Chapter 430 - Equivalent Exchange?
Chapter 430 - Equivalent Exchange?
Chapter 430 Equivalent Exchange?
The people living in the slums were poor. They could only offer three coppers to someone for saving their family in a dangerous land. However, for Betta and the rest of them, their level was too high for them to care about money. They were more interested in the experience and reputation they could earn.
They had other ways to make money. Although they couldn’t make a fortune, it was fairly easy for them to live a quality life. After all, it was very simple for professionals to work as bodyguards or to protect big convoys.
Besides, the Golden Sons were actually well-respected at this moment.
They weren’t really despised even after the incident with the black leaf.
The NPCs weren’t stupid. They had seen what the players did in the past year and realized that the players were a bunch of nosy professionals with a sense of justice, although their behavior could be indescribably weird now and then.
After the incident of the black leaf, the other Golden Sons hunted the men with black leaves too, without sheltering them. Who could be trusted if such a group of people couldn’t be?
The greedy gnomes?
Or the succubi who called themselves honest and loyal?
Most of the time, actions spoke louder than words.
By the time Spara arrived at the slum with his men, almost all the members of the Silver Mercenaries had been cleared out.
More than forty people were killed, and more than two hundred were heavily wounded.
These people were all unimportant bottom-level members of the mercenary group. However, as all of them were cleared out, the foundation of this mercenary group had been destroyed.
Spara visited a couple of branches. He saw either bodies or the members of his gang struggling with broken legs.
Instead of asking his men to treat the bottom-level members, he kept searching for the Golden Sons.
After all, their combat ability would be compromised if he split his men.
He had many spies in the slums. Soon enough, they tracked down Betta and his friends with the help of the spies.
This place was one of their branches used to control the slums in the north.
When they arrived, they saw a lackey falling from the second floor screaming. He crashed to the ground, blood splashing.
Seeing that, Spara raised his head, only to see Li Lin carrying a giant sword on his shoulder. The man grinned and leaped from the second floor.
With a huge noise, a tiny pit appeared in the ground. Although Spara was with more than twenty men, none of them dared to attack a Barbarian Golden Son, however angry they were.
At this moment, it vaguely occurred to them that they were still terrified of the Golden Sons.
The Golden Sons laid low because they wanted to lay low, not because they were forced to.
If the Golden Sons were to take action, there would be nothing the mercenaries could do.
At this moment, Betta, Brazil, and the rest of them walked down from the second floor via the stairs.
Betta was in the front. He was wiping his bloodstained hands with a white handkerchief while he walked to the mercenaries slowly.
He was even smiling.
That picture was a major shock for the mercenaries.
They even had a terrible feeling, as if Betta were one of those heinous nobles who took pleasure in killing innocent people.
“Are you not afraid of being branded with black leaves?” demanded Spara angrily.
His face was so twisted that he seemed hysterical.
An hour earlier, he was so confident that he had found the weakness of the Golden Sons.
Some of the Golden Sons were hunted by the Church of Life and the Church of Light, the two biggest churches in the world. Other Golden Sons, as their own kind, were supposed to learn a lesson from them and keep a low profile.
But what did these people do?
They went on a killing spree in the slum.
Betta stood before Spara and said with a smile, “We’re quite afraid.”
“Then why?” Gritting his teeth, Spara roared uncontrollably, “Why did you dare to kill so many people?”
Betta smiled. “Because we’re justified. We didn’t kill anyone randomly. The people you exploited, bullied, and took advantage of all asked us to take you down.”
“I still don’t understand why you could kill civilians and ordinary people.” Spara couldn’t understand. Could those poor people count as human beings? Were their requests really requests?
Shouldn’t the poor work for superior men like him?
“You took advantage of the innocent residents here, and you think you’re ordinary people?” Betta shook his head.
At this moment, Li Lin and the rest of F6 dispersed and walked to the mercenaries’ flanks, as if they were trying to surround the mercenaries who outnumbered them.
Spara keenly realized that and took a deep breath. “Fine. I admit my defeat this time. You’re free to enter the Northern Dawn Woods now.”
Spara had his own considerations. He didn’t understand why the Golden Sons weren’t afraid of getting black leaves now, but he knew that those people were forcing him to give away the Northern Dawn Woods.
Though the Golden Sons were outnumbered, they had a high morale and they were undying. Even if they were killed here, they would still come back someday.
Until he found a way to really suppress or limit them, it was best not to go against these people.
Spara had thought that he figured it all out, but what happened suggested that it didn’t work.
He breathed heavily and lowered his head, before he stepped back slowly.
They turned around and were about to leave. But at this moment, a dark shadow slowly descended from the sky.
It was Roland.
He landed at the end of the road.
As a result, Spara and his men were completely penned in.
Spara couldn’t have looked more awful at this moment. “What’s the meaning of this? We never wronged you or attacked you. Do you really not fear the black leaves?”
Spara was more and more shocked. The threat of the black leaf was the only thing he could count on at this moment, so he clutched it like a drowning man.
