If you want more of this novel, we are accepting donations on Ko-Fi for sponsored chapters. https://ko-fi.com/exiledrebels
Thank you Komaeda for the donation! Glad you are liking this novel and the author!
Chapter 81: Dark Sky Sanctuary (16)
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: GaeaTiamat
Yu Mengzhou struggled, “Wait, first let me get this⊔
His nail clippers reappeared, and he pulled at the welds on the plate armor like it was a piece of thickened chocolate coin foil. The bronze armor made a sharp creaking sound. Yu Mengzhou wanted to move to a different place so as not to wake up the sleeping herd behind him, but on second thought, he figured they’d already woken up, so he stopped hiding and began to do the work.
He twisted off the copper nails that had been driven deep into the flesh and joined to the bones of the legs and then threw the torn-up leg armor into the dirt at the edge of the room.
Radiant Angel’s fur was wet with blood, but he didn’t say a word, just let Yu Mengzhou pull, the light in his eyes was very soft.
All the copper nails were removed, and the leg armor of one front leg was also removed cleanly. Yu Mengzhou looked at the deformed feathers and muttered a curse.
This crooked one, because it couldn’t be stretched, was tightly attached to the leg boneâŠYu Mengzhou didn’t want to call it a wing at all. It looked like an extracorporeal organ made up of a piece of deformed thin bone with a few wet sticky feathers and a fragile membrane.
âŠAnd at the root of that external organ, there was something else, surging.
Yu Mengzhou had a bad feeling in his heart.
He slowly picked up the small lamp, and cautiously brought it closer.
“Falchion!” he yelled with his eyes closed. “Come here, come here!”
The demon horse stopped pretending to be asleep, and rose sharply, as he instantly approached the human’s position.
“What’s the matter?!” he asked seriously. “What’s the problem⊔
“Ticks!” Yu Mengzhou practically roared. “Holy shit so many ticks! Burn them, burn them! Immediately!”
Those bulbous, densely packed, abominable little monsters pretty much formed a thriving swarm on the plume. The big ones dragged the little ones along, the long, flat ones snuggled up to the swollen ones, and layered on top of each other, eating their brains out on their host, so that even their armor glistened with grease.
Radiant Angel interjected bitterly, “That’s not what they’re called. They’re repressors. They are there to suck the essence out of my blood in a way that will suppress my ability to fly and make me extremely feeble⊔
Before he could finish explaining, Falchion had already violently spewed out a stream of golden flames, and burned alive the group of parasites that knew they were in big trouble, but couldn’t drag their fat bodies quickly enough to escape.
“… Uh, okay.” Radiant Angel sardonically licked his lips. “It’s a bit hot, haha.”
Yu Mengzhou touched the goosebumps on his body. He really, really loathed those little things. Since livestock didn’t have nimble fingers like humans, while a horse could pull tons of goods, it was completely unable to get rid of the bites of ticks and fleas. In more serious cases, tick-borne diseases could develop, which had a chance of killing even humans they got it, not to mention the animal.
He watched as the parasites hissed and stumbled and rolled and struggled under the scorching heat, then finally burned into a charred black mass, and finally sighed in relief.
“Thanks.” He waved away the heat. “Can you stay here? I mean, there’s three hooves still⊔
“No problem. Feel free to do whatever you want,” Falchion said immediately.
Yu Mengzhou padded over and drew tiny tick tweezers from the inner compartment of his toolkit. He clamped down on the shambling bug carcasses and pulled them off in one piece, along with their mouthparts that were still lodged in the skin. He tugged and dropped them as he did so, and the floor was soon covered in a layer of charred and blackened charcoal globules.
The wings were completely clean. Yu Mengzhou wiped his sweat with satisfaction. Perhaps because they had been parasitized for too long, the hairs around the wing roots were all gone, it was bare.
After he thought about it, he still applied a layer of ointment to it.
