The Inauspicious Omen
The Inauspicious Omen
Therefore, Roland did not panic at all. He announced to suspend the training for today, asked Wendy and Lightning to go back to the castle for rest and Anna to escort Nana to the medical center for patients, and he himself rushed to the city wall with Nightingale.
Unexpectedly, Lightning opposed. "As an explorer, I have resided in the Western Region for so long but haven't even seen a large scale assault of demonic beasts. That's disgraceful and humiliating. I request to come along!"
Without a second thought, Roland rejected Lighting's protest and told Wendy to keep an eye on Lightning, strictly forbidding Lightning to run around at a time when the demonic beasts were assaulting.
He then looked at Nightingale. The latter nodded her head, grabbed his hand, stepped into the Mist, and went straight to the city wall—when Roland found out that Nightingale was able to bring any objects with her into the Mist, he soon addicted to such a transportation method. Traveling straight through roadblocks and ignoring the topography, with several meters in one step, this gave Roland the pleasure as if the world was his camp.
After arriving at the foot of the city wall, Roland found a vacant corner to step out of the Mist and went on the defensive line alone. The wilderness from the far side looked snowy white. He did not see a large scale assault of the demonic beasts. Was this a mistake? Not only Roland, the Militia that came afterward also had an internal discussion.
The prince found Iron Axe and noticed that Iron Axe was staring afar with such a solemn expression while his hand was still tightly holding the horn.
"Did you set off the alarm?"
"Yes Your Highness, please take a look..." His voice sounded much dryer than usual. "That thing is coming."
That thing? Roland looked afar but could only vaguely see a small black dot. It was hard to spot it even in a pure white background. According to the rules, the horn alarm would only go off when the patrol team could not adequately handle the situation. However, as an experienced hunter, Iron Axe must have had his reasons.
"It's a demonic hybrid." Iron Axe swallowed. "I met it six years ago."
[Really?] Roland frowned. Theoretically, demonic beasts would keep assaulting Longsong Stronghold until they died—they did not have intelligence so they had no idea of retreating. Longsong Stronghold had never been conquered, but it did not die and even lived till six years? An inauspicious feeling arose in Roland's heart.
However, the distance was so far to the point that he could only saw a black dot, but Iron Axe was able to decipher the type of the demonic beasts. That was a shockingly good eyesight. Or perhaps, Iron Axe misjudged, Prince Roland thought.
The demonic beast did not make Roland wait for too long. It started to move toward the city wall. Soon, everyone noticed the unique physical features of that target.
Unlike the massive body of the previous demonic hybrid, it looked like an enlarged feline at a glance. However, it had wings on its back that covered the sides of its body when the wings were not expanded. Its head was similar to lion's but had two pairs of eyes—if the extra pair of eyes was not for decoration, then it could notice any movements from its back without turning its head.
Carter and the other hunter had already loaded ammunition and prepared for combat.
However the lion type demonic hybrid did not rush to attack. It stopped outside of the shooting range of crossbow bolts and looked around.
That distance was within the effective shooting distance of flintlock, but the hit rate was almost zero.
After a moment, it suddenly jumped to the left side and expanded its wings, making the whole body flying to the midair. Just like what Iron Axe said, it could fly for a short distance to glide. After it got over the roadblocks, the demonic hybrid quickly ran to the west side of the city wall where nobody was guarding.
Roland's trepidation grew, the inauspicious omen came true. From how it observed the weakness and strength of the opponent and chose to attack the weak side, it proved that it had intelligence—that was what the wild beasts lacked. The wild animals sometimes would attack the weak side of their pray. However, such was instinctual act through years of inheritance. When facing an unknown opponent, it was impossible for the wild beasts to judge, not to mention to make a comprehensive analysis.
What did it mean by owning intelligence? Humans relied on the exceptional brain and outstanding resilience to climb to the top of the food chain from the cruel ecosystem. Roland was afraid to think furthermore. He waved his hand to have Chief Knight Carter accompany him. The rest of the hunters would follow Iron Axe to attack the demonic beast.
It ran to a vacant area, jumped and got over the city wall with ease. It moved straight to the residential area, wholly ignored the Hunter Squad.
"Bastard?" Roland cursed. "The Militia members from the second range of the city wall, follow me. The substitute members shall go on and guard the city wall!"
At this point, he could not bother to care the fact that the Militia only had fencing training. The team would most likely come apart during the movement and would be attacked by the demonic beasts. Carter led the guards to follow the prince. Every one of them had the strongest fighting capacity, and they could substitute any possible lacks. At the end of the team was the flintlock team led by Iron Axe.
As they entered the Old District, their views were blocked by flat houses. Besides, the roads were narrow and covered by snow, so the team had limitations on their movements. Roland had to separate the team and move around in the crisscrossed ally, hoping to find the demonic beast.
Roland regretted not bringing Lightning. If he had a witch to investigate in the air, then the team would not need to run around the allies with no directions.
They searched for about eight minutes and all of a sudden the screams of the town resident came from the deep end of the alley.
The team immediately adjusted their direction and moved toward the sound. Fortunately, many of the Militia members were residents of the Old District. After knowing the destination, they swiftly moved around in the narrow alley and even walked across the backyard of someone's house. When they reached the place, Roland saw someone was bitten into two pieces, and the intestine was scattered and apparently dead.
"Jesus... this is Iron Fork, I know him!"
"Damn it, did it run away?"
"Watch out! To your right side!" Someone called suddenly. As soon as the sentence finished, a black shadow whipped across from the right side of the wooden house with the scattering wooden fragments. It came straight through the wall of the wooden house, flew into the group, and pushed down a militia member with its claw and bit him.
Iron Axe was the first one to react. He raised the gun and was about to shoot, but found that the diffused Militia members blocked the alley. He had no chance to fire, so he had to squeeze through the crowd and walked to the target step by step. All the other hunters noticed this problem. They all clung their gun under their arm and jumped onto the roof of the houses.
Demonic hybrid did not care about the guns that were pointing at it. It expanded the wings, blocked the stabs from the crowd, and picked up the militia member that was covered in blood. However, the gun was fired when it was about to leave.
There were drips of dark blood on its body.
The demonic hybrid roared in anger after being attacked by the gun. It threw off its prey, opened wings and was about to fly into the hunter that was standing on top of the roof. At the same moment, Iron Axe squeezed out of the crowd, aimed at the demonic beast and fired.
The near front shooting was impossible to miss. The hot gas of the gunpowder even sprayed to the nose of the monster. The bullet went straight through the eye of its target and all the way into the monster's brain.
The demonic hybrid stiffened and collapsed.