The Emperor’s Daily Nitpicking - CH 43

It was the Sand Ghost again!

Such a scene of a different character after shedding a layer of skin made the crowd in the hall think of similar scenes they had encountered before. They felt a chill running up their tailbone for a moment, almost freezing their hands and feet.

But it was only for a very brief moment!

The Wujin Iron soldiers left in the hall reacted in the shortest possible time, overcoming the sensation of stiffness in their limbs and lunging regardless.

But strangely enough, their desperate attack was aimed not at the Sand Ghosts but their backs, sealing off their exit from the hall as if driving them towards the throne.

And Oswald glanced involuntarily above his head as the Sand Ghosts removed their disguise.

One of the white eagles he released had flown out of the hall just as Theodore had entered the hall. By doing the math, it should have returned by now too……

The young emperor squeezed the scroll in his hand and tossed it away without looking at it again. He sat expressionlessly on his golden throne and didn’t move out of the way but raised his hand to unfasten the cloak clasped around his left shoulder……

Everyone understood the principle of taking the leader first, even if it was a Sand Ghost born in some dirty corner. “Theodore,” with his four guards swirled together as five winds of sand. Without hesitation, they lunged at the man on the throne as if the others in the hall were not important to them at all.

When the sand-like hands in the wind were about to climb the nine steps in front of the throne, four soft “clicks” sounded from the domed roof of the hall as if some metal barrier had been opened simultaneously.

Kevin’s fingers on the short blade at his waist moved to pull it out of its sheath.

The Sand Ghost was so focused on pulling Oswald off his throne that they didn’t even hear the eager urging from above their heads. “Hurry! Reach in quickly!”

Oswald’s gaze twitched as he raised his hand and flung the cloak he had untied.

The scarlet cloak expanded swiftly in the air, following the strong wind and covering the incoming sand ghosts.

At the same time, a faint shout was heard from the hall’s dome. “Open the gates!”

Four massive pillars of water spurted down from the four corners of the dome, shooting with tremendous force straight towards the throne’s position. The scarlet cloak above was instantly soaked under the weight of the four water columns, like a heavy curtain cutting off the assassination attempt in progress.

The speed of the five spinning sandstones gathered together was halted when the cloak caught them in the head.

Four columns of water hit the mass of sandstones immediately afterwards.

Everyone knew that the Sand Ghosts needed to avoid the rainy season every year because their only weakness was their fear of water, which weighed them down, stagnated them, and was the biggest obstacle to their movement.

The almost invincible Sand Ghosts would become less intimidating with water getting in the way.

Although there were too many operational factors on the battlefield to exploit this as they wished, on their territory in Wujinxuan Palace, it could not have been a more helpful attack aid!

Oswald seized the moment, drew his imperial sword, dashed from the throne when the water columns struck down, and stabbed his sword into the cloak!

“Do you think I would fall for the same trick twice? Dream on!” Oswald sneered at the Sand Ghost beneath the cloak before taking the momentum to roll to the side, swooping Kevin and Ben aside.

When the emperor pounced on him, Kevin squinted his eyes and threw the short knife in his hand with force, barely needing to aim.

He detected two soft plops over the sound of the rushing water and chuckled briefly, raising the corner of his mouth at one end.

Great, a double hit.

A single knife pierced through two hearts.

The Wujin Iron soldiers in the hall formed a man-wall and drew their longbows, firing a barrage of arrows at the nest of Sand Ghosts covered by the cloak. Someone from the dome called, “We’ve run out of water!”

Kevin had just risen from the ground when Oswald gave him a firm shove. “Move out! The hippogriffs are waiting outside!”

As soon as he said this, a rush of hippogriffs’ hooves braked sharply at the hall’s entrance, neighing loudly.

“Retract the arrows! Retreat to the Wujinxuan Palace’s back cliff!” Oswald bellowed, and within moments of going out the door, he fetched Cynthia, who a chamberlain had carried, and protected her in his arms before mounting a hippogriff with Kevin and each of the Wujin Iron soldiers who had followed. They all galloped out of the Wujinxuan Palace with a shake of the reins.

This was something he and Kevin had agreed on before Theodore entered the palace, and a white eagle was sent to Peter the Ranger on short notice – telling him to be prepared for two things at once: firstly, to add temporary water defences around the four corners of the hall’s windows, just in case. Secondly, he should notify the people of an emergency evacuation!

The five Sand Ghosts disguised as Theodore and his men had been trapped in the hall and were no longer a threat. But they were only stragglers in advance. Now that they had arrived, the larger group was not far behind.

The Sand Ghosts had always been proud of themselves, and they thought that a raid like this would be a sure success, so they didn’t prepare too much for a water attack that would catch them off guard. But when the enormous forces arrived, they wouldn’t be so easy to deal with, and it would be almost a matter of luck if the water attack succeeded.

On the battlefield, one might say, casualties were inevitable. But in a city populated by ordinary people, old and weak, women and children, it was impossible to bet the lives of so many people on such luck, and it was only natural to retreat when it was possible to do so without any certainty.

Oswald met Peter, the commander of the Imperial Patrolling Guards, with the men from the Wujinxuan Palace, on the railway track.

“How is the evacuation of the city going?” Oswald pulled in the reins, and the hippogriff’s hooves rose high.

