Volume 9, 1: Death-match Between Companions

Volume 9, Chapter 1: Death-match Between Companions

This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, and StellarAshes.

Daylight’s three month training wasn’t for nothing, and the effects scared Kaiser quite a bit. To believe he blocked Liola’s blow? Even though Liola’s a monster, ten days of not eating and surviving only by drinking his own blood was too much, right? Normal people would’ve already given up and crawled out by now.

“Daylight, stand your ground!”

The moment Kaiser said those words, his gun was already pointed at Liola’s forehead, ready to pull the trigger. But when his eyes met with Liola’s worrying eyes, Kaiser hesitated and could not pull the trigger. If this shot really landed, and Liola was already weak from hunger, then could he really die from it? No one knew how stubborn Liola was better than Kaiser. He thought perhaps Liola was already weak to the point of falling?

Liola’s body suddenly flashed. Liola circled Daylight before he had a chance to respond and instantly appeared in front of Kaiser. Kaiser was shocked and felt a sudden pain in his abdomen, causing his vision to go black. Kaiser immediately twisted his thighs back and after his blue eyes squeezed out some tears, Kaiser pulled back his consciousness but his face was warped from the pain of this attack.

When Daylight saw Liola was about to knock Kaiser out, he immediately swung his pike exceedingly fast, forcing Liola to defend himself. Sounds of weapons clashing filled the air, with the sound of Daylight’s grunts mixed in between.

Although Daylight’s strength had increased tremendously, facing Liola head-on was still a difficult thing to do. But when all things considered, within the short time span of three months, Daylight had gone from not being able to block a single of Liola’s attack, to being entangled in a fight against Liola for a dozen of moves without losing. One could see how much effort Daylight had put in for the past three months.

Kaiser moved his facial muscles with difficulty and immediately started shouting “Liola, you dare hit me?! Asshole! I won’t forget this!”

Hearing Kaiser’s voice, Liola glanced at him from the corner of his eyes. Although he could not understand what Kaiser said, he could see Kaiser’s face was filled with malice, fully expressing his anger.

Liola suddenly had a foreboding feeling, even to the point where his body was a bit rigid. This rigidness finally gave Daylight, who had been struggling in the fight, a chance. Without any hesitation, Daylight surrounded his pike with his aura, and jabbed it towards Liola’s calves. He had no expectation to defeat Liola with this move, but instead, he simply hoped he could decrease Liola’s speed, so Kaiser could be more of use.

Because of Daylight’s aim being slightly off and Liola moved away in time, Liola’s calves were spared from having a hole in it, however, he still suffered a bloodied wound on his leg.

Liola used the opportunity to spin around, and Broken Silver landed on Daylight’s left shoulder. Accompanied by the sounds of cracking bones, Daylight’s face suddenly went pale, but with determination in his eyes, Daylight jabbed the pike out from his hands.

Liola did not expect Daylight would completely ignore the pain, and attack immediately… He was very sure he used enough power to cause a big crack in Daylight’s shoulder bones.

Daylight’s pike grazed Liola’s shoulder. Before the droplets of blood even reached the ground, Liola had already felt the threat behind him. Liola tilted his body, and dodged a burning white fireball just in the nick of time. Daylight did not let this chance pass either; when Liola was dodging, Daylight began his intense series of attacks once again.

Liola had no choice but turn back to confront Daylight’s attacks, but as soon as he had done so, many fireballs appeared behind him. Liola actually felt a bit inadequate trying to fight against both. Ordinarily, if it were only two people attacking him, Liola would never fall into this kind of despair. But whether it be cooperation or coincidence, Liola found himself always in between Daylight and Kaiser; whomever Liola was facing, the other must be standing behind him.

Kaiser knew full well he was not the best at close-quarter combat, so he was always standing far away. Even Liola could dodge the white fireballs, he never had a chance to attack Kaiser, because Daylight had prevented him from being able to. In reality, however, compared to Daylight, who would fight against him honestly, Liola was far more worried about Kaiser, fearing he might have some wicked ideas up his sleeves.

They had progressed so far, Liola thought to himself; their positioning was probably not coincidence: even if Liola purposely changed his positioning, Kaiser was still standing directly behind him, so he must be doing it on purpose. Additionally, Kaiser was actually able to shoot so many white fireballs. It must’ve been at least a dozen shots? This was far different than his old one-shot-every-three-days.

