while the three remaining warriors of the eighth rank suffered serious injuries as well, due to being caught off-guard.
“Kill!”
The thirty members of the Wildthunder squad were previously feigning sleep, but hearing those miserable screams, they all charged towards the other camp as though they had received orders. They immediately attacked those three wounded warriors of the eighth rank, in a thirty against three fight.
This wasn’t a fair contest at all. What’s more, the Wildthunder squad had ten warriors of the eighth rank.
“Slice.” “Slice.”
Those three wounded warriors of the eighth rank were easily killed. They were barely able to resist at all.
“Second Prince, all of them are dead now.” The captain of the Wildthunder squad, an energetic, golden-haired middle-aged man reported.
Shaq was overjoyed. “Haha, wonderful! Quick, bring those bags over to me. For this action alone, I will award all of you a hundred thousand gold coins. When we reunite with my royal father, I will disburse the gold.” Shaq was extremely excited.
There were thirty people in the Wildthunder squad. A hundred thousand gold coins each was only a total of three million gold coins. But the wealth contained within those ten bags surely was worth more than a hundred million gold coins.
“Come, Lord Linley. You pick two bags first,” Shaq said very magnanimously to Linley.
The usefulness of a magus in pitched group battles had been totally put on display. This sneak attack by magic of Linley’s had killed four and heavily injured the remaining three. If Shaq had ordered his men to directly attack, quite a few of them probably would’ve died.
Linley walked directly over to Prince Louis’ master’s corpse, the middle-aged man. He hefted each of the four bags. As he did so, Linley indeed noticed something strange. Three of the bags were very light, very ordinary.
But the last bag… it seemed very small, and the object inside was only the size of a man’s palm, but its weight… was over a thousand pounds.
“Something the size of a hand but over a thousand pounds in weight?”
Linley was stunned.
He had never heard of anything this dense and heavy. Even gold and diamonds were much lighter than this material. The size of a hand, but over a thousand pounds…
“Lord Linley?” Shaq walked over. “Have you chosen?”
“No need to choose. I’ll just go with these two.” Linley randomly grabbed another bag from the remaining three, then slung the two bags over his back.
Seeing this, Shaq felt very happy as well. What he worried about the most was that Linley would open every single bag to take a look inside, then make his decision. This would be quite unfair to him. But Linley had just casually hefted the bags on a single person, then chose two of them.
All of Shaq’s subordinates were now carrying bags.
“Let’s go.” Shaq was now in a wonderful mood.
Linley was riding on a horse as well, but while riding the horse, Linley had cast the Floating Technique on himself. Given his power as a magus of the seventh rank, using a spell of the fifth rank was extremely easy. Linley used the levitational powers of the Floating Technique to counteract the extra weight of that mysterious object.
This allowed the horse he was riding to continue galloping without strain.
“Grandpa Doehring,” Linley immediately pressed him. “Take a look and see what I have inside these two new bags of mine?”
“Oh, yo
u got some treasures?” Doehring Cowart, who had been napping inside the Coiling Dragon ring, was suddenly full of energy. He immediately used his spiritual energy to directly sense what was inside Linley’s two bags.
“Within that first bag is a brocade box wrapped in several layers of cloth. Inside the box there is a matching pair of beautiful jade crystals. They should have quite the history, but I don’t know where they are from,” Doehring Cowart said.
“The second bag… ah?!”
Doehring Cowart cried out in surprise. “What is it?” Linley’s heart clenched in excitement. He knew that the second bag had to be the one containing the strange item weighing over a thousand pounds, because the item inside the second bag wasn’t a perfectly rectangular box.
“Adamantine. Adamantine ore. There’s actually a fist-sized chunk of adamantine ore in the Yulan continent. This… this is astonishing,” Doehring Cowart said in amazement.
