Chapter 959 Decision (1)
Brilliant flames of gold bristled Li Mu’s very self. Using his sword as he would a saber, he put on a show of the intricate and masterful techniques that he learned from Molderad, reducing every crossbow quiver into dust.
“WHO’S THERE!? HOW DARE YOU COMMIT MURDER IN A MILITARY STAGING STATION!?” he boomed.
It was all he could do to keep his rage in check, or he would have gone into a rampage.
Something insidious was afoot—something sinister enough to have caused the senseless slaughters of Trailblazers who had just honored themselves in battle and glory.
Dark clouds veiled over the moon ominously.
The blood of the dead Trailblazers streamed quietly, slithering from their bodies like sanguine red serpents in silence.
The mult.i.tudes of masked soldiers uttered not a word. In the jet-black mail, they blended with the darkness of the moonless night, their very presence unseen and unfelt like wraiths.
“All three Trailblazer squads have been found guilty of colluding with the traitor Li Mu! For this, they are hereby sentenced to death! Vile creature Li Mu! On your knees and surrender!” a cold and hoa.r.s.e voice, evidently altered to mask the ident.i.ty of the soldier, screeched from the darkness. A hand came into view, grasping a medallion pa.s.s denoting his ident.i.ty as one of the Drakonids, the Legion Kommodore cohort garrisoned here.
“What?!”
Li Mu was astonished.
“Traitor?! What for?! Against humankind?!
“What the h.e.l.l is going on?!
“Xiao Jianfei and the others only told me about coming here to deliver their report!
“Were they lying?!
“No, they couldn’t be.”
The people of Oststern had told him so many times about how Chosen Ones are greatly valued by the military. Furthermore, he had spent enough time with Lin Jingxin, Ye Ying, and Xiao Jianfei to know that he has been right about them.
Even if they had been plotting against him, there was no reason they needed to sacrifice their men and put them all to the sword.
The answer was apparent enough; the Trailblazers were given a feast when it was only just to drug them all so that they could be slaughtered without being able to put up any resistance.
“A real conspiracy.
“A real and b.l.o.o.d.y conspiracy.
“But what in Heaven’s name is going on?!”
“Hmph,” snorted the voice from the darkness, “Surrender, Li Mu! Or else! Men, nock!”
The night sky rattled with the sound of crossbow strings being cranked back.
“Li Mu!” cried a dying Trailblazer whose last breath had held on long enough to pa.s.s a message, “Go… Quick… Escape… Find Ye—“
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Three crossbow quarrels perforated the torso of the Trailblazer, ending what life still in him instantly.
“G.o.ds dammit!”
Li Mu cursed as he vanished from his spot. A gleam of steel slashed across the blackness.
The heads of the three masked soldiers who fired the shots sprang into the air with long jetting trails of blood in their wake.
“Impudence! You dare resist?!” the Drakonid officer wielding the pa.s.s did not expect that Li Mu would dare to put up a fight despite being heavily surrounded. “FIRE AT WILL! PUT HIM DOWN AT ALL COSTS!” he snarled.
He did not even manage to finish.
The moment the final syllable slipped his tongue, Li Mu had blown through the ring of steel that encircled him, plowing his way through whatever men or steel that laid between him and the officer. Li Mu closed meters in mere seconds, reaching the officer in the blink of an eye before driving a kick through the latter and sending him barreling into a wall that collapsed at the impact of the collision.
Dust billowed into the air, obscuring sight enough.
Li Mu reappeared right before the Drakonid officer. He planted a foot on his chest, the appearing moon casting a glow on his enraged visage that the officer, for one fleeting moment, thought that he was facing a wrathful beast ready to pounce. “Speak,” Li Mu demanded, “What is going on?”
Through the flapping half of the hideous mask that was damaged by Li Mu’s blow, a young face fraught with panic and terror stared back at him, “X-Xiao Jianfei has yielded, Li Mu! He has confessed that you are an agent of the Xenos! All three Trailblazer squads and you are hereby sentenced to death for your treasonous crimes!”
Cascades of footfalls approached.
Auric presences, each of them heralding the coming of powerful warriors, were swiftly closing in on this position.
“There’s no getting away,” snarled the young officer through gritted teeth, “We’re under orders to arrest you and execute the Trailblazers. You can kill me, but there’s no escaping the Drakonids hunting you down.”
Li Mu snorted. He fired a blast and knocked the young officer out.
“Time to go, I guess.”
The rusted sword in his grasp shone with a blinding brilliance. He gave it a sweeping wave. Torrents of arcing lights surged into the air, blasting the rest of the masked Drakonids out of the way. Li Mu vanished into a sliver of light and flitted away. He scaled the tall walls outside just before the rest of the Drakonids could enclose around him and blended into the night.
By the time the Drakonid reinforcements arrived, the whole staging station was a complete mess.
They found the unconscious officer and roused him.
The bodies on the ground were gathered and bagged and tagged.
“We’ve got a fish who slipped the net.”
“It’s Li Mu.”
“Li Mu?”
“But how?! Is he gone?!”
“Blasted! Hunt him down!”
“Call a curfew! Find him! Leave no stone unturned!”
“Hmph, he can have wings but there’s no way he’s getting out of Lauffeuer.”
As the conversation went on, a word from the staging station was conveyed everywhere and decisions were quickly made.
“What the h.e.l.l is going on?”
Li Mu wasn’t far at all. Prowling alone in the darkness of an alleyway barely a hundred meters away, he was contemplating his options and thinking about what happened.
