Chapter 430 - Equivalent Exchange? (1/2)
The people living in the slums were poor. They could only offer three coppers to someone for saving their family in a dangerous land. However, for Betta and the rest of them, their level was too high for them to care about money. They were more interested in the experience and reputation they could earn.
They had other ways to make money. Although they couldn’t make a fortune, it was fairly easy for them to live a quality life. After all, it was very simple for professionals to work as bodyguards or to protect big convoys.
Besides, the Golden Sons were actually well-respected at this moment.
They weren’t really despised even after the incident with the black leaf.
The NPCs weren’t stupid. They had seen what the players did in the past year and realized that the players were a bunch of nosy professionals with a sense of justice, although their behavior could be indescribably weird now and then.
After the incident of the black leaf, the other Golden Sons hunted the men with black leaves too, without sheltering them. Who could be trusted if such a group of people couldn’t be?
The greedy gnomes?
Or the succubi who called themselves honest and loyal?
Most of the time, actions spoke louder than words.
By the time Spara arrived at the slum with his men, almost all the members of the Silver Mercenaries had been cleared out.
More than forty people were killed, and more than two hundred were heavily wounded.
These people were all unimportant bottom-level members of the mercenary group. However, as all of them were cleared out, the foundation of this mercenary group had been destroyed.
Spara visited a couple of branches. He saw either bodies or the members of his gang struggling with broken legs.
Instead of asking his men to treat the bottom-level members, he kept searching for the Golden Sons.
After all, their combat ability would be compromised if he split his men.
He had many spies in the slums. Soon enough, they tracked down Betta and his friends with the help of the spies.
This place was one of their branches used to control the slums in the north.
When they arrived, they saw a lackey falling from the second floor screaming. He crashed to the ground, blood splas.h.i.+ng.
Seeing that, Spara raised his head, only to see Li Lin carrying a giant sword on his shoulder. The man grinned and leaped from the second floor.
With a huge noise, a tiny pit appeared in the ground. Although Spara was with more than twenty men, none of them dared to attack a Barbarian Golden Son, however angry they were.
At this moment, it vaguely occurred to them that they were still terrified of the Golden Sons.
The Golden Sons laid low because they wanted to lay low, not because they were forced to.
If the Golden Sons were to take action, there would be nothing the mercenaries could do.
At this moment, Betta, Brazil, and the rest of them walked down from the second floor via the stairs.
Betta was in the front. He was wiping his bloodstained hands with a white handkerchief while he walked to the mercenaries slowly.
He was even smiling.
That picture was a major shock for the mercenaries.
They even had a terrible feeling, as if Betta were one of those heinous n.o.bles who took pleasure in killing innocent people.
“Are you not afraid of being branded with black leaves?” demanded Spara angrily.
His face was so twisted that he seemed hysterical.
An hour earlier, he was so confident that he had found the weakness of the Golden Sons.
Some of the Golden Sons were hunted by the Church of Life and the Church of Light, the two biggest churches in the world. Other Golden Sons, as their own kind, were supposed to learn a lesson from them and keep a low profile.
But what did these people do?
They went on a killing spree in the slum.
Betta stood before Spara and said with a smile, “We’re quite afraid.”
“Then why?” Gritting his teeth, Spara roared uncontrollably, “Why did you dare to kill so many people?”
Betta smiled. “Because we’re justified. We didn’t kill anyone randomly. The people you exploited, bullied, and took advantage of all asked us to take you down.”
“I still don’t understand why you could kill civilians and ordinary people.” Spara couldn’t understand. Could those poor people count as human beings? Were their requests really requests?
Shouldn’t the poor work for superior men like him?
“You took advantage of the innocent residents here, and you think you’re ordinary people?” Betta shook his head.
At this moment, Li Lin and the rest of F6 dispersed and walked to the mercenaries’ flanks, as if they were trying to surround the mercenaries who outnumbered them.
