Chapter 66: Mercenary Camp
The moonlight was obscured by dark clouds. A small, cloaked figure walked through the dense forest, the black cloak she wore flowing with strange currents of light. A black raven circled above her head, emitting a series of grating, piercing caws. “That’s right, this is the direction.”
Li Wen remained silent. They had been traveling like this for some time. Martha had said she wanted to avoid scaring anyone, which was why she had transformed into a raven.
Still, no matter what Li Wen thought, a talking raven wasn’t much less terrifying than an old witch. Besides, how could a ghost fairy possibly care about human feelings?
For reasons unknown to Li Wen, the ghost fairy Martha claimed she wanted to help her find those mercenaries.
All fairies were born with mastery over fairy magic, and ghost fairies were arguably the most powerful type. With Grandma Martha’s help, Li Wen would indeed have a much easier time.
“You don’t seem like a kind-hearted person,” the ghost fairy said to Li Wen. She immediately retorted:
“Neither do you.”
The raven let out a chilling caw of laughter, tacitly agreeing.
“Just ahead, that group of people.”
Li Wen didn’t need it to tell her; she could already see the firelight in the distance.
This group of mercenaries had built a camp in the forest for long-term use, also serving to evade the notice of town guards or the private armies of lords.
Li Wen’s remaining mana was low. She hadn’t meditated since fighting the demon. So, with the ghost fairy’s consent, she took out a bottle of clear, pale green potion from the fairy’s treasure pouch. It was a Clarity Potion, which could clear one’s mind, often used for emergency mana recovery when critically low. Drinking it multiple times could cause headaches and thirst, and in severe cases, lead to unconsciousness.
Clarity Potions weren’t rare, and their effects were passable. However, the potions in the treasure pouch were mostly refined by the ghost fairy Martha, and their quality was undeniably top-tier.
Li Wen drank the potion and immediately sat down to meditate.
An hour later, with more than half her mana recovered, Li Wen opened her eyes.
She looked at the brightly lit mercenary camp, her figure gradually blending into the night.
*
A bearded man stood guard on a simple watchtower made of a few logs. Today, their mercenary group had pulled off a big job. They couldn’t say for sure how much they’d earned, but the captain had ordered everyone to drink and eat heartily. The bearded man had bad luck; he’d been forced to stand guard halfway through the revelry.
The night wind blew, and he shivered. He wondered if he should fetch some wine to warm himself up. After all, most of them were pretty drunk by now; the ones who would get drunk were already passed out.
Before he could make up his mind, the bearded man felt a cold sensation in his throat and immediately lost consciousness.
Watching the sentinel’s corpse fall from the watchtower, Li Wen sheathed her bow.
This bow and arrows had been purchased in Black Sand Town precisely to deal with situations where she had no mana. After transmigrating in her previous life, she had learned hunting and was reasonably proficient with a bow and arrow. Shooting moving targets in the dark was difficult, but hitting stationary targets was second nature.
The entire camp, at most, probably had dozens to a hundred mercenaries. If she were to kill them one by one with magic, unless it was a wide-range spell like Poem of Paradise, she wouldn’t have enough mana. She had originally planned to use the power of Reverse in Shadow to sneak in and assassinate them one by one, but now it seemed unnecessary.
Not even the fall of the dead sentinel had drawn any attention. It seemed the quality of this mercenary group was quite poor.
Li Wen walked into their camp just like that.
The camp was a mess, with drunkards, armor, wine barrels, and meat mixed together, emitting an indescribable smell. In short, it was very unpleasant.
“Who… who are you?”
Someone who wasn’t completely drunk noticed Li Wen and slurred the question.
“I am your Death God.”
Li Wen indifferently swung her bone knife, ending his life.
She walked towards the depths of the camp, killing every mercenary she encountered, like a Death God in black. Her pale bone knife was stained red, and scarlet blood flowed throughout the camp.
The commotion soon woke the mercenaries. They looked at Li Wen, the executioner, in terror, unable to distinguish between reality and nightmare. They could only shout for help and scatter.
Li Wen would not allow them to escape and immediately unleashed Poem of Paradise.
The witch’s song reached every mercenary within range. As the affected mercenaries took a step, their bodies seemed to be torn apart, turning into a pool of minced flesh.
This happened when Fool’s Praise was applied to ordinary people; they couldn’t even take a single step.
Those outside the range of the ability were terrified at the sight and collapsed on the ground, or knelt to pray to the gods, or cried out to Li Wen for mercy.
By now, about fifty or so had woken up. The remaining ones had either died in their sleep or died due to Fool’s Praise. Of these fifty or so, not all had seen Li Wen cast her spell; they were simply mimicking the actions of those who had woken up earlier, not understanding what was happening at all.
“Who is your leader?” Li Wen asked coldly.
However, the response was a crossbow bolt. It was shot from an extremely treacherous angle, piercing through the gaps between several people before hitting Li Wen.
But Li Wen merely took a slight step back due to the bolt’s momentum. The bolt fell to the ground, failing to even pierce Li Wen’s Emerald Star Cloak.
Li Wen casually threw a Dark Word Curse, killing the person who had ambushed her with the hand crossbow.
Seeing this, someone cried out, “Demon!”
Demon?
Being called such a name, Li Wen couldn’t help but find it ironic. Those scum who wantonly slaughtered innocent people were more deserving of that title.
“I’ll ask again, who is your leader?”
No one answered.
Li Wen frowned. These scum were quite tough; not even one person had betrayed their leader.
So, she stopped bothering to say anything and raised her hand, preparing to unleash Poem of Paradise.
“W-wait a moment!” A bald man fearfully crawled out.
“Are you the leader of these people?”
“No… no…” The bald man’s face was full of panic. “The captain… he’s already dead…”
Li Wen looked in the direction he pointed, which was the person who had ambushed her with the hand crossbow. No wonder he dared to do that.
It didn’t matter. Finding someone to question didn’t necessarily require the leader.
“I ask, you answer… Did you massacre an entire village today?”
The bald man’s face turned deathly pale. He stammered, “N-no, it was… it was all the captain’s orders…”
Li Wen didn’t listen to such nonsense.
“You took the corpses away, why?”
“I don’t know, it was a deal the captain made with someone…”
“A deal? With whom?”
The bald man stiffened, not daring to speak.
Li Wen remained silent, but mana surged into The Primordial Codex of Ending in her hand. In an instant, the glow of mana almost solidified.
The bald man didn’t know what would happen, so he could only cover his head and sob loudly, “It was Wilson! Sir Wilson!”
