691 The ruined village
The boulder began to crack and slightly pushed back. However, a strange thing occurred. Even with the cobweb cracks in the boulder, the boulder didn’t break.
The boulder kept moving without breaking, as if it was being held together by an external source. If Vincent weren’t witnessing everything in slow motion, he and the child behind him would have been squished.
While Vincent focused, while Vincent gritted his teeth, and ignored the pain of his shoulder popping out of its place, Kazumi used Soul Invite multiple times to assist.
In the face of death, Vincent’s lips slowly curved into a smirk as time passed. The pain was intense, yet his body was adapting to withstand the pain. The less pain he felt, the more time he had to think about what to do next.
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[Notice]
[The host has suffered pain in a body part, and the damage requirements have been met.]
[Mutation Trait: Pain Mitigation increased from 19% to 20%]
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.....
After gathering almost all the mana in his body to his gauntlet, Vincent shouted, “Implode, you bastard!”
Condensed mana was implanted inside all the cracks caused by Shatter. The condensed mana stabilization collapsed and imploded.
*Boom* The boulder exploded, and rock splinters shot randomly, causing a lot of destruction and death. A lot of buildings were quickly destroyed, and a lot of Cefeyes died as well.
Vincent was also a victim. The splinters shot past him. His leg was lacerated from two locations, and his side was light lacerated from one location.
In front of Vincent was a cloud of dust, blood raining, and pieces of rock and wood falling. However, Vincent needed to check if the child he tried to protect was still alive.
Vincent turned around and swung his arm to create a breeze of wind. When the breeze slightly cleared his view, his eyes soon saw a small tendril wall.
What was in front of Vincent wasn’t a nice sight to behold. The rock splinters had penetrated the wall Zero quickly erected. It meant Zero could not protect the child.
Vincent was about to despair. He grabbed the tendrils and moved them aside without considering the current state of his body and the signals of sharp pain rushing to his brain.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtInstead, in Vincent’s mind, the thoughts about if the little child was still alive or not were the most important to him at his moment.
*Pho*
“Huh? Awa? Plow? Zero?”
Vincent was surprised beyond belief. Awa was on her knee. She held the child with one hand and, with the other, protected both of them from the rock splinter.
Plow stopped shaping her tail like a shield and hopped off Awa’s arm. She worriedly approached Vincent and asked how he was.
Zero stopped holding Awa from her waist and approached Vincent.
[That boulder was disastrous, but at least Awa, Plow, and Zero somehow got here in time.] Kazumi looked around and continued [So many dead Cefeye and so many shacks have fallen. This can barely be called a village now. This has become a graveyard.]
*Thud* Vincent fell on his knee. He coughed mutated blood.
*Step, step, step* Many spearmen arrived at the scene and split into three groups.
The first group went behind Vincent and killed any approaching Cefeyes. The second group stayed beside Awa while observing their surroundings. The third group went to look for the archers under the collapsed shacks.
“He saved the child by putting his life on the line.”
“Our village is gone, but our next generation is still alive, at least.”
“To have the power to destroy that thing means the head of the great Orso was real.”
While a few Dullahans passed comments, two Dullahan went to help Awa slowly get up.
Awa went over to Vincent and asked, “Tell me what to do for you? Do you want me to feed you a potion?”
*Cough* “Potion? I gave you all the potions to heal you. I have no more healing potions left.”
Awa froze from shock. She believed Vincent was going to die if he remained in his current state. All because she drank all the potions he had to save her life.
“Argh” *Plop* “Huff, huff. Twenty percent pain tolerance, and it still hurts like hell.” Vincent said after he pulled his shoulder back in position.
The child went in front of Vincent. She lowered to her knees and pleaded. “I will do anything. Please do not die, good clan leader.”
The Dullahans nodded their heads and agreed with the child.
A Dullahan arrived, and with his arrival, bad news followed. He informed everyone that five archers died, six lost or needed to have one of their limbs chopped off, and four managed to escape with a few scratches.
*Smack* Vincent slapped his face, shocking everyone. He gritted his teeth and stood up.
Vincent stored his shirt and said, “This will help stop the bleeding for some time. Awa, can you apply that to me and then go help the others?” before throwing a strange ointment at Awa.
