He and It Chapter 73: Dark Sky Sanctuary (8)

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Chapter 73: Dark Sky Sanctuary (8)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: GaeaTiamat

Yu Mengzhou had only been sitting alone for a few moments when a horse’s head crept in. When he turned his head, all he could see were two red glowing eyes, peering at him from heavy armor. Even the most courageous person would have jumped at the sudden sight of those eyes. His heart stopped for a beat, then he immediately recognized the horse for who he was.
“Crusade?” Yu Mengzhou called tentatively. “Come in. Why are you standing there?”
–The demon horse “Crusade.” Even among the many strange companions, he was the one that stood out the most.
On the first day of his arrival, Yu Mengzhou remembered him because Crusade never spoke and from the tip of his nose to the end of his horse’s tail, he was sewn up inside a sharp cloak, and showed no hide at all. The only thing that could be seen were his eyes.
Crusade walked in silently, far unlike his noisy companions, and lay down in front of Yu Mengzhou. He was carrying food and precious wine on his back. Yu Mengzhou stared at him for a moment. For some reason he felt that Crusade’s gaze was very sad.
He took down the bag of food, put the bottle of wine to the side and tried to touch his fur, but he was met with cold and sharp armor.
“What’s wrong?” Yu Mengzhou unconsciously softened his voice. “Are you unhappy?”
Crusade paused for a moment. He looked outside, and then turned to Yu Mengzhou. His eyes were haunted, it was hard to tell what they meant.
Yu Mengzhou also peeked outside, he lowered his voice and whispered to the demon horse, “Are they disturbing you?”
Crusade let out a deep breath and moved his lips, which shook the copper ring that sealed his mouth with a tinkling sound. He didn’t shake his head, nor did he nod his head, he just looked deeply and pitifully at Yu Mengzhou, and that gaze was as if it contained tears. It almost broke Yu Mengzhou’s heart.
He threw down the bag of food and hurriedly hugged Crusade’s neck, not caring how the spikes on his armor stung and stuck to his hands, as he murmured a promise to the demon horse, “Don’t be afraid, don’t worry. I’ll find a way to get rid of the confinement on you…”
Crusade was careful to stay next to him, not to let the sharp armor on his body scrape Yu Mengzhou, as he let out a soft huffing sound as if it were a whispered response.
Falchion, “…”
His eyes narrowed, and his horse’s tail slapped the air not so gently, making a sharp whipping sound. Crusade immediately raised his head and met the chief’s gaze in return.
Yu Mengzhou turned his head to see Falchion’s figure as well. When he felt Crusade struggle slightly in his arms, he immediately released his hands and allowed him to stand up.
“Go,” Falchion said. “Your brothers are waiting for you.”
Yu Mengzhou looked left and right. He always had the feeling that the atmosphere was a bit odd. Crusade took one last look at Yu Mengzhou and walked out of the cave wordlessly.
Falchion asked, “Does the food still taste good?”
“Ooooh.” Yu Mengzhou snapped back to attention as he ripped open the leather pouches. “I haven’t eaten yet…Oooh, pasties!” ¹
In amazement, he held up a soft pasty that was pure white like silver with heat still rising from it through the greaseproof paper. “How can there be this kind of food in hell? You guys…I mean demons, don’t you all eat meat and drink blood?”
“Instead of eating flesh and drinking blood, demons are creatures that are willing to try anything,” Falchion said. “Even if you wanted the Holy Water of the Church, we can find it for you in the Demon Realm.”
Yu Mengzhou tried biting into it. It was fragrant and sweet, he could taste that it was a kind of pastry, however the texture of the filling was dense and had a cheese-like texture which melted on his tongue at once. He was shocked, “This…this is too delicious!”
“Like it?” Falchion’s eyes flooded with laughter. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Who made this? I think he’s the Imperial Chef!” Yu Mengzhou swallowed it into his stomach in two or three bites and picked up another one. “This craftsmanship…it’s perfect!”
Oh, a mistake, Falchion muttered in his mind, I should have known to leave the chef alive…
Yu Mengzhou ate five in one gulp before stopping to catch his breath. He smiled shyly as he clutched his glass of wine.
“So, what’s the deal with Crusade?” he asked. “With the armor wrapped around him like that, there’s no place to start if I just want to fix his hooves.”
“Crusade? “Falchion said slowly. ” He was born with the roar of the earth’s core, so from the moment he landed on the ground, he had the power of an extremely strong spell. Angola wasn’t watching out for that, and was once shaken to pieces by the sound of his voice, and had no choice but to hide his soul deep in his palace, which barely saved himself from death. Crusade was also the one who managed to escape for the longest time of all of us. After Angola understood his words, he captured Crusade, and in order to punish him for his disrespect and to cover up his own failure, he locked his mouth and tongue with nine copper rings…”
Yu Mengzhou’s heart clogged up as he set down his glass. “I’ll give it a look now then.”
Falchion stared at him, and his exhale was like a low laugh.
“The Striker boy is fond of you,” he said. “If you have any energy left, just look at him first. Crusade’s in a special situation. There’s no need to be in such a hurry.”
“No need?” Yu Mengzhou stood up. “It’s going to be resolved in time anyway, so…”
Before he could finish his words, a magnificent horn suddenly sounded in the distance. Falchion’s eyes lit up with fire as he raised his head morosely.
Soon, Striker squeezed into the cave. His words spewed with a bloody murderous intent that Yu Mengzhou had never heard before, “There’s an army coming. It should be the Demons of the Unbridled Pleasure Palace!”
Yu Mengzhou also jumped up in panic. “What? Who is coming?”