“It⊔ He carefully touched the piece of wing through his gloves. “I don’t know how I’m going to restore it, I⊔
Yu Mengzhou wanted to say that he could only fix hooves. He wasnât an orthopedic surgeon, but he was afraid that it would disappoint Radiant Angel.
“It’s okay,” Radiant Angel said. “It can still grow back slowly, and I’m already happy to be able to remove the confinement.”
Yu Mengzhou patted him wordlessly.
The feathers suffered tremendously. Radiant Angel’s hooves, on the other hand, didn’t have any weird and tricky torture devices. He took the lead in removing the five spell spikes, then followed his past process of pulling out the encircling iron thorns one by one, then carefully chipping away at the bloody scabs and dirty rotting organisms.
A curved scraper cleaned the hoof fork, a one-sided hoof knife smoothed out the pits and cut away the overgrown hoof cuticles, and a pair of pliers trimmed the tips of the hooves to make them lighter when the horse ran and jumped.
Finally, Yu Mengzhou applied a hoof file. He patiently and meticulously sanded away, the powdery cuticle rustling down until the rough hoof wall was polished to a rounded, jade-like state, and then he turned on the can of oil to coat the hoof with a layer of glossy oil.
Hoof oil not only emphasized the beauty of the horse and the owner’s love for the horse, but also strengthened the hoof’s toughness and prevented it from cracking due to dryness.
In the past, this was Yu Mengzhou’s favorite step. Horses were also animals that paid attention to their appearance, and the shiny horses that walked around the barn had different moods. He really loved to see those horses trotting or pacing in a dignified manner, going to the sunshine to show off their oily fur and neatly trimmed hooves.
In this place, because the demon horse’s hooves suffered too much, it was best to apply ointment and bandages after trimming, expecting their strong healing power to be enough to erase the traces of old injuries. Yu Mengzhou seldom had the opportunity to polish and oil the hooves of the horses, and once in a while, he cherished the opportunity.
One hoof repaired, Yu Mengzhou looked at the second, and took a very large breath under pressure.
“Begin,” he said. “As for the ticks⊔
“Leave it to me,” Falchion said knowingly.
Radiant Angel wanted to say that once the spell spikes were removed, he could actually start a flame from within. However, he had looked into the chief’s eyes, so he didn’t say a word after all.
As the nails crashed to the ground, the heavy leg armor was also torn off piece by piece. The moment the remnants of his wings were exposed to the moonlight, Yu Mengzhou immediately retreated to the back, and let Falchion play as he wished, while he spewed a mouthful of fiery flames at the edge of Radiant Angel’s hoof.
Yu Mengzhou silently counted the seconds until the parasites stopped struggling and the heat in the air wasn’t as high as it could have been, then he stepped forward and cleaned off all of the insect carcasses with tweezers, and checked along the other side of the wing as well, not letting any of them slip through the cracks.
“You’re going to be fine,” he said to Radiant Angel. “Your wing isn’t completely necrotic, you see, it’s still movable, and with some slow nurturing, it’s sure to return to its original shape.”
Radiant Angel said with a little regret, “Too bad it’s red. I heard some demons say that wings should be white to look good⊔
“What the heck?” Yu Mengzhou laughed, “No matter what color it is, healthy is the best looking. This applies to people as well, no matter what gender, age, or skin colorâŠAs long as one is healthy, that’s great.”
For the last two hooves, he decided not to polish and oil them just yet. The parasites had cast too much of a psychological shadow on him, and Yu Mengzhou was going to finish cleaning up all that little junk before focusing on his favorite steps to get back his blood.
In the end, all the bug corpses that littered the ground were swept to the dirt field next to him to be used as flower fertilizer. Yu Mengzhou sat on the stone bench and used a horseshoe file to intently polish the hoof, following up by blowing off the powdered flakes in a satisfactory manner, watching its smooth and tidy appearance.
