He and It Chapter 76: Dark Sky Sanctuary (11)

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Chapter 76: Dark Sky Sanctuary (11)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

The Bishop rolled his eyes furtively. Though he wore extravagant clothing and wielded a jeweled staff, his head was in the form of a four-horned black goat, and his square amber pupils were naturally magical and sinister.

“Well…” He pretended to put on a show. “As you know, on the battlefield, swords have no eyes. They may be crazy, delirious, or they may be looking at the wrong thing. Of course, it is more likely that they are looking at the right thing. After all, they are the invincible demon horses, and whoever can gain their allegiance will become the master of this world, like you…”

He lengthened his voice and sighed, “So what can I expect from the last words of a deserter? It is better for you to decide whether their dying babble is true or not.”

Through the curtain, Angola didn’t speak for some time. It was only after a long time that he gave a vague “hmmm” as if he had been awakened from a doze.

“Your prudent fidelity truly puts the other courtiers to shame,” Angola’s tone was indistinguishable from anger. “I’m ashamed to say that after my serious injury, I’ve lost all control of that group of rebellious courtiers. But since it’s your request, well, I’ll send someone to find out what’s going on. I am tired. You may go down.”

The bishop bowed respectfully and exited the audience room, step by step.

When he was entirely out of Angola’s earshot, the bishop whispered morosely, “Sooner or later he will die of presumption as well as of greed.”

The Bishop’s Favorite held his staff discreetly and spoke in a voice quieter than his, “You just tried to provoke the Prince. It is too dangerous…”

“Because I can feel that the power I attached to the spell pegs is starting to weaken, and this complete mess is something he made,” the Bishop hissed, word by word. “He’d better know exactly what he’s doing. If the Demon Horses do break free, then we’re all doomed!”

“Just let the Prince face the wrath of those warhorses!” the Favored Servant said hastily. “We can just watch the battle from the sidelines. No matter who the victor is, it won’t affect our position.”

The Bishop suddenly turned his head. His goat pupils narrowed, and his palms, which wore sharp claw ornaments of black and gold, immediately cupped the Favored Servant’s snow-white, flawless face.

“Let me ask you. When you attempted a robbery, and thus set out to kill off a family of your own kind, did you ever think that you would come here after death?” he asked gently. “Pure white people who are not tainted with sin do not go to hell, just remember that. We, none of us, are innocent.”

He slowly loosened his grip, and watched with pleasure the sight of his Favored Servant enduring the pain as the bloody hole in his face gradually healed. Soon, however, this pleasure was like frost at the sight of light, it dissolved in an instant, and left only a deep, dark gloom.

“In this matter, everyone has a part to play…” He looked in the direction of the royal city. The Bishop muttered, “You can continue to be arrogant, if you really want to be exposed. The first to be annihilated must be Angola.”

–

“Go to sleep!”

Yu Mengzhou announced loudly, as he clutched his pillow – which he had snatched.

The demon horses looked at their companions, and after a while, a demon horse who stood behind him said quietly and shyly, “We don’t need to sleep…”

Yu Mengzhou turned around. As soon as the demon horse, Catastrophe, met his gaze, he hurriedly hid his body back in the darkness of the cave, and left only one eye to peek at him.

“Don’t be shy.” He waved at the demon horse in a friendly manner. “Don’t you guys even sleep for an hour? I haven’t seen you guys rest since last night.”

“Rest…No, it’s not a necessity,” Catastrophe stammered. “Besides, we can…we can also sleep standing up…”

Yu Mengzhou was a little bemused. “Of course I know horses can sleep standing up, but how can you do that without resting?”

Falchion came over and mused, “There’s nothing wrong with taking a nap. Whoever doesn’t want to sleep can go on watch.”

Saying that, he told Yu Mengzhou, “You pick a place.”

“I pick?” Yu Mengzhou scratched his forehead. Anyway, the place was so big, he just randomly picked a spot on the side, and lay down with the bedding – which he also grabbed.

“Right here!”

Falchion nodded solemnly, wandered over unhurriedly, and lay down next to Yu Mengzhou.

“Well, this is a pretty good spot,” he said.

The demon horses’ collective pupils quaked.

Worthy of being the chief, how old and cunning! Indeed, why didn’t they think of that? Horses sleep standing up, but humans sleep lying down, ah! No matter if they rested or not, they could totally stick it up first and then talk about it, ah!

The herd eyed the position on the other side and soon they were fighting in the cavern by you kicking me and me biting you. Taking advantage of this, Catastrophe gathered his courage, snuck up, and fell to the ground with a loud thud.

