Chapter 289 (1/2)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

After witnessing what had happened on the battlefield, Sui Xiong gave up the idea of stealing the Three Eagle Artifacts for study. For the whole night, he had been floating in the air above the battlefield and thinking alone.

Having been born in a time of peace and growing up in a stable and harmonious society, his most brutal and horrible memory was probably that a psychopath who had just lost his lover. He was holding a knife on the street, attacking anyone in sight until he was shot to death at last. Sui Xiong had been sitting in a restaurant on that street eating spicy noodles at that time. He was so shocked and impressed that he had even put the noodles to his nose instead of his mouth.

He had certainly watched dreadful news like terrorist attacks, the chaos caused by war, famine, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc., but as he heard such news through TV, computer and newspaper, they had sounded distant.

Living in a peaceful world, he had become gentle and mild. He was always willing to talk and negotiate, share and benefit others, and even compromise in certain cases.

However, he would also react rather drastically when confronting extremely evil incidents to which he could no longer compromise; he would be greatly afflicted when facing brutalities beyond his acceptance.

And the most brutal scene he had ever witnessed in his life was exactly the one in front of him now.

He had fought and killed before. He had killed countless devils in the abyss. He had even joined the battle against Cloud City, and before long, fought and killed lots of angels and Oracles. But their deaths—whether they be devils or angels—hadn’t come with blood. Instead, they came with flames; an explosion had taken place to mark their death, similar to the special effects of a video game. For an experienced player like him, it hadn’t felt like a real battle but a fierce and rather difficult virtual game instead.

In fact, until now, Sui Xiong had been convincing himself that he had been in a long and ridiculous dream and that after he had woken up, he would be back to reality in his dormitory, guarding the warehouse, painting and playing games.

Maybe he was escaping the fact, but he couldn’t really manage to face all the messes of the real world.

But at this very moment, standing in front of the numerous dead bodies of humans and humanoids, he finally had no way to escape again. He had to face this bloody battlefield as well as this brutal world.

As an artist, Sui Xiong was emotional. Compared with in-depth analysis and thinking, he was better at understanding others and feeling the way they feel.

And now he could truly feel the pain and despair of the deceased, the sorrow of the living. He realized the horrible destruction caused by the war and the crisis which would last long afterward.

He was floating above the battlefield; he didn’t move at all as he watched the people down there busy clearing away the bodies and processing in different ways day by day. Nobles and knights would be frozen before being sent to their graveyards; junior officers and adventurers would be incinerated, and their remains would be returned to their family in small jars along with their relics. Ordinary soldiers would be incinerated, and their remains would be buried collectively with nothing but their names left on the “deceased list” recorded by the military clerk.

Unlike the more civilized Eagle Kingdom, the Orc Empire was rather rough and ruthless. Bodies of the famous masters would be identified and sent back to their hometowns along with other relics as a clue of the specific clan for their descendants and other clansmen. The ordinary orcs would be burnt directly without any funeral, leaving the remains to be blown away by the wind. And the clerk would just record the death toll of each tribe while not bothering with specific names.

Sui Xiong had been staying above the battlefield for a month to watch both sides clearing up silently and sending their messengers to negotiate and exchange captives. By the end of January, when the temperature had dropped to extreme cold, the last troops of both sides left, leaving all the traces of their battle covered by endless snow.

The number of casualties on both sides was finally released.

On the human side, nearly 200,000 out of the 400,000 soldiers in the direct subordinate units of the Eagle Kingdom had died in battle or of illness and serious injuries; around 20,000 suffered minor injuries and 50,000 had escaped. Out of the more than 4,000 adventurers, over 2,000 of them had died, and the rest had suffered injuries at different levels with very few of them being uninjured. Among the nearly 50,000 volunteers and knights from other countries, almost 45,000 had died in battle, and the other 5,000 were injured severely.