Chapter 67 (1/2)
Nangong woke up and discovered himself lying on a hummock in the middle of nowhere. He rubbed the back of his head as he got on his feet. The sky was gradually turning bright. The spooky moment in the crypt was like a bad dream.
He frowned as the pain in the back of his head as well as the unbearable burning smell in the atmosphere made him sick. He continued to cough and mumbled, “What happened to me?”
Hao Ren signaled Vivian, Lily and Y’zaks to keep quiet as he smacked Nangong on the shoulder. He said, “Awake? Let’s see the headline.”
“Hao Ren?” Nangong was surprised to see the three of them as well as the stranger who looked like an imposing villain. “Are you guys alright? Did the evil wraiths hurt you? Who is this gentleman… Holy moly, what’s that?”
Nangong finally saw the crater, which was spewing smoke and ashes. He also saw a couple of stones left near the crater. Judging from the landscape in his surroundings, he could tell it was the Yorkford Castle. However, a pit and a puddle of ever so slowly cooling lava were all that was left of the old castle after just one night. Nangong was totally dumbfounded at what had transpired.
“You wouldn’t believe what just happened. A meteorite fell from the sky and hit the castle. It’s gone just like that.” Hao Ren spoke with straight face.
Nangong listened with awe as he rubbed the back of his head again. “Wait a second. I was fighting the evil wraiths in the crypt. There were wraith knights everywhere and you guys were right behind me… And then I felt a pain in the back of my head. That’s the last thing remember.”
Hao Ren acted even more sincere this time as he spoke with a trembling voice, “Speaking of which, I’m still shaking like a leaf. It was a miracle that we got out of that damn place alive. While you fought fearlessly in the crypt, the roof collapsed on you. You passed out and I was rooted to the spot, waiting for my final moments. Suddenly, all the wraith knights dropped down like bowling pins, lying motionless on the floor. We broke our backs trying to get you… and this old man out of that hellhole. We thought of waiting for daybreak so that we could hitch a ride back home. But, this place is too creepy to stay even a second longer so, we kept running. That decision saved us all as a meteorite fell from the sky 10 minutes ago and the rest is history.”
Hao Ren had been pretending to be like clueless, common folk. He did not try to explain why the armored wraiths fell and lied down on the floor motionless; he did not bother to explain how on earth a meteorite could have struck the castle into a pit with surgical precision. He simply used a bizarre story to explain it, leaving Nangong to fill in the blanks.
Hao Ren was being crooked: I’m just a clueless guy. Bite me—
Nangong simply could not wrap his head around it but he did not question Hao Ren. He did not suspect that the common man and two innocent maidens had anything to do with all of it. This ‘expert’ was using his logic to make a conjecture: “Maybe the wraiths were controlled by something larger in the crypt. Such things happened all the time in places with hundreds of years of history… That has to be the case. After all, I’m an expert.”
Hao Ren and Vivian spontaneously rolled their eyes in secret. Such a thick-skinned fellow!
Staring regrettably at the pit of Armageddon, Nangong knew there were secrets down there—secrets which would explain why the wraiths suddenly dropped to the ground and how he was saved by these three common folks. However, there was nothing left to see let alone investigate now.
Hao Ren gave Y’zaks a grateful glance. The meteorite was seriously a Swiss Army knife. Normally during a meteorite strike, as long as the magic was not performed in plain view, you did not have to worry about the narrative. No one on this planet would ever believe that there was someone capable of bringing a rock back from the Kuiper Belt. The only ones who would delve into it were astrophysicists—and this half-baked ghostbuster.
Soon after, crowds of spectators from Brewshire started to pour in.