“If we dare to surround you, we certainly dare to kill you.” Betta smiled.
Spara and his men all changed their expressions after hearing that.
In the end, Spara suddenly turned around and bellowed at the two sides of the street. “What are you looking at, you untouchables? Come out and help me, or I’ll charge dozens of times more protection fees from you after I leave! Do you hear me? Come out!”
Spara was rather smart. He vaguely sensed that the Golden Sons might not dare to kill the untouchables although they dared to kill him, so there was nothing that the Golden Sons could do if the untouchables protected him.
Though his intuition found it weird, it seemed to be a fact.
However, after Spara roared his demand, all the sheds and shacks that could hear him were completely closed.
None of the windows or doors were left open.
Roland laughed when he saw that.
At this moment, Spara, whose face was as dark as the bottom of a pot, turned around with madness in his eyes. He charged at Roland and roared, “Let’s get out of here first!”
He was a Warrior, and Charge was among his basic abilities. But he was stopped by a shield-wielding magic puppet before he reached Roland.
After a collision, the puppet slightly shivered. Spara’s regular iron sword was broken after it hit the puppet’s shield. He stepped back with his hands trembling.
The rest of the Silver Mercenaries were about to fight side by side with Spara, but Betta and the rest of F6 certainly wouldn’t let them.
Li Lin simply broke into the crowd and launched Whirl Slash.
Brazil leaped back and shot his arrows, and his stealthy leopard suddenly emerged and bit an enemy’s leg before it dragged the enemy into a dark corner. Then, terrible screams rang out.
Grabbing his longsword, Betta was about to join the battle. But after he looked around, he found that most of the enemies had been killed by Li Lin’s attack, and broken limbs were flying everywhere.
After Spara was pushed back by Roland’s magic puppet, he quickly lowered his body and drew out a dagger from his boot.
He had heard the screams behind him, but he couldn’t care about his subordinates anymore. His own life would be at risk if he couldn’t get out.
Hardly had he drawn out the dagger when he saw a red blade cutting at him from his right side at a high speed.
He quickly backed off. As a Warrior, he reacted fast enough, and he was about to get out of the range of the attack. But the red light suddenly expanded and slashed across his chest.
Stepping back, Spara lowered his head and looked at his chest in disbelief, before he raised his eyes at Roland.
His eyes soon dilated, and his expression was frozen.
At this moment, Roland was still in the posture of forward slash, with a red miaodao at least fourteen meters long in his hands.
At the edge of the miaodao was a layer of blue condensed flames.
Then, Roland stood straight and dispersed the fire on his miaodao.
Finally, Spara’s body fell apart at his chest.
The wounds on the two parts of the body were both blackened. No blood was shed at all.
“What a weak Master-level Warrior!”
Roland found it hard to believe.
Was this man one of the Masters who reached this level by consuming special resources? Why was he so weak?
Andonara could’ve beaten the current Roland up when she was merely a Master, though she cared about him too much to do that.
Now that Andonara had become a Legend and awakened her Hero bloodline, she could even fly as a phoenix for a while. Not just one Roland, but five Rolands couldn’t survive five minutes under her attacks.
“He’s not weak; you’re simply too strong. A fourteen-meter-long saber can cut everything in the world. He couldn’t have escaped even if he had run ten meters first.”
While talking, the stealth-mode Husseret revealed himself. He liked praising others.
He put his dagger back. He had intended to ambush Spara, but Spara was killed before he did anything, and he was almost cut by Roland’s fiery miaodao.
This fiery miaodao was one of Roland’s abilities after he became an Elemental Lord.
His control of elemental spells was greatly improved, and the cost was reduced too.
It was barely possible for Roland to build a long saber with pure fire elements in the past.
He had to control the fire elements with a spell model.
However, he felt that all the neutral elements were at his disposal at this moment.
But this was just a basic application. To use more elements or to combine them freely, he would have to reach higher levels first.
He would be a lot stronger by the time he became a Master, and he could fully carry out the capabilities of an Elemental Lord when he became a Legend.
At this moment, the rest of the Silver Mercenaries were defeated too. The last of them knelt down and begged for mercy, but Li Lin simply slashed him into a pulp of meat coldly with his giant sword.
Eventually, he looked at the guy’s body and said coldly, “Did you spare the poor people when they knelt and begged you to?”
Husseret, on the other hand, exclaimed when he observed Spara’s body. He cut Spara’s armor with his dagger and tore off a necklace.
“So it was because of this!”
He glanced at the item and threw it to Roland. “It’s good stuff.”
Roland accepted the silver necklace and put it in his hand. Soon, the data of the item popped up.
Bewildering Eye of the Love God (Excellent)
Attributions: Health +20, Stamina Regeneration +10 (when not hungry)
Bewilderment: When males wear this necklace, they will appear more powerful; when females wear this necklace, they will seem vulnerable and make males want to protect them.
Well... it was a nice piece of equipment.