Daylight’s progress was even more shocking. He started from not being able to follow Liola’s movements, to being able to stand toe-to-toe against Liola. It had only been three months. In order to defeat him and save his life, what kind of training had these two undergone?

However moved moved Liola was, he was, nevertheless firm in his determination to win. He must bring these two to their world and look for Purity and Meinan!

While having these thoughts, Liola’s offensive stance had become even more intense. He repeatedly attacked Daylight’s wounded shoulder, and his hits had landed successfully many times. Although he had little time to truly cause irreparable damage before being interrupted by Kaiser’s fireballs, Liola was fair certain, Daylight could no longer move his left shoulder.

As much as these two progressed, Liola wasn’t to be underestimated. He truly believed if the fight goes on as it had now, he would emerge as the victor.

Liola suddenly felt something was wrong. He felt a dozen or so energies around him, as if they were about to surround him. He vigilantly observed his surroundings, and realized a dozen Divine Fireballs floating in the air. Liola paused, trying to remember something. He suddenly realized none of the fireballs shot at him had exploded, because Kaiser was putting them on the side.

Was he planning on gathering more, and attack together? Liola thought to himself

Sure enough, Kaiser smiled sinisterly. He yelled loudly, “Daylight, back up!”

Daylight backed away without any hesitation, and Liola had no plans to gave chase, because he had his own plans. Liola dashed quickly towards Kaiser, hoping he could use this opportunity to finish off Kaiser, a person who was wary of.

But something strange happened. Kaiser suddenly paused, then he showed a panicked expression. Liola felt strange, and a few fireballs zipped past above his head. The target was clearly not Liola, and they were flying towards Kaiser.

Kaiser was staring blankly at the dozen of Divine Fireballs flying towards him, like a deer in headlight, and he did not know what to do. It looked like they were out of control. Daylight also thought something was wrong, but he was too far away, so all he could do was yell.

Seeing Kaiser looked like he was waiting for his death, Liola hastened and charged up without even thinking. As much as he wanted to win, he wasn’t going to win by letting these fireballs kill Kaiser. He thought, after he block these fireballs for Kaiser, he could just knock him out with Broken Silver.

In the blink of an eye, Liola had already dashed up to Kaiser. He released his blood red aura, and blocked the dozen of fireballs in the nick of time. Suddenly, the explosion sounds could be heard one after another. Despite the scary situation, Daylight relaxed a bit, because he had sensed the blood red aura had successfully stopped the Divine Fireballs.

“Liola, you’re so easy to fool, so easy that you’re only a tad bit harder to fool than Daylight.”

Hearing what Kaiser said, despite not understanding what he meant, but his instincts told him Kaiser’s tone was foreboding. He looked towards Kaiser’s face. Despite a smile on his face, a faint pain could be seen in his blue sea eyes. Liola was just thinking about why Kaiser seemed to be in pain? And he immediately got an answer: the giant barrel was pushed against Liola’s shoulder.

Without any hesitation, a prepared, compressed fireball came out of the barrel. The blinding white light was immediately covered by blood. Warm blood covered Kaiser from head to toe. Kaiser looked truly panicked this time. He had already avoided the important organs, but he had to make Liola lose the ability to fight, so he hit the right shoulder. In hoping to get this over in one shot, he compressed five fireballs… From the looks of it, Liola didn’t look like he needed to wait for Gle to kill him, and he would die himself.

“Crap! The blood is spitting out endlessly, what do we do now?” Kaiser panicked as he tried to press down Liola’s wound with his hands, hoping the blood would stop spilling out.

An intent for smile flashed across Liola’s eyes, but it was immediately contaminated with pain. This painful eyes was actually near identical to the look in Kaiser’s eyes when he was about to attack. Liola’s left hand, without any hesitation, attacked towards Kaiser’s chest.

“Ugh!” This heavy attack practically made arrows made of blood shoot out of Kaiser’s mouth. His body also flew off from the momentum of the attack. He rolled on the ground for a full twenty meters before he stopped. Kaiser looked like a landed shrimp: he curled his body and convulsed on the ground, occasionally spitting out blood from his mouth.

