Chapter 31: Deception
Blood Clan territory, at the border between the Darknight Theocracy and the Empire.
Clément caught the arrow barehanded. As expected, the Empire’s Windwhisperer had arrived as promised.
Link wore a hemp cloak, his eyes radiating a sharpness that seemed to pierce directly through his opponent’s heart. The crossbow string in his hands was taut, ready for battle at any moment.
“Here’s what you wanted. Now give me back his soul.”
Clément received the scroll Link threw over—inside was exactly the Empire’s forbidden technique he desired.
“Looks like the Sunrise Knight was wrong about you after all. Hahaha…”
Clément spread the phantom behind him, and countless vengeful spirits flew out. Behind him, in a glass coffin, the figure most familiar to Link was writhing frantically—clearly having suffered endless torment.
“Brother, I’ll rescue you right now.” He pulled the trigger, and successive crossbow bolts shattered the coffin. Soon, that figure drifted out, looked at him meaningfully as if sighing, then slowly disappeared into the sky.
“Clément, the deal is done. Now…”
Crossbow archers lying in ambush had been waiting for this moment. A rain of arrows shot over. Following Link’s command to form the array, the Wind Kill Formation bound Clément tightly in the center.
“Hahahahaha, Windwhisperer, do you think this can handle me?”
Link’s arrows carried his wind attribute magic—blood clan etherealization was ineffective. Clément was soon hit by several arrows, blood flowing freely.
Clément laughed wildly and unrestrained. Though standing in the eye of the storm with black lightning falling mercilessly, the four archers forming the array were already struggling to withstand such pressure.
“Undead, rise again. Windwhisperer, did you forget this was once a battlefield?”
Skeletal hands emerged from the ground everywhere—these undead attacks came completely unexpected.
The figure before Clément was also equipped with the same crossbow and hemp cloak, loading and shooting arrows at the same speed as Link, perhaps even faster.
That was clearly his most familiar brother, but now completely reduced to Clément’s puppet.
The arrows whistled as they collided and both broke, falling powerlessly to the ground.
“You, you truly despicable oath-breaker.” Link cursed angrily as wild winds raged in the formation, cutting Clément even more mercilessly.
“How could that be? I just captured him again. I did release what I should have released, didn’t I?”
Link remained expressionless. Having been deceived by Clément, he had no way back. He looked at the four archers barely holding on and the crossbow troops being routed by the undead army.
He jumped down the slope and walked to the center of the Wind Kill Formation. He intended to use himself as the array’s core to unleash its strongest killing move.
“I absolutely will not allow you to treat my brother like this anymore!”
The sky split open, followed by powerful reverse airflow wind blades slashing toward Clément, triggering a storm of indiscriminate attacks.
However, his own wind element resistance was excellent, so the effect on him wasn’t too severe.
Inside the formation was complete chaos, with violent airflows tearing apart everything in their path. The bodies of those undead creatures were easily crushed like paper.
“Perfect—I can see which of you is superior.” Clément lightly pointed with his finger, and the puppet began moving.
The powerful reverse airflow had already cut Clément full of wounds. He couldn’t lift his head, and his ducal formal wear was completely torn apart. Just as Link was about to launch his final attack…
The most familiar figure threw himself in front of Clément without hesitation. The hands that had been summoning the storm hesitated unconsciously.
“Don’t… worry… about… me…” The puppet’s throat turned with difficulty, squeezing out these words—this was already the limit of his self-consciousness.
Hearing his brother’s voice again after so many years—he who should have died was still being tormented by Clément.
Reason told him that the brother before him was just a puppet, but his hands controlling the storm involuntarily weakened.
“Can’t bring yourself to do it? Family bonds truly are precious.”
Before he knew it, shadows had already reached Link’s feet. Clément, who had been struggling desperately in the storm moments ago, had already turned into a pool of black water. Soon, the black water writhed and clung to Link like bone-eating ants.
Even this level of turbulence couldn’t shake off the black water clinging to him. He could feel Clément absorbing his magic power, and his brother in front of him had already loaded his crossbow.
The cold arrow shot out. Unexpectedly, from the marksman who never missed, this arrow could only hit his shoulder.
Clément found it strange—why wasn’t his puppet obeying orders now?
It turned out he had forcibly bent his own hand, causing the arrow to miss.
“Useless thing.” A black lightning bolt fell, striking the Windwhisperer’s brother precisely. Instantly his entire body was charred black, and the hemp cloak he wore was riddled with holes.
The archers forming the array could no longer hold on. The Wind Kill Formation dissipated, the crack in the sky healed, leaving only scattered bones and corpses to tell of the carnage here.
“Fine, I’ll send you to accompany your brother.” The black water re-condensed into Clément’s form. Energy-formed black hands gradually reached toward Link’s head.
His consciousness gradually blurred as he could see his pale soul being pulled out.
“That’s enough, Clément.”
The Seraph’s holy fire that blood clans feared most burned brightly. Moving too fast to see clearly, Cook was already above his head, sword striking down.
Unable to dodge in time, this sword chopped his body to pieces, quickly turning into black mist and disappearing.
“Looks like he still got away.” Cook sheathed the Seraph’s holy fire on his body while helping up the collapsed Windwhisperer.
He took the medicine bottle from Cook’s hand. After drinking it, he finally recovered some strength.
“Thanks to you, I…”
“We’ll discuss the rest when we return. Your dereliction of duty will naturally be judged by someone.” Cook continued pursuing Clément—he could sense he hadn’t gone far.
…
In the distance, Clément weakly stood up. Cook had just completely destroyed his clone—this expensive clone that fully inherited his abilities. To create the next one, he didn’t know how long he’d have to remain weak.
Soon, his figure completely disappeared, but when leaving, the Empire’s forbidden scroll had already fallen into his hands.
He’d set up a teleportation array beforehand. Moments later, he was back on the throne of the Darknight Theocracy.
“Damn, still a step too late—let him escape.” Cook swung his sword helplessly, the holy fire on the blade particularly dazzling. “What a cunning old fox who leaves himself an escape route.”
With the scroll taken by Clément, having this forbidden technique fall into the hands of someone like Clément would absolutely be catastrophic.
Originally, Clément could only place collected souls into corpses, which would definitely diminish the soul’s original strength and reduce control effectiveness.
The soul shock technique recorded on the scroll could completely solve this problem. Directly shattering a living person’s soul and stuffing in a new one would create a completely obedient puppet.
Cook had only temporarily stored the scroll with the Windwhisperer—he never expected something like this to happen. He himself couldn’t escape blame either.