Chapter 221: Betrayal |
Another six days passed. On the twentieth day, the group stopped at the foot of a mountain.
Xiao Wei set up the stew pot and cooked a batch of porridge using their last bag of millet. The refugees, holding clay bowls, lined up in front of the steaming iron cauldron. This was one of the very few moments of rest they had throughout the entire day.
The musketeer no longer tried to persuade Bai Mu to abandon the refugees. He seemed to have realized that Bai Mu had no intention of leaving these people behind to set off alone. Over the past few days, he had behaved himself and even helped care for those with limited mobility.
However, during their rest period, Bai Mu suddenly heard a heavy, rhythmic thumping sound.
Tuya, who had been chewing on a blade of grass, pricked up her ears and raised her head to look toward the mountain peak. Through the vision of the Guard Mushroom, Bai Mu saw a massive black bear charging toward them. It barreled down from above like a giant boulder rolling off the summit.
At this juncture, nearing the two-thirds mark of the Script, the Mountain Evil God had finally caught up to them.
According to the musketeer, beasts of this colossal size were unique products of that corrupted forest, and this black bear had tracked them all the way from there. In terms of speed, the black bear could not compare to the wolf packs and wild boars they had encountered earlier, but its size and strength far surpassed those two monsters. It plowed toward the crowd, snapping trees along its path while unleashing a low, guttural roar.
It quickly drew everyone's attention. Every single person locked eyes on the monster radiating an eerie, sinister aura.
Chaos instantly erupted among the crowd. The villagers who had been following Bai Mu from the very beginning fared somewhat better, but the refugees who had joined midway were terrified out of their wits by the creature, scattering in all directions in sheer panic.
The refugees did not even care about the porridge in their bowls, scrambling and crawling as they fled.
The horses and deer were also spooked, plunging the temporary camp into complete pandemonium in an instant.
Xiao Wei quickly dashed to Bai Mu's side, and Tuya also navigated with nimble steps to find her master.
Bai Mu ordered the girls to raise their muskets and fire a volley at the black bear. Sparks burst from the thick barrels. Amidst the deafening bangs, iron projectiles pierced the black bear's thick hide, sending foul blood splattering outward.
But this did not kill the creature; instead, it provoked an even more frenzied and furious roar.
Xiao Wei's Magic Missile and Frost Arrow also had a negligible effect.
Within dozens of seconds, it rapidly closed the distance. Bai Mu then raised his hand, signaling the others to throw their rudimentary bombs. The black powder blasted craters into the ground, finally causing the massive bear to lose its balance and tumble down.
It was still not dead, as Bai Mu had not received a kill notification. Left with no choice, Bai Mu activated the special effect of the Book of the Witch, unleashing a second random magic spell. He did not forget to activate Critical Strike alongside it. A wave of freezing frost emanated from the book's cover, and white ice rapidly crystallized over the black bear's fur. His luck was not as great this time, only triggering a Rare grade spell.
It was a crowd-control skill called "Fang of Frost", which effectively acted as an enhanced version of "Frost Arrow". Even this colossal black bear found its limbs completely frozen solid and unable to move.
But this did not render the beast entirely harmless. Due to its enormous size and terrifying weight, its sheer momentum as it crashed down crushed several horses that had lost their minds to terror. It also smashed a portion of the clay water storage jugs that they had not managed to pack away in time, spilling their precious fresh water to soak into the dirt. The stiffly frozen behemoth gouged a deep trench into the earth as it finally ground to a halt.
Even with it collapsed on its side, Bai Mu still had to look up to take in its full, massive form.
The refugees, who had fled a fair distance away, looked back at the frozen monster, standing there utterly dumbfounded.
The frozen black bear's eyes were still moving, glaring viciously at Bai Mu as if it wanted to abruptly spring up and bite his head right off. However, it was currently no different from a corpse that had been frozen in a blizzard for over ten days. The creature had no ability to generate enough heat to warm itself. Under natural conditions, it would take at least a few hours for it to thaw out and regain its mobility.
It was now nothing more than a sitting duck waiting to be slaughtered. Bai Mu could easily pry open its jaws, shove rudimentary explosives or a Cherry Bomb directly into its stomach, and blow it to smithereens from the inside out.
He refused to believe that its internal organs possessed the same absurd level of defense as its exterior.
Yet, he did not do so. While he had been dealing with this giant bear, he noticed a group of people escaping on horseback in the distance.
From their backs, he could clearly see who it was. The leader was none other than the musketeer. About a dozen people were fleeing alongside him. Taking advantage of the chaos, they had stolen horses, along with some food and weapons. The eight prisoners had all followed him in escaping, accompanied by a few able-bodied refugees. No wonder the man had been acting so well-behaved these past few days; he had been meticulously planning his escape this whole time.
He had likely contacted certain people in private long ago, preparing to pull off a stunt exactly like this. Although he had not shown it on his face, the man surely believed that Bai Mu carrying the dead weight of these refugees would only lead to a dead end, eventually dragging him down to his doom.
This was a man who had hunted gods; he lacked any reverence for the divine or the supernatural. Therefore, even though Bai Mu had displayed superhuman abilities impossible for ordinary men, he would not simply treat Bai Mu as a deity descended from the heavens and bow in submission.
He had been waiting for an opportunity, and the sudden appearance of this black bear had been exactly that. As he rode away in triumph, he even tossed some sort of smoke bomb behind his horse to obscure Bai Mu's line of sight.
Within the hazy smoke, not even the rear ends of the horses could be seen. Bai Mu tried firing a few arrows into the fog, but when the smoke finally dissipated, the group was already long gone without a trace, leaving only a few wooden arrows embedded in the ground.
As a musketeer himself, the man knew full well that the greatest weakness of ranged weapons was losing sight of the enemy. In truth, he was also gambling on the fact that Bai Mu had no other trump cards up his sleeve. It could only be said that he was far more willing to trust himself rather than entrust his life to another.
His plan had indeed succeeded, for Bai Mu did not chase after them. In their haste, they had not managed to snatch much food or water; if one were to really calculate the losses, they had merely made off with a few horses.
The payoff for hunting them down was simply not high enough. Bai Mu had already pried all the information he wanted out of their mouths. Even if he caught up and killed them, the only reward he would reap would be retrieving those few horses and a meager amount of food.
Besides, pursuing them would expend valuable time and energy. Now that the Mountain Evil God had tracked them down right to their doorstep, going out of his way to chase that group would result in a heavily disproportionate cost-to-benefit ratio.
In fact, with fewer people, there were fewer mouths to feed. When weighed against the food they had taken, it wasn't even certain if the group was operating at a loss.
After a brief moment of weighing his options, Bai Mu chose to let them go free. The pathetic truth, however, was that he didn't think these people would even survive. They had not managed to steal a single musket. Relying solely on the swords and blades in their hands, the moment they encountered a Mountain Evil God, they would be slaughtered, left without even a grave.