At this time, Liola’s face was so pale that it was terrifying. The blood arrows from Kaiser all landed on his face. The red made his face look even whiter than it already was, as if he was already dead.

Seeing two heavily injured, Daylight had no idea what to do. He quickly ran to Kaiser, and saw the ground covered in a pool of Kaiser’s blood, but he could do nothing about it. Damn it! Why didn’t he learn healing magic?! Why?!

“What… what are you doing? Hurry and knock that guy out, s-so I can heal, idiot…” Kaiser talked with difficulty, practically coughing out blood as he spoke.

Daylight finally controlled his panic with these words. Seeing Kaiser on the ground can still roll his eyes at him, he should still be able to live. He stood up, and held his pike tightly. He firmly walked closer and closer to the pale Liola.

Liola looked at Daylight as he walked closer and closer. His pale face smiled faintly, and his body fell to the ground like a puppet with broken string. He did not move at all, and the earth beneath had a circle of blood, which slowly began to grow larger, and larger…

“Liola!”

Daylight yelled in horror. He immediately ran to where Liola was lying. He looked at Liola’s shoulder blurred with blood. He immediately tore off a piece of his cloth, wanting to stop Liola’s bleeding. But suddenly, Liola opened his eyes.

Daylight held up Liola as he said, “Hold on, I will help you stop the bleeding.”

Liola smiled, again.

Kaiser saw this smile from afar, and a terrible feeling flashed across his heart, “Watch out! Daylight, he’s going to…”

A few lights of silver flashed, and Daylight’s body froze.

“… trick you.”

Kaiser took a deep breath, and could do nothing but watch as Liola suddenly jumping off and Daylight’s body flying into the air from Liola’s attack. Daylight’s chest had already two crossing lines of blood, but Liola had no plans to let him go. He jumped into the air, then hit Daylight heavily on his back. Daylight flew towards the earth, and even the ground cracked from the force of this attack.

Liola landed too. He immediately pushed the points across his chest. To fool Daylight, he did not stop his bleeding. If he didn’t do it now, then even a God could not save a person without any blood.

[T/N: ancient Chinese medicines relied on acupuncture points on the body, generally a concave spot in the bone, and they believed that pushing these points achieve various goals, such as stopping bleeding to a certain area or paralyzing someone. It’s very often seen in martial arts novel.]

As soon as Liola pushed down onto the last point, the blood finally stopped oozing out of his shoulder. He felt a tightening on his leg, and he lowered his head to look: two powerful hands held tightly to his left calf. Daylight could no longer stand up with his serious injuries, but he still was not willing to give up. Even though he was lying face-down on the floor, his hands still held tightly to Liola’s leg. With all his might, and along his painful cries and tears, he fractured his companion’s leg.

The crisp sound of a bone fracture could be heard. Liola immediately kicked Daylight away with his other leg, but he also fell to the ground. His face was so pale that he was practically a moving corpse, but his left hand still held tightly onto Broken Silver, because there was one more, one more enemy. He forced himself to stand up, and his dulled eyes scanned around his surrounding. He saw a small Flames next to Daylight. Flames had shifted into its human form, and it was panicking as it tore off Daylight’s clothes, trying to wrap it around Daylight’s bleeding chest.

He walked, step-by-step, towards Flames. Every step he took, blood splattered onto the ground; every step he took, one could hear the terrifying cracking sounds from his leg. His dulled eyes fully expressed that he could barely hold himself up, but his feet continued to take one step after another without ever stopping.

Kaiser crawled with his strength, and reached the place where his gun had landed. He picked up his gun, and barely got up. He was half kneeling on the ground, and pointed his barrel at the approaching Liola, but he could not bring himself to pull the trigger. Liola looked like he could barely hold up. Kaiser could tell, and it was the reason why he didn’t dare to pull the trigger. If he did, would Liola die right away?

“Liola… could you please give up?” Kaiser held the gun with both of his hands. It was the same gun Kaiser had gotten used to but it suddenly felt like a ton to him, and the trigger felt like a dozen of tons. With his choking voice, he begged, “Don’t come any closer, okay? Give up, okay?”

