On the fourth day, they continued to move forward as if they were not afraid of death.
Langmuir finally began to feel fear.
Before this, the son of god had never tasted the flavor of fear.
He was the most noble and holy young man in the human world, neither tormented by poverty nor disturbed by ugliness. Everyone loved him, and he loved everyone. The education he received from a young age polished a heart of devout dedication, even life and death could be put aside, what else in the world could make him afraid?
It was all an illusion.
Langmuir heard a strange cackling sound, and after a while, he realized that it was his own teeth trembling and clattering.
All kinds of unreasonable things he saw along the way rushed into the son of god’s mind, turning into one guess after another that he dared not think about in detail.
He was not fearless, he just had never come into contact with true darkness.
His palms were full of cold sweat.
There was a muffled noise from the front.
Hun Yao fell to the ground, leaning on a tree branch and panting heavily, his eyes were scattered and staring straight ahead.
After a while, he stood up again.
Langmuir remembered the deteriorating wounds he had just seen. He couldn’t help but call out to the Demon King, but Hun Yao didn’t hear him.
He hurried over and grabbed the Demon King’s wrist. “Let’s rest for a day.”
Hun Yao shook his head silently.
“If you keep going, you will die.”
“What you said is nonsense. But if we don’t go, we will die even more.”
After that, the Demon King didn’t have any extra energy to tease the little inferior demon behind him, and the process of hurrying became gradually oppressive.
At noon, Hun Yao broke a tree branch to use as a crutch, but he still walked slower and slower, seeming to become weaker every minute.
In the afternoon, they were unlucky, unable to find water or food, and could only pull up some non-toxic grass roots. Thirst burned their throats, and hunger began to cause stomach pains. Langmuir thought of a wrung-out towel.
One forest overlapped another, endless.
By evening, Hun Yao finally couldn’t take another step, and they had to rest early.
The hunger and thirst had not eased, but Langmuir had become numb, and didn’t feel too tormented.
He curled up under a tree, silently counting the winged bugs flying in front of him, thinking about the Goddess, the elders, the demons, the abyss.
Suddenly, a hoarse voice sounded in his ear.
“…If I die…”
Langmuir turned his face. The Demon King leaned tiredly against the tree trunk, his eyes unfocused, his lips gray and cracked from blood loss and dehydration, “…What will you do?”
Langmuir felt as if he had been stabbed in the heart.
Hun Yao didn’t know that he was not a lost little demon, but the Son of God who came to assassinate the Demon King.
If the Demon King died, he would return to the rich world, no longer needing to struggle for survival in the abyss.
Is that so?
Could he still go back to the past?
“…Don’t be afraid.”
Hun Yao closed his eyes and muttered to himself, “The feather bugs are flying low, it will definitely rain the day after tomorrow at the latest.”
After saying that, he staggered to his feet, somehow squeezing out a bit of strength, and climbed up the tree trunk.
…….
The next morning, Langmuir woke up. He saw that the forest was still quiet, with no signs of rain, and even the tree behind him was quiet.
By nearly noon, the Demon King still hadn’t climbed down.
Langmuir began to realize something was wrong. He knew that they were being hunted, so he didn’t dare to shout loudly. He picked up a broken branch from the ground and hit the tree trunk hard.
After a while, the tree crown rustled.
A few seconds later, suddenly, a black shadow fell straight down, landing directly in front of Langmuir on the ground!
“—Demon King!”
Langmuir’s face changed abruptly, he quickly went over, picked up the young Demon King lying on the ground, and immediately gasped.
Overnight, Hun Yao had become weak. He was sick, burning all over, several arrow wounds had all split open, constantly oozing blood and pus.
Even if Langmuir slapped his cheek and called him to wake up, he just groaned weakly, his eyes tightly closed, as if he had fallen into a light coma.
“Demon King,” Langmuir gritted his teeth, “Hun Yao…Hun Yao!”
No matter how he called, there was no response.
In a short time, the son of god’s mind was blank, and the first thing that came to mind was an extremely bizarre thought.
He thought, is the Demon King going to die?
But isn’t the Demon King supposed to die at the hands of the Son of God?
He was supposed to be killed by the Son of God, not die in the Son of God’s arms.
The overwhelming sense of absurdity made Langmuir unable to breathe.
For these three days, he had been following the Demon King like a puppet, stopping and going, and only now was he finally forced to wake up—
He remembered the hands clasped together on the cliff, the embrace and swimming in the ice lake, the fruit thrown down from the tree, and the two ancient characters illuminated by the morning bonfire.
In a flash, those violet eyes finally regained their clarity, and then what surged up was grief.
What Demon King.
Goddess, can’t you see, this is clearly just an innocent young man.