An increase of 20 points of Health equaled to the Health growth of a Warrior after two level-ups. Plus the increased Stamina Regeneration, it was truly a piece of good equipment for a Warrior.
But bewilderment, the magic effect of this equipment, was rather tricky. It would only be useful at critical moments.
Spara was not a Master at all. He simply came across as a Master because of the necklace.
It could make someone look stronger... so it could be useful.
It seemed very useful on females too.
“Help me appraise this.” Roland tossed the necklace back to Husseret. “I’ll take this one. I’ll pay you later.”
“Enough nonsense.” Husseret threw the necklace back. “You didn’t ask for our gold coins last time, so we certainly can’t take anything from you this time. Besides, he was killed by you anyway. This is your loot.”
The rest of the team gathered and looked at Roland’s necklace, but none of them were interested.
Li Lin, in particular, threw a tantrum and cursed, “Roland, why do you look down on us? You think none of us has seen any gold coins?”
The rest of them had a similar attitude.
“Okay then.” Roland put the necklace in his system Backpack and said, “I’ll claim this item then. We can share other equipment if we find any.”
Everybody looked around, but no Silver Mercenaries could move anymore. Betta then asked, “Brother Roland, what do we do next?”
“Have you completed all your quests?”
“There are another two.” Betta scratched his head and said, “One of them is to eliminate all the hiding Silver Mercenaries in the slums, and the other is to find the captain of the Silver Mercenaries and kill him. It’s a blue quest, but the system shows that the target is very far away.”
Roland thought a moment and said, “The captain must’ve gone elsewhere for missions. Let’s ignore him. You clear the slums first and make sure that all of them are caught. If any of them survives, they might be more brutal and make the poor suffer more. I’ll go to the Northern Dawn Woods first to create a tunnel to the relics.”
“Okay.”
Roland then left everybody and flew back to the spot in the Northern Dawn Woods that he marked earlier.
The Northern Dawn Wood was quiet, with bird chirps and beastly sounds echoing from far away.
So, the place was rather creepily quiet.
Roland landed and looked around. Then, he closed his hands in his magic robe, summoning two magic puppets near him.
Then, four tiny magic spiders showed up too and dispersed in four directions, monitoring the surroundings.
After taking enough precautions, Roland stared at the soil before him.
Then, the soil three meters ahead of him surged and split apart.
An enormous cave appeared. Then, the soil was pulled aside by an invisible power, making the cave deeper and deeper.
Roland stared at the cave without moving at all.
Magic power interwove and collided around him, forming delicate streams of energy that made the soil roll out according to Roland’s will.
The slant cave was deep and dark. Roland threw a light ball down and tried again. But he found that he was too far away from the bottom of the cave, and he had to jump in to continue his excavation.
Then, with a thought, he transformed the mud below his feet into stairs that stretched to the depths of the cave.
He was about to step down the stairs, when he stopped and looked to his right.
In the meantime, he put on the Mind-Calming Necklace to replenish his magic power.
Half of his magic power had been consumed as he had been digging the cave with earth elemental power.
He looked around and planned to hide, but he stopped because the stranger came faster than he thought. About five seconds later, a person in a green robe with a silver longbow on the back appeared.
The stranger was rather slim, but the person’s face was hidden under the hood.
The stranger grabbed the longbow upon seeing Roland, but the person soon relaxed.
Then, the stranger lifted the hood voluntarily.
Roland saw long, straight green hair, and a pair of long ears.
The stranger was a female elf, and a very beautiful one.
Her eyes were bright green, and her lips were tiny and red.
She looked at Roland with a smile. “I sensed a magic power that was destroying the soil, so I came to take a look. I didn’t expect to see a compatriot here.”
A compatriot... Well, Roland realized that he had been mistaken for an elf a lot recently.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m digging for something,” Roland said casually. “Don’t worry, I’ll refill the cave after I find it.”
“That’s good.” The elf nodded as if she was relieved. Then, she looked at Roland hopefully. “Compatriot, can you buy some salt for me from a human market? Human beings aren’t nice to pure elves, so I don’t want to appear in public. But I haven’t had any salt in two months. I’m quite weak at this moment.”
Roland thought a moment and took out a piece of meatloaf that Andonara made from his system Backpack.
The meatloaf contained a lot of salt.
“Thank you.” The elf accepted the meatloaf delightedly and put something down in Roland’s hand. “This is for you. Okay, I’m leaving. Remember to fill the hole, compatriot.”
Then, the elf put the meatloaf in a bag on her waist and quickly left.
Was this a special plot?
Roland was rather puzzled. He wondered if this was a prerequisite mission for the search of the Water of Light.
Then, he looked at his palm, only to be rendered speechless.
Inside his hand was a tiny purple flower.
The flower was translucent, like a piece of purple glass.
A Complete Flower of the World Tree (Epic)
Effect: It can significantly increase the soul longevity and slightly purify the elven bloodline after it’s eaten. It can also be used as a valuable magic material.
Damn it... Had he made a fortune?
Did the elven bloodline come with so many privileges?
He definitely had chosen the right bloodline.