Azure Scepter

Page 64

The boy gripped the dagger tighter, the metal cold and sharp, rubbing against the muscles and veins. He threatened in a cold voice, "Hurry up, grab him, paladin. Don't talk nonsense, or I'll draw my sword."

Trier didn't speak; he quickly glanced around.

The confusion in Faudia's eyes had dissipated, and she seemed to have begun to doubt the boy; while the middle-aged knight Nordman looked disappointed. Although he didn't speak, Trier knew what the middle-aged knight was probably thinking.

—It seems that Trier's actions have turned what was originally a two-way threat game into a one-sided act of taking whatever he wants, and this kind of cowardly kindness is extremely ridiculous and unacceptable.

"What are you standing there for?! Hurry! Ms. Futia, make this piece of wood move!" the boy shouted.

Trier did not answer, while Fauci's expression turned grim.

The next moment, blood splattered!

The black cloak swayed, and the hanging corpse appeared out of thin air in front of the boy as if in a frame-dropping motion, cleaving the boy in two at the waist with a violent slash!

Stab it!

Before the boy could even look up, he felt himself being lifted into the air.

His vision was filled with blood red, warm entrails mixed with blood splattered on the cold stone, and he was shocked to find that his right arm, which was holding the dagger, had been severed at the root, the cut of the enchanted plate armor as smooth as a mirror.

How can it be! ?

The boy was utterly horrified; everything before him was completely beyond his comprehension. Half a second later, his mangled body crashed to the ground.

"Clap."

"Save them." The paladin's calm, even indifferent voice came from above.

Exclamations and wails came from above. The boy strained his eyes and saw a nun in a priest's robe pull a dagger from a soldier's neck.

With a hissing sound, arterial blood, full of tiny bubbles, gushed down like a fountain, and the warm, foul-smelling blood plasma splashed onto the boy's face like nectar. He couldn't help but squeeze out a gleeful smile.

Ultimately, it can purify a demon worshipper!

However, the next moment, the nun whispered, and a blindingly bright light emanated from her fingertips, instantly healing the fatal wound in a dazzling radiance.

It's over, it's all over... The boy looked around in despair.

The light diffused, and the fluttering white light was like withered flowers. Under the light, Lady Futia was still standing next to the paladin, and she was even indifferent to the paladin's atrocities!

Even the wise and powerful elven ranger was bewitched by the demon!

"Fools! You've been misled! You're all accomplices!" the boy roared hoarsely.

Suddenly, he sensed something was wrong—he had clearly been cut in half at the waist, so why could he still speak?

Before he could think any further, a cold iron glove roughly grabbed his hair.

"Ah, I knew it." The paladin's voice carried a strange hint of excitement.

The boy struggled to turn his eyes, and they met Trier's cold, dark gaze.

"Hah—Ptooey!" The boy spat out a mouthful of saliva, but Trier easily dodged it.

Suddenly, the boy felt a sharp, tingling pain at the end of his spine, as if hundreds of wriggling maggots had burrowed into his flesh.

He turned his head and was horrified to see Trier holding his severed lower body and reattaching it along the smooth wound.

The lower body, twitching like a dead centipede, had barely touched the wound when strands of fibrous muscle spread out. The muscle, like slippery tentacles, reattached and gripped the upper body tightly, causing cysts and granulation tissue to grow.

Wriggling, merging, the pale fascia and scarlet tendons surged, and within a few breaths, his lower and upper bodies miraculously returned to their original state.

"Do you know why?" Trier's gentle voice came from behind him.

The boy turned around and replied fiercely, "I have upheld the righteous path and have been blessed by the radiance."

“Look for yourself,” Trier said, tossing a silver mirror over. “Look at your scalp.”

The handsome young man's eyes widened suddenly—on the blood-stained silver mirror, he saw a blurry reflection.

He squinted and then saw a strange purple mark on his scalp. The mark looked like a simple line drawing, but upon closer inspection, it looked like a heart entwined with thorns, with a bewitching flower blooming from the thorns in the left ventricle.

The handsome young man recognized the mark; it was the mark of a demon worshipper who had recently been committing a series of murders in the city.

It turns out he was the one who worshipped the devil.

Chapter 127 Stereotype

Trier gripped his longsword, silently gazing at the motionless boy on the ground.

The handsome young man stared at the sky with his eyes wide open, like a soulless puppet. Crimson blood trickled down from the ends of his blond hair, slowly dripping into his bulging eyes, then sliding down the corners of his eyes.

At first glance, it looked as if he was shedding tears of blood.

After a long silence, the boy asked in a hoarse voice, "What did you do to me?"