Hearing the words ‘adamantine’, Linley’s heart clenched yet again. Adamantine didn’t actually exist in the material plane. It only came from other planes, and it was so tough and durable that supposedly even most Deity-level combatants couldn’t easily break it. When he was jailed in the Radiant Temple, that lock with some adamantine alloyed into it would’ve been hard for even a Saint-level combatant to break. From this, one could tell how tough adamantine was.
“A fist-sized chunk of adamantine ore. This… this is more valuable than even a Saint-level magicite core. How could there be such a huge chunk in the world?” Doehring Cowart simply couldn’t believe it.
“A fist-sized chunk is ‘huge?’” Linley was rather confused.
78
The City of Hess
Doehring Cowart was rendered momentarily speechless by Linley’s question.
“Linley, I must tell you, if a weapon has just a little bit of adamantine alloyed into it, the weapon’s durability will increase to a very high level. If a weapon were to be totally made out of adamantine, even if you gave it to a Saint-level combatant and let him try to break it, he wouldn’t be able to scratch it, no matter how long he tried.”
Doehring Cowart was very resigned.
Linley clearly didn’t fully appreciate how valuable adamantine was.
“Then, Grandpa Doehring, can I use this adamantine to forge a ‘heavy sword?’” After listening to Doehring Cowart previously explain the benefits to using heavy weapons, Linley wanted to acquire a heavy sword of his own. Originally, Linley was planning to spend some money and buy a good one. But now that he had this chunk of ‘adamantine’, naturally he had to put it to good use.
Right now, Linley didn’t lack money.
“Forge a heavy sword with adamantine? A heavy sword is rather large, and will most likely need this chunk of adamantine to be mixed with some other metals. But of course, I don’t know anything about blacksmithing myself. However, I have heard that forging weapons out of adamantine is extremely difficult. Adamantine is extremely tough. Most master weaponsmiths are not capable of melting and reforging it.” Doehring Cowart chuckled.
Linley nodded to himself.
Adamantine was a material which even Deity-level combatants supposedly would find tough to break. But since it was possible for adamantine to be forged into a weapon, naturally there had to be a special technique for it as well. Only, the technique was probably too difficult.
“Got it.” Linley nodded.
Linley and Second Prince Shaq continued speeding northwards, and the farther north they went, the sparser the magical beasts became. After travelling another three or four hundred kilometers without a single magical beast appearing, they reached an area where the local cities and towns hadn’t had any people die.
But these villages and towns were very sparsely populated. Most likely, people were afraid of the danger and had moved northwards as well.
“Haha, good, it seems the Kingdom of Hess hasn’t fallen.” Shaq laughed loudly. “It’s been quite a few days. Finally we can rest.”
Shaq looked at Linley.
Seated on his horse, Linley seemed as solid and unmovable as an old oak, not wavering in the slightest, seeming very stable. His face was calm, and he had been silent, giving him a reliable, taciturn aura. Towards Linley, Shaq had always felt a hint of dread. Although he was a few years older than Linley, he always respectfully addressed Linley as ‘Master Linley’.
“Master Linley, look. That’s a military camp up ahead.” Shaq and Linley were riding side by side.
Linley nodded.
The Radiant Church had clearly decided to set up a line of defense here at the borders of the Kingdom of Hess. Seeing those countless military camps lining the border, one could tell how many soldiers had been deployed here.
“Two kingdoms and five duchies lost. That’s about a third of the territory of the Holy Union. I expect the Radiant Church isn’t willing to retreat any further.” Linley chuckled. Linley and the knights made their way through the guarded pass, and were quickly allowed in.
This guarded pass was to defend against magical beasts.
Naturally, no humans would be denied entry.
“Second Prince, shall we rest here?” Linley seemed very tranquil.
“The City of Hess is one of the agreed upon places that my royal father and I settled upon. We still have around three hundred kilometers before arriving at Hess City. If we hurry, we should be able to reach there by nightfall today,” Shaq said unguardedly.
“Hess City!”
Linley memorized this name. “Clayde. Hess City shall be where you die.”
