SH Chapter 68: Disputes (Part 2)

Translated by Rook of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Feisha turned his head and gazed at Noah’s Ark. In his eyes, it became gradually smaller and smaller until it disappeared completely. He felt a sense of loss and sighed before turning back.

The endless night made the silence even deeper and it also made the images in his mind stand out more.

Feisha realized that although they had only been separated for a while, he was already beginning to feel longing.

Layton suddenly said, “What should we do if we are caught?”

This question was like a small stone that was thrown into water. It sank rapidly without a single reply.

Although there was no reply, everyone was thinking of the same thing — they would have the same fate as Gin.

Except they were not sure what exactly happened to Gin.

Layton could not endure it any longer, saying, “What if when we go there, Gin and Hughes already…”

Feisha’s heart thudded in alarm and he quickly interrupted Layton. “Don’t worry. After all, Genesis is Hughes’ hometown, no matter what happens, he will have some way to deal with it. If he can defend himself, nothing too bad will happen to Gin.”

“Really?” Asa had always easily trusted Feisha.

Layton also seemed convinced, for he didn’t protest anymore.

Feisha had always had a knack for convincing others. However, though he had persuaded the others, he wasn’t convinced by himself. In the history books, there were too many cases of royals being harmed in their own homes, the Xuanwu Gate Incident being a classic example. (1) At that time, Li Yuan was still an emperor, but didn’t he still die? He was only hoping now that Gin and Hughes were really as valiant as they were in his imagination.

Shamal suggested, “If all of us go together, we will look very conspicuous. Why don’t we split up?”

Antonio was the first to object, “We don’t know the situation in Genesis. Splitting up hastily would only weaken ourselves for no reason.” On the topic of rescuing Gin and Hughes, Antonio and Shamal frequently had opposing opinions.

Layton agreed, “Since we’re here together, then of course we should go together.”

Shamal saw that he didn’t have support, so he quickly dragged Locktini into the argument. “Brother, you’ve been to Genesis. You would know the situation there best. Why don’t you explain?

Locktini said, “Aren’t you just scared of him? But after so many years, he’s probably forgotten you. Why be so secretive?”

“Which ‘him’?” asked the alliance of gossipers — Feisha and Layton had spoken in unison.

The carriage had already left Noah’s Ark for quite a while. Nobody could see each other’s expressions clearly. But despite that, Feisha guessed Shamal’s face was likely very red right now, because he was breathing in a flustered way.

“Who says I’m scared of him? I’ve already forgotten who he was a long time ago,” Shamal spoke like he was trying to hide something.

Feisha finally felt that Shamal was being fishy. Didn’t he used to worship Gin? Now that he was here to save Gin, why did he look so unwilling? He was even disagreeing with Antonio, whom he secretly liked.

The innate sensitivities of a gossip allowed Feisha to quickly zoom in onto that ‘him’.

Feisha tried to probe. “Since you’ve forgotten who he is, then how would you know which ‘him’ Locktini is talking about?”

Hearing Feisha call his name voluntarily, Locktini quickly became energetic and agreed, “Yeah, how do you know which ‘him’ I’m talking about?”

Shamal was inwardly regretting dragging Locktini along. He thought having someone else who knew what was going on would help shield him, but who knew, not only was he not shielded, the shield was even attacking him. (2) What a miscalculation.

Luckily, Shamal reacted fast enough, quickly saying, “Who cares about which ‘him’? It’s more important now to think about landing in Genesis. Genesis has three entrances in total. Every entrance has a monster guarding it. It’s very hard to handle.”

Feisha despised his clumsy way of changing the topic, but Antonio was very susceptible to it and his thoughts changed focus. “What monsters?”

Shamal said, “A taloned beast, a flaming beast, and a rock beast. They’re the monsters guarding Genesis’ every entrance. As for their power, hearing their names is enough to know how strong they are.”

Feisha said, “Then which one will we meet?”

Locktini replied, “I don’t know. They frequently change guards.”

Feisha’s eyes lit up. “We can sneak in when they’re changing guards.”

Locktini replied, “The ‘frequently’ I said is once every few millennia. You wanna wait?”

Feisha sighed. “Looks like I’ll have to hand over this grand and important mission of saving Gin to my offspring.”

“Offspring?!” Out of the darkness exploded the same question voiced by many different voices. (3)

Layton thought: Your ass has already been humiliated by Isefel, and you still dare to think about grandchildren?

Shamal thought: We don’t even know if we can return from this trip to Genesis, and you still dare to think about grandchildren?

Locktini thought: Am I dead? I’m sitting here, and you still dare to think about grandchildren?

Antonio just shouted: “We are in this kind of situation, and you still dare to think about grandchildren?”

“I’m just considering it.” Feisha gave a forced laugh while thinking gloomily: since when is having grandchildren equal to being heinous? Honestly.

Asa was unconvinced and said, “We have so many people, surely we can defeat those monsters.” His words brought the conversation back to the original topic and allowed Feisha a temporary escape.

“It’s not that we can’t defeat it. I’m afraid that we’ll give ourselves away to the rest of Genesis.” Shamal paused for a moment, and then continued in a way that made it obvious he was hiding something. “After all, we’re entering Genesis illegally. If we’re discovered, the consequences will be severe.”

Antonio said, “Anyway, whatever monster we meet later, Shamal will construct the boundary, Asa and I will attack from the front, Layton will attack its feet. Locktini… take care of Feisha.”

Feisha timidly said, “Can I change my bodyguard?”

Locktini snorted unpleasantly, “You think I want to protect you?”

Shamal furtively revealed, “Very.” (4)

Feisha was afraid Locktini would be angry with him, so he quickly and appeasingly smiled, saying, “Actually, I thought your fighting abilities are too strong to be wasted on protecting me. Why not let Layton protect me, he’s a good-for-nothing. If he attacks its feet, he can only cut its toenails.”