The cave was silent. Catastrophe buried his nose in Yu Mengzhou’s pillow and said, “First, first come, first served.”

The leader of the group was there, so even if the herd had more grievances, they had to swallow them in their stomachs.Yu Mengzhou listened to them blowing their mouths out and cursing in whispers, and found it amusing.

If catnip was planted in the open space, it wouldn’t take more than a day for a field of cats to be sprawled around it, and Yu Mengzhou was now facing that situation. However, because of the excessive size of the demon horses and the hideous and jagged saddle blankets on their bodies, they didn’t get too close in the end. The only thing they could do was to lie down in a circle around the human for now.

The cave completely darkened. Even the blazing fire on the demonic horses stopped burning, and in the boundless blackness of the night, only the sounds of high and low undulating breathing remained.

Yu Mengzhou cushioned himself on a pillow that was too soft to be called a pillow. Living with the herd these days, he seemed to have gotten used to the smell of metal, blood, and sulfur on their bodies. Perhaps man was a creature with such a strong adaptability that he was able to sleep with peace of mind when he was sure that he was absolutely safe, no matter how harsh the surroundings were…

In the silence, he suddenly felt Falchion’s gentle, but burning exhale on the side of his face.

“Tomorrow, we’re going to pick up a few supplies,” Falchion’s voice was small and soft, almost a whisper. “Is there anything else you want?”

Yu Mengzhou rolled over and turned towards him. The tip of his nose inadvertently brushed against the soft end of the demon horse’s snout, which caused him to stiffen.

“I don’t know,” Yu Mengzhou said quietly in an airy voice, as he tried not to be heard by the horses around him when it was so silent. “But I really want a bath…”

Falchion lifted his head and buried his nose gently into the nape of the human’s neck and sniffed. His intention was to smell the human and tell him that he wasn’t dirty, but it was a mistake. It was actually a move that was wrong in the extreme – With the extremely sensitive sense of smell a demon horse had, plus the fact that Falchion had never been this close to him before, at that moment, as he pressed against the human’s skin, his nostrils filled with his scent, fluffy as a cloud, slightly salty with grains of salt, and another fragrance, so full of life that it made his bones ache and his soul twitch with hunger, as if flames were licking at his veins to burn him alive.

He paused for so long that Yu Mengzhou couldn’t help but reach out and touch the bridge of his nose. He asked in a low voice, “Falchion?”

“…You’re not dirty,” Falchion said in a muffled voice. “It’s just…Very fragrant.”

Yu Mengzhou couldn’t help but laugh, ” What fragrance? You’re just used to the smell of sulfur.”

When he saw that Falchion was still stubbornly clinging to the side of his shoulder and neck, as he made a fond purring sound in his throat, Yu Mengzhou reached up, touched his hard, sharp horns, then pressed and pushed them.

“Alright, alright,” Yu Mengzhou coaxed. “Go to sleep first.”

While the person pushing didn’t feel anything, Falchion’s breath froze for a moment.

Unlike what appearances would suggest, a demon’s horns were, in fact, very sensitive organs and symbols of honor and dignity. To risk touching a demon’s horns could be seen as a bizarre insult intended to provoke, or it could be seen as a prelude to a bold and ferocious courtship…In any case, the tactile nerves on the horns could even directly sense the soul of the person they touched, briefly connecting them to each other.

In the darkness, Yu Mengzhou’s palm was just numb for a moment. However, the demon horse’s mind shut down from overstimulation. The human’s palm was softer than the most delicate and expensive velvet, and his soul…

–His soul was like the most beautiful dream, melting even the steel of the demonic warhorse into a slimy little puddle that knew nothing but pleasure. In the depths of his mind, the never-ending rage was extinguished, replaced by another flame, the flame of extreme desire.

The herd’s leader temporarily lost the ability to speak. He suddenly went limp, and if it weren’t for the hard harness supporting him, he would have collapsed like a crumbling mountain peak at the moment, and crashed to the ground in a giant tremor, unable to move any further.

“Falchion?” Yu Mengzhou noticed that he was shaking violently, and hurriedly asked in a small voice, “What’s wrong with you? Are you alright?”

Oblivious to the cause, he moved his hand away from the horns and instead went to touch his eyes. “Hey, are you okay?”

“I…I’m fine…” Like a drowning man running out of air, Falchion trembled as he drew in and exhaled long and hard. At that moment, his feelings were strangely conflicted. He didn’t know whether to beg the human to touch his horns again, or to warn the human that the demon’s sharp horns were off-limits and not to be touched at will. “I…I’ll tell you tomorrow. It’s too late today…It’s time for you to sleep.”

