Chapter 56: Preparation for Beheading (Part 1)
Ji Ma returned to reality through the eye of the storm-like dream entrance. The little meat mountain behind her was still there, the cave was dim, and the air was filled with the smell of mucus and rust. A bundle of orange cat was lying in a bucket, purring, its eyelids fluttering, on the verge of waking.
Ji Ma tiptoed closer, and when she was three meters away from Li Anxi the cat, she suddenly accelerated, kicking the wooden bucket: “Little Li! It’s time to get up.”
“Meow!”
Li Anxi the cat jumped up from the bucket, tumbling to the ground and landing awkwardly. She was too eager to get up, her paws slipping on a small stone, causing her to fall again.
Ji Ma maintained a straight face, but the joy of bullying the weak diminished the dark clouds gathering in her mind. She squatted down, picked up Li Anxi the cat, and walked out, rubbing the back of the cat’s neck. The cat nuzzled against Ji Ma’s soft chest, purring softly.
Li Anxi the cat meowed, “My master is so good, so kind.”
Unfortunately, Ji Ma couldn’t understand.
The hole in the wooden door was shorter than she remembered, and Ji Ma felt a sense of accomplishment as she lowered her head and stepped out of the cave, even though the cave itself was more than a head taller than her.
Outside the cave, there were more than a dozen corpses of horned beasts and large horned beasts lying along the path, their bodies mutilated.
Ji Ma speculated that it must have been the Beastmen who dispatched elite troops to form a strike team, attempting to break into the cave to stop her ritual, but George brought them down, chasing after and killing one after another.
The banners of the chapel still fluttered on the wooden walls. However, at a glance, the situation in the stronghold was grim. The wooden walls were littered with the corpses of the Beastmen that had not been cleared away, and only a few soldiers from the chapel were standing guard on the walls, no more than thirty, barely filling out the defenses.
In the open space at the center of the stronghold, three rows of corpses lay neatly, covered with white cloth, resembling tombstones. There weren’t enough white cloths, so seven or eight corpses lay on the ground, their open eyes staring at the sky, their brutal deaths starkly exposed.
As Ji Ma walked down from the high ground, she saw a corpse with a deeply sunken skull, the top of the skull collapsed down to the brow ridge—a sight that was alarming. Such a gruesome death would definitely dampen the morale.
Yet even this gruesome corpse had not received a piece of white cloth. How miserable must those under the cloth have been?
Ji Ma’s gaze fell on the corpse covered with white cloth, which bore a large dark red bloodstain. She shook her head and continued on, passing a wooden wall to see the accompanying priest treating the injured.
He wore a red helmet, still donned in armor, with a spiked mace at his waist, ready for battle at any moment. The accompanying priest was kneeling beside an injured man, facing away from Ji Ma, surrounded by the sounds of pain-filled groans from the wounded.
Ji Ma thought he was treating the injured, but as she approached, she heard the accompanying priest softly praying: “May your soul find its way to the Kingdom of our Lord, accompanied by civilization and order for all your days.”
Ji Ma walked to his side and saw the priest holding tightly onto the injured man’s hand. The man’s wound looked like a child’s mouth wide open, with white bones visible inside; his eyes were vacant, devoid of life, his lips moving:
“Priest, it hurts… help…”
With that, he took his last breath, his eyes fixed on the sky.
The accompanying priest sighed, released his grip, stood up, and turned around, his chest adorned with a hand, looking at the significantly grown succubus.
In this environment, surrounded by the anguished cries of countless dying people, even though Ji Ma possessed supernatural charm, her beauty could hardly pierce through the heavy atmosphere of sorrow, lifting anyone’s spirits.
Ji Ma turned to leave, aware that the accompanying priest was wary of her.
“Are you alright?” the accompanying priest called out to her, “Help me lift him to the place where the dead are placed.”
For some inexplicable reason, Ji Ma nodded.
They indeed lacked manpower, with only the horned child and a middle-aged woman attending to the injured. The middle-aged woman had reddened eyes, constantly wiping her eyes.
Ji Ma looked around and didn’t see her husband’s figure, and she instantly understood.
Days ago, her husband, who had told her, “Unfortunately, I can no longer run,” had died here, becoming one of the three rows of corpses.
The accompanying priest brought a stretcher, and they carefully moved the body onto it. The priest could only use one hand, while the other side of the stretcher was connected with a crossbeam. He could lift it with one hand, leading Ji Ma toward the place for the dead.
No one spoke, and Ji Ma took the initiative to ask:
“How is the battle?”
“The defeat is already certain.”
Ji Ma felt that her first question was pointless: “Where’s George?”
“He’s fine, not seriously injured, but he’s consumed a lot of magic. The defense needs him to put out fires, and there are just too many spots on fire; he can only use his extraordinary abilities frequently.”
“What about Eve Frostleaf?”
“She just rested; she’s exhausted. I suspect she can’t handle a breakout mission, and I advised her to escape. Otherwise, dying here would heavily impact diplomacy.”
“Everything will be fine; I leveled up successfully.”
“The Beastmen have not attacked again. Just now, the head Beast said that their reinforcements are on their way here,” the accompanying priest said. “We discussed that we hope Eve Frostleaf can burn all the corpses with fire, to prevent them from falling into the mouths of the Beastmen. Some injured have pleaded with me for mercy killing, fearing they might end up in the Beastmen’s stomachs after death.”
“Oh.”
The two of them arrived at the place where the dead were laid, placing the fresh body on the third row of corpses.
The accompanying priest chatted a lot: “Do you remember him?”