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill a life that had not yet done evil. Even if it meant going against the holy teachings, he couldn’t do it!
Langmuir took a deep breath and reached out to Hun Yao’s wound, then suddenly stopped.
Why couldn’t he cast the healing spell? That was the first spell he learned, and over the years he had healed countless people, it couldn’t possibly go wrong…
Langmuir felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave, he stared hard at his own hands. No, something was wrong, the energy now flowing in his veins didn’t seem to be his Mana… In fact, it wasn’t Mana at all!!
What happened to his Mana? What exactly did the Goddess give him, and what was the secret potion the elders gave him to drink before he left?!
Langmuir felt dizzy, he finally realized that he must have been deceived, but he didn’t know how big this deception was.
“Cough…”
The Demon King struggled weakly in his arms, coughing up a bit of blood from the corner of his mouth.
The forest seemed to turn into a shadow pressing down on his head.
There was no time to hesitate.
Langmuir forced himself to calm down, he took a deep breath, picked up the young Demon King, and turned to go back the way they came!
Suddenly, a cold scaly tail wrapped around his calf.
The young Demon King laid on his shoulder, his messy black hair covering his face, only a weak voice came, “Don’t… don’t turn… back…”
“No, you’re too weak now, you need to ensure water and food, and your wounds need to be treated.”
Langmuir said in a deep voice, “I don’t know how to find these, but at least I remember the way we came.”
If Hun Yao was awake at this time, he would certainly be surprised that the “little fool” could speak so calmly and methodically. Unfortunately, the Demon King now couldn’t pay attention to these at all.
“Go forward…” Hun Yao’s consciousness was blurred, but he kept mumbling, “…Go forward…”
Langmuir thought he was delirious from the fever. Yes, turning back might encounter pursuers, but now they were barely hanging on to life, what else was there to say?
Langmuir lifted his leg to go back.
But the scaly tail on his calf tightened sharply.
Langmuir bit his lip and said in a low voice, “…You said it, I can’t do anything here, I’m a stupid and weak inferior demon. If I take you forward, where can we go?”
The Demon King could no longer answer, he just stubbornly repeated, “…Go forward…”
Langmuir felt the strength of the scaly tail on his leg gradually slacken, until it finally fell down, the tail tip shook twice, and then it didn’t move anymore.
“Demon King?”
The young demon behind him had completely lost consciousness.
Langmuir stood in the vast underground forest, suddenly feeling boundless loneliness.
He just stood there silently for a while, turned his head to look at the unknown and threatening front, and then looked back at the familiar and reassuring road.
The Son of God carried the Demon King and walked forward.
……
Going forward, it sounds simple, but it’s not easy.
In the first fifteen years of Langmuir’s life, let alone going into the mountains, he hadn’t even left the royal city. Every step the son of god took was pre-cleaned, carpeted, and even stepping on it barefoot wouldn’t hurt a bit.
Now without the Demon King leading the way, let alone finding food, he didn’t even dare to gnaw on the grass roots in the cracks of the stones, for fear that one bite would poison him and he would fall to the ground.
His only reliance was that he was indeed very strong.
The first demon beast to suffer looked like a wolf, but it was twice as big as a normal wolf, with golden pupils and iron-colored fur.
It wasn’t until seven years later that Langmuir learned that this thing was called a death wolf, and at the royal court’s feast, they had to eat its liver raw.
The young son of god didn’t understand at the time, he only knew that the only good thing about the Demon King being unconscious was that he no longer had to hide his strength.
Langmuir drew his short sword, and after a struggle, he cleanly killed it.
The black wolf fell to the ground, quickly stopped breathing, and blood gushed out from the cut throat.
Langmuir brought the unconscious Demon King to the side of the wolf’s corpse.
He endured the tingling sensation on his scalp, took a deep breath, bent down and took a mouthful of the demon beast’s blood—
“Cough cough…!!”
Langmuir covered his mouth with a pale face, coughing non-stop. He usually didn’t even eat food that was a bit heavy in flavor, but now he had to drink beast blood raw…
He closed his eyes and pinched his palm, enduring the nausea and took another mouthful of blood, feeding it to the demon youth in his arms.
“Uh…” Hun Yao made a weak sound in his throat. He was so feverish that he was delirious, weakly rubbing against Langmuir’s cool neck.
Langmuir thought that Hun Yao also found it hard to bear the sweet and bloody taste of the beast blood, and gently touched the young man’s cheek and said, “Don’t move… There’s no water, I can only give you this to drink.”
Wolf blood flowed from the lips that were pressed together, dripping and splashing chaotically.
Langmuir held the Demon King’s head and hugged him tightly, he bent down deeply, pressing his own tongue against the other’s cold tongue, sending the sweet and bloody liquid in.
His golden hair fell messily, covering their faces.
