Jiang Lin stood in the center of the courtyard and nodded.
“Alright. What time do we set out?”
“We set out before dawn. Someone will pick you up at the courtyard gate then.”
The old-robed man didn't linger after saying this, turning and walking away the way he had come.
His pace was neither fast nor slow, resembling a shadow drifting in the wind in the twilight.
Jiang Lin watched him disappear around the corner before turning back into his room.
Big Guy leaned against the doorframe next door, looking in his direction without a word. The two exchanged a glance, and then each closed their doors.
Leaning against the edge of his bed, he closed his eyes and went over the escort mission for the day after tomorrow in his mind.
Bramble Town to the west was located at the southern foothills of the Ash Mountains on the map, belonging to the border region of the Twilight Kingdom. It was not far from the area where one of his three target objectives was known to appear.
Blood Raven was said to operate west of the Ash Mountains, and Bramble Town happened to be right on the edge of its range of activity.
Withered Bone's abandoned mine was also in a northern branch of the same mountain range. If the escort route could detour slightly, he might be able to head over and investigate on the way.
Of course, that was a matter for later.
For now, he needed to do well on this escort mission first, maintaining the upward momentum of his identity as “Drake” within the secret cult.
Two days later, in the early morning before the sky had fully brightened, a thin layer of fog still floated over the streets of Shadow City. When Jiang Lin pushed open the courtyard gate at the agreed-upon time, a dark gray cargo carriage was already parked at the entrance. Several sealed wooden crates were piled in the cart bed, tightly bound with thick hemp ropes, their surfaces stamped with the twisted insignia of the secret cult.
The driver was a middle-aged man who looked to be in his fifties. He wore a faded short tunic, his face tanned dark by the sun. He was squatting next to a wheel, wiping the iron hoop on the shaft with a piece of oilcloth. Seeing Jiang Lin walk out, he stood up and sized him up, skipping any unnecessary pleasantries.
“Just you?”
“Just me.”
“Alright, get on.” The driver patted the dust off the carriage board. “It's quite a distance. We'll be doing well if we reach Bramble Town before dark. If we run into anything on the road, you make the calls. I only drive the carriage.”
Jiang Lin hopped onto the carriage board and found a spot to sit next to the wooden crates.
The carriage slowly rolled through the streets of Shadow City in the morning fog, passing through the city gates and turning onto a dirt road that stretched westward.
The road was not particularly smooth. As the wheels rolled over gravel and hard, dry dirt, the carriage bumped from time to time, causing the ropes on the wooden crates to sway slightly.
As the sunlight rose from behind the eastern hills, the fog gradually dispersed, revealing the barren fields on both sides and the gray outline of the distant mountains.
Jiang Lin sat leaning against a wooden crate, his gaze occasionally sweeping over the terrain along the way, memorizing the locations of the roadside forks, abandoned farmhouses, and dried-up riverbeds.
After traveling for about four hours, the carriage stopped in front of a dilapidated tea shack next to a three-way intersection. The driver reined in the horse, hopped down, and patted the dirt off his hands.
“We'll rest for half an hour, get some water, and then keep going. The road ahead isn't easy to travel. It's easy for things to go wrong when both the people and horses are exhausted.”
Jiang Lin jumped down from the carriage board, walked over to the tea shack, scooped up a bowl of cold water with a coarse clay bowl, and drank it slowly.
There were no other customers in the tea shack. Most of the thatch on the roof had been blown away by the wind, exposing a few blackened wooden beams.
A hunchbacked old man sat on a small stool in the corner of the shack, a pot of coarse tea that had gone cold long ago sitting in front of him, looking as though he had sat there for most of his life.
Squatting in the shade outside the tea shack, the driver pulled out a dry flatbread from the cloth pouch at his waist, tore it open, and began to eat, speaking indistinctly as he chewed:
“Forty more miles ahead, there's an abandoned watchtower that used to be for the border. Further west from there is the territory of Bramble Town.”
Holding the coarse clay bowl, Jiang Lin stood at the edge of the tea shack, his gaze passing over the driver's shoulder to land on the distant gray silhouette that distorted slightly in the heat waves.
The watchtower wasn't tall, about three or four stories high. Most of its top had already collapsed, leaving only a few broken, low walls standing there like a broken finger.
“It used to be for the border,” Jiang Lin asked casually. “No one manages it now?”
“Who would bother?” The driver swallowed a mouthful of flatbread and wiped the corner of his mouth with his sleeve. “That place is still twenty miles from Bramble Town, in the middle of nowhere. The patrol teams don't go over there either. Someone did live there for a while in the past, but for some unknown reason, they all withdrew later.”
Jiang Lin didn't ask further. He finished the cold water in his bowl and placed it back on the counter of the tea shack.
