"Everyone, please don't be afraid."
Looking at the agitated crowd, the goblin Gibot had anticipated this reaction. He cleared his throat softly, and the entire camp instantly fell dead silent, leaving only his voice echoing crisply.
Virtually all sorcerers with political ambitions mastered the sound faction. Voice was political power—the right to speak. Even if one had no interest in silencing political rivals, one still needed the ability to defend one's own voice.
"I know what concerns you, so I won't mince words. If all the adventurers here were lined up and shot, some innocent ones would undoubtedly be killed. But if we lined you up and executed every other person, plenty of guilty ones would still slip through the net."
Gibot looked down at the terrified adventurers below, the contempt in his eyes deepening as he felt they resembled stray dogs.
The mayor was right: dogs could be used, but not partnered with, because a dog could be lured away by someone else's meat bone at any moment. Only by partnering with jackals and sucking the marrow from these dogs, feeding the jackals' bellies and sharpening the beasts' claws and fangs, would they naturally turn to tear at their master's flesh and blood.
In the Blood Moon Country, there were too many dogs and too few jackals.
That was why the combat tournament had to be promoted...
Recalling the mayor's past teachings, Gibot's expression grew colder as he continued, "However, rest assured. This festival is of vital importance, and compared to the tribute required by the Blood Moon Sovereign, your crimes are not even worth mentioning. Even if Captain Bloodmad were to suddenly lose his mind, I would not allow him to harm our precious fighting strength here."
"Rest assured, Secretary Gibot." With his arms crossed over his chest, Gerard scanned the adventurers with interest. "I value this festival more than anyone here."
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. That was right—the Sin Hunting Hall and the warzone had always minded their own business without interfering with each other. Furthermore, this was a festival for an outworld invasion, so why would Gerard come here to make arrests?
Still, many remained uneasy. Festival matters had nothing to do with the Sin Hunting Hall. What on earth was Gerard doing here? Had he been unable to sleep and come out for a stroll?
"However, Captain Bloodmad is indeed here to pursue fugitives," Gibot said. "Yet it has nothing to do with the vast majority of people here, nor does it even concern adventurers. He has only come to find wanted criminals disguised as adventurers."
Yaxiu and the other four felt a foreboding premonition.
"'Necrophile' Archibald Harvey, 'Rotten Crow' Ronald Wade, 'Swindler' Igola Bogin, 'Death Eater' Langna Chios, and 'Fiend Saint' Yaxiu Heath."
Gerard declared loudly, "I have come solely to pursue these five individuals. They recently escaped from Shattered Lake Prison and removed the miracle chips from the backs of their necks. Thus, they by no means qualify as warzone adventurers, and I am not overstepping my jurisdiction."
The adventurers immediately relaxed.
Not only did those five escapees have nothing to do with them, but more importantly, the fugitive five were not "adventurers." In other words, Gerard had not broken the tacit understanding between the warzone and the Sin Hunting Hall to arbitrarily arrest criminals who had turned to the warzone. That was what truly set the adventurers at ease.
If Gerard were to arrest criminals among the adventurers this time, the adventurers wouldn't resist on the spot, of course, but afterward they would quickly flee Lake View Warzone to seek a living in other warzones. After all, if even the warzone couldn't shelter them, why stay here? To become political achievements for the Sin Hunting Hall?
The five escapees exchanged silent glances and nodded secretly. Without needing a single word, they all knew they had to cooperate in earnest, or they stood no chance of escaping the pursuit of a Three-Winged Sanctuary Sorcerer.
Alright, time to fire things up—
"By the way," Gerard said, "although I am pursuing five people in theory, I personally have immense interest in Yaxiu. Therefore, in addition to the bounty posted by the Sin Hunting Hall, I have a personal bounty on Yaxiu: anyone who provides concrete information on Yaxiu Heath will receive a reward of one hundred gold coins. And if the other four escapees are willing to turn Yaxiu in, I can, on behalf of the Sin Hunting Hall, halt the pursuit against you and grant you three days of fleeing time."
