Stray

Chapter 17: The ignorant are fearless

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Nemo took a step back subconsciously, the metal nugget in his chest starting to heat. They are still some distance away from the red fog, so they can't see clearly. But even from this distance, the scene of scattered flesh still sends chills down the spine.

"We're near the border." Nemo grabbed the small metal cube.

"It's pointless to say this now." Ann took out the half-torn parchment book from her pocket and flipped through it quickly. "It's no longer a question of eligibility, we have to live first."

Nemo recognized this. Although ordinary adventurers who are outside will use some simple magic more or less, but more complex magic is difficult to learn and difficult to use, except for experienced mages, few professions can use them easily. If you can't afford a full-time mage, it's the most convenient way to buy the spell book directly - just tear off the page when you use it, and trigger it with magic burning, which is simple and fast. There's nothing wrong with this thing except that it's terribly expensive.

For ordinary adventurers who are not from aristocratic backgrounds, this is basically the last resort.

"Can that thing be blocked?" Oliver lost his sword, empty-handed and a little overwhelmed.

"We can't outrun it, and it will die faster if we hand over the back. It is not a complete superior demon, and its power is scattered everywhere. We still have some hope." An brush tore off a page of parchment, holding the paper Page's hands trembled slightly. "Do you two have faith? If so, now is the time to pray."

The milky white hemispherical barrier unfolded with them as the center, just covering the people fleeing in this direction. People didn't slow down their running speed because they were protected by magic, but the red mist really slowed down after touching the edge of the barrier. It began to slowly climb tentatively up the barrier.

Ann's lips were bloodless and a little scary. She was panting rapidly, sweat all over her forehead.

"No, the barrier is too weak," she announced in a hoarse voice.

Nemo, on the other hand, stared at the twisting red mist. Since confronting the Seymour Worm, the world has begun to lose the real feel it should have. At this moment, he has a strange feeling that it should be a very dangerous creature - but unlike facing the Seymour worm, he can still taste the bitterness of death when looking directly at the worm's eyeball, but now he is even polite. Fear can't hold up.

Although both Oliver and Ann said the oppression was unbearable, something other than oppression gripped him. A strange murmur accompanied the quivering of the air, beating against his eardrums. Not the sound of running on the grass, the wailing of people or the gasping of animals. It does not originate from natural sounds, let alone some kind of language, but the melody carries thoughts and emotions exactly.

He doubtfully discerned those complicated emotions.

A few thin air columns protruded from the red fog, and they were frantically and fiercely probing on the milky white mask.

The noise came from all directions, and Nemo swallowed hard, his throat burning and aching from cracking.

"Oliver." He didn't dare to disturb Ann, who was frantically burning the pages of the spell, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Strange voice." Nemo began to wonder if it was a good idea to ask others, sounding stupid.

"I can't hear it. You can ask the bird, maybe there's something unexpected." Fortunately, Oliver didn't immediately doubt or deny him.

"I didn't hear anything," the grey parrot watched happily, "Anyway, this kid and I won't die. As for you—can't you be more open-minded? Human beings have a hard time living for a hundred years, dying early. Don't be too depressed for decades."

"If you know what it thinks, can you communicate with it?" Nemo licked his lips nervously.

"We're different species, what do you think?" The grey parrot trimmed his feathers. "I said, you don't have to worry about that—she doesn't hurt her kind, they never hurt her kind, they're notoriously gentle and sweet. Just stay there and she can smell you. Of course, It's two different things if you want to do it."

The "gentle and lovely" Pandoratel was squeezing the layers of protective shields with his body, and the latter made a sour squeak. It doesn't seem to intend to give up this hard bone, and it is bound to win the dozens of fresh flesh inside the barrier.

"Two things?"

"Be sure to confirm the territory before killing. This is her territory now, the whole thing. I warn you, she's not a stupid bug, she's a real superior demon - we can still have a passionate fight in the abyss, but Not now, I can't fuck her. I don't know how she did it. She gave away at least a tenth of her body, and I got a piece as small as a fingernail! If you go up and challenge her now, she will Concentrate all your strength on you first, and it will be easy."

"I've been meaning to ask... what will happen to you if I die?"

"I don't know!" the grey parrot snarled, "it's not going to be good anyway. If the worst happens, I'll just be a goddamn parrot this time—you know how hard it is to come up? "

"In other words, you won't die."

The parrot stopped talking and stared at Nemo suspiciously.

"It stands to reason that the higher-level demons will not be bound, and they will not listen to people's orders. But from the attitude of just now, the mercenary guild should have a way to control the higher-level demons." Nemo said slowly, his tone still remained. A bit uncertain. "Theoretically, they shouldn't have allowed it... uh, she's running around. That means..."

Oliver seemed to have guessed what he wanted to say, and there was some surprise in his emerald green eyes.

"...Assuming that Bagelmore is not lying, it is indeed a superior demon, and the superior demons need to fight first. Then I... I may be able to attract all the attention of that thing. Just find the control set by the guild The border, she can't reach me, I can continue to drag the time, I don't believe they will allow her to wander out for a long time."

"Are you crazy?" the grey parrot was so angry that he almost flapped his wings. "Never mind your business!"

"…but this works in theory, doesn't it? I'm going to have nightmares for the rest of my life if I don't try it. Oliver, you and Ann take those people away, and I'll steer it away, if it doesn't work—"

"I'll go with you." Oliver interrupted him, his expression solemn and serious.