He turned to the hunchbacked old man inside the tea shack, asking for a small packet of coarse salt wrapped in a dry lotus leaf.
The old man tremblingly took the copper coin and rummaged through a broken wooden crate behind him to pull out the salt packet. Jiang Lin took it, put it in his breast pocket, and thanked him.
After the carriage set off again and traveled for over two hours, the dilapidated watchtower gradually appeared on a gentle slope about half a mile to the front-left of the road.
The tower was built of dark gray stone bricks, its ground-floor doors and windows long since rotted away and fallen out, exposing a dark, cavernous interior.
The remaining half of the low wall at the top of the tower was covered in withered vines, swaying slightly in the wind.
The driver was clearly very familiar with this road, not even turning his head as they passed the watchtower.
Sitting on the carriage board, Jiang Lin let his gaze linger on the watchtower for a moment.
The carriage continued forward, rolling over a gravel-strewn slope and bypassing a dried-up depression. The watchtower was gradually obscured by the roadside bushes and rolling terrain, disappearing from view.
After traveling for about another hour, the scattered outlines of houses appeared ahead.
Bramble Town had arrived.
Bramble Town was slightly larger than Anvil Town, but far inferior to Shadow City.
A crooked wooden post stood at the entrance of the town, hanging a faded wooden sign with the town's name written on it in charcoal.
Most of the houses on both sides of the street were low adobe dwellings, their walls draped with withered vines. A few shops had their doors half-open, their stalls displaying coarse clay pots, dry herbs, and bundles of hemp rope.
The carriage stopped in front of a courtyard built of gray stone. The driver hopped down and went around to the back to begin untying the ropes on the wooden crates.
Two young men wearing dark gray short robes walked out of the courtyard, spoke a few words with the driver, and began carrying the crates.
Once the two gray-robed young men had carried the last wooden crate into the courtyard, the driver patted the dust off his hands and turned to Jiang Lin:
“The goods have been delivered. Are you going to rest in town for the night, or are you heading back with the carriage?”
Jiang Lin glanced at the sky.
It was just past noon, and the sun was still slanting in the west. If they set out immediately, they could make it back to Shadow City before dark.
But he was in no hurry to make a decision.
“Is there anywhere to stay in town?” he asked.
“The 'Old Raven' at the end of the street has beds. Five copper coins a night, and they provide a warm meal.” As the driver spoke, he climbed back onto the carriage board. “I'll head back to report first. You can find your own way back to the city tomorrow. Stick to the main road; don't take shortcuts.”
The carriage rumbled along the dirt road back toward Shadow City, disappearing among the sparse bushes on the outskirts of Bramble Town.
Standing at the entrance of the gray stone courtyard, Jiang Lin nodded to the two gray-robed young men who had finished moving the supplies as a greeting, then turned and walked deeper into the town along the main street.
Bramble Town was quieter than he had anticipated.
Most of the shops on both sides of the main street had their doors half-closed. Occasional pedestrians passed by, their paces unhurried, carrying the lazy rhythm characteristic of border towns.
The air carried a scent mixed with hay, soil, and livestock manure.
He stopped in front of the small tavern hanging the "Old Raven" sign at the entrance of the town and pushed the door open to enter.
The tavern wasn't large. A few rough wooden tables were arranged crookedly. In a corner against the wall sat several locals wearing short tunics, clay cups placed in front of them as they chatted idly about something.
Standing behind the counter was a middle-aged woman wearing a faded apron, wiping a clay bowl with a dirty cloth.
“Staying the night?” she looked up at Jiang Lin.
“One night.” Jiang Lin fished out five copper coins and placed them on the counter. “Is there food?”
“Dinner is barley porridge and pickled vegetables, that'll be another two copper coins.” The woman accepted the coppers, fished out an iron key from beneath the counter, and tossed it onto the surface. “The room facing the street on the second floor. Serve yourself dinner downstairs.”
Jiang Lin picked up the key and went upstairs.
The room was small, with a narrow bed and a window facing the street. Outside the window, the dirt road at the entrance of the town and the gray mountain ridges in the distance were visible.
He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, going over the terrain he had memorized along the way today in his mind.
He still remembered the location of the abandoned watchtower. It was about twenty miles from Bramble Town, not far from the main road, yet devoid of other buildings nearby—secluded enough.
He stayed in his room until dark, then went downstairs to have a bowl of barley porridge.
The locals in the tavern had changed to a new batch. Sitting in the corner were two middle-aged men wearing worn leather armor. Judging by their attire, they looked like mercenaries who frequently traveled the border. A half-pot of ale sat in front of them as they spoke in low voices.
Holding his porridge bowl, Jiang Lin sat at a table near them. He didn't speak, only drinking his porridge quietly.