Yaxiu turned to look at the others, and the other four turned to look at him.
"...You guys aren't actually considering selling out a friend to cling to your miserable lives, are you?"
Harvey scratched his head. "We're friends...?"
Ronald spread his hands. "Is there something wrong with clinging to our lives?"
Igola said coldly, "If you hadn't left behind that recording to enrage Gerard, why would he be hounding us so relentlessly? Whoever causes the pollution cleans it up—is there any problem with that?"
With just three sentences, Gerard had shattered this fragile little team. He truly lived up to his reputation as a Bloodmad Hunter who understood human nature inside and out.
Just as Yaxiu wanted to distance himself from this bunch of traitors, Langna calmly spoke up. "We don't have chips, so we ultimately must find a way to leave the Blood Moon. Unless Gerard is willing to step aside for us, betraying Yaxiu brings zero benefit—even if we get three days of fleeing time, there is no place left for us in the Blood Moon."
Yaxiu couldn't help giving him a thumbs-up. "Look how reasonable Langna is! You guys fell for the enemy's trick so easily! You should learn from Langna—"
"However, if we truly can't find any opening to exploit, our only option will be handing Yaxiu over in exchange for breathing room," Langna continued. "One death is better than five."
Igola hooked an arm around Yaxiu's neck. "Thank you, Yaxiu. I never imagined you'd be willing to sacrifice yourself for the greater good. You'll fulfill my wish, right? Hmm?"
Yaxiu's face fell into a scowl, though behind his mask, no one could see it. At this point, he could only take things one step at a time. While Igola might sell him out at any second, Yaxiu had to admit that traveling with these four scumbags was indeed the best teaming arrangement right now.
After all, they at least shared a common goal, and doing bad deeds was precisely the scum's area of expertise. If he were teamed up with complete strangers, Yaxiu would have had no choice right now but to pray for a miracle to occur.
Gerard waited for a moment. Seeing no one step forward to inform on them, he was not surprised and signaled for the goblin beside him to continue.
Gibot announced, "Next, the priest team will cast blessing miracles upon everyone. Please line up by squad. The Bloodmad Hunters will be responsible for protecting the priest team and scanning your chip information beside them. The intelligence regarding the foreign realm beyond the passage has been broadcast to everyone in this camp. Please read it promptly."
The five escapees also pretended to call up their light screens—without chips, they couldn't receive the broadcast spam at all, so they could only go through the motions.
At this time, the priest team arrived before the high platform. They all possessed slight canine traits, and nearly every one of them had a fluffy big tail. Yaxiu couldn't help glancing at Langna, who silently pointed at the blood moon hanging high above.
Unlike the Moon Shadow clan who were bathed in the divine grace of the Blood Moon, Langna could only transform in the shadows and normally showed no Moon Shadow traits at all. The difference between him and other members of the Moon Shadow clan was as stark as living on food versus living on shit. No wonder he had been deemed a heretic and cast into Shattered Lake to die.
The adventurers began lining up to receive their blessings, and Yaxiu witnessed a modern-era blessing ritual: five priests had each adventurer extend their right arm, located a vein, and plunged a steel syringe needle straight in.
Subdeacon Ke'er produced a music player and pressed the button, causing waves of sacred prayer chants to echo throughout the camp. Soon, changes occurred on the adventurers: drifting moonlight, like light smoke, condensed into layers of gossamer robes draped over them.
"Oooohhhhh!"
"Power is surging up!"
"Praise the Blood Moon!"
"Fuck!" Yaxiu couldn't help complaining. "Isn't this just an injection and musical hypnosis?"
"Blessings have always been like this," Ronald said beside him. "The priests prepare blessing potions in advance. When needed, an injection paired with listening to sacred music activates the miracle's effect within the potion. While it's not quite as potent as a priest casting the spell in person, it has the advantage of being quick, convenient, and even portable. You can also exchange for priest-crafted blessing potions inside the warzone, whereas you basically can't buy them outside."