Langmuir repeated this several times, and by the time the wolf’s throat no longer bled, most of his face was stained red.
Then, he followed Hun Yao’s example, used a short sword to peel off the outer fur of the demon beast, and cut off chunks of meat that were red and white.
He first condensed the “Mana” in his body into a black flame in his palm, then used a dry branch to light a fire, and reluctantly roasted it.
Whether it was cooked or not was hard to say, but since demons could eat raw meat, it should be fine, right?
Langmuir chewed the meat and fed it to Hun Yao.
Gradually, some demon beasts came following the smell, Langmuir knew he couldn’t stay long, and carried Hun Yao away again.
He relied on the light of the barrier above his head to identify the direction, and struggled to move forward under the covetous gaze of birds and beasts.
Fortunately, by noon, he found a clean water source, so he did a simple treatment for the Demon King’s wounds.
The rotten flesh was removed, washed with water, and bandaged with torn cloth from his clothes.
Gradually, the vegetation in front became sparse, and the bare mountain body was exposed. Although it became a little easier to move forward, it became more troublesome to ensure food and water.
The sky began to darken.
Langmuir remembered that Hun Yao had said it would rain, so he looked for a place that could provide shelter.
He carried the Demon King into a small cave, thought for a while, and went out to gather some branches. In less than half an hour, sure enough, it started to pour.
Langmuir piled up the branches and lit them with the black flame, and the cold cave warmed up a bit.
He held the Demon King in his arms, staring blankly at the rain curtain outside.
This was already the fifth day.
He didn’t have much time to stay in the abyss.
Suddenly, the demon youth in his arms moved a bit.
Langmuir: “Demon King?”
Hun Yao actually woke up, he slowly opened his eyes, staring vaguely at the rough little fire in front of him.
He hoarsely said, “You can actually make fire…”
Langmuir: “.”
I’m sorry, I actually can’t.
“How do you feel?” Langmuir tried to bluff his way through, he touched Hun Yao’s forehead, it was still burning hot, “Do you want to drink water? It’s raining outside.”
Hun Yao weakly nodded his head. The rainwater in the abyss shouldn’t be drunk, it’s miasmic, but they couldn’t be picky now.
He taught the little inferior demon to find suitable leaves, the kind that are dry and large. The little guy obediently ran out in the rain, and when he came back, all the scales on his body were wet, shining with a lovable light.
The little inferior demon held the leaf filled with water in his arms, carefully knelt in front of him, and fed him water.
“You…”
Hun Yao had mixed feelings, he reached out weakly, brushed aside the wet golden hair of the little inferior demon, “Are you prepared… to follow me like this all the time?”
Langmuir shook his head, thinking: How could I?
“Let’s give you a name.”
Langmuir still shook his head again. “Just call me fool.”
Hun Yao found it funny, but he didn’t have the strength to laugh anymore. Pain was burning every bone in his body.
The sound of rain outside the cave was getting louder and louder.
In a while, Hun Yao gradually became unresponsive again. Langmuir was a bit anxious, so he simply did as before, took water in his mouth, and fed it to him mouth-to-mouth.
The fire cast the shadows of the two little demons into one, quietly casting it on the stone wall.
From afternoon to evening, Hun Yao’s condition fluctuated, sometimes improving, sometimes worsening.
This deep night, Langmuir didn’t dare to close his eyes, he held the Demon King in his arms, habitually wanting to pray to the Goddess, but didn’t know what to pray for.
In the early hours of the sixth day, Hun Yao woke up, this time he seemed to be much better, even seemed to want to continue moving forward.
But the rain outside was still heavy, after weighing it up, even the Demon King gave up the idea of braving the rain to hurry, and decided to rest in the cave for another day.
Langmuir said, “I’ll go nearby to find some food.”
“Don’t go. On rainy days, it’s hard to find anything to eat, and you might even slide down the slope.”
Hun Yao propped up the ground, said hoarsely, “Help me up.”
“Don’t move around, what do you want?”
“Help me sit up.”
Langmuir helped Hun Yao sit up, letting him lean gently against the stone wall of the cave. The young Demon King paused for a moment, slowly took something out of his arms.
Langmuir’s eyes moved.
It was the golden feather arrow that he had shot out with his own hands.
“Stay away.” Hun Yao glanced at him, “Back off. Back off more… right.”
Langmuir backed off as he said, his right hand quietly clenched the hilt of the short sword, and quickly loosened it again.
It’s okay, now that the Demon King is so weak, even if he retrieves his demonic breath, he won’t be a match for him. If anything changes, he can just stab him with a sword.
“Don’t go anywhere, just stay here.” Hun Yao cut his palm with the arrowhead, “I need some time, if the pursuers come, just call me.”
