Dust of History

Another scream came. Aza knew that the hunter was torturing the woman. This is the method used by that race when it hunts human beings.

    If he turns around and rushes to save her, he will fall for this stupid trap, and the result is that both of their heads become ornaments for some beastman tribe together.

    The waters of the Dono River poured eastward for thousands of miles quickly and gently, and the slightly rising waves seemed to beckon to him.

    Come on, come on, jump in and be safe, you’ll be sad and guilty, but at least you’ll be alive. After a few years, maybe you will be indifferent to this matter, and you will use it as a topic for chatting with friends at the bar. If you can’t forget it in a few years, you will definitely forget it in a few decades.

    Maybe you can also use this grief as a driving force, become a general a few years later, lead an army, sweep away all the beastmen on the continent, avenging this woman, …

    The third scream came, and it was already weak as if it was just an illusion caused by anxiety.

    Aza yelled out the most vicious curse he knew, turned around and ran off to where he came from while doing his best to let out a ferocious roar, telling the hunter that his stupid trap had worked out as he had hoped. 

    Then in less than ten minutes, Aza, who ran wildly, saw the hunter and the woman he held in his hands.

    Black hair fell from the cloak to her neck, obscuring her pained expression indistinctly. Her right hand was twisted in the shape of a dead tree vine, and her bones were not even an inch intact. It’s not one single attack, it’s broken in one place and then in another until there’s nowhere else to break.

    Aza was slightly relieved, except for that arm, there was no visible fatal injury on her for the time being She was just held in the air by the hunter like a chicken to be slaughtered, and a faint moan came out of her mouth.

    Following the giant hairy claw, Aza finally saw this beastman who had been chasing him for three days for the first time.

    A foot taller than him, proportionally wide huge body, brown fur covering the whole body, towering ears, yellow pupils, narrow mouth, a dog-like head, this is a werewolf. The proportions of its body parts are roughly similar to those of humans, but from the perfect curves of muscles and bones, it can be seen that the strength and agility contained in this body are beyond the reach of humans.

    The werewolf was wearing custom-made leather armour, and the meteor hammer on the ground that had smashed the heads of a dozen of Aza’s colleagues was obviously also custom-made. Humans and dwarves could not use such a huge weapon. This terrifying armament and his body complement each other, enough for him to deal with an entire squad of soldiers alone.

    But this werewolf doesn’t look so majestic and dangerous, it can even be said to be a little ragged. The hair on the left arm has been clotted with blood, and the wound above is still bleeding slowly. The Anka rapier is not less lethal because it cannot be used for slashing. The unique blade will tear the surrounding blood vessels and tissues to pieces once it rotates after piercing the body. The slender blade is forged from the finest alloys of dwarves, it can even pierce bones.

    There is a black mass on the back of the left paw, and the charred and cracked muscles can be seen, and the surrounding fur has been burned away, which is the trace of the fireball technique. Looking at the slight burn marks on the fur on his head, we can see that it was originally a fireball shot towards his face, but he blocked it with his hands before he had time to dodge. The timing of this fireball must have been very good.

    If I fought the hunter with the woman, the odds are actually pretty good… Aza feels extremely remorseful. Now I can only do my best, and there should be hope. After all, the hunter’s left arm has…

    The hunter let out a grunt, opened his mouth, bared his sharp teeth, and rolled his shoulders. Aza didn’t understand the meaning of the expression, but he clearly saw the muscles on the claw holding the woman bulging.

    The prey has come, the purpose has been achieved, and the bait is useless.

    “Stop!” Aza let out a hoarse cry, rushing towards the hunter.

    “Krak”, the crisp sound of broken bones resounded, Aza couldn’t tell whether it came from the woman’s neck or his own body. The worn-out legs had no strength to dodge in the middle of the full charge. Aza watched helplessly as the hunter smashed his foot on his chest, causing him to fly out like a scarecrow, and hit hard against a tree. The knife in his hand was also stabbed into the tree.

    Aza shrank like a shrimp, blood and spit spilling out of his nose and mouth. Several ribs were broken, but fortunately, they had not been stabbed into his internal organs. It’s as if countless bulls were rushing around in his chest, he could feel nothing but pain, making it hard to even breathe.