It was plain to see that the adventurers hadn't experienced such premium goods before either; the sheer rush made them itch to throw their lives on the line just to vent the power in their bodies. Watching them, Yaxiu even wondered if the potion contained moon sugar... or maybe vice versa, moon sugar contained ingredients from blessing potions?
Yet for Yaxiu and his four companions, this blessing was nothing short of disastrous news—because blessed adventurers had a thin, crimson gossamer veil over their bodies, which was conspicuously visible.
In other words, one could tell at a single glance whether someone had received the blessing, making it impossible for them to sneak through unnoticed. When the time came, the entire field would be glowing with blessing light while only the five of them were without it. The sole difference between that and turning themselves in was that resisting to the bitter end qualified as an aggravating circumstance.
They stood toward the middle and rear of the line. The priest team moved quickly, and within ten minutes at most, it would be their turn. They had to make a decision immediately.
"Why not pack him up?"
"Better to process him first before handing him over; that would demonstrate our sincerity."
"Leave it to me. When it comes to disposing of corpses, I'm a professional."
Watching Igola earnestly discuss this with Ronald and Harvey, Yaxiu shivered all over. "I'm already starting to regret breaking you bunch of scumbags out of prison..."
"What are you talking about? We're clearly discussing ways to cook Lalafell..."
"Alright, stop scaring cutie Yaxiu." Langna looked at Harvey. "Necromancer, can you repeat your old trick?"
"I can, technically."
Harvey looked up at the night sky. "However, the prison was a specialized structure, which is why it possessed such strong binding power. Out here without even a ceiling, the only restrictions I can guarantee will take effect are the 'Attack Restriction' and 'Action Restriction.'"
"As for Gerard, don't harbor any extravagant hopes." The necromancer didn't dare look directly at the hunter captain at all, only darting a quick glance from the corner of his eye. "Leaving aside that his strength alone is enough to resist the restrictions, his clearance level is likely higher than that of the 'chip processor.' None of the restriction commands issued by the processor will take effect on an enforcement captain."
Sure enough, Harvey had also made thorough preparations before braving this life-or-death hurdle, even if it was ultimately pointless—Gerard was the greatest threat to them here, and if they couldn't use the chip processor to restrict Gerard, the examiner, they would still fail this prison break exam.
Yaxiu asked, "Can't we cause chaos and take the opportunity to charge through? Isn't it said that the Void Realm passage can only accommodate sorcery power of Two Wings or lower? Gerard shouldn't be able to pursue us across, right?"
"You might have some misunderstandings about Gerard's combat capabilities." Igola spread his hands. "Even the most desperate gambler wouldn't bet on a Three-Winged Sanctuary Sorcerer leaving an opening big enough for low-level sorcerers like us to exploit... Wait. Gerard's primary target is you, which means we can hand you over to draw Gerard's attention, and seize the chance to cross the passage. That gives us a high probability of escaping with our lives."
Yaxiu glared sideways at him. "In that situation, do you think I'd run for my life to buy you time, or surrender immediately so Gerard has his hands free to capture you guys and let everyone die together?"
"Tsk, Yaxiu, you truly are a refreshing brand of scumbag."
"Thanks for the compliment. You'll make me blush."
Banter aside, Igola's concern was unavoidable—Gerard was like a mountain firmly blocking their path of escape. No matter how many fancy tricks they had up their sleeves, as long as they couldn't deal with Gerard, it was all empty talk.
"I support Igola's plan," Langna suddenly chimed in.
Yaxiu stared at Langna in astonishment, not expecting that this thick-browed, big-eyed bald guy would ultimately cave to his survival instincts and turn traitor without a second thought.
Dammit, give me back that touching moment!
Igola's eyes lit up, however. Clapping his hands in sudden realization, he draped an arm over Yaxiu's shoulder and said, "Indeed. Given our current situation, this is already the plan with the highest success rate."
"Yaxiu Heath, we must turn you in."
Chapter 166