Chapter 761

Chapter Twenty-Five Chilly Night

“Huff, huff…”

Run.

Run for dear life.

“Huff, huff, huff—”

Scorching breaths surged from his throat, as if his throat was being scorched by raging flames. The cold air he inhaled did not alleviate the burning sensation even slightly. The frigid air felt like countless serpents writhing within his body, traveling through his bloodstream from his chest to his limbs, rapidly consuming every degree of warmth in his body. His mechanically moving feet had long lost control, stumbling and swaying.

Barry, the knight, was in a daze. His sword had been lost during the previous battle, and a deep wound on his right arm was bleeding profusely. Barry held his wound with one hand, broke through the dense undergrowth, and ran desperately without looking back.

His eyes, almost completely covered by dirty hair, faintly revealed a trace of resentment, confusion, and an endless look of despair.

Behind him, footsteps were approaching.

Damn…

Damn it!

He tried hard to regulate his breathing, wanting to run faster. However, due to prolonged hunger and severe dehydration, his body had become too weak. His lips were cracked, his face pale. He began to feel oxygen-deprived after running only a short distance, his hands numb, and his legs becoming increasingly unresponsive. Sweat soaked his hair, sticking to his face, making his vision blurry.

Barry suddenly wanted to collapse to the ground, never to rise again.

In a daze, he vaguely recalled scenes from long ago when he was considered a hero by the people in the city.

Back then, walking down the streets, approaching the castle, people would look at him, at the bright silver armor that symbolized him as a heroic fighter of the Third Knight Corps. They couldn’t help but show faces filled with admiration and reverence. Those faces lingered in his mind, appearing in his blurred vision, as if they happened yesterday.

But those faces would no longer reveal themselves to him.

Time seemed to slow down at this moment.

When did it start…

For the umpteenth time, Barry thought about these things.

When exactly did they, who fought against heretics with their blood and lives, building walls to protect the millions of people in West Continent, preventing them from being slaughtered like dogs, turn into these knights who could only flee in disgrace, becoming rats despised by all?

Such things…

To this day, he still couldn’t understand.

When exactly did they turn into a group of sinners, deceived by demons, just like those heretics, committing unforgivable sins.

It shouldn’t have been like this…

This wasn’t how Barry imagined it. These brave warriors who shed their blood and fought to the death should receive a different fate and treatment.

He had intended to dedicate himself to becoming a hero admired by thousands, like Commander Williams, through his bravery, resilience, justice, and honor, even without extraordinary talent.

Barry believed that one day, he would stand together with his sister Hill, wielding swords and controlling beasts, radiating heroism, and charging fearlessly toward the boundless dark abyss, brother and sister united, able to easily slay any monster that inspired fear.

For this, he even quarreled with his sister Hill.

This was an idea that she had never changed.

There was a period after experiencing the brutality of war and surviving, when Barry, day and night, felt the admiration and reverence of the people towards heroes who saved them. He experienced such feelings, and the fire in his heart burned more fiercely.

Those feelings…

Now, he could hardly recall them.

During the subsequent days of daze, the only thing he could clearly recognize was that he would no longer have such opportunities.

Because of his sister Hill…

She had long since left this world.

Although he could never choose to believe this fact.

But—

She was indeed dead.

And himself…

During the long period of hiding in the depths of an unopened well, damp and rotten, living in darkness, the passion in his heart had gradually vanished due to hunger, confusion, doubt, pain, and intense self-doubt. He had become numb, living like a walking corpse.

Sometimes, he even lost the sense of being alive.

Why…

Would it end up like this, so inconceivably.

Barry couldn’t understand such things.

He couldn’t understand why, two years ago, he and others, who faced the most terrifying enemies in the world with a resolute determination to die, survived against those vicious, seemingly unstoppable heretics. Many heroic fighters died… yet they survived, tearing flesh from their enemies’ bodies, fighting until they were bathed in blood. But why…

After the war ended, when the lives of the citizens gradually improved and everything seemed settled, they lost miserably.

Hundreds of people…

Hundreds of warriors who survived the fierce battles against powerful heretics, heroes who protected the divine children.

On that unforgettable night, they were accused of false crimes, attacked by their own people in the city they had risked their lives to protect. With no way to resist, they died in humiliation and anger.

And Barry survived only because Lilith secretly helped him from behind.

He truly couldn’t understand these things.