“I don’t remember.”
“He was the first soldier to have roasted meat at your hands, and he told others that he wanted to learn how to roast meat from you to open a barbecue stall when he goes back.”
“I have a vague impression.”
As they walked back, the accompanying priest fell silent for a while before suddenly saying, “Did you really plan to take everyone back home to get married, or was that just a lie?”
“I thought as the priest of the God of Dawn, you’d be more knowledgeable and insightful,” Ji Ma said, “at least you wouldn’t ask me such a boring question.”
“True,” the accompanying priest replied. “From the beginning, I said our army would surely lose, but I still couldn’t help but harbor fantasies.”
They returned to the area filled with the injured, where a few lightly injured soldiers were chatting together:
“Was that the succubus Ji Ma just now?”
“It doesn’t look like it; her chest isn’t that big, and she’s not that tall.”
“Sure it is; she leveled up successfully.”
“She’s coming over.”
One injured soldier propped himself up with his elbow on the ground and called out to Ji Ma: “Hey! Are you Ji Ma?”
Ji Ma replied, “Yes.”
“She leveled up successfully.”
“We’re saved; we can go home alive.”
“Help me punish those bastards outside.”
“You all wait to go home and brag about today,” Ji Ma said, pulling out a straight branch, her mind moving, and the branch transformed into a spear. “The wild monsters outside are about to have a bad day; they won’t even know how they died.”
With that, Ji Ma brandished the spear, her three-meter-long wings unfurling behind her, and with a gentle flap, she flew gracefully towards George on the wooden wall.
Someone started cheering, and the cheers were contagious; the injured joined in the celebration.
Ji Ma flew toward the wooden wall riddled with arrows, landing beside George, who had already turned his head early, his azure eyes scanning Ji Ma from top to bottom.
With one hand on her hip, Ji Ma looked up at George, who was half a head taller than her, and said, “What’s wrong? Surprised to see that I’m almost the same height as you?”
“No, you’ve become much more beautiful than before.”
“Tsk, you should learn from my cat how to flatter; otherwise, my beauty would be in vain,” Ji Ma said, her long tail swaying behind her. “What’s the current battle situation?”
“After the warriors paid a heavy price, the enemy has lost the will to attack again. The head Beast was frustrated, hacking off a few heads of Beastmen but couldn’t continue the assault.” George was much more optimistic than the accompanying priest. “To intimidate us, he even exposed the coming of their reinforcements. Why don’t you predict when the enemy reinforcements will arrive?”
“It will need a few Beastmen corpses.”
“There are plenty below.”
Ji Ma walked to the edge of the wooden wall and saw that beneath the wall, the Beastmen corpses were piled high, filling the trenches. In some places, they were even stacked, forming a small slope leading up to the wooden wall. Some corpses were torn into pieces, while others were charred, emitting wisps of smoke.
Roughly estimating, there were possibly more than two hundred Beastmen corpses lying beneath the wooden wall. Adding in those injured and unable to fight, the number could double. Ji Ma glanced at the surrounding Beastmen; their numbers had decreased significantly, probably down to about five hundred, with many of them also wounded.
Of course, there were even fewer chapel soldiers, the ratio of numbers was even more disproportioned.
Ji Ma gently jumped over the wooden wall, landing on the ground.
The Beastmen noticed her, and the lowly horned beasts all drew their crude bows, aiming at Ji Ma. Ji Ma didn’t care at all; instead, she transformed her spear into a glaive and slashed at the abdomen of a Beastmen corpse on the ground.
As arrows rained down towards Ji Ma, they were deflected by an invisible hand only three or four meters away, spinning in the air and crashing against the wooden wall, falling powerless to the ground.
A loud twang of a bowstring came from the wooden wall. Ji Ma looked up to see an arrow pierce the chest of a lowly horned beast about seventy meters away, the arrow protruding from its chest as it clutched at the injury and fell down. Just as it hit the ground, a second arrow followed and struck another lowly horned beast’s chest.
Ji Ma understood it was definitely George. She lowered her head and poked at the bloody entrails with her glaive, receiving her divination result. With a flap of her wings, she flew onto the wooden wall and said, “The enemy reinforcements will take over half a day to arrive.”
In the distance, the lowly horned beasts were retreating, attempting to fall back behind the hillside. George drew his bow again and shot an arrow into the sky; the arrow traced a large and dramatic arc before landing on a pitiful lowly horned beast’s chest more than a hundred meters away.
Putting down his bow, George said, “There’s more than enough time.”
“Do you like aiming for the heart that much? Aren’t you afraid someone might research a counter against that one day?”
“Even with much research, it cannot make up for the difference in strength. If someone truly guards against my attack to the chest, then their head might very well get taken off.”
I still need to buy a heart shield later, one with extraordinary power.
“Is the plan still to behead the enemy generals?”
“Yes,” George said. “Can you tell me what your ability is?”
“Harvesting the injured.”
“So, basically stealing kills? Quite suitable for you.”
“Hey, hey, you’re slandering me; what do you mean stealing kills?” Ji Ma said. “This is called rapid execution, creating a local advantage, contributing to the team.”
“Ji Ma, your lies are becoming more and more poetic.”
“Tch,” Ji Ma gave George the middle finger, “Shall we start now? Call in Eve Frostleaf and the elven maidens, let’s go all out.”
However, George shook his head:
“No, newly advanced extraordinary beings generally take three to five days to understand their extraordinary powers. Mastering them takes ten to fifteen days. You should practice first; we’ll be ready to ambush in three and a half hours.”
