Chapter 1231 - 105: A Spark that Lifts the Throne

Chapter 1231: Chapter 105: A Spark that Lifts the Throne

"Brother..."

"I’m done for... I have... I have some money saved in Arabel... help me give it... give it to Tanasar..."

A voice as faint as a dying breath sounded from his back.

Dawn shoved the coils of intestine that had spilled from his belly back inside, forced out by his all-out sprint.

He didn’t look back, just snarled, "Shut up!"

"You are not going to die."

"Tanasar is still waiting for you to come home... think about your child... don’t give up... I know where we can save you!..."

Because of the extreme blood loss, Dawn was feeling a bit dizzy.

As he ran, he looked down and saw his own guts again. A Beastman raider’s war blade had slashed across his abdomen. It wasn’t fatal, but it had opened him wide enough that his intestines were spilling out.

Tenacity.

A true Warrior doesn’t go down easily. Until their fighting spirit and their life are completely burned out, they’re tougher than any other class.

But his brother, his comrade who fought shoulder to shoulder and guarded his back, was dying.

"It’s... it’s no use..."

"Keep the money... don’t waste it on me... go back... go home... stop being Mercenaries... take care of Tanasar for me..."

If there were a choice, who would choose to bleed on the knife’s edge for a handful of blood money.

The man on Dawn’s back was grievously wounded.

His right arm had been hacked off, hanging by a strip of flesh, the bone almost completely pulverized. Only a Beastman’s heavy battle-axe could do that kind of damage, like chopping meat with a dull cleaver. Beastman weapons and gear were crude, but their strength was terrifying.

The wound had already been treated—cauterized with fire, forcing the bleeding to stop.

Besides the severed right arm, several arrows were stuck in the man’s back. The shafts had been snapped off, but the arrowheads remained buried inside. Black blood seeped through the Leather Armor—poisoned, from Goblin raiders. Those vicious little dog-bastards loved Poisoning their arrows, and loved even more to raid and kidnap children and women for the pot. They didn’t have the strength to drag off grown men.

The man’s left leg was showing bone white as chalk, everything from the ankle down smashed to pieces. His right leg was bent at a grotesque angle—that was from a club blow, from an Ogre, a monster far beyond what they should have been able to handle. But they had still won.

The severe blood loss had left his breath hanging by a thread. A broken rib might have punctured a bit of lung; as Dawn pounded across the ground, the man’s lips coughed up tiny flecks of bloody froth.

With wounds like that, an ordinary man would have been dead long ago. Only a professional could hold on this long.

"Shut up!"

"Stay alive!"

Dawn no longer cared that more of his guts were slipping out of his belly. He was badly hurt too. He had taken down a one-eyed Beastman martial Warrior—an achievement Mercenaries like them had never even dared to dream of. If he brought that Beastman’s head back, it would make his name.

Because the single eye was the Mark of Ge Wush, the Beastman god.

But that no longer mattered, because his brother was dying. His brother’s life was more important than money, more important than fame.

He could not go back to his hometown carrying only his brother’s ashes.

The Warrior’s will had carried Dawn this far, but he was almost at his limit too. From blood loss, his steps were growing more and more unsteady. But a stand of forest had already appeared ahead. He knew that just beyond it was Bow Bridge; once he crossed that long span there would be a small village, and not long ago a High Tier Priest had arrived there.

Under normal circumstances, a small village would never have a High Tier Priest. Even a trainee Priest would be rare. But Dawn knew there was a Xinxing little Church whose Priest was nearby.

Dawn’s pace kept slowing, until at the end he was almost dragging himself along the ground.

His harsh, ragged breathing was like some dying wild beast—unwilling, enraged—as he forced himself onward bit by bit, his unconscious, gravely wounded brother a dead weight on his back.

All of a sudden, he thought he heard something.

In his haze, he seemed to glimpse a dark shape in the trees. Then he lost consciousness, dropping into a brief blackout. When he snapped awake again, he found that someone had roughly treated the wound on his abdomen.

A method used by an Elf Ranger.

Dawn looked up and saw a simple, honest-looking old face. In truth the man wasn’t that old, he just looked worn beyond his years.

A Warrior, Bachel.

He was a patrol in this area. Dawn had seen him a few times—a taciturn man of few words.

The man helped him up and hoisted his unconscious, critically wounded brother onto his own back. In a low voice he said, "I know where the Priest is right now. Come with me."

Someone had already rushed back to give the warning.

Dawn’s mind slipped again, and he fell back into unconsciousness.

When he opened his eyes for the second time, it was already dusk outside. The wound on his abdomen had been sewn and bandaged, and with the aid of a Divine Technique had recovered quite a bit. He was lying in a room inside a small shrine. The one tending him was a girl of twelve or thirteen, standing timidly to the side. When she saw him wake, she hurriedly said, "Lady Selena told me to tell you, he’s all right now."

At the girl’s words, the weight crushing Dawn’s heart finally eased.

A man whose guts were hanging out had forced himself to carry his comrade for more than ten kilometers, over hills and ridges. The others who’d seen him had been just as stunned.

In the room, Dawn started feeling around in his pockets and pulled out a pouch. Inside, Gold Coins clinked softly. His face showed a trace of embarrassment as he searched again and fished out a fingernail-sized red Gem.

This had originally been what he planned to use to propose—a fisherman’s daughter: warm and gentle, beautiful and open-hearted, good at understanding others. But Mercenaries lived from one day to the next. To show the sincerity of his proposal, he had saved for a long time. This Gem was worth quite a bit, but even with it added in, it probably still wasn’t enough to pay for the exorbitant Divine Technique needed to save his brother.