After he said those words, he completely lost his usual old-fashioned and dignified demeanor, and almost panickedly tilted his head away. He didn’t dare look at Yu Mengzhou again.

Yu Mengzhou was really a bit puzzled. He was confused but as he prepared to sleep, he heard Catastrophe beside him secretly say, “I heard you whispering to the chief…”

Yu Mengzhou, “…”

Yu Mengzhou turned around and said in the same sneaky tone, “Well, now I’m whispering to you too.”

Catastrophe hid his head behind his curled-up horse’s leg and smiled shyly.

“It’s so nice of you,” he whispered. “Not to, not to laugh at my stuttering.”

Hearing the implication, Yu Mengzhou frowned as he asked in a low voice, “There are people here…I mean there are horses that laugh at you?”

“No, no, no!” Catastrophe hurriedly denied, saying three no’s in a row. “We defend each other. It’s the other demons and devils that laugh at us. However, the ones that laughed at me were all executed, executed by me, so it’s nothing…”

Yu Mengzhou lovingly rubbed his forehead and mane, then asked curiously, “But how come you stutter?”

Catastrophe opened his mouth, and by the light of a lit fire, Yu Mengzhou’s eyes widened as he saw that his tongue had been deeply cut and rather maliciously twisted together, locked at the end with a copper ring.

“Two tongues, with each, their own thoughts. What to say, can’t say, say it all at once,” he smiled shyly. “Got used to it. It’s okay.”

“I’ll remove that for you tomorrow,” Yu Mengzhou rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Okay?”

Before Catastrophe could say yes, Sevenfold Eyes, like a ghostly hag, jealously interjected overhead, “Whispered for so long, tell me something too…”

“We’ve heard it all. We’re so envious…”

“After all, it’s first come, first served, so that’s good.”

The cave was steaming with resentment. Yu Mengzhou hurriedly rolled over, quickly closed his eyes and exclaimed, “Ahem! I’ll sleep now!”

The demonic horses sputtered angrily, but as soon as he closed his eyes, he quickly fell into a sound sleep and slept dreamlessly through the night until dawn.

He woke up to find Gao’er and Striker gone, and Falchion was nowhere to be found. Iron Scepter laughed honestly, “They went to get supplies. The chief…Striker’s got a lot on his mind, so Gao’er alone can’t control him.” 

Yu Mengzhou nodded thoughtfully. Speaking of which, what was it last night that Falchion said l he was going to tell him about today?

After breakfast, since he had promised Catastrophe, he took out the smaller hoof-cutting pliers and cleaned them before untangling the restraints on his tongue.

Through some principle, when he used the tool in his hand to deal with those torture devices that had applied magic and were supposed to be stronger than steel, it was like taking a hammer to a peanut, and broke the shackles with ease. Like how at that moment, as he carefully avoided the soft, slippery tongue and shattered the brass ring with a slight pinch on it.

Although the removed copper ring had left four holes in Catastrophe’s tongue, he was still very happy. He opened his mouth for novelty and flicked his tongue around.

With the tongue all messed up, it was natural to repair his hooves as well. Yu Mengzhou took the hoof trimming knife and observed their condition first.

Although the hooves of ordinary horses would have all kinds of diseases, such as rotting hooves, cumbersome hoof meat, erosion and so on, the diseases of the demon horses far exceeded the scope of these, and were in a state unimaginable to ordinary people.

The torture devices placed on Catastrophe were like four small head crushers. This torture device used by the medieval clergy could slowly flatten and crush a person’s skull until the teeth were squeezed out the lower jaw, and the brain matter also sprayed out from the seven orifices. ¹ Catastrophe’s leg bones and hooves had already been completely deformed under that kind of pressure, and the hoof skin was also covered with cracks. If he wasn’t a demon horse with a strong and perverted healing ability, he would have long since been unable to move, and would have had to wait for his death.

Troublesome. Yu Mengzhou gripped the hoof trimming knife tightly, as he dug back and forth at the logo embossed on it.

To be precise, it was very tricky.

“Well?” Catastrophe asked hopefully. “Is there, is there a way?”

Yu Mengzhou took a deep breath and revealed a smile.

“No problem!” he said briskly. “Guaranteed to set you free.”

Author’s Note: Yu Mengzhou: touches hoof I’ll see if there’s a problem here…

Falchion: composed There is, but it’s not a big problem.

Yu Mengzhou: touches horse’s head What about here?

Falchion: still calm and reliable No problem.

Yu Mengzhou: touches the horns Here?

Falchion: says nothing and faints instantly

Prince: hangs out in the garden Well, it’s been another good day…Gah! apparently, the flower pot above his head was hit by the earthquake and fell