“Ride on my back,” Falchion said. “We should go.”
The sudden disturbance further overwhelmed Yu Mengzhou. “But I don’t know how to ride you. The size doesn’t fit!”
“Just jump!” Striker scurried over in a hurry and pushed Yu Mengzhou onto the chief’s spine with one nudge of his head. The reins on both sides of Falchion suddenly swam up nimbly and attempted to wrap around Yu Mengzhou’s arms, before they were ripped by Striker viciously and bitten into a wilted condition. “Grab the ropes and hold on tight! On the line!”
“You take his toolbox,” Falchion stood up and ordered in a deep voice. Yu Mengzhou’s perspective went up infinitely at once, which panicked him as he sat sideways on the horse’s back. He tugged firmly on the hard saddle.
At the order, the young demon horse immediately threw the box onto his back and wrapped the reins around it in a death grip. By the time they stepped out of the cave, the slew of demon horses were ready to go, drool trickling down their fangs as they tugged at their bridles’ bits in an anxious and excited manner.
“This place is pretty hidden, isn’t it? How did the enemy find out?” Yu Mengzhou asked urgently. “And why is Gao’er nowhere to be seen?”
“Perhaps we bloodied a palace of the Unbridled Pleasure Sect, thus revealing our whereabouts?” Blasphe smiled with a silky mouth. “Either way, it was all worth it.”
Falchion ignored the teasing as he calmly ordered, “Gao’er knows what he has to do, let’s go. Bloody Butcher, you take the rear.”
The flames that rose up surrounded the human and made it impossible to see his form and appearance. Falchion hissed furiously and rushed out of the cavern, igniting the night.
“It’s there! I see it! The blasphemous horse! The oldest being and symbol of all!”
A greedy howl rang out across the plains, followed by a swarm of demons, who wildly responded to the war cry.
“Catch them!”
“They won’t be able to run fast. As long as we drown them in death and blood, the Demon Realm will also submit to us–”
“Charge, charge!”
Ten thousand devils roared like a calamity that had turned into a solid body, but Yu Mengzhou couldn’t hear anything. He was totally focused on holding onto the reins and the saddle so tightly that his buttocks were about to be turned upside down. Falchion’s reins were originally bitten very hard by Striker, and now they were being squeezed by him with so much force that they were literally about half-dead. Falchion wasn’t afraid of the reins. It wasn’t that he couldn’t hear them, he just couldn’t see them.
“Don’t be afraid!” Around him, the Demon Horses ran almost side by side with their leader, and they used the words they had learned from Yu Mengzhou, clumsily backtracking to comfort him, “Ambushes are usually at night. Just need to wait until daytime!”
“What?!” Yu Mengzhou shouted back. “Is this going to be a whole night’s fight?!”
“If you’re sleepy, you can sleep on the chief’s back!” The demon horses suggested sincerely. “It’s possible to lie down!”
Yu Mengzhou, “…”
I’ll sleep your ass.
The flames obscured his form and prevented him from seeing the outside world. In fact, the iron hooves of the demonic warhorses trampled in all directions. The earth they ran through cracked, and magma erupted from the fissures, and those vanguards who thought that they could belittle them in terms of speed became the first victims of the battlefield. The second batch after that were the wizards who sniped at them using long-distance magic.
That was because Bloody Butcher stepped on the lava unharmed, and finally began his killing journey.
In fact, no sophisticated means were used at all. A saddle blanket full of torture devices, combined with his heavy, massive frame, made Bloody Butcher a deadly chariot full of blades, and only then did the chariot lift its speed limit. The arrows on the battlefield were as fast as light, while he was faster than a beam of light!
–If there was an imperial weapon that was huge, sharp, and so fast that no one could stop it, what would it turn the battlefield into?
The pursuing demon army finally realized what an oversight they had made, but it was too late. A battlefield was a place where only evenly matched opponents stood against each other; if it was only a one-sided rout, then it couldn’t be called a battlefield, just a slaughterhouse.
At that moment, the army of demons was like a tender lamb facing the butcher who would end them, and once the charge started, it couldn’t be stopped. It was a chain reaction, and the emergency brakes of the warriors who were rushing to the front only caused a serious collision in the rear.
Bloody Butcher was bathed in fragmented flesh and broken limbs. His maniacal laughter sounded like a roar, his chest rumbling with thunderous fury, as he soaked, intoxicated, in fear and screams.
It had been too long. He had waited for that moment for too long, they had been treated like walking pieces of spiced meat for too long. It was so good to take revenge, it was so good to crush his enemies! Soon, no one in the Demon Realm would dare to tempt the greed of conquering them. Neither Angola, nor any of the other condescending archdemons would dare to call themselves by the title of Master again! He hasn’t…
“Bloody Butcher,” Falchion’s voice cut through the corpse-strewn battlefield and fell upon the ears of Bloody Butcher, who was in hot pursuit of the fleeing army.
...He hadn’t killed enough, he was going to…!
“Bloody Butcher!” Falchion’s increasingly stringent summons came. “Stop chasing! The human wants to see what the condition of your hooves is. If there are any dark wounds he hasn’t noticed.”
Bloody Butcher stopped and froze. His ears twitched as he stared ahead at the festering, rolling demons.
“…Oh. Okay.” With that, he said, “I’ll be right there!”
He shook off the messy adhesions with all his might and turned his head without a second thought, as he scattered his hooves in wild pursuit.
“Wait, don’t rush back,” Falchion said slowly. “Get cleaned up.”
“Ooooh! Okay.”
Bloody Butcher thought urgently for a moment, and then hurriedly pounced in the direction of the fleeing army again, intent on catching a cleansing wizard first.