“Okay, next up is brushing with oil⊔
He took off his gloves and dipped a hoof oil brush into the can of oil, giving the hoof a thin layer of oil, waiting until it dried before applying a thicker coat.
The process was truly healing, and by the time the last two hooves were trimmed, Yu Mengzhou was at peace.
“There,” he said with a smile. “How does it feel?”
Radiant Angel looked deeply at the human, and buried his head tenderly in the youth’s arms.
“Never better,” his voice trembled slightly. “I feel soâŠVery relaxed, very comfortable. Like a relief, my body isn’t heavy at all anymore. I don’t know how to put it more aptly⊔
Yu Mengzhou pressed his face against his forehead and scratched his chin, while his eyes curved up in a smile.
“That’s good.” He kissed the demon horse’s forehead and smoothed his mane. “To make it less difficult for you guys, that’s the feedback I need.”
At that moment, Radiant Angel suddenly wanted to ask, “And what is the benefit for you? Is it worth it?”
Only, he didn’t open his mouth, because the answer was âyes.â Yu Mengzhou was sweating hard and smiling for them, completely through his own heart. Could that mean that, from the very beginning, he had treated every demon horse in the herd with a love that no one had ever realized?
He raised his head, and tried to read the human’s expression. Yu Mengzhou misunderstood him and thought he was getting up.
“Go rest,” Yu Mengzhou said. “You’ve been standing out there for half a day.”
Seeing that Falchion was about to turn around as well, Yu Mengzhou hurriedly called out to him.
“Wait!” He ran to the herd chief. Falchion glanced at Radiant Angel before he lowered his head, to signal him to go in first.
“What’s wrong?” he snapped slowly.
“I thought about what you said to me earlier,” Yu Mengzhou said.
In an instant, all the demon horses shook their heads and strained their ears. They refused to let go of a single word.
Falchion’s swinging snake tail froze in mid-air. After a while, he whispered, “…Hmm.”
“I⊔ Yu Mengzhou frowned. “It’s just, it’s weird, you know? I’ve been thinking a lot about the pros and cons of bringing you guys to earthâŠwhat kind of challenges you’d face if you came with me, what kind of difficulties I’d faceâŠBut I don’t know why I’m hesitating.”
Falchion repeated, “You are hesitating.”
“Exactly,” Yu Mengzhou said. “Logically, and in my usual style, I should say yes, but I really don’t understand why I’m hesitating.”
Falchion immediately said, “Noel, come over here and detect if there are any mind-altering spells or incantations on him!”
Noel scrambled over, and without saying a word, he flung a dozen or so Detection Spells at Yu Mengzhou, instantly turning him into a big, bright light bulb in the darkness of the night.
Yu Mengzhou, “…”
“Other than that,” Falchion asked. “Is there anything else stopping you?”
Yu Mengzhou hesitated, “Nothing. I’m just doubting myself a little bitâŠthere are bad things about taking you guys to earth, sure, but I’ll be happy to have you guys with me, and you’ll be happy to have me to keep you company. Those two things are the most important deciding factors for me.”
Noel finished his examination and reported, “No evil spells, foul spells, manipulative spells, or unclean potions were found. He’s fine.”
Falchion immediately turned his head to him as Yu Mengzhou sighed and said resolutely, “Alright! Then I..Promise you that when you guys are done with what you want to do, we’ll⊔
The words came to an abrupt end, and he was suddenly stuck.
It was if some huge, invisible force was stubbornly clinging to his tongue, intent on preventing him from finishing his next words. Yu Mengzhou realized that it wasnât good. His lips opened and reopened, and with all the strength he could muster, he finally broke the promise loudly through his lips, and it escaped into the territory of the Demon Realm:
“…We’ll go back together, back to the human world!”
Addis note: This book ends with chapter 104.
How will this end, I wonder. YM is not supposed to be there and Falchion and the others are definitely not supposed to be on earth đŹ
Thank you all for the chapter.