He and It Chapter 68: Dark Sky Sanctuary (3)

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Chapter 68: Dark Sky Sanctuary (3)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

Yu Mengzhou secretly grumbled in his heart.

Now, there was no room for him to pick and choose, right? He had no choice but to follow the horse. Refusing was impossible and running away was even more impossible. The demon horse leisurely walked in front, while Yu Mengzhou desperately rushed behind its buttocks, as he watched its ferocious tail twist, intertwine and scatter.

As he walked, Yu Mengzhou’s professionalism returned and he carefully observed the horse’s condition. Excluding the horrible saddle blankets, the reins, and the horse’s maw were extremely hideous. The reins were like voracious living creatures, a kind of thorn with a muscular texture. Yu Mengzhou was able to catch a hasty glimpse of the thin copper wires on the maw, like parasitic veins, twisting and sticking into the gaps of the fangs even though the demon horse did not look back at him.

It was a sin…

Yu Mengzhou put aside his fear for a moment, and diagnosed, “This is really serious…It’s really quite serious. Should we do this?”

The demon horse paused. Only after a long while did it gently say, “The previous rider’s skill was poor. Did he make you laugh? I didn’t realize it since you smell like a human. Your skills are stronger than you look.”

“Joke? I didn’t see the joke,” Yu Mengzhou was confused. “And I didn’t lie to you. I’m a real human, as real as it gets!”

The demon horse didn’t look at the prey with an unblinking eye, just took it in the direction of the herd, ignoring Yu Mengzhou’s defense.

After hurrying for two steps, Yu Mengzhou still wasn’t satisfied, and wanted to find a breakthrough by using word therapy again. He asked, “If you are like this, your body will hurt a lot. I can…”

“Save the taunting for later, artisan,” The demon horse’s voice became softer and softer. It suddenly lost patience with its slow pace. Yu Mengzhou’s eyes blurred, and when he woke up again, he was already less than two hundred meters away from the bloody battlefield.

When the demon horse turned to talk with Yu Mengzhou, his voice was smooth, but now as he called his companions, his voice became so hoarse, so full of malice, it was like the dusk reporting the death of the crow, “You all come and see. I found something interesting. A human artisan!”

Those that were leisurely wandering, or hanging their heads to drink blood, raised their heads. On that hot field, it was as if dozens of blood red lamps lit up.

As they got closer, Yu Mengzhou realized that the condition of the demon horses weren’t exactly the same. Some were half-stripped of their cover of horse skin, then connected to a hollowed out saddle blanket; some were tightly sewn to jagged scale armor, which left only their eyes and hooves exposed; some were entangled in red-hot copper chains, and every time they moved, the copper chains agitated within the blood and flesh, and smoke covered the entire body of the demon horse…

If the previous imps were only nightmare versions of Pokemon, then the demonic warhorses in front of Yu Mengzhou’s eyes were nightmares incarnate. They roamed the hells, the executors of horror, sin and carnage. Ordinary human beings would never be able to withstand their twisted forms.

Yu Mengzhou stared blankly at the dozen or so demon horses as he carried his toolbox.

He was in this line of work, and he knew about horses. He knew that in ancient times, there was a way to cultivate war horses. Instead of feeding them grass and drinking water, the horses were fed raw meat and drank blood so that they could adapt to the blood aura of the sky on the battlefield. When such warhorses were raised, during the first twelve small empty hours of a war, before going to the battlefield, the horses’ eyes were red with hunger and they couldn’t be approached by anyone except their masters. That way, the moment they were released they would rush off and eat the head lions.

It was the most incredible, the most bizarre and heartless story of horse-breeding he had ever known, yet the flesh and blood-fed war-horse was as good and kind as an angel compared with the sight before him.

“Looks stupid,” snorted a demon horse. “Looks human, smells human, then he’s human. Can a human really be a war craftsman?”

Another snorted, “Gao’er’s always so unreliable. The only thing a war craftsman can do is to find a human who has a craving and doesn’t dare to steal food behind the chief’s back!”

“You’re so smart, Blasphe,” Gao’er sneered back. “Turn your stupid eyes. Can’t you see the toolbox in the human’s hands?”

The mare known as Blasphe laughed a loud and resounding laugh. “It’s funny you should believe a human’s bullshit! The Priest of the Back Palace, is known as the tormentor above all the devils, and you can see that in its execution room, which is so complicated and luxurious that even a needle or a nail has its own purpose. But this human with a small box dares to claim to be a war craftsman!”

“…I’m not a war craftsman,” Yu Mengzhou spoke as smoothly as he could. “I’m just a farrier.”

“How?” From behind, a demon horse approached unnoticed. It sniffed Yu Mengzhou’s shoulder, and the sulfur-filled blood that dripped from its muzzle caused Yu Mengzhou’s coat to burn, causing him to jump to his feet and clap at it half-heartedly. “Are you going to smash one of us over the head with your little box?”

You can question my ability, but you can’t question my professionalism! Annoyed, Yu Mengzhou exclaimed, “I’ll fix your hooves the way normal people fix theirs! Pluck the ghosts on your hooves, then put medicine on them, bandage them up. Fix them like this!”

At the sound of his words, the four directions went silent.

Yu Mengzhou covered the hole in his jacket and raised his eyes in disbelief to see the entirety of the demonic horses were collectively staring at him in silence, while several stoically bared their fangs.