The young officer had said that “Xiao Jianfei has yielded” and that clearly did not bode well. Wherever Xiao Jianfei might be, he must not be enjoying it at all.
He went to the Governor’s office earlier. Something must have happened there.
Next, there was the episode where Lin Jingxin and Ye Ying, the two progenies of distinguished houses, were conveniently diverted elsewhere by seniors of their families as soon as they made landfall in Lauffeuer. That left only Xiao Jianfei, the only one with a modest background, to head to the Governor’s office to submit the reports. Whatever conspiracy was afoot, it must have been underway even before they reached the city.
But who? And why?
Is this a coup within the military involving Houses Lin and Ye and he had unwittingly stepped into it?
That would hardly be possible.
If anything, Li Mu could feel that the night’s events have manifestly shown that he was the target.
But who in this Battlefield of Chaos would go to such lengths to mount such a plot against him?
Li Mu thought about it and the same name kept coming again and again:
Lei Cang
Li Mu should have guessed.
“But does Lei Cang wield enough influence to make all this happen?”
Powerful and terrible presences were skulking around the vicinity; Li Mu could feel a number of them dangerously close by. These must be champions of the Drakonids scouring the area for him.
If only they had come sooner.
If the masked soldiers earlier had launched the attack with them present, escaping from the staging station would be very much harder instead.
“So what now?” Li Mu wondered.
Li Mu was not yet confident that he has the strength and power to take on an entire city full of soldiers. He could use the Moon Sentinels, but he doubted that it would do him much good.
To say nothing of the fact that Schwarzdrachen was still at the staging station stables.
But where could he go from here?
He has not even anyone that he could call a friend here.
“Uncle, I’ve had enough… We should call it a day…” Lin Jingxin, his face aflush with red and his very person reeking of the tang of alcohol. A servant girl came to the table with another flask of mead, which he brusque refused by shoving her away. He groped at the table and chair for balance as he scrambled to his feet. “I need to go back,” moaned the Trailblazer captain. “I’m a captain of the Trailblazer Corps and my men are expecting me. A lot of them are hurt so I should go back to them
From across the table, Lin An muttered placidly, “I thought you love mead a lot. Why? It’s not fun having a drink with me? Your uncle?”
Lin Jingxin shook his head. “We’ve gone through four urns of mead, Uncle. Surely we wouldn’t have achieved this track record if we were not having fun in the first place, uncle. But I have my duties, sir. So I really have to be going.”
“Four urns and yet here you are. Heh, my boy, I see you’ve improved your capacity to drink,” Lin An sighed all of a sudden. “How long have you been in the Corps, Cinnamon?”
“G.o.ds, uncle. Not that name again, please,” Hearing himself being called “Cinnamon”—a childish nickname that shares the same p.r.o.nunciation and part of his name—could make him jumpy, “It’s been a year and a half, give or take.”
“I seem to remember how you disliked joining the Trailblazers at first. You wanted to be at the frontlines.”
“I was a fool then, thrilled by the romantic fantasies of being a hero. But serving in the Corps is just as fun and exciting.”
“Really?” Lin An simpered thinly, dis.h.i.+ng a medallion pa.s.s across the table. It fell on the table on a slide.
Lin Jingxin picked up the medallion pa.s.s and read the inscription. “What!?” he gasped with shock. “Centurion of the Fyrewing Centuria Cavalry, Phenex Cohort, Legion Kommodore?! What in Heaven’s name—?!”
“Your latest transfer orders,” Lin An smiled. “The top bra.s.s has approved them. You’re to report in as soon as possible.”
“B-But—” Lin Jingxin gaped with disbelief. “But I’m not even a gold-standard captain of the Corps yet! That was the objective the family had set for me back then. I would be a laughing stock if I were to leave now!”
“You’re a man now, my boy. You look and push forward, not look back,” Lin An rose from his chair. He strode over to join his nephew at the other side, “I’ve gone to great lengths to procure this transfer for you, so please, for the love of Heaven, don’t muck it. The Phenex Cohort is one of the main forces leading at the frontlines and the Fyrewing Centuria has more than a thousand years of glorious history. You’re going there to be a Centurion; imagine how many people would salivate for such an opportunity.
“Even I would have,” Lin Jingxin conceded, looking down at the pa.s.s his fingers were grasping. “Heh. All right. I thank you, uncle. Thank you so much. But please. Just give me a small moment. I have to go back to the staging station and meet my men. I still need to tell them my farewells before I could go with you. I’ll be back in the morning, I promise.”
Lin An shook his head.
“Huh? What do you mean, uncle?”
“Time is pressing,” said Lin An, “We’re to set off now if you want to be in time. Just come with me immediately; my friend Jiang will take care of your men here for you.”
“Why the rush?” Lin Jingxin could not help feeling suspicious. “How about you give me just half an hour? I’ll be back quickly. It’s just small talk and I will be back here before you know it.”
“No,” Lin An denied flatly.
Lin Jingxin stared at him.
He lowered his gaze quietly, his voice becoming ominously deep. “Tell me, uncle? What is going on? Has something happened at the staging station? You’re trying to divert me away. What is this? Steering me clear of some sort of fallout?”
Lin An’s congenial smile evaporated. Stiffly, he answered, “Ever as sharp as always, eh? At any rate, this is no longer your business. You can find out what is going on later, but you won’t be changing any of it. Know that the family has expended great cost and effort to make this happen.”
Lin Jingxin’s fist clenched, next he released it only to ball again. Wrestling with his anxiety, he held Lin An in a transfixed glare. “This is all because of that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Lei Cang, is he, uncle?”