Chapter 227: Silver Rivers (1/2)

For a second Zac imagined robots running rampant through the hunt, but he soon realized he wasn't looking at some advanced automatons. Instead he noticed that those in pursuit might actually be humans who had painted themselves silver for some reason.

But something was extremely off about them. Their gazes were extremely lifeless, and they didn't show a single expression as they hounded the group in front. Zac looked over to Thea who frowned as she observed the pursuit.

“Did you notice? Those silver people do not have ladder positions. I think they are corpses or puppets,” Thea hesitantly said.

Zac's brows rose in surprise as he looked over at the metallic men again, and it was true. None of the silver humans had any ladder positions, meaning that they either weren't part of the hunt or transformed dead. Zac wasn't sure whether he wanted to be involved with this strange event, but after a brief hesitation he shook his head and flashed over with [Loamwalker].

The next moment he had caught one of the fleeing men, just like he had with so many others during the hunt. The Ishiate and other humans gawked when they saw Zac appear out of nowhere, but they didn't even stop for a fraction of a second. They just kept running as fast as their legs allowed, completely leaving their companion to his fate.

“Please let me go, they’ll catch us. They are too strong!” the man desperately shouted as struggled to get free, and when he noticed Zac's arm was tougher than steel he tried to take out his token.

However, Zac snatched the token from his captive with practiced ease before he took out [Verun's Bite]. A second later a huge fractal edge sailed toward the silver cultivators, who now were less than a hundred meters away from him.

There was still no sign of reaction from the silver cultivators and their faces looked completely unperturbed by the incoming attack. But two of the pursuers jumped forward to block the fractal edge with their bodies. Zac could only snort when he saw their tactic, scoffing at the hubris of thinking only two people could stop his attacks.

But the next moment his brows rose in surprise.

The two guards actually self-detonated, and them exploding was barely enough to destroy Zac's fractal edge. Zac could only stupidly stare at the display, and he was now pretty sure that Thea was correct in her assertation that these things were dead. That two people would voluntarily use their bodies as fodder to stop an attack without a care in the world was pretty unlikely.

The others pushed through the cloud of dust that the explosion kicked up in the air, still trying to catch their prey. But it wasn’t an even fight just because the silver cultivators managed to intercept the first edge, and soon all the odd puppets were destroyed.

Strangely enough they didn't leave any corpses when they died, but instead just turned into silver clouds that drifted up into the air. Zac was afraid it was some sort of last-ditch poison attack and stayed clear of the silver gases as they slowly dissipated.

However, his captive didn't seem relieved at all that Zac had made short work of the attackers, and still fearfully looked back up toward the summit. It was the same with the others in his party. None of them came back after Zac destroyed the silver puppets, and they were quickly running further and further away.

“Thank you, friend, but please let me go before their leader arrives with the real army. We must get as far away from this mountain as possible,” the man said with his eyes fretfully looking up at the summit.

“Army? Is it one of the Medhin Royals?” Zac asked. “Are they wearing golden robes?”

“No, it's not one of them. This is much worse! Please, we must flee before he turns us into puppets as well!”

Zac frowned and looked over at Thea, who shrugged in response. She hadn’t heard of anyone like that either.

“Puppets? How many has he turned into puppets?” Zac asked.

“Hundreds and hundreds, perhaps a thousand. He has a whole army of silver corpses like these ones,” the man hurriedly said as he gestured at the things Zac killed. ”We barely got away since he was busy turning another group into puppets as well, but he was raving about turning everyone into silver guards.”

Zac had no reason to keep the man, and simply let him go after asking a few more questions. It truly didn't' seem like it was a Medhin royal, but someone else. The captive only said that the leader looked like a hobo but his army was insanely powerful. As for the army, the only thing in common was that they were all silver.

The moment the man was freed by Zac he bolted so quickly that it almost looked like he would take flight. His mad dash was so frantic that he stumbled on a root after only fifty meters and slammed straight into the ground. But he apparently was so afraid that he didn’t care about the blood flowing from his nose and only scrambled to his feet to keep running.

Zac frowned as he looked at the fleeing back of the man, before turning back to Thea.

“What do you think?” Zac asked.

“Not sure. But it is clearly someone powerful to have been able to capture hundreds of people. Hypnotist? Necromancer?” she guessed. “In any case, he should fight with numbers, which might make him similar to the Medhin royals.”

“Should we avoid him?”

“No,” Thea said resolutely. “He’s turning humans into puppets, killing indiscriminately. He needs to be stopped.”

“Fine, let’s go,” Zac said as he took out his axe as he looked up toward the summit.