Layton choked for quite a while before he savagely said, “Don’t worry, I will definitely protect you properly! I’ll try my best to keep your body in one piece!”

Feisha touched his brooch and felt very steady.

---

Although the discussion was a mess, at least there was a result now. When the carriage plunged into Genesis, Feisha lost consciousness for a brief moment. In that moment, the others quickly prepared to counterattack.

Feisha wakened gradually, and just happened to see Antonio extending wolf claws, standing on a huge fire-breathing dragon, repeatedly attacking its eyes. The fire-breathing dragon spewed fire in every direction because of the pain. Shamal dodged the flames while throwing balls of water at it.

“You’re awake?” He heard Layton’s voice. He turned his head and saw that he was in a narrow crack in the mountain. “This is safer. You stay here properly, I’m going to help.” After saying this, Layton ran in the opposite direction of the fire-breathing dragon.

Since he wanted to help, then why run so far away?

Just as the question popped up in his head, the answer also popped up.

On the road before Layton, a thirty to forty meter tall colossus made entirely of rocks walked unhurriedly around. Asa, robust and strong, climbed onto it’s chest, like a pendant on a necklace.

Locktini floated in mid-air and continuously used all kinds of elemental magic to attack every part of the colossus, but from the results, it looked as if he was just tickling it.

Layton rushed over, wielding two gleaming axes in his hands, chopping down on its feet with ferocious strength.

The rock monster’s footsteps stopped, and then slowly picked up, trying to step on Layton.

Layton’s feet were short, so he just curled into a ball and rolled to the side.

“…” Feisha rubbed his eyes, looked left, looked right, mumbling in shock, “What on earth have you been doing while I was unconscious?” Didn’t they say there was only one monster per entrance?

The rock monster and the fire-breathing dragon had the sense to draw close to each other. Locktini and Shamal came nearer and nearer. They could even exchange opponents once in a while.

Feisha said quietly to Layton who had rolled over, “Xuxu, xuxu, come here, come here…”

[T/n: ‘xuxu’ is the sound mothers make to get cajole their kids to pee. Feisha is probably trying to cajole Layton to come over lol]

Layton had rolled around until his head hurt. Hearing Feisha’s voice, he staggered left and right before finally throwing himself over, “What’s the matter?”

“That’s what I want to ask you! I just took a little nap. How did the situation get so bad?”

Layton’s face was sour. “Isn’t this all thanks to you.”

“…What does it have to do with me?” Don’t tell him he sleepwalked?

“If you hadn’t stupidly talked about the guard change, why would we be so unlucky as to arrive just when these two were changing positions?”

So, Layton meant that although they coincided with the once-in-a-millennia guard change, they still very unluckily ended up at the entrance with two monsters.

Feisha opened and closed his mouth. “Who said to attack this entrance?”

“This entrance is nearest to the Crystal City.”

“…..” Feisha’s gaze flew back to the battlefield. “Can we win?”

Layton said, “The fire-breathing dragon is easy to defeat but the rock monster is powered by incantations and a Life Stone embedded in its chest. So, not only is it unafraid of pain, it’s also immune to magic.”

Feisha replied, “Can we break the incantations?”

“If we can, would we still be struggling like this?”

Feisha thought for a while. “Maybe we can remove the Life Stone.”

Layton replied, “You don’t say. The question is, who can remove the stone? Haven’t you seen even Asa’s spiked baseball bat is bent? The rocks on his chest are harder than steel.”

Feisha mumbled, “I wonder if a drill would work?”

“Hou!” Asa’s eyes suddenly turned murderously red and he just tried to ram the stone monster with his head.

[T/n: Asa is bellowing in rage]

Blood streaked down the stone monster’s chest.

Locktini quickly gave Asa a healing spell. Asa shook his dizzy head, and then determinedly began to climb its shoulder again.

“Ah!” Looking at the remnants of the pool of blood on the stone monster’s chest, an idea lit up in Feisha’s head. He turned to Layton and said urgently, “Quick, quick get me out of here!”

Layton replied, “Asa’s head wasn’t hard enough, your head will be even worse.”

“My head is different, it’s not used to physically attack. Aiya, just get me out of here.”

Layton tried hard for a while, then shook his head. “Before, it was Asa who put you in here.”

Feisha tried his best to get out a couple of times to no effect. He ended up plucking the brooch, putting it in his palm, raising it to the skies and shouting, “Isefel!”

T/n:
(1) — Feisha is referring to the Xuanwu Gate Incident. It’s a palace coup where a prince assassinated the Crown Prince Li Yuan. You can read about it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuanwu_Gate_Incident

(2) — the original Chinese is: 没想到掩护没打成，后方就已经失守 Méi xiǎngdào yǎnhù méi dǎ chéng, hòufāng jiù yǐjīng shīshǒu. It translates literally to something like: not only was the protection not formed, but the rear had already fallen (to the enemies). I went with my own analogy that the shield (Locktini) not only failed to protect Shamal, but turned around to attack him instead lol.

(3) — the original Chinese is: 黑暗中爆出语气不同但同样不敢苟同的质问 Hēi’àn zhōng bào chū yǔqì bùtóng dàn tóngyàng bù gǎn gǒutóng de zhìwèn. It translates to something like: In the darkness, exploded different voices that didn’t dare to agree asking the same question. For the sake of smoother reading, I went with ‘out of the darkness exploded the same question voiced by many different voices’.

(4) – 斯马尔怪里怪气地泄底 Sī mǎ’ěr guàilǐguàiqì de xièdǐ. It translates literally to: Shamal oddly divulged the inside story. It doesn’t really flow so I changed it to ‘Shamal furtively revealed’.