“Almost everyone has been moved into the underground chambers.” Peter sputtered, turning his hippogriff’s head almost as soon as he reached Oswald. “I’ll go back and spread the Rangers around the gates to keep them safe.”

Their hippogriffs galloped off in different directions in two sentences, with barely a second’s delay.

The Path of the God had never appeared like this before, with almost all of the main legion barracks out in force, the dust from the hippogriffs’ hooves, and the dense smoke and constant thunder at the eight giant pillars of the Path of the God.

In the distance, as far as the eye could see, the inky blue sky, just after nightfall, had turned into a greyish yellow, a sight of sandstones wrapped in a fierce wind.

The Path of the God was crowded with people, full of chaos but orderly. Two long lines of troops set off on different planned paths, one going straight over the other side of the Rift and another quickly covering the city’s outskirts. The remainder stood on the edge of the enormous pillars of the Path of the God, overlooking the high cliffs.

Oswald took the weapons handed to him by one of the guards and threw one of the daggers and a longsword to Kevin.

Kevin caught the dagger in his palm and tossed the longsword back, turning his head toward the rest of the Bronze Army and waving, “I still prefer the bow and arrow.”

He slung the quiver of arrows thrown by the remainder of the army behind his shoulder and, with his longbow in his hands, asked Oswald, “So? How do we retreat?”

Oswald gestured towards the cliff at his feet and ordered everyone, “Jump!”

Kevin: “……”

“What the hell?!” He froze for a moment and saw Oswald had already leapt down with Cynthia in his arms, sinking his dagger firmly into the stone wall mid-air and sliding down.

“Don’t hesitate! Jump!” Oswald’s roar came from beneath his feet.

Cynthia’s berserk shrieks also sounded at the same time. “Ahhhhh –”

But it didn’t sound like the young Highness was frightened at all. It seemed like she found it extraordinarily exciting.

Kevin: “……”

“I’m holding you down here! You won’t die from the fall!” Oswald added.

It was said as if he was afraid to jump.

Jokes aside, His Excellency Kevin Fassbender, once a god of light, was able to go up to the sky at will, so this height was no concern at all, and he was just shocked by this “suicidal” method of retreat.

The mortal imagination had no limits ……

Kevin was about to jump when a heavy object grabbed his leg.

He looked down and saw that Ben, the little bastard, had somehow snapped a nerve and had turned back into a lion at a time like this, and only his head was still barely human: “Help! I can’t borrow the force of the dagger!”

“So why on earth are you looking for excitement to change back into your beast form? Looking for a beating?” Kevin asked in an unpleasant voice.

Ben lifted his paw and pointed to the moon about to be hidden from the sky, “I didn’t want to!!! But did you forget it’s already the end of June?!”

The week between June and July is known as Bettan Days, which means “beastly frenzy” in the ancient language. Because it was during this week that the beasts were first created in the time of the gods. During these seven days, all beasts were unrestrained and at their wildest.

But this was not so wonderful for the later Giant Beastman. However, all the bloodlines of the Giant Beastman would change back into their beastly forms uncontrollably on this day and would only recover after a week.

The night deepened in the blink of an eye, and Ben could not even maintain his human face after this explanation. Without further delay, Kevin let the lion clutch his leg and leapt down.

The thin blade of his dagger was so sharp that it cut through the stone like tofu. Kevin slid down the straight stone pillar with the sound of metal on the stone. And with the cushioning of their enormous wings, the massive hippogriffs glided down to the bottom of the Path of the God, into the depths of the Great Rift.

The long and narrow terrain of the Great Rift caused the wind at the bottom to whistle all year sharply round, drowning out the neighing of the hippogriffs and the loud sounds of the people. But as soon as they looked up, they could see that the sky above them had also turned to a greyish-yellow colour, and the speedy Sand Ghosts had probably made their way into the city and would soon be on their way to the Wujinxuan Palace.

Oswald mounted his hippogriff and led the impressive party for some time through the bottom of the Great Rift, circling numerous rocky forests before finally coming to a halt in front of a mountain wall.

At first glance, the wall did not seem unusual, but on closer inspection, one could see that it had two slightly darker coloured areas like two doors.

Without saying a word, he reached the middle of the two doors and punched a raised stone on the ground.

With a loud bang, the two doors opened wide.

Oswald said, with a simple brush of his hand, “Quick! Take the left one!”

The well-trained crowd wasted no time asking questions and immediately rushed in with the hippogriffs with a shake of the reins. Like a long black dragon, the long, swarming line moved into the cave entrance.

“Hurry!” Oswald looked up at the sky. He could almost hear the sound of the sands swirling, whistling, and swooping down.

The whirlwind looked clearer to his eyes.

Oswald lifted his foot and kicked the last few men hard in the buttocks of their hippogriffs, and the hippogriffs jolted, sending the men in front of them straight in too.

Before the second half of the hippogriff could get in, Oswald threw another punch, pounding hard on top of the stone.

The two cavern doors fell back down with a tremendous thud.

Oswald gave Kevin a shove and was about to follow into the same hole where the larger group had been when he realised that the whirlwind of Sand Ghosts had followed him down. In desperation, he and Kevin turned in unison, leading the Sand Ghosts to roll towards the hole on their right.