Spara keenly realized that and took a deep breath. “Fine. I admit my defeat this time. You’re free to enter the Northern Dawn Woods now.”
Spara had his own considerations. He didn’t understand why the Golden Sons weren’t afraid of getting black leaves now, but he knew that those people were forcing him to give away the Northern Dawn Woods.
Though the Golden Sons were outnumbered, they had a high morale and they were undying. Even if they were killed here, they would still come back someday.
Until he found a way to really suppress or limit them, it was best not to go against these people.
Spara had thought that he figured it all out, but what happened suggested that it didn’t work.
He breathed heavily and lowered his head, before he stepped back slowly.
They turned around and were about to leave. But at this moment, a dark shadow slowly descended from the sky.
It was Roland.
He landed at the end of the road.
As a result, Spara and his men were completely penned in.
Spara couldn’t have looked more awful at this moment. “What’s the meaning of this? We never wronged you or attacked you. Do you really not fear the black leaves?”
Spara was more and more shocked. The threat of the black leaf was the only thing he could count on at this moment, so he clutched it like a drowning man.
“If we dare to surround you, we certainly dare to kill you.” Betta smiled.
Spara and his men all changed their expressions after hearing that.
In the end, Spara suddenly turned around and bellowed at the two sides of the street. “What are you looking at, you untouchables? Come out and help me, or I’ll charge dozens of times more protection fees from you after I leave! Do you hear me? Come out!”
Spara was rather smart. He vaguely sensed that the Golden Sons might not dare to kill the untouchables although they dared to kill him, so there was nothing that the Golden Sons could do if the untouchables protected him.
Though his intuition found it weird, it seemed to be a fact.
However, after Spara roared his demand, all the sheds and shacks that could hear him were completely closed.
None of the windows or doors were left open.
Roland laughed when he saw that.
At this moment, Spara, whose face was as dark as the bottom of a pot, turned around with madness in his eyes. He charged at Roland and roared, “Let’s get out of here first!”
He was a Warrior, and Charge was among his basic abilities. But he was stopped by a s.h.i.+eld-wielding magic puppet before he reached Roland.
After a collision, the puppet slightly s.h.i.+vered. Spara’s regular iron sword was broken after it hit the puppet’s s.h.i.+eld. He stepped back with his hands trembling.
The rest of the Silver Mercenaries were about to fight side by side with Spara, but Betta and the rest of F6 certainly wouldn’t let them.
Li Lin simply broke into the crowd and launched Whirl Slash.
Brazil leaped back and shot his arrows, and his stealthy leopard suddenly emerged and bit an enemy’s leg before it dragged the enemy into a dark corner. Then, terrible screams rang out.
Grabbing his longsword, Betta was about to join the battle. But after he looked around, he found that most of the enemies had been killed by Li Lin’s attack, and broken limbs were flying everywhere.
After Spara was pushed back by Roland’s magic puppet, he quickly lowered his body and drew out a dagger from his boot.
He had heard the screams behind him, but he couldn’t care about his subordinates anymore. His own life would be at risk if he couldn’t get out.
Hardly had he drawn out the dagger when he saw a red blade cutting at him from his right side at a high speed.
He quickly backed off. As a Warrior, he reacted fast enough, and he was about to get out of the range of the attack. But the red light suddenly expanded and slashed across his chest.
Stepping back, Spara lowered his head and looked at his chest in disbelief, before he raised his eyes at Roland.
His eyes soon dilated, and his expression was frozen.
At this moment, Roland was still in the posture of forward slash, with a red miaodao at least fourteen meters long in his hands.
At the edge of the miaodao was a layer of blue condensed flames.
Then, Roland stood straight and dispersed the fire on his miaodao.
Finally, Spara’s body fell apart at his chest.
The wounds on the two parts of the body were both blackened. No blood was shed at all.
“What a weak Master-level Warrior!”
Roland found it hard to believe.