Six-Armed Serpent Demon

Page 115

“I can’t stop it,” Ivy Beatrice said. “I don’t have the ability.”

Another goblin snorted, looking like a horse or donkey: "You and him are in cahoots."

Ivy Beatrice's shoulders slumped visibly.

She looked around and found that apart from the five goblins, all the other pedestrians were walking around in fear, keeping their distance, as if there were some deadly pathogen here.

She asked helplessly, "Are you serious?"

Both Gu Xiong and Xiong Gu have stopped being so quiet.

Their fur stood on end, making them look like two big, fluffy balls. The invisible killing intent emanating from their red-haired human (animal companion) sent chills down their spines.

A large goblin stepped forward, about to speak, when he suddenly turned to look in the direction they had come from, then took a step back. The other four large goblins also stood at attention, turning in unison to look back.

Ivy Beatrice frowned slightly.

The five men's strange behavior interrupted her murderous intent. Just moments ago, she had almost used "Blade Barrier" to paint this section of the street.

So she turned her head and looked in the direction the goblins were looking.

To their surprise, a strangely shaped green ball of flesh appeared at the end of the pebble path, slowly drifting towards them in the direction from which the five goblins had come.

This is actually an eye demon.

This beholder is somewhat unusual. Its skin is dark green, like a combination of rubber and scales. The pupil of its enormous single eye in the center of its spherical body is violet.

As it floated over, its eyestem—those tendrils tipped with small eyes—clung tightly to its body, encircling its single eye and forming a large sphere. But when it drifted closer to Ivy-Beate and the goblin, it stopped in mid-air and unfurled its eyestem. Ivy-Beate discovered that this creature's spherical body wasn't actually that large, about the size of her head, with only its single eye visible and its mouth almost entirely obscured. Its previous appearance of immense size was entirely due to its thick, powerful eyestem, resembling the body of a python.

"Greetings to you, beautiful, stunningly beautiful red-haired lady."

The dark green-eyed demon looked at Ivy Beatrice with its large, violet-colored single eye and numerous small eyes at the tip of its eye socket. Its androgynous voice was exceptionally pleasant, echoing in the skull and sending shivers down one's spine.

"Are my five stupid and incompetent underlings bothering you?"

Author's Note: I can finally resume daily updates. I apologize for the long delay again. Iritis is difficult to cure completely, but I've had a good rest this time, so I should be fine for the next few months.

Chapter 140 Eric

Ivy Beatrice stared at the one-eyed violet woman, who was standing right next to her, for a few seconds.

She couldn't discern the Eye Demon's facial expressions, but she sensed an indescribable cunning and scheming in its unusually polite words. This set off alarm bells in her mind.

“It’s nothing,” she said calmly. “Sir, may I go now?”

Upon hearing this, the dark green beholder lightly shifted a few feet, making way for Ivy-Beate. Its many gazes all lowered slightly, as if in acknowledgment.

"Please go ahead, beautiful red-haired lady."

The alluring voice of the Eye Demon echoed in her skull, "I apologize once again for the reckless actions of my men."

Ivy-Beate passed between the beholders and the goblins, maintaining her pace as she continued along the gravel path, with Xiong Gu and Gu Xiong quickly following behind.

She led the two owl bear cubs forward, having already walked nearly a hundred meters. Just as the gravel path ahead was about to turn, Ivy Beatrice glanced discreetly back in the direction she had come from.

As expected, the dark green beholder remained in the distance, staring intently at her. However, unlike when they were face-to-face, it no longer concealed its presence. Its large, single, violet eye stared directly at her, its gaze filled with greed and eager anticipation.

The earth elf warriors stood beside the beholder leader, watching inexplicably as Ivy Beatrice's figure receded into the distance and disappeared around the corner of the gravel road.

“Master Harlinus”.

The lead earth gnome said in a gruff voice, "Why—"

"Shut your fucking mouth, you piece of trash."