"you… "

"You have no combat experience, and you may be caught before you find the spell boundary." Oliver said word by word, "Don't worry about weapons, I also have my means."

"You don't know the power of the superior demons at all!" The grey parrot looked insulted, "You two stupid-" It got stuck in the throat with anger, and couldn't think of a more vicious word to attack the two in front of it. I don't know what an idiot.

"A powerful demon warlock can destroy a city. I really can't imagine the power of a superior demon." Oliver said solemnly, "So what? Lying on the ground, praying for someone to save us? I don't like having peace of mind and waiting for someone to do it for me. Desperately—and besides, I owe this guy enough."

Ann's spell book was about to be torn apart, and the people who escaped from the forest instinctively curled up in the corner of the barrier farthest from the red mist. The milky white brilliance became transparent, and the crunching sound became louder.

"Ann!" Nemo yelled in the female warrior's direction.

The female warrior turned her head with a pale face, facing the black-haired youth with a forced calm smile on her face.

"We have an idea, let's go first!" Nemo turned to the ferocious red mist and greeted loudly. Oliver followed him, scanning the lawn carefully, hoping to pick up a discarded weapon. "You stay away, remember to help us pick a task tomorrow—"

Supported by blind optimism and dim hope, they run toward death. Ann was familiar with that youthful aura—naive and foolish, always tacitly tacitly acknowledging that miracles would happen, and that he would become the special case among millions of people.

Just like herself many years ago.

She didn't stop them and didn't respond to them. No one knows how long the mercenary guild is going to let this thing hang around, maybe until the sun rises tomorrow, the test is over, maybe a few days or more—

But now she has nothing to do. Ann's heart was beating wildly, her internal organs aching with tension and fear. There's nothing worse than the feeling of sitting still - than a sudden accident, which humiliates the victim before dying, and emphasizes their incompetence to the poor people.

She opened the spell book with only three pages left. There are two pages left on the Radiance Barrier. The last page was glued on by herself. It was dirty and old, full of creases, and it was not surprising when it fell off. Ann twisted the page with her hands and lowered her head in a complicated mood, as if the fingers were not old and smelly parchment, but a sharp blade.

No, there is one more thing she can do.

Nemo and Oliver stopped at the border of the barrier, too close to the red fog was not a good idea, too far and they didn't know if they could successfully provoke them. The Grey Parrot didn't follow, and Nemo could only guess the way to provoke himself. For some reason, he couldn't generate hostility as smoothly as he did a few hours ago. As he got closer to the red mist, the strange noise became clearer and more desperate at the same time. As if a wounded cub was whining in front of him, the cruel hunter would have to hesitate for a few seconds, not to mention the former library employee who was always harmless.

That emotion infected him, and sadness and despair pierced into his heart like venomous snake teeth. Before his thought of "hoping the other party disappears", he was suppressed by another.

"Hey, here I am," Nemo thought unconsciously.

It was definitely not hostile, but there was no doubt that Pandora had found him.

Countless thin plumes of smoke rose from the corner of the forest and converged. From a distance, they didn't feel it. When its body really gathered, the two realized how huge their opponent was - the smoke no longer flowed, but condensed. liquid-like texture. The scarlet color became thicker as the smoke gathered, almost brown and black at the end, and the demon body in front of them looked like a giant tornado with life.

The noise stopped for a moment at that moment.

In those few seconds, Nemo almost had some hope that he might be able to avoid a possible fight—or a one-sided pursuit—through communication. But his hope soon faded with the swept up trees and sand.

The second murmur turned into pure noise, piercing his skull in an instant. Instead of attacking Nemo directly, the demons attacked everything around the woods indiscriminately—living and dead. Under the shrill noise, Nemo no longer had time to distinguish his emotions, and he had used up all his concentration without squatting with his head in his arms. At this time, Oliver, who couldn't hear the noise, helped a lot. He grabbed Nemo's waist, quickly carried him and ran.

Nemo's face was on Oliver's back, and he struggled to lift his head. Pandora was not chasing after him, and was still insane. The sky was full of rocks and wreckage of tree trunks, and the high-pitched noise made him a little nauseous. Oliver stretched out his free left arm and swung it back—a wave of ice surged up, blocking the clumps of debris that were crashing at them. At the same time, Oliver's left arm was dripping with blood instantly.

Nemo gritted his teeth, trying to get the noise out of his head. He stretched out his hand, and a thought filled his head.

This is his plan, he can't drag Oliver to death first.

The black barrier suddenly rose. It didn't unfold as flat as last time, but climbed up the brown-black mist tornado like a living creature, piercing the mist from all angles like a vine wrapped around a tree. Thick shadows bound the brown-black mist, like a strange and unpleasant totem erected in the forest.

No spells, no magic circles. He was sweating nervously as he clumsily explored the trick in the unknown.

They could not hear the slight applause on the cliff not far away.

Above the gap where the three of them used to be their stronghold, the edge of a small cliff. The hooded man clapped his hands insincerely.

"Poor little girl... After so many years, are they still not allowing you to go back?" He looked at Pandoratel who was fighting with the shadow, and murmured softly. "Jude is such a fool, no, humans have probably long since forgotten how to embrace new things—that's a demon sorcerer, no doubt."

He pulled down his gray-brown hood and let out a long sigh at the communication crystal in his hand. "It's a pity that we may not be able to get him this time."

,Wonderful!

(m.. = )