324 Returning to the Chaotic Marshes Part 2 (2/2)

The war horses ran as quickly as they could in the knee-deep snow, even Saleen and Aini rode a horse each themselves. In this season in the north, there were no roads to be seen.

The capes of the pirates had all been processed and they did not have much defensive abilities but they could protect them from the cold. Every pirate had a flask of wine too. They were still unable to get used to being restricted and as they got the horses to gallop, the group got a little messy.

Saleen saw this and knew he was too naïve in the past. These pirates could not compare to Lex's swordsmen indeed. Even if he were to train them for another ten years, it would still be the same. A loyal swordsman, on the other hand, did not need ten years of training to be a good sailor.

The group travelled across the barren snow land for over ten hours before Saleen commanded them to take a break. The winged skeleton war horses were not the fastest war horses, but if it were any other horses they could not have traveled at such speeds for over ten hours. Saleen estimated that they must have traveled around six-hundred miles within ten hours.

The magic wolves in the snow saw one-hundred death creatures speeding across the land. Even though they moved around in packs, they still stayed far away. Saleen did not meet with any dangers along the way.

It was over two-thousand miles from Saleen's city base to Phoenix. With these winged skeleton war horses, they should be able to reach it within four days. It was another thousand more miles from the north to the west border of Phoenix. With this, it would take around a week for them to return to Deep Forest Town where Aini had been at the start.

Setting up camp, Saleen and Aini stayed in the same tent. With the three kings around, Saleen only arranged for ten pirates for sentry duties, setting up a sentry post for show near the campsite.

It was stated clearly within the contract that within three years, so long as Saleen and Aini were within the senses of the three kings, the three kings had to be responsible for their safety.

Saleen and Aini laid down in their tent. Naturally, they started talking about what happened since they split.

Aini went through even more unimaginable things than what Saleen had expected. After receiving help from Saleen, he no longer worried about money. The gold coins he had were enough to buy decent death flames.

After the plan to kill Baron Cook failed, Aini went into hiding for a while. After hearing that Cook had passed away mysteriously, he did not return to Holy Rock City. Instead he went to a city that his family controlled in the North. He had planned this for a long time and had long contacted the person who wanted to sell the death flames. However, when he reached the city, the man who wanted to sell the death flames had died.

Aini used some of the power from his family to find any leads left behind by the dead businessman and he realized he had been murdered. The one who had gotten rid of the businessman was a hidden bandit gang. It did not seem as if they were after his death flames, but rather, a batch of goods that were only worth thousands of gold coins.

This caused a commotion in the city and the wealthy from that city had assembled a large number of swordsmen. A grand mage was even sent to investigate and to completely eradicate the bandit gang.

The children of the businessman were not of age yet and the wealthy were in charge of managing his finances. They would only return it when his children had grown up. Any profits before then went to the wealthy, this included the death flames. The wealthy got a hold of the death flames and knew they were precious. They were not willing to sell them to Aini. Aini's family power in this city was limited and he could not do anything to the wealthy and could only blame his luck.

In Phoenix, Aini was also pushed to the brink of death before he poisoned the mercenary, Nut. In the Qin Empire, he did not dare murder any wealthy. At least not because they were unwilling to sell the death flames to him.

The wealthy were asking too much too, they had only doubled the asking price. The business man had lowered the price considerably to get into the good books of the Clyde family, however, the wealthy had much influence in that region and did not need to give the Clyde family any face. Aini had no choice but to give up on those death flames. He used the news his family got while doing business to search all around before receiving news of a seller in the south.

It was an underground auction and the things being sold there were all illegal. Aini brought the money to the south and at the auction, he met with another situation. The death flames, which were of a very low grade, had another buyer competing for them. He had less gold coins than the other buyer and he could only watch as the other man bought the death flames.

There were getting to be fewer death flames on the Myers Mainland and Aini had almost lost all hope. Just as he was about to leave, he heard news that the man who had bought the death flames had died. The man was incredibly unlucky, the death flames had retaliated and he was eaten alive by them.

The ball of death flames immediately became trash, who would want something like that? Aini managed to buy the death flames for only one-hundred gold coins.

”You dared to do something so dangerous?” Upon hearing that Aini had absorbed death flames that had caused the death of another individual Saleen was worried, even though Aini was standing perfectly alright in front of him.