“Nothing was done.” Trier’s voice was soft and his tone flat. “You know the truth, you just don’t want to accept it. You are the devil worshipper.”

The flat tone was like a cold, sharp blade, and the boy shivered violently.

Nordman, who was standing close to the boy, also shuddered and stared in astonishment.

As the Duke's chief spymaster, Nordman was always confident.

He used to think that whether it was the so-called devil worshippers or the Silent Whisperers who suddenly appeared to spread the plague, they were nothing more than rats in the gutter and vermin that could not be brought to the table. All their sneaky plans and secret movements were not worth mentioning, and all their schemes were within his expectations.

However, Nordman never expected that there was a demon worshipper right in front of him! Moreover, he spent a whole day with the person and couldn't detect anything amiss!

He couldn't help but have some doubts about his own professional abilities.

"I am not a demon worshipper! You are!" The boy's question was no longer firm.

Trier's reply remained calm: "The brand on your scalp is a blasphemous gift. Generally, such a brand is given by succubi to those they admire who have been corrupted."

“Nonsense…” The boy’s voice grew weaker and weaker.

"The succubus who bestowed upon you the gift of blasphemy is of a high rank; this mark even grants you supernatural charm." Trier swung his sword sharply, severing most of the boy's blond hair, completely exposing the alluring purple tattoo to the air.

A nearby sergeant exclaimed in surprise, "That's the symbol from the crime scene of the serial murders!"

A cold light flashed, and the sharp tip of the sword touched the Gift of Blasphemy like a pointer.

“Thorns, heart, flowers—these are symbolic representations of a succubus lord in the abyss,” Trier explained. “However, the brand on your scalp, while resembling that of a succubus lord, is arranged differently. Therefore, the one who gave you the brand must have been a high-ranking succubus under that succubus lord.”

Trier's arguments were as rich as an encyclopedia, and in his calm tone, the manic teenager fell completely silent. His expression was blank, and his beliefs seemed to have completely collapsed. Meanwhile, a faint, cold fear rose in Nordman's heart.

He suddenly recalled the past. A distant, hazy past, steeped in the pungent smell of blood.

Long ago, he would sometimes hear Trier's methodical conversation, which sounded like a scalpel dissecting a corpse.

Nordman knew that such conversations were rare; Trier would only engage in them occasionally after receiving information about his target. But whenever such a conversation took place, the subject of the discussion would disappear within days—whether it was an insignificant pickpocket or a fearsome vampire lord lurking in the shadows.

At this thought, Nordman couldn't help but glance to his side—the strangely tall figure, wearing a tattered black cloak, looked somewhat familiar. This odd figure looked a lot like the vampire lord who had disappeared in the past.

That terrifying vampire lord had wreaked havoc in the border region between the duchy and the Great Swamp for a full century, but after Nordman provided Trier with accurate information about the vampire lord, the blood-sucking undead suddenly vanished.

As he recalled, the vague sense of fear from the past surged into Nordmann's mind like heavy, damp steam, and then materialized into a real terror.

The crimson setting sun cast shadows of fir trees, making Trier seem as if it were draped in a cloak of blood, while the dark shadows, like loose threads, hinted at a sense of death.

Nordman suddenly realized that he might have been too arrogant—his invitation had been too forceful; and during the sudden hostage situation, he seemed to have displayed a certain contempt...

"Oh no," he thought, feeling a chill on the soles of his feet, as if a ghost of the winter night had grasped his feet with withered hands.

In his memory, Trier was not exactly an easy person to talk to...

"I have to think of a way to salvage this impression as soon as possible." With a racing heart, Nordman looked up at Trier.

He was about to speak when the soldier who had just been taken hostage interrupted, saying, "Thank you, sir!"

Due to a tear in his trachea, the sergeant's voice sounded hoarse, like a deflated kayak.

Trier smiled and said, "You should thank Noy; she's the one who saved you."

"Then I must thank you for your decisiveness. I was almost killed by this monster who believed in the devil!" The sergeant frowned, his expression filled with resentment.

“I am a paladin, protecting the innocent is my duty,” Trier waved his hand.

Upon hearing this, Nordman felt his heart skip a beat.

Paladin, Trier?!

"Cheers..." A moment later, the chief spy realized that his teeth were chattering.

Although Trier had said something similar during their earlier confrontation, he had assumed it was merely a ploy by Trier to gain the boy's trust. But now that he was saying it again, that was rather alarming...

—Although Trier has regained his memory, he seems to have gone mad!