It was rather strange. Judging from his dull eyes, his mind was at least half gone by now, not to mention he shouldn’t have understood anything Kaiser said, and he was now acting purely on instinct. But for some reason, Liola shook his head, and his feet did not stop.

“Kaiser… stop, Liola had already lost too much blood. If this continues, he will die.” Daylight stopped him with a pale face.

Seeing Liola’s bloodied body, Kaiser already knew it, otherwise he wouldn’t have hesitated in pulling the trigger, but he couldn’t do anything else, because as soon as Liola get close to them, it would be them who would fall.

Seeing Liola was almost close to them, Kaiser still could not pull the trigger. Instead, his hand was shaking. He really didn’t dare to bet whether Liola would live or not if he pulled the trigger.

“Daylight, can you still fight? If you could just knock him out…” Kaiser asked his only hope.

Hearing Kaiser’s question, Daylight pushed Flames away, and stood up to say firmly, “No problem, my wounds aren’t as bad as Liola’s.”

Flames was beyond anxious. Seeing its master’s shaking body, and the flowing blood could not be stopped by the makeshift bandage, it knew its master was not as well as he claimed to be.

Daylight struggled to hold up his pike. The pike he could normally use as if it were his own body could now barely be supported by his arms, let alone using it to stop his enemies. Daylight was just thinking about whether to throw down his pike and use his hands, a Dragon had already decided to take the hand-to-hand combat tactic: Flames ran past Daylight, and without saying anything, it pounced towards Liola, while opening its mouth, showing its sharp canine teeth.

Before Flames reached Liola, however, a small figure suddenly clashed over, and threw Flames a few meters away. Flames landed delicately, and gave out a dragon growl; however, its opponent emitted an even more sonorous Dragon roar that could shake even the heavens.

Flames was shocked, and said hesitantly to the small figure, “Your Highness..”

“You can’t hit papa!” Baolilong stood with its arms spread in front of Liola.

“Baolilong! Are you crazy? Are you trying to kill your papa?” Kaiser yelled anxiously at Baolilong.

Baolilong pouted his mouth as if it had been wronged, and big drops of tear rolled down its cheeks, but its arms still firmly blocked their way to Liola. It said, “You can’t hit, or papa will die!”

Liola had already walked around Baolilong by now, and continued to walk towards Kaiser and Daylight. Baolilong was shocked, and it immediately grabbed onto Liola’s sleeve tightly without letting go, but Liola swung his hand, and Baolilong fell to the ground, with only the sleeve in its hands. It was so anxious that it bursted into tears, and it didn’t know which side it should help.

At this time, a faint sigh could be heard.

“Gle, why would you do this? Do you really want to see them fight to the death.”

The scene was already hard for Wanyuan to watch since a while ago, but whenever he tried to stop them, Gle would stop him. But looking at things now, no matter what, Wanyuan could not stand to see these three trying to kill one another.

“We must decide the winners.” Gle said mercilessly, “This fight ends whenever a side admits defeat.”

“Damn you! Can we admit defeat? Compared to Liola getting killed by you, I might as well finish him with a shot!”

“Kaiser!” Daylight yelled in surprise; he didn’t want to see Kaiser kill Liola.

Kaiser’s expression seemed unexpectedly calm. He acted relaxed as he asked Daylight, “Since neither side is willing to admit defeat, how about we all perish together?”

“What?” Daylight stared blankly. He couldn’t believe Kaiser would say something like this. Kaiser was never the type of person to say something like this… Daylight was a bit hesitant, could it be that Kaiser had a plan?

“Compared to letting Gle watch a show, we might as well all die together, so that cold blooded guy could see his descendant, his best friend Susanna’s son, and the old rock man’s apprentice all die in front of him. I don’t believe this wouldn’t do anything to his conscience.” Kaiser’s face was very dark, as if this was exactly he planned to do.

“Daylight, hold me up to Liola. I will bury all of us with a blizzard. Even if we’re all going to die, we’re not going to put on a show for that bastard.”

Daylight looked at Kaiser strangely, and knitted his eyebrows tightly. He really didn’t understand what Kaiser meant. Daylight looked at Kaiser skeptically, but strangely, Kaiser’s eyes looked determined, as if they were telling Daylight to just trust him.

“I understand.”

Daylight was no longer skeptical, and thought it would best to trust Kaiser. He held Kaiser up with all his strength, and slowly walked towards Liola.

