Chapter 44: A Stroke of Color Amid Despair |
The bear warriors were not advancing quickly, but every step carried a palpable sense of power, and the whole earth trembled along with their footsteps.
This was both to maintain the stability of the formation, and to ensure they could respond in time when facing unknown dangers.
The thieves and assassins hiding inside one of the warehouses had naturally long since noticed this group of bears that had appeared out of nowhere.
“Where did these bears come from now?”
“Fuck his damn meow!”
“They really aren’t leaving us any way to live at all!”
“Fuck the Shadow Guild! Fuck Bettis!”
They were all thieves and assassins forcibly controlled by the Shadow Guild. Because of magical contracts and poison, they could only act according to orders. Otherwise, what awaited them was only ultimate pain and death.
Perhaps even... death might not be the end!
Normally, they blended into the city under identities such as laborers, traveling merchants, cooks, and the like. As long as no orders came, they could live their own little lives in peace.
But now, a single order given when the Shadow Guild higher-ups fled—unrestrictedly destroy the city, create slaughter, and delay for time—had made it impossible for them to keep hiding.
Everyone present had exhausted every possible method just to remove part of the contract’s restraints, avoiding becoming those unlucky fools who got ‘killed the moment they showed their faces.’
But they still could not completely resist the command, and could only hide inside the guild stronghold, lingering on in wretched existence.
If not for this damned contract, they would have run already!
Coral Thorn City had never forbidden entry or exit!
Likewise, the ones Coral Thorn City had put on the wanted list were these unlucky wretches who could not control their own fates!
“That group of bears is almost at the door!”
“Fuck! If I’d known, I would’ve dragged that bitch Bettis down to hell with me even if I died! And now I still have to keep selling my life for that slut!”
The short, sturdy man dressed like a fisherman, his whole body carrying a smell of salted fish, was full of fury. He was one of the only two Grandmasters here, and he really had had a chance to drag her down with him.
But now he was a man with a family, and that left him unable to make up his mind to go down in mutual destruction.
This was the Shadow Guild’s most vicious method of control over them, using both hard and soft measures.
Compared to those dead soldiers who had been completely brainwashed, they were fortunate, because they could experience a brief stretch of life. But they were also unfortunate, because they could not calmly go to their deaths!
Whether through the formation or through their senses, they could all clearly feel the fierceness of this group of bears, as well as that faintly revealed resolve!
This was completely different from the guard forces that had come to exterminate them before. These were the kind who would rather die than retreat!
“Who would have thought... that I would actually still have the chance to die at the hands of my own kind! It could even be counted as... dying where I belong.”
In a corner, there was a bearman over two and a half meters tall, with mottled fur. In his paw, he carefully cradled a worn wooden cup, which contained his favorite honey water, and he was taking little sips of it.
From the time he could remember, he had grown up in a circus, trained as though he were a real bear.
After being sold to the Shadow Guild later, he had lived an even more sunless existence.
The happiest days of his life had actually been when he was sold to a noble as a pet, only for him to be forced at the end, under the contract’s control, to slaughter the noble’s entire household.
He lifted his paw and looked at the cord tied around his wrist. That had been tied there by the noble’s eight-year-old daughter, and it counted as his only keepsake.
After drinking the last mouthful of honey water, he immediately stood and strode toward the door.
“Big guy! Where are you going?!”
A kindly-looking auntie dressed like a vegetable vendor in the market hurriedly stopped him.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
A lazy child’s voice came from atop a row of tall cargo crates.
“Our bear friend is going to find a more dignified... ending.”
Marco looked down at the uneasy crowd below with utter listlessness.
He too had been abducted into the Shadow Guild since childhood, and had endured countless cruel human body modifications, so that even now his outer appearance still remained that of a child.
He was the strongest person here, and also the one who had gathered together this group of people longing for ‘freedom.’
Originally, according to his plan, in a few more years he would have been able to completely undo the contract’s restraints over them.
At that point, those who wanted revenge could seek revenge, and those who wanted freedom could gain freedom, but now all of it had turned into bubbles.
And now they still had to risk their lives against a group of bears from who knew where. What a mocking and fucked-up life it had been!
The mottled-fur bearman went around the vegetable-selling auntie. He did not look back, nor did he answer.
He simply kept walking forward.
With every step he took, a stream of blackish-red blood overflowed from the corner of his mouth, dripping to the ground and making “chi chi” sounds as it corroded little pits into the floor.
This act of his, in actively seeking death, had triggered the backlash of the magical contract, and the toxins in his body had also been activated at the same time.
The violent pain made his enormous body tremble slightly, yet he still walked outward with unwavering determination.
Every one of his steps felt as though it were stamping directly on everyone’s heart.
For a time, the warehouse fell into dead silence.
······
Hidden in the darkness, observing all of this, Isos’s shadowy body made of shredded strips of cloth paused slightly.
For the first time, he felt the flow of release and calm acceptance. It was a different kind of feeling, one that seemed to make even his ‘heart’ tighten involuntarily.
For some reason, he really did not want to watch this mottled bearman die just like this.
As a Shadow Demon, the way he perceived the world was completely different from ordinary living beings.
In his unique ‘vision,’ the colors of life and the fluctuations of emotion were all incomparably clear. This ability was even stronger than a paladin’s good-and-evil appraisal, and more accurate as well.
In his eyes, the tall mottled bearman had no hatred, no fear, and even less madness.
What he had... was only a child who had been lost for too long, suffered too many grievances, and was crying as he used the last bit of his strength trying to find his way back home.
At this moment, there were only two words in the bearman’s heart—
Go home!!!
This extreme, pure, intense emotion violently washed over Isos’s hollow perception, making it seem as though a different kind of color had suddenly appeared upon his pitch-black figure!
Isos’s original task had only been to monitor the changes in Coral Thorn City’s situation, and to notify Alvaro in time if anything abnormal happened.
But now, as he stared at that staggering bearman’s back, he did not know why he so badly wanted to interfere.
Yet he was unclear whether this was his own will, or whether he had once again been influenced by emotional abilities.
Amid the chaos of his thoughts, the words of his boss Kyle rang clearly in the depths of his consciousness like a bell piercing through fog:
“When you understand, when you are sad, why you cry. When you are angry, why you become angry. When every emotion has boundaries, you will be able to see your true choice clearly.”
Why had his heart tightened?
Why did he want to interfere?
Because beneath that patchwork fur, he had seen a color beyond darkness!
A stroke of color worth making a move for!
In the next moment, within the silent warehouse, a hollow, icy voice rang out:
“Wait!”
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