“No wonder he could hoodwink Gao’er…a flamboyant fraudster as it turns out…” Blasphe looked him up and down. “Your Charmed Aura was so perfectly concealed that even we didn’t realize it was coming. So much so that we developed a subtle fondness for you. But your stupidity has gotten you into trouble. In order to stay alive, you are willing to tell such a crude lie!”

Yu Mengzhou was confused, “No! Did I lie? If you don’t believe me, you can try me. It doesn’t cost anything to try!”

Blasphe was furious. “Spouting unnecessary sweet nothings!”

Her Majesty was tarnished by a small fraudster, and the demon horse unconsciously moved forward, approaching Yu Mengzhou. The other demon horses followed suit, as they spat out long blood-red tongues, hissed and sniffed the scent of Yu Mengzhou’s body.

“–Stop.”

Behind all the demonic warhorses, a cold voice was heard.

Yu Mengzhou wiped the sweat from his face and couldn’t help but look over. In his line of sight stood a pitch-black demonic warhorse, its body burning with flames, its horns coiled with crimson lines. Its saddle blanket was heavier and more grand than all the other demonic horses, as if it wasn’t meant to torment it but rather to repress its instincts as much as possible.

“…Falchion,” Blasphe whispered. “but he…”

“It won’t be long before word of our victory spreads throughout the realm,” the demon horse named Falchion said indifferently. “And when it does, it will cause another wave of challenges. We’ll need war craftsmen. “

“Him? But he’s a liar!” The other demon horses questioned their leader’s order with rare surprise. “As long as we are willing, any master craftsmen in the Demon Realm, especially those with excellent skills, will be happy to serve us…”

“The only ones who can come are the artisans who have already chosen sides,” Falchion said. “He, on the other hand, has not the slightest scent of residue on him, clean as pure lava.”

When he saw his herd fall silent, the leader of the herd didn’t look Yu Mengzhou in the eye, only ordered, “Lock him up for future use.”

The situation took a turn for the worse. Yu Mengzhou was thrown into a sharp bone cage before he could even say a word.

“Wait, at least give me food, ah!” Yu Mengzhou grasped the cage, and looked out fearlessly. “I didn’t lie, I didn’t lie to you!”

The night wind whistled. When he arrived there, Yu Mengzhou finally realized that the sky in hell could be dark.

It was a good thing he wasn’t cold. The demon horses burned with unchecked flames, so when a dozen or so of them came together it was like a dozen or so big furnaces and it was burning the ground hot. Yu Mengzhou leaned back and sat in the cage, as he constantly licked his dry lips. He had to get his strength back. Without rest he would soon be dragged down by the twin evils of dehydration and exhaustion.

“You’re not afraid of us.”

Without opening his eyes, Yu Mengzhou knew that it was the youngest of them, the demon horse named Striker, who was close enough to speak.

“I’m not really afraid,” he said in a muffled voice.

Striker observed the human in the cage. He looked so small and fragile, like a thin bone dried by the wind, that he couldn’t help but try to put his nose against the human’s hand, but halfway there, he suddenly remembered that the older horse had said he had a kind of “Charming Aura,” and he pulled his head back in abhorrence.

After a while, the curiosity in his eyes gradually overshadowed the hatred. Striker asked, “Why aren’t you afraid? You should be.”

“…I’ve seen too many horses,” Yu Mengzhou said. “If you were in any other form, I’d be afraid, but you’re horses, so I’m not.”

“Nonsense,” Striker muttered. “Have you ever seen a horse? The only warhorse in this land is the Devil’s Warhorse, the coveted champion of the gods. Whose glory can be stronger than ours?”

Yu Mengzhou forced a smile.

“Then,” he said. His tone was different from Gao’er’s seductive gentleness but his soft whisper generated a temperature that made Striker, born of magma, feel inexplicably hot. “Big, small, solid-colored, fancy-furred, mischievous, quiet…Each horse is different, with its own traits and personality.”

“I don’t understand,” Striker said frankly. “What’s mischievous? What’s quiet?”

“Just…” Yu Mengzhou was stumped. “They are just words used to describe personality. They don’t mean anything special.”

Unable to hold back, Striker looked around, and when he saw that no horses were looking that way, he approached the cage as if nothing had happened, and sniffed the human’s scent.

It was strange, a smell it had never experienced before, not like blood, not like cold blades, rotting corpses or the stench of sulfuric flames. It smelled…Soft? It floated, it was light, it was, well…

Finally, it couldn’t figure it out so, well, smell it again.

No horse noticed its movements, okay. So sniff again. Make sure it’s the last time.

Yu Mengzhou couldn’t help but laugh as he sensed the hot snort. “Are you done?”

Striker jumped in shock. He hastily retracted his head and feigned innocence as he toyed with the brass nails on his body. However as his head automatically tilted back, he hurriedly stepped away.

“Falchion,” the young demon horse called the herd leader’s name, and hung his head apprehensively.

“Go rest.” Falchion’s voice was as deep as ice. “Our intervals are precious.”

Striker had no choice but to leave the cage that held the human. Before he left, he looked back. The human’s face was hidden by a blur, and for some reason, it didn’t sit well with him.

Would the human be punished by the chief? Although he was a liar, just now he took the initiative to talk to him, so to be punished like this, no doubt, was unjust. However, it shouldn’t question the chief’s decision…Wait, he wasn’t too close to the human, so he was lured by that “Charming Aura,” was he?

Yu Mengzhou didn’t know what was going on in the young demon horse’s mind. All he knew was that the leader of the herd in front of him was staring at him, and his eyes were very scary.

“You tempt us one more time,” Falchion said. “And I’ll tear out your tongue. Personally.”