    It’s so unsatisfying. Seeing that the prey that he had spent so much time on in the past three days was so vulnerable, the hunter thought in disappointment. Originally, he was looking forward to ending it with a great battle.

    When he found the obvious footprints and smells next to the campfire this morning, he was pretty sure it was a trap. How could this cunning prey show his whereabouts on purpose? Must be some kind of trick. So he followed another line of footsteps that instead didn’t seem to belong to the prey. When he found that his judgment was wrong again, and he was deceived by the prey’s tricks, he was completely shocked and angry.

    The combat effectiveness of this other human was even more unexpected, and he was almost hit in the face by a fireball. Fortunately, this human being is also very fragile. After he broke her hand, she immediately lost her combat effectiveness due to severe pain.

    In the end, it was his victory. Success in luring the fleeing prey over and he can now walk over and remove the prey’s head with ease.

    No, it doesn’t have to be that hurried. It is also an interesting ending to savor every inch of the process and see what this human being will do when he knows his life is coming to an end.

    One last trick? Struggling to death? Or shrink into a ball and let out some insignificant wailing with tears and snots? It better not be this, I’m tired of watching it again.

    Aza finally managed to catch his breath, the ribs caused unbearable pain akin to knives in his chest, and they kept shifting around every time he breathed. He forced himself to look up at the knife stuck in the tree, and the white sap secreted by the tree had covered the blade.

    He recognized this tree, whose thin, straight roots once reminded him of an almost shameless quote. Now he remembered it again, looking at the motionless woman who had fallen to the ground, extreme grief and indignation made him stand up, and pull the knife out of the tree trunk. He used all the strength in his body to lift the knife and charge forward.

    The hunter looks at the oncoming prey almost with a pitying mood. Is this slow turtle-like movement your last struggle? You can even see the pulsation of every muscle and the twisting of the movement due to pain, and predict clearly when and where the knife will fall with that weak strength.

    The hunter raised the handle of the meteor hammer in his hand and blocked the knife without error, with a loud noise of metal clanging. As expected, the knife along with the arm was bounced back together, the body was jerked back together, and the empty space between the chest and abdomen opened wide. As long as my claws were dug in and dragged upwards, the desired heart could be ripped out immediately.

    It’s just that the hunter didn’t anticipate a seemingly inconsequential detail. The sap stuck to the knife turned into countless droplets under the strong impact and splashed into the eyes of the hunter, as well as his moist snout.

    It wasn’t just tree sap, it was hundreds of needles scorched red with poison and barbs. The hunter let out an unprecedented shrill cry that he himself had never heard before.

    The whole world has been superseded by this pain. His vision turned red at first and then completely blacked out. His snout was gone, there was nothing but pain, and he could only hear his own screams in his ears. Then the only remaining physical sense immediately felt that there was a cold object inserted into his body from the lower abdomen, tearing all the way to his chest.

    A fear that could even cover up the pain overwhelmed him, and the hunter subconsciously grabbed that something under his lower abdomen using all his strength and dread. Then he heard another scream that was on par with his own scream.

    Aza also couldn’t hear the sound of his wrist bones shattering into pieces. He could only feel the countless bone fragments moving rampantly among the muscles and blood vessels and protruding from the skin. He didn’t use any strength, because he didn’t have the least bit of strength in his body, he used this piercing pain to spring to his knees and wildly push up the hilt of the knife. The rubbery rupture of the heart flows through the handle.

    The hunter suddenly stopped screaming and held his chest so hard that the sharp claws were inserted into his fur through the leather armor, as if he wanted to heal the ruptured organ inside. But after shaking a little, he collapsed.

    Aza clutched his left hand and knelt on the ground, groaning and panting for a while before he was able to stand up.

    It’s all over.

    No, not yet. Don’t stay here too long, once the hunter’s corpse emits a scent, it will attract a lot of carrion lizards. I was already weakened enough to let those ugly scavenger creatures eat me. I hope the woman has some useful medicines in her luggage or some high-end goods like that water purification talisman.

    Aza staggered over. Looking at the woman’s pale face, it was once so beautifully paired with a smile, and in half a day, it will become food for those ugly scavengers just like the corpse of the werewolf over there.

    Sorry, it’s all my fault. Aza knelt before her in pain. Suddenly he saw that the lips seemed to move, and he thought it was his hallucination, but he immediately heard a groan, harsher than his own.