Chapter 22 Part 2

As they drew near the Halfling Evil God, the faint golden light in the Halfling Evil God’s chest grew brighter and brighter.

“Stay away!”

The Halfling Evil God clutched his chest and collapsed to the ground.

He rolled on the ground as if his body was on fire. While rolling, he warned Qin Lang and Xia Xifeng with a shrill, hoarse voice.

The Halfling Evil God finally said something they could understand.

Only then did Xia Xifeng and Qin Lang truly believe that the Halfling Evil God indeed possessed self-awareness, and wasn’t a “beast” whose sanity was completely destroyed.

No matter how much the Halfling Evil God struggled, the flurry of spells he cast hit Xia Xifeng and Qin Lang like mere weak Light spells. Apart from light and shadow effects, they caused no damage, not even a sound.

The golden light in his chest grew brighter and brighter, flickering faintly, as if breathing.

“Perila… Leo?” Xia Xifeng called softly.

The golden light’s flickering paused for an instant, then its frequency quickened.

“Leo, can you hear me?” Xia Xifeng was surprised and dared to step out from behind Qin Lang.

The Halfling Evil God’s attacks were indeed ineffective against them. Xia Xifeng lowered his guard and walked towards the fallen Halfling Evil God.

He tightly gripped the Spiked Club staff with its inherent knockback skill, just in case the Halfling Evil God tried to pounce and fight him desperately.

“Leo, what should we do?” Xia Xifeng stopped about half a meter away from the Halfling Evil God.

The Halfling Evil God stopped rolling.

He plunged both hands into his own chest and tore his chest wound open.

Xia Xifeng gasped. Hiss, tearing open his own chest like that—it looked so painful just watching.

“Why aren’t you dead yet? How can you not be dead? Die fast, die fast, die fast!”

The Halfling Evil God pulled out a clump of golden light from his chest.

He squeezed the golden light tightly, his mouth constantly muttering “die,” his already ugly face twisting into an even more ferocious expression.

A flash of blade light streaked past.

Qin Lang’s attack triggered a “Dismemberment” effect. The Halfling Evil God’s hand and the clump of golden light both tumbled away.

At the stump of the Halfling Evil God’s severed wrist, flesh buds wriggled, about to regrow a new hand, when a Spiked Club smashed into his chest, still dripping with black, turbid blood.

No pain, no damage. He simply flew straight backward for several meters.

The moment Xia Xifeng raised his Spiked Club staff, Qin Lang used “Mage Hand” to grab the golden light.

Xia Xifeng, carrying the Spiked Club, dodged behind Qin Lang. The clump of golden light fell into Qin Lang’s grasp.

“Give it back to me!” Black mist surged around the Halfling Evil God, as if he were about to return to his previous giant form.

Qin Lang tossed the golden light to Xia Xifeng. His twin swords reappeared in his hands, and the cross-slashing blade light stabbed into the wound the Halfling Evil God had torn open himself.

Blood gushed from the wound.

Turbid blood dripped onto the ground, corroding one small pit after another into the cracked stone slabs.

The blood didn’t soak into the floor, but solidified into tiny beads, like mud pellets.

The golden light in the Halfling Evil God’s chest had already been removed, yet the blood flowing from his chest still carried strands of gold.

The tiny beads on the ground also had light shimmering on their surface.

He clutched his chest, ignoring Qin Lang’s attacks, and doggedly chased towards Xia Xifeng.

More blood dripped, and the threads of gold became even more prominent.

It was as if the golden blood and the turbid blood had long since fused into one. Even when forcibly separated, they were still mixed, indistinguishable from one another.

While running, Xia Xifeng poured potions onto the golden light.

HP recovery, Mana recovery, various positive buffs—Xia Xifeng didn’t know what he could do, so he just tried everything.

Potions didn’t work. Xia Xifeng then searched his backpack for rare materials.

Any material with exorcism or healing effects, Xia Xifeng brought near the golden light to test.

Rare materials in the game were equivalent to “heavenly treasures,” right? Maybe they’d work!

He didn’t know if it was a delayed effect of the potions, or if some rare material Xia Xifeng had jabbed at the golden light was actually what it needed, but a small paw emerged from the golden light, pressing down on Xia Xifeng’s hand as he brought a stinky salted fish closer to it.

“Don’t dislike it just because it’s stinky! It’s salted fish marinated using an Outer God’s offspring!” Xia Xifeng spoke earnestly. “Try a bite?”

The golden light expanded, its shape shifting.

A little lion, half a meter long, landed on all fours.

He flicked his tail and looked up. “Isn’t that still just a stinky salted fish? Not trying it.”

Xia Xifeng put away the stinky salted fish. “Leo, are you alive?”

The little lion shook his head. “Dead. Though I never had the chance to give away the Sunflower Pendants… Thank you, my friends.”

The little lion bypassed Xia Xifeng and pounced toward the Halfling Evil God, who was tangled in combat with Qin Lang.

Qin Lang stepped back, yielding the battlefield to the little lion.

The Halfling Evil God was pinned to the ground by the little lion.

The little lion’s claws pierced through the chest that the Halfling Evil God himself had torn open.

The Halfling Evil God looked up at the little lion.

The little lion lowered his head and bit into the Halfling Evil God’s neck.

With a resounding crack, the scene shattered.

The moment Xia Xifeng plunged into darkness, his hand was grabbed, and he was pulled into a firm embrace.

“Qin Lang?”

“Mm.”

