Chapter 472
Chapter 472 - 452: Fellow Villager
1,281 words
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7 min read
In the dim hallway, faint lights flickered.
Two silvery figures floated at high speed. They were Shepherd Silver people, natural Glassfolk and Foreign Domain travelers. But now, they were merely fleeing as desperate survivors.
"...Traitor...Covenant..."
"Retribution...Mistake..."
Flashes of silver light were their way of exchanging information. Even at the brink of hopelessness, they were still entangled in their hearts.
Contrary to the information they had provided, they weren’t just travelers from the Star Realm; they were also rootless drifters. Their planet and world had plunged deep into the Abyss several centuries ago.
Like the gypsies of their Star Realm, they had been without a home for a long time. Wherever they went, they attempted to make this peaceful world their home before everything became irreversible.
They hadn’t been here for long and didn’t bring enough wealth. At this point, the Shepherd Silver people couldn’t meet the ever-increasing demands of the greedy lord.
"Betrayal...We’ve been betrayed..."
"Lord...Revenge..."
Truth sometimes differs from reality. The intelligence Lu Ping’an and his team received and what the knights knew might not be the truth, or at least, not the entire truth.
Indeed, the Shepherd Silver people attacked the Knight Corps, seizing some precious supplies and a Truth-level artifact. However, the ones who attacked first were the lord’s assassins.
The Shepherd Silver people’s hands were not the only ones on the map. But the lord’s impatience with them was justified.
"...Poor bewildered souls...Ignorance...Betrayal..."
Information exchanged faster, revealing the truth. Even at this moment, the Shepherd Silver people still didn’t know why they were met with such hostility.
They established glass and cement workshops, used their earnings to aid the poor and wounded, and even improved the local water systems. At least at that time, the lord liked them. Who wouldn’t like a large taxpayer who also helped alleviate social conflicts and increased happiness?
But in the lord’s eyes, the one thing they should never do was "tell the truth."
"The end is near...Seven Disasters...Sun..."
They had their own channels of information and actively spread the news of the impending doom. At least two-thirds of the lord’s Doomsday believers were somehow connected to them.
If it weren’t for their "endorsement," the "Doomsday believers" within the Knight Corps would not have spread so quickly.
Obviously, this undermined the foundation of stability within the lord’s domain. Once they were identified as the source of all this, everything became irreversible.
In this matter, there was no right or wrong, nor even good or evil.
Did the lord err in wanting social stability and refusing to give hopeless hope to the desperate? Was it really necessary to endure a human tragedy before the world’s collapse? In his view, he was also trying to find a way out. He wouldn’t refuse to save his subjects.
As for the Shepherd Silver people, they couldn’t find any hope either. While ordinary people couldn’t walk the Exotic Realm path, they believed that even the dead had the right to know and understand Death.
Neither side saw themselves as being in the wrong, nor did they feel betrayed by the other, making the situation incredibly delicate.
Now, the unfortunate Shepherd Silver people faced betrayal once more.
"...Evil Bone...Damn it..."
Short on manpower, they cooperated with another local power. Now, their former partners were hunting them down.
"They’re up ahead. Damn, those dead glass people can still run pretty fast."
The bound black hounds sniffed madly in the corridor. Ripple-like black shadows surrounded them. Once the way forward was confirmed, Evil Bone reached out his hand and returned them to the shadows.
Just by looking at his appearance, no one would think of him as a local super thief who had been here for twenty years.
His overly young and youthful handsome face, a robe smelling of medicine, and a book always in his hand made him seem like an on-campus scholar.
But now, under his command, hundreds of bandits were gathered.
Of course, they weren’t here on vacation. Only immense profits or their own lives could drive these thieves to risk everything.
"Boss Evil Bone, are you sure that those glass monsters are carrying the ’compass’ we want?"
Traveling to other realms without a Starcraft is exceptionally difficult and dangerous. What’s even more headache-inducing is that the reality is that you’d be completely in the dark.
If you were lost at sea, at least your body might be found by rescuers, and you might return home someday.
If you were stranded in a multitude of universes, a random disaster or Doomsday World might simply lead to permanent destruction.
The greatest treasure of the Shepherd Silver people wasn’t the claim "we can lead you to a safe world," but the reality of "they came from other worlds."
They had the coordinates of other worlds, even having special tools to guide those coordinates - the so-called "compass." It was like a directional Divine Artifact that always pointed to a specific world in the endless maze.
Perhaps it was incredibly unreliable and unstable, possibly pointing to a deadly path, but it was still safer than blindly traversing countless voids.
One could say that having a compass provided a path to the foreign domain, as the infinite space’s transportation void was ever-changing.
The Shepherd Silver people couldn’t understand why they had agreed to share the compass with Evil Bone and provide guidance along the way. Having seasoned travelers like themselves as guides should have made their journey much safer.
They cooperated with Evil Bone because he was indeed the best choice outside of the local lord. But as it turned out, they faced betrayal once again.
"Heh, that compass is what the big shots in the Holy City want. Don’t damage it. Those foolish glass people have no idea of the value of the treasure in their hands."
A single compass could represent an unknown new world, and the Shepherd Silver people must have traversed many areas throughout their journey.
Maybe this wasn’t a safe passage, nor could it become a stable trade route. But for some big shots, it was like spending two dollars to buy a lottery ticket and having a scratch-off game.
A boat ticket? Or perhaps more. Anyway, it wouldn’t satisfy the hundreds of Evil Bone’s gang members. At least the rank and file wouldn’t understand such facts.
All they knew was that their boss, Evil Bone, was wise and valiant, successful in another heist, and now leading them on a path to survival.
"Boss, those monsters are catching up."
Hearing this, Evil Bone furrowed his brows and sped up.
Those seeking the glass people and their possessions weren’t just his men; foreign robbers from unknown locations had also joined the hunt after getting wind of the news.
"Go, hurry up, get the stuff and leave. Those black creatures..."
Meanwhile, Lu Ping’an and his team entered the outskirts of the relic. However, some intelligence needed to be communicated with their colleagues first.
Before the team lay the so-called Otherworldly "Red Sand Thief" corpses.
They had dark skin, and were tall and sturdy...Alright, let’s be frank: This was the corpse of a black man.
"I didn’t expect to meet ’human compatriots’ here, let alone ones who were involved in zero-sum theft."
Maybe, in the eyes of the locals, Lu Ping’an and the dark-skinned, red-turbaned sand thieves weren’t even of the same species. To them, face-blind, they recognized people by their color.
— End of Chapter 472 —