“That was last month, wasn't it?”
“Just about. I heard that guy has circled back from the south again, and he's even crazier than last time.”
“That fellow Blood Raven is said to have already broken through to the 7th-Rank. I wonder if it's true.”
“It's true.” The other voice lowered slightly. “The village north of Bramble Town was slaughtered three days ago. The entire village, not a single survivor left. The wounds on their bodies were all torn by claws, and all their blood was drained. Some say it was Blood Raven's doing, but others say it doesn't look like it—he didn't use to do things this way.”
“Then how does he do it now?”
“It's even more bizarre now. I heard that he can now track you from several hundred paces away just by the blood you spill on the ground. It doesn't matter where you hide; as long as he has touched your blood, he can follow that trace to find you. Last month, an entire squad of the border patrol went missing, only to be found fifty miles away. All of them had been bled dry, their corpses as desiccated as firewood.”
Jiang Lin lowered his head to drink his porridge, remaining silent.
The two mercenaries chatted a bit more, their topic shifting from Blood Raven to the rotation of the border patrol, and later turning into complaints about the town's business taxes rising again.
After finishing his porridge, Jiang Lin put his empty bowl back into the wooden basin by the counter and went upstairs.
Early the next morning, just as the sky was beginning to brighten, Jiang Lin checked out of his room and walked back along the dirt road he had come on.
Instead of returning directly to Shadow City, he veered off the main road about five miles away from Bramble Town, taking a detour along a fork that was almost swallowed by weeds to approach the abandoned watchtower once again.
In the morning light, the outline of the watchtower was clearer than it had been yesterday.
The ruined brick walls glowed with a grayish-white hue in the morning sun, and the collapsed low wall at the top was covered with withered vines swaying gently in the morning breeze.
He walked a circle around the watchtower, confirming there were no signs of anyone having been active nearby recently, then walked inside through the rotted-out doorway on the ground floor.
The interior was even more dilapidated than it appeared from the outside.
Most of the stone bricks on the floor were shattered, accumulated with thick dust and broken tiles. Smudge marks remained on the walls, and a few pieces of decayed wood were piled in the corner.
There were no stairs inside the tower. The stone steps leading to the second floor had completely collapsed, leaving only a few broken fragments of steps sticking out from the wall.
But the ground floor was spacious enough. Jiang Lin squatted in the inner corner, retrieved a few pre-prepared stone materials and an engraving knife from his spatial ring, and began to carve the array pattern of a teleportation array onto the floor.
The location he chose was very concealed, close to the base of the wall and shielded by a collapsed half-brick wall outside. Looking from the doorway, one would only see piles of broken tiles and dust.
He compressed the patterns within a diameter of less than one meter as much as possible, ensuring that no abnormalities could be seen from the outside.
The carving process took less than half an hour.
It was not his first time setting up such a short-distance teleportation array. His movements were swift and steady, with the path of the rune patterns and the positions of the nodes precise to the millimeter.
Finally, he embedded three dark magic crystals into the array core and covered the surface of the runes with a thin layer of loose soil, making the entire ground look no different from its surroundings.
He stood up, stepped back two paces, and observed for a moment, confirming there were no flaws.
Then he turned and walked out of the watchtower, retracing his steps to the main road and heading toward Shadow City.
Naturally, it was impossible for him to stay here and hunt directly.
Otherwise, it would appear far too strange.
After all, he had not been here long, yet he had already sacrificed dozens of his colleagues one after another.
If Blood Raven were disposed of shortly after he arrived in Bramble Town, then he would look extremely suspicious.
In the eyes of the secret cult's higher-ups, he only possessed 3rd-Rank peak combat strength at most.
If more higher-ups from the secret cult came to investigate his true situation after he dealt with Blood Raven, his disguise probably wouldn't last long.
Therefore, Jiang Lin's current plan was to disguise himself as a secret cult Holy Son candidate who was about to break through to the 4th-Rank, but for various reasons, temporarily disguised his aura as the 3rd-Rank early stage.
Later, if there was an opportunity to sacrifice more colleagues or demons, he would take the chance to pretend that he accidentally failed to suppress his breakthrough aura, exposing his presence as the 4th-Rank early stage.
This way, in the records of the secret cult, he would possess the strength of the 4th-Rank early stage.
Then, through some fortuitous encounters, he would gradually raise his strength bit by bit.
Eventually, he would raise his superficial strength to the 5th-Rank early stage.
By doing so, his superficial strength in the records of the secret cult would match his actual superficial strength.
Even if a 9th-Rank powerhouse came to investigate, he would still be at the 5th-Rank early stage.
Of course, after sacrificing a few times now, he was already on the verge of reaching the 5th-Rank mid-stage.
He wondered if he could sacrifice this Blood Raven as well.
...
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