Awa nodded. She swiftly dipped her finger in the ointment and started treating Vincent’s wounds.
The Dullahans became surprised by how Awa casually touched Vincent’s body. They believed Awa was not lying about being lovers.
“Clan leader. Are you going to Valhalla soon?” The child asked worriedly.
“Hehe. What a difficult question to answer, little girl.” Vincent joked. His head wobbled slightly after he felt a little dizzy from losing blood and almost having no mana left in his body.
“I want to go to Valhalla with clan leader if...”
“No, little girl.” Vincent interrupted in an annoyed tone. “Your job is to live. It is our job to see you live.”
“Don~e~ ” Awa was telling Vincent how she was done applying the blood-absorbing balm before her voice wavered. Her eyes were stuck in the darkening sky caused by something covering the moon.
*Boom!* A boulder landed in the training area.
“M-m-mot...” Awa muttered before trying to run to her parents. However, she could not see anything because of the cloud of dust in the dark.
The boulder was the first part of the village, and the inhabitants had to suffer.
The ground trembled, and because most of the shacks were destroyed, everyone could see a large horde of Cefeye entering the village from the destroyed gate.
Be it Dullahan or Cefeye, any survivor was going to die after being run over by a stampede of Cefeyes.
“Everyone. Cover your ears right now. After I finish, go and look for survivors.” Vincent ordered. He glanced at the distraught Awa and told her, “Trust me.”
“Is Vincent Vincent going shout very very loud?” *Pho?*
“Yes.”
Plow placed her paws on her ears to cover them. After the Dullahans saw Plow cover her ears, Vincent inhaled a large amount of air. More air than an ordinary person could inhale. They covered their ears while holding their weapons.
Awa went to cover the child’s ears while the child covered hers.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm“Trust in Vincent.” Awa said while the child said, “Trust clan leader.”
*ROAR!!!* A loud roar of a monstrous beast and a wave of intense malice spread with Vincent at the center.
The sound that rumbled the earlobes, the sound that caused the gut feeling of dread, and the sound that caused the mind to play tricks with hallucinations made the Cefeye drop one after the other like the domino effect.
The Dullahans shivered, even if they covered their ears. Their legs trembled as if they had no more strength left.
“~Haaa~” Vincent exhaled a puff of green steam.
Vincent observed his surroundings. He could see the handful of Cefeye still standing while the rest fainted. However, they weren’t in a state fit to run, let alone walk without falling after a few steps.
[It worked. Now let’s prepare to leave.]
Vincent didn’t need to respond. He was interested in leaving as soon as possible because his body was at its limits, and he only had twenty Soul Power left to use for emergency use.
“Let’s go. ” Vincent said. He approached Awa and the child.
Before they mentioned a single word, Vincent swiftly lifted and placed the child on his warm shoulder and later lifted Awa and carried her on his waist.
“Follow us. Plow. Zero. Keep up.”
“Plow run very very fast.” *Pho*
“Zero. Obey.”
“Yes, clan leader.” All the Dullahans said.
Vincent ran to the training ground. The dust had almost settled, but any torches had been extinguished. It was difficult to see the casualties or if no one was hurt.
Vincent lowered Awa and the child to their feet and summoned sticks with the tips covered in mutated ash.
Unfortunately, after Vincent lit the sticks and threw them into the ground with force to light the area, there were a lot of casualties.
Awa quickly covered the child’s eyes as the gore in front of their eyes wasn’t a sight a child should see. On the ground were the corpses of five Dullahans. One of them was the flattened corpse of Labh.
Awa moved her head from left to right. She wanted to find her parents as she was certain her hardheaded parents weren’t going to leave before her.
[Vincent. I can see with my Mana Sense that behind the broken boulder are a few Dullahans.]
Vincent rushed to the boulder and stored it. As he thought, the broken boulder was crushing a or multiple legs.
Lamin and another Dullahan had one of their legs crushed. Both were alive and unconscious.
Vincent moved his gaze. He saw Amie unconscious on the ground, along with six other Dullahans. Fortunately, they had a couple of scratches and bruises. None of them were dead. Labh’s mother was one of the people besides Amie.
.....