They continued their journey. Linley, Shaq, and the thirty mounted knights kicked up a trail of dust in their wake. By the time Linley and Shaq saw the City of Hess, the sun was just setting, casting its red glow upon the earth.
“Hess City, the capital of the Kingdom of Hess. It’s only slightly smaller than Fenlai City.” Seeing the silhouettes of the enormous city walls, Linley couldn’t help but be awed.
How much manpower had it taken to erect such giant walls?
Arriving at the gate to Hess City, Linley and his squad found their way barred.
“Dismount!” A gate guard of Hess City ordered in a loud voice.
“Why should we dismount?” Shaq shouted back angrily.
The gate guard saw that Shaq’s group was definitely an extraordinary one, and thus answered the question. “His Highness has ordered that no horses may be ridden within the boundaries of Hess City. Everyone, right now Hess City is overflowing with people. There’s simply not enough space to ride horses. It’s best if you all dismount.”
“Let’s dismount.” Linley smiled at Shaq.
Shaq nodded.
Linley and Shaq could both imagine that many people had fled here from the two ruined kingdoms and the six destroyed duchies. Most likely many of the people living near Hess City had fled here as well. Those two kingdoms and six duchies possessed a combined population of hundreds of millions.
Even if 90% had died, millions would have survived. And of course, there had been no magical beast sightings within hundreds of kilometers of the Kingdom of Hess, so virtually all of the people who lived in that area had survived.
“So many people.”
Stepping into Hess City, Linley, Shaq, and the knights were all shocked. Hess City normally could only accommodate at most a million people. But by Linley’s calculations, right now there were at least several million people within the city, because every single street was clogged. Even in the City of Fenlai, Linley had never seen anything like this.
“Go find a hotel first, then come back here to pick me up.” Shaq immediately ordered his men to go reserve a hotel suite.
“Lord Linley, let’s go eat dinner first,” Shaq said with a laugh, and of course Linley wouldn’t refuse. Shaq immediately led Linley and the others to a nearby restaurant. The bottom floor of this restaurant was full, but there were still dining rooms available in the upper levels.
“Three rooms,” Shaq said magnanimousl
y.
But when they sat down and Shaq saw the prices on the menu, he was somewhat flabbergasted. Shaq grabbed the nearest waiter and shouted angrily, “Do you take me for an idiot? With prices like this, a table of dishes would cost several thousand gold coins. You are trying to cheat me!”
Although this restaurant was a high class one, Shaq, as a prince, had naturally been to many high-class restaurants.
For a restaurant of this class, a hundred gold coins a table was generally more than enough.
“Milord, if you don’t wish to eat, you can leave.” The waiter seemed very confident. “Right now, Hess City is filled to the brim with people, including countless nobles who fled here with their valuables. All of them demand high-quality service and are willing to pay for it.”
Shaq was instantly stunned by these words.
Right. The people who had managed to flee from the two kingdoms and the three duchies most likely all belonged to powerful clans or were powerful combatants themselves. Those powerful clans naturally wouldn’t penny-pinch.
“Hmph.”
Shaq snorted, but still placed his orders in the end. After Shaq and Linley had finished eating their meals…
“Your Highness, Second Prince.” The people who had gone looking for a hotel came back.
“And? Have you found a place?” Shaq asked.
That guard shook his head. “All of the rooms in the major hotels have been booked. Although we only went to five large hotels, we could already tell this wouldn’t work. There were too many people trying to make reservations. Your Highness, we arrived at Hess City too late. The members of the clans belonging to the five duchies and the Kingdom of Hanmu arrived much faster than us.”
Shaq nodded.
“Sit and eat first.” Shaq turned to look at another guard, one with short jade hair. “Are you full yet? If you are, help me find a manor and buy it. I expect the prices here within Hess City will be quite high, but no matter how pricy it is, buy it. Remember, though; don’t buy something which is too gaudy and too large. This manor will only be a temporary lodging place for myself and my royal father.”
Dragonblood: Book 2 of the Coiling Dragon Saga Page 61