Liola paused; though he couldn’t understand what Kaiser said, he was perplexed by their actions. Daylight was holding Kaiser, and it was impossible for him to attack him; Kaiser couldn’t engage in close-quarter combat, so it was more advantageous to him to be as far as possible. Liola stood still, puzzled as he stared at the two people’s strange actions.

Kaiser knew, by now, nothing he said would do anything. He stared straight into Liola’s eyes. Those lazy, blue sea eyes looked full of determination. Liola looked at those blue eyes and felt that even if the skies would collapse now, those eyes could still hold them up.

Liola suddenly felt tired, and he fell down where he stood. He beckoned at the Baolilong crying on the side. When Baolilong ran over, he reached out his hand and hugged Baolilong into his arms, as if he no longer cared what would happen now.

Gle, who had been watching coldly from the side, finally seemed to react. He thought, could they really be suicidal? But how would Li know what Kaiser wanted to do?

“Could Kaiser have broken Liola’s language seal? No, impossible! Nothing can break a seal I’ve put.” Gle said stubbornly.

“Of course there is.” Wanyuan said leisurely, “The cooperation between friends can.”

Hearing what Wanyuan said, Gle’s face suddenly turned, and a sharp memory perturbed his mind. Companions? The thing he lost for God-knows how long ago? Once upon a time, he and his companions also didn’t need language; a look and a smile could convey all they could say to one another, but finally, Susanna betrayed him, and Qiusi didn’t come to his rescue…

Gle spent a moment in his flashbacks, but he was awakened by Kaiser using his full power. Snow began to fall from the sky, but the snow did not land on Gle and Wanyuan, instead in a circle no more than half a dozen meters away from Kaiser and the others.

Gradually, the snow flurries stopped fluttering, but instead crashed into them with the force of a blizzard. Kaiser and others were buried in snow, and judging from their purple lips, one could tell how cold it was underneath.

“Blizzard, and he shrank the area of effect, so basically concentrating all his power in those dozen meters.” Gle murmured. Although he knew this blizzard really did have the power to send all of them to hell, he didn’t move. He didn’t believe Kaiser and others would be suicidal.

Seeing Kaiser and others buried by the snow, Wanyuan panicked. At first, he was sure Kaiser was just running his mouth, but by now he wasn’t certain.

He stuttered from being anxious, “T-this…”

Gle still did not move, but his face was growing more and more pale as if he were the one standing in the blizzard…

“Daylight, it’s fine if you go out first.” Kaiser was so cold that his face turned pale, but his mood was unusually calm. Truth be told, he didn’t really have a plan, and he was only betting with his life; gambling whether Gle would watch his own descendant turn into a popsicle with his own eyes.

With a pale face, Daylight shook his head desperately, and continued his unfinished work of bandaging Liola’s wounds. Although under such extreme temperatures of a blizzard, Liola’s blood was no longer oozing out, Daylight considered it. If Kaiser’s plan was really successful, all of them may have already passed out. Judging from what he knew of Gle, Daylight didn’t think he was the type to carefully bandage a wound. He didn’t want to see Liola to survive this battle, only to die at the loss of blood later.

Kaiser shrank tightly, and smiled with his frozen face, “I already knew you wouldn’t, you s.o.b. who charged into the Dark Street to save people!”

Daylight raised his head to smile back. Though his face was rigid from the cold, his smile was still brilliant as ever.

The snow continued, and it had already covered these companions’ heads. Liola brushed the snow aside and looked at the faces of his sleeping companions. He slowly put both of his hands at where their hearts were. A faint Ki flowed out of his hand to protect their hearts. Sensing Kaiser and Daylight’s slowed heart beat faster and faster, Liola sincerely smiled…

* * *

“Hmmph… my head f—ing hurts…”

Kaiser grabbed his head and rolled around, but when he rolled to the left, he hit someone, and when he rolled to the right, he also hit someone. He opened his eyes helplessly, and saw black hair to his left and blue hair to his right.

Great! Looks like “nobody” was sacrificed. He then looked at the end of his bed, and a naked red-head was holding a tiny white-head, so it looked like no Dragon was sacrificed either.

