After the fairy disappeared

Chapter 1306 Not Human

"But I did hear the guards say that this row of ropes was not there when they were patrolling the night before, and they didn't know when they were hung up. They seemed to hear a popping sound at night, and they thought it was the flapping of birds at night, but later they thought it might be the sound of these guys struggling while hanging on the ropes."

Gray Hat said "oh" and didn't ask any more questions about the patrol. These guards were full of nonsense and could not be relied upon.

"What about the pattern on the gray wall?"

The guy smacked his lips, rubbed his hands, and said nothing.

Gray Hat could only hand him a few more coins. The clerk put them away before continuing, "It just appeared overnight. I cleaned the horse trough the night before, and there was nothing on the wall. Yesterday morning, the bandit was hanged, and the relief appeared."

"Did they appear together?"

"Which came first and which came later, I don't know." The waiter added, "The relief was so magnificent yesterday morning, but now it's blurred."

"Blurred?" Gray Hat asked curiously, "What do you mean by confused?"

"When it first appeared, it looked so real. I was walking over with a bucket in my hand and was startled. I thought there really was a monster with its head sticking out of the wall." The guy pointed at the dragon head totem and said, "What you see now is a bit rougher, not so... uh, not so detailed."

"So, this pattern is slowly degrading?"

The guy didn't know what degradation meant: "It's just blurry."

The man in the gray hat pointed at the bloody banner waving at the city gate:
"Have you ever seen or heard of the dragon head pattern on the banner?"

Apparently it was a mark.

The guy shook his head.

The man in the gray hat went to the city to find a place to stay and went out to gather information.

After asking around, the residents all said the same thing as the waiter.

But he met an official in the tavern who had been to Mount Dai yesterday. The man in the gray hat offered him two glasses of wine, and the official told him about what he had seen and heard in the mountain.

This is first-hand information:

Only the bandit leader and his six brothers were hung at the gate of Feng County for public display, while nearly 200 bandits under their command died in their old nest in Daishan.

Most of the bandits had wounds on their backs, and it was obvious that they turned around and ran away and then were killed.

Gray Hat asked, "Can you tell how many people are in the group that attacked them?"

"There's something strange on that mountain!" The officer took another sip of wine. "Have you been to Mount Dai? The bandits' lair is built halfway up the mountain. The road is very steep, there are many cliffs, and the forest is dense. It's impossible to go up on horseback. In the past, the government organized several encirclement and suppression operations, and they had to leave their mounts halfway up the mountain and walk up the mountain. If it weren't for this terrain, we could have wiped them out ten years ago."

"So what's the weird thing?"

"That's what's strange!" The officer said mysteriously, "We found a lot of messy horse hoof prints on the top of the mountain, in the bandits' lair!"

"..."

"Very fresh, and stained with blood!"

So how did the attacker's mount get up there? Did he fly up there?

"We also captured three prisoners," the officer continued. "They were hiding in the bushes and trembling. When we found them, one of them was so frightened that he was unconscious, and the other confessed..."

He stopped to moisten his throat and found that many drinkers had gathered around him, listening to him intently. His interest became even higher, and his expression became even more mysterious: "This little thief said that the night before yesterday, there was fog in the village, and it was dark everywhere. He was awakened by a strange noise, like a hundred ghosts crying at night, so eerie and scary. Then he heard the sound of horse hooves outside, and he thought he had heard it wrong, so he ran out to see--"

"——Dozens of black-armored cavalrymen suddenly rushed out of the thick fog, killing anyone they saw, extremely ferociously. The bandits were all stunned, not knowing where they came from, and they didn't have time to close the gate of the village. The bandit leader brought a few brothers out to fight, shouting who the newcomers were. The leader of the black-armored cavalry pointed at them and said, 'You have committed many evil deeds, and your death has come! I will send you to hell!'"

"The leader was covered in black flames, and there were ghosts flying around in front and behind him, which was scary. The bandit leader didn't believe it, so he grabbed a long knife and rushed over. As a result, several of his brothers fell to the ground before they even met, and he himself didn't last more than a few rounds."

"The black-armored cavalry killed people like chopping melons, killing one with one or two strikes. The little thief didn't have the courage to fight, so he hid in the bushes. A black knight was originally heading for him, but a few bandits happened to escape, so the black knight changed his target and killed someone." The officer licked his lips, "The bandit fought back before he died, and happened to pull off the black knight's helmet. Do you know what the little thief saw in the bushes?"

The others were listening intently and asked one after another: "What did you see? Tell me quickly."

"The Black Knight is not a human at all!" The officer lowered his voice, with a mysterious look on his face, "He only has half a face!"

The audience expressed dissatisfaction: "What do you mean by half-skin!"

The officer raised his index finger and stroked it from his left forehead to his right jaw: "This half has skin, but the other half doesn't, even the skull is exposed! He has no eyelids, so his right eye is just a ball that looks at people!"

Everyone was in disbelief: "Can this person still be alive?"

"That's why he is not a human being!" the officer continued. "The Black Knight grabbed the bandit, face to face, and sucked out his soul in one gulp! The man was paralyzed immediately."

"It even glanced at the bushes, and the little thief hiding there was frightened to death on the spot. But the Black Knight didn't seem to see him. He just took back his helmet and put it on again, then turned around to kill again! Hey, tell me, how could a living person look like that?"

The audience was amazed: "Could it be that the little thief made it up?"

"That thief swore on his own penis that he saw it with his own eyes, and there is no lie in his words."

"and then?"

"He hid in the bushes and trembled. He heard his companions screaming one after another. After about two quarters of an hour, there was no movement." The officer continued, "He also saw the black-armored cavalry tied up the bandit leaders and dragged them to the back mountain."

"We also followed the messy horse hoof prints to the back of the mountain, and found that the traces only extended to the bushes. It seems that the prisoner did not lie." He took a sip of wine, "But! Behind the bushes is a cliff! Tell me, how did these black-armored cavalrymen take the prisoners and horses and leave from the cliff out of thin air?"

Everyone was amazed after hearing this.

Finally someone cursed:
"God's punishment, this is God's punishment!"

The blood-stained banner on the city gate also reads, "Retribution will come."

"These black knights might really be evil spirits that have crawled up from the underworld to claim souls." Otherwise, how could ordinary living people be able to absorb the souls of living people?

Amid the discussion, the man in the gray hat quietly left the tavern.

The next morning, the city gate guard shouted with full energy:

"Take it all off! Take it off! The body has been exposed for three days!"

(End of this chapter)