Qin Lang shielded Xia Xifeng in his arms, using a Feather Fall scroll to descend slowly.

When Qin Lang and Xia Xifeng landed, a burst of music rang out.

Xia Xifeng listened carefully.

This tune was very much like the music the Halflings played when they danced around the bonfire during Halfling feasts.

The glowing little lion appeared.

The surrounding scene lit up.

Bonfires ignited. Wooden boards painted with houses, plants, and grass swayed gently. Halflings, also painted on wooden boards, wobbled and swayed, as if dancing around the bonfire.

Two puppets appeared.

They began arguing.

“They’re so vulgar!”

“Dwarves are all like that.”

“I want to drive them out!”

“They’re only staying for a month…”

The two puppets performed a scene with no clear beginning or end, using exaggerated body language.

The little lion sat quietly beside them.

“Leo, after those corrupted Dwarves entered Sunflower Valley, what exactly happened?” Xia Xifeng asked. “Did they attack Sunflower Valley?”

The little lion shook his head. “No. They didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. That’s why neither I nor the teacher noticed anything wrong.”

As the little lion answered, the background of wooden boards and the little wooden puppets in front of them changed.

A new act began.

A big-bearded Dwarf puppet, his face smeared with a layer of black dust making his features unclear, kept shoving a Halfling puppet.

The Dwarf puppet seemed to be on a drunken rampage.

A Halfling puppet in a small floral dress was pushed by some unseen hand and stumbled, crashing into the rampaging, drunken Dwarf puppet.

The music turned frenzied. The strings were sharp, like someone screaming.

The Halfling puppet spun and fell, shattering into pieces.

The music stopped abruptly.

The wooden boards stopped swaying.

The little lion moved closer to the shattered Halfling puppet.

He lowered his head and gently touched the Halfling puppet’s broken body with his forehead.

A buzzing sound went through Xia Xifeng’s head. An image of a Halfling girl, also fond of wearing small floral dresses, appeared in his mind.

Qin Lang asked, “A drunken Dwarf killed Roxie. Did you get revenge?”

The little lion: “Strange monsters appeared in the desert that night. Perila and I both went to investigate. By the time we returned, the Dwarves had already sent the murderer back to the Dwarf Kingdom. They insisted it was an accident, that the murderer couldn’t pay with his life, and told us to go to the Dwarf Kingdom to handle the matter according to Dwarf Kingdom law.”

The wooden boards stood upright again, and the puppets resumed their performance.

A blond-haired puppet shouted and yelled, then collapsed.

A silver-haired puppet carried him on his back and ran off the stage.

The little lion: “I was furious. My power went out of control, and I was injured. I stayed in Green Sand City to recuperate. Perila took our clansmen to the Dwarf Kingdom to demand the murderer. My friend, the leader of the Dwarf caravan, accompanied Perila to the Dwarf Kingdom. Whenever Dwarves caused trouble when drunk, he would scold them. When the Dwarves wanted to send the murderer away this time, he also firmly opposed it. He always seemed to be on our side.”

Seemed.

So Perila trusted this Dwarf friend of Leo’s deeply and traveled with him.

The bonfire in the scene extinguished.

The second act of the play began.

The puppet of Perila stood amidst an area full of Halfling puppets lying on the ground, his body stained red with blood.

Large-bearded Dwarf puppets surrounded him, emitting a cacophony of grating laughter.

“Halflings truly live up to their name as big fools. So easy to deceive.”

“The Gods made them big fools on purpose. This is their deserved ending.”

The puppet of the Dwarf Caravan Leader appeared again.

He cleaved the other Dwarf puppets in two with his axe and carried Perila away.

Xia Xifeng pinched his own palm, forcing himself to calm down. “Perila must have been set up.”

The little lion: “Perila and my clansmen were ambushed and slaughtered by Dwarves. But the King of the Dwarf Kingdom accused him of murdering Dwarf nobles. The teacher said the Dwarf King knew the fault wasn’t Perila’s. He was just trying to use the conflict between our family and the Dwarves to extort benefits from Green Sand City, which protected our family.”

Xia Xifeng was puzzled. “Wasn’t he afraid of angering Mr. Amuruo?”

The little lion: “He wanted the teacher to be angry. He was wildly ambitious, wanting to start a war and go from Dwarf King to Dwarf Emperor. But the peace treaty between Humans, Elves, and Dwarves prevented him from initiating hostilities.”

Xia Xifeng asked, “Was the Dwarf King also corrupted?”

The little lion lifted his head, a strange and sorrowful smile appearing on his lion face. “No. Much later, when the Apocalypse had arrived, the Dwarf King died in battle protecting his people. He wasn’t corrupted. It was just dirty, complicated politics. Dirty, complicated politics I don’t understand.”

Xia Xifeng looked at the little lion’s sad smile.

He let go of Qin Lang’s hand and walked towards the little lion.

Xia Xifeng half-crouched and gently placed his hand on the little lion’s head.

The little lion nuzzled Xia Xifeng’s palm.

The third act’s curtain rose.

The puppet of Perila walked alongside the Dwarf puppet.

The puppet of Leo chased after them from behind.

The little lion: “Mr. Suer finally came out of seclusion. The teacher also successfully pressured the Dwarf King. But the murderer had mysteriously vanished. All members of the Dwarf Merchant Caravan who had come to Green Sand City disappeared. Mr. Suer and the teacher sensed a conspiracy. But by then, we had already lost track of Perila. Following the Sun’s guidance, I tried to find him and bring him back.”