“Mmm~” Kaiser let out a deep sigh. Looks like he won this bet with their lives.

“Why did you risk your life, whether Li dies has nothing to do with you.”

Kaiser was surprised. He turned his head to realize, Gle was actually sitting silently at a table in the room, with his back to all of them.

“Why are you suddenly sitting there? You could scare me to death, you know?”

Kaiser exaggerated patted his chest, but Gle didn’t joke around like he did. A cold sense emitted from Gle’s back, and even Kaiser, who would joke even if the skies were to collapse, felt a shiver. Kaiser thought seriously about Gle’s question which he rarely did, and his head spun quickly, trying to figure out the purpose of Gle’s question and the answer he wanted to hear.

“He’s my companion, and there’s no way I could leave him behind.” Kaiser responded, while carefully examining Gle’s reaction, although it was hard to see from his back.

Gle laughed bitterly, “Companion?”

Kaiser did not ignore Gle’s reaction. He thought with a frown, looked like Gle had a disdainful attitude to the word. So perhaps, out of the companions he had before, someone betrayed him? The answer was obvious, it was the Dragon Queen, Susanna.

“Even if the Dragon Queen did not help you, but she didn’t hurt you, right?” Kaiser said with a frown, “A woman caught between her husband and old friend, is very pitiful too.”

Gle was silent for a while, then said angrily, “And Qiusi. He never appeared from start to end, and he never came to my rescue.”

Kaiser suddenly felt like he was looking at an illusion, and the person in front of him was actually a complaining child… but even if it were a complaining child, it was a deadly child with an Uzi in his hands, so he can’t just tell him to go aside and play.

Kaiser thought about it briefly, and finally decided to say it as he saw it, “I’m not familiar with Qiusi, so I don’t know what kind of person he is… but if he’s like Meinan, I can probably understand why he didn’t come to your rescue.”

Gle stared blankly, and asked, “Why?”

“At a glance, Meinan seems like the most unnoticeable person in the team. You don’t even feel his presence much when he’s here, but as soon as he’s gone, you will realize how useful he was.” Kaiser paused, then asked, “Was Qiusi someone like that, too?”

Gle remained silent.

“Hmm… Let me tell you something I found out accidentally.” Kaiser scratched his face, and began to tell a story, “Liola and I have always been penniless. The cost of us two plus a Dragon was all paid by Purity. I don’t know when it was, but Purity had spent every cent of her allowance, including the money she had gotten from her brother, all because Baolilong loved to eat so much.” Kaiser did not forget to complain, but he did forget he ate quite a bit himself.

“I don’t know when it started but,” Kaiser scratched his face again, “Meinan covered all of our costs, but he never breathed a word about it. Had it not been the time when I asked Purity for money to buy some midnight snacks, and she said she had no money to give me, I probably would have never found out about this.”

Kaiser looked at Gle’s back, and said as if he were deep in thought, “Could it be I accidentally found out, but you never did?”

Gle still remained silent.

Looking at Gle’s still stubborn figure, Kaiser added, “Barbalis saved you, but now he’s living well, and he even became the principal. Maylee is also happily managing a barbeque restaurant. As for the daughter of the devil who tried to destroy the whole world, she was able to live and have children…

One miracle could be a coincidence, but three miracles? How could the heavens be so kind, and if they were, I wouldn’t believe the Dragon Emperor would be so kind not to chase them down and kill them all.” Kaiser grunted.

Gle froze, and Kaiser seemed to have heard a faint sigh. Gle stood up and, without turning back, said a few simple things,

“You two have only light injuries, but Li’s are far worse, plus he used his Ki to protect your hearts. He’s weak, so take care of him. In half a month, I will send you back.”

Hearing what Gle said, Kaiser’s jaws dropped; ‘Damn! That simple? Is it real, or just a miracle…’

* * *

Gle walked out of the building, and it was drizzling outside. The darkened skies made him feel uncomfortable. Gle stood for a while, and then slowly levitated into the air. He went through the clouds, and the blinding rays of sunlight landed on Gle’s body.

He didn’t think the sunlight was too bright, and quietly gazed at the bright light. The golden light looked like his good friend’s hair. He murmured unconsciously, “The sun shines on me all the time, but when have I ever thanked you?”

“Sorry, Qiusi.”