Harlinus, still looking in the direction where Ivy Beatrice had disappeared, said in a beautiful, melodious voice, "Is your mouth upside down with your asshole? Why does your mouth smell like shit? Keep your mouth tightly closed. Don't open it unless I ask you a question. Reduce the stench and let me breathe some clean air. It will make me feel better."

The goblins obediently complied.

After a long while, the Eye Demon finally turned back.

“So,” it said, “you five, fully armed warriors, were completely fooled by a half-grown kid, and he even got away?”

The leader of the goblins said in a gruff voice, "I'm sorry to disappoint you, master."

“Wrong,” said the Eye Demon. “Disappointment comes from not meeting expectations. I have no expectations of you five idiots with brains as flat as eggs. Let me see.”

As it spoke, it blinked its large, single violet eye.

As it moved, a subtle magical fluctuation gently rippled outwards.

"That kid is strolling around... Lazy Bear Bay, about twelve blocks from here. He can run pretty fast."

The goblin snorted with high spirits: "We'll go right now and bring him to you!"

“There’s no need for that. That kid won’t get lost,” said Harlinus the Eye Demon. “Your mission has changed. Investigate the outsider first, and then go find that damned little thief.”

The goblins were baffled: "Which outsider are you?"

The violet, with its single eye, silently gazed at the sky.

Suddenly, numerous thick, python-like eyeballs transformed into powerful whips, lashing down on the earth spirits. They were whipped to pieces, their teeth chattering on the ground, howling in agony.

The Eye Demon sighed deeply: "Only stupidity is incurable... Who else could it be but some outsider? That woman from earlier, the red-haired one! Go to the docks and ask around in the neighborhoods along the way! Don't worry about the cost, you must find out for me where she came from, what ship she came on, and how many people were with her. Find out all the information about that woman!"

The goblins reluctantly agreed.

However, the Eye Demon's master's attention was no longer on them.

It turned its head to look in the direction where Ivy-Beate had disappeared.

"The sword."

It spoke greedily in a melodious voice, "A powerful weapon with anti-magic properties, its magical aura is simply too magnificent... With it, I can..."

It didn't continue after saying "yes".

Harlinus the Eye Demon kept his thoughts to himself and muttered to himself, "I have a feeling it's mine!"

Lazy Bear Bay.

Thirteen-year-old Eric, panting, occasionally glanced back to see if the goblin pursuers were coming, and slowed his pace as he fled.

His father sailed out to sea and never returned, having borrowed a large sum of money from loan sharks beforehand. As a result, the family house was forcibly seized by the loan shark's creditor, a beholder named Harlinus. His mother clashed with Harlinus's goblin minions who came to reclaim the house, and the city ruled that the dispute should be resolved "by justice," meaning a duel would determine the winner.

Mother is dead.

Eric and his younger siblings were left homeless.

As the eldest son, Eric begged the goblin for a week's grace. The goblin, of course, refused. But Eric persuaded him. He said his father still had several debts to collect, and if he could raise the money, he could pay them back. As collateral, Eric signed indentures for his younger brother and sister, offering them as collateral to the creditors as one month's interest on the loans. In this way, he bought himself a month. During this month, his brother and sister were free and could stay at home together. As long as Eric could raise enough money, he would still have a chance to redeem their indentures.

But Eric was actually lying.

My father has no debts left to collect.

Eric didn't know if the loan shark had seen through his lie—he probably had, since if he had the IOU, he could easily sell it to the loan shark. The reason he agreed was probably because of his younger brother and sister's indenture.

But Eric managed to raise the money.

He mortgaged the house to another unsuspecting lender, obtaining a large sum of money that was enough to redeem his younger siblings and still have some left over. Then, while the two loan sharks were arguing over the house, he took his younger siblings and fled. However, the loan sharks blocked the dock, ruining his plan to escape by sea with his siblings.

Since then, Eric has