In the year that followed—how long he didn’t know anymore; he just felt like it had been a very long time, probably around a year—during this period, he started by hiding and fleeing, then later escaped the city with Lilith’s help. However, due to lack of provisions and his companion falling ill from injuries, he ultimately chose to hide in a relatively safe place outside the city, living a miserable life akin to a stray dog. During this time, he thought about many things.

Yet, he could never figure out why all of this happened.

He didn’t even know what to do next or how to go on living.

If not for not having received his grandmother’s message yet…

He would have given up on living long ago.

…………

“Aaah!”

Suddenly, Barry heard a cry of pain beside him amidst his stumbling escape, followed by the sound of someone falling. The bounty hunters chasing them had caught up from behind. His companion running by his side was instantly pinned down, rolling several times in the grass and mud, screaming in terror like an animal on the verge of death.

This was a knight who had once fought bravely alongside him, then hid and fled, staying in the Third Knight Order’s infirmary. He was the only other warrior left alive in the war besides Barry.

Barry still remembered the day they carried him down from the city wall. The man, wracked with severe injuries, trembled in agony but bit his lip at night to avoid making sounds that might disturb others’ hard-earned rest…

This tough man, after his injuries began to heal, had fought fiercely alongside Barry and Brother Moer in the city against those fierce heretics…

The fearless and heroic demeanor everyone had back then had now become very vague.

What was clearer in his mind was this man, wearing dirty and stinking clothes, curled up in a ball in the sewer beneath a well, with deep sunken eyes, a face growing thinner, and a weak, crying figure covering his face.

“Barry…”

Hearing the weak call from behind, Barry instinctively turned around and saw his companion being pinned down in the foul mud. The attacker pressed him down, and he tried to resist, but his right arm had been lost in the flames of war, and his knight’s longsword had been lost during their escape…

If earlier he had saved Lilith out of anger, bursting forth with hidden strength, now, after enduring a series of struggles and escapes, the man had no more strength left to resist.

“Ba…ri…”

The person pressing down on him easily choked him. In the darkness, Barry saw his eyeballs bulging out, and the blade held high reflected the man’s swollen, red, and blue face, as he struggled to choke out a sound from his throat.

“Save… me…”

Barry’s steps faltered.

But he immediately chose to continue escaping.

He no longer believed in those tales of heroism.

Going back…

Would only mean sending another life to its end.

“There’s one more! Another one!”

“Don’t let him get away—”

“Huff… huff… huff…”

The sound of blades slicing through the air, the shouts closing in, and his own heavy breathing echoed in the desolate night.

He heard the desperate roar of his companion from behind, which reminded him of the flames that once engulfed Aretheon City. Back then, such cries filled the air, but the bloodthirsty desire to protect something at all costs had long since vanished.

At this moment, Barry’s mind was focused on one thing.

Were these people…

The citizens they once fought so desperately to protect?

“Swish swish,” the grass beside him rustled suddenly. Barry instinctively turned his head and saw another shadow lunging at him from the side.

“Surrender the head!”

“You, this filthy insect tainted by demons—”

The figure, shouting excitedly, appeared instantly. Barry wanted to dodge, but he lacked the strength.

“Mm!”

The person crashed into him, the force first hitting his shoulder, causing him to involuntarily groan and lose balance, wrapping himself around the figure and rolling several times. His head hit the ground, stars flashing before his eyes.

His heart was already dead, but his instinct to survive forced him to fight back. The sword swung by the attacker was deflected by Barry’s flattened head, and he used his forehead to slam into the attacker’s face, hearing the scream of pain, a faint satisfaction rising within him as warm blood splashed across his face.

“Ugh ah ah ah!”

Barry let out an angry roar, grappling with the attacker in the mud. One hand grabbed the sword again, blood flowing from his fingers. The attacker immediately reached out to strangle his throat. The two figures rolled back and forth in the muddy grass, and finally, Barry was pinned under him.

His eyes were bloodshot, his mouth full of mud and grass, though he had exhausted every last bit of strength, he felt his grip weakening. The ferocious pursuer slowly pressed the sword down, the sharp tip about to pierce Barry’s neck.

“Damn you…”

Barry knew he was going to die here.

“Ugh ah ah ah!”

He let out his final shout, extending his left hand, trying to gouge out the attacker’s eye before dying.

Plop—

Suddenly, he heard a strange sound above his head, felt the attacker’s body tremble violently, and the pressure on his neck instantly eased.

The next moment, hot blood spurted out like a fountain, splashing over him.