People with power are dangerous, mages with power are even more dangerous, and necromancers with power are almost synonymous with danger. But if a powerful necromancer has gone completely mad, then it can no longer be described simply as "dangerous".

Trier had always given Nordman a strong sense of inhumanity, and now this bizarre being in human skin had gone mad. Nordman simply couldn't imagine what would happen next...

He glanced at Trier in despair, only to find Trier looking at him with concern.

"Are you okay?"

"It couldn't be better! Thank you for your concern!" Knight Nordman managed a weak smile.

Never provoke the madman! The spy chief warned himself.

Suddenly, a shrill roar exploded in his ears: "Radiance, I do not worship the devil, witness my piety!"

Before he could finish speaking, the boy who had been lying down suddenly sprang up while Trier was speaking, and resolutely slammed his forehead against the ground—he was going to commit suicide!

In a flash, Trier grabbed the boy's hair and delivered a powerful kick, striking him squarely behind the knee without hesitation.

With a crisp "crack!" the boy completely lost his ability to resist.

Seemingly feeling unsafe, Trier then casually chopped off the boy's only remaining left arm.

"Clap!"

Bone fragments mixed with blood splattered out, and amidst the boy's piercing screams, Trier's voice remained calm: "Don't get agitated, we all believe in your piety—you were probably just bewitched by a succubus, there's no need for you to commit suicide."

The boy was in so much pain that he couldn't speak; he could only writhe in agony.

“You are more devout in life than in death. Since you were able to be seduced by a succubus without even realizing it, the investigation team’s security system must have serious problems, and the key to finding the loophole is you. Oris must care a lot about the investigation team’s security.” Trier leaned down. “So, don’t try to kill yourself again.”

At this point, Trillton paused, then picked up the holy symbol from the ground and cast a divine spell on the boy.

The holy white light dispelled the shadows, and the spy chief Nordman was completely dumbfounded, his mouth agape in disbelief.

Trier actually became a paladin!

A ruthless and efficient necromancer who never cared about other people's lives actually became a kind paladin.

It's ridiculous!

Having been shocked so many times in a short period of time, Nordman had briefly fallen into a state of numbness. He didn't even notice the magic storage stone that Trier had silently crushed within the divine light.

The magic storage stone that Trier crushed was of low quality; it wasn't even one of the 30 magic storage stones Trier specifically mentioned in his diary. With just a gentle squeeze, the magic storage stone completely turned to dust, and the black powder quickly mingled with the blood, falling along the smooth edges of the stone into the cracks between the bricks.

—The invisible secret eye released by the storage stone silently attached itself to the boy's severed arm.

After doing all this, Trier stood up nonchalantly.

He looked around. The middle-aged knight seemed quite afraid of him, while the nearby heavily armed soldiers and servants looked grateful. Fatiya was looking at him blankly, while Noy was looking at the setting sun, lost in thought.

After a moment's thought, his exceptional intelligence and rapid thinking allowed him to quickly devise a plan for the next step.

Half a second later, Trier refined the details of the plan in his mind, as well as various available backup plans.

"What is your name?" Trier asked.

The middle-aged knight seemed to snap out of his daze and quickly replied, "Nordman, Nordman Whippett."

“Let’s go see the old friend you mentioned first,” Trier said slowly, putting away his weapon.

Nordman was overjoyed. He was about to respond when the usually taciturn elf suddenly spoke up: "Trier, His Highness Edith certainly needs your help."

"Damn elves!" Nordman was quite annoyed.

“We’ll split up. Hult and I are going to see Sir Nordman’s friend—after all, Hult is still wanted by Oris.” Trier turned to look at the strange warrior with a tall, slender figure and a black cloak. “Fodia, please escort this boy to the investigation team with Mr. Silent. I’ll be there soon after visiting Nordman’s friend.”

“Trier, you must be careful of Vercingetorie,” Faudia blinked worriedly. “He is an extremely evil man.”

Trier nodded, then grabbed the boy. "This misled young man should be sent to the investigation team. Sir Nordman, do you have any objections?"

Judging from the conflict between the expedition team and the local faction in the Southern Duchy, Nordman desperately wanted the local faction to control the boy so that they could openly use the boy as a weapon to attack the arrogant and foolish expedition team.

Upon hearing Trier's words, Nordman hesitated. Based on his observation, Trier, who had regained his memories, did not seem to trust them much. The powerful necromancer's attitude towards the investigation team remained ambiguous.

After a moment's thought, Nordmann said repeatedly, "I have absolutely no objection, Your Excellency Trier."

He no longer dared to interfere with Trier's wishes.

“By the radiance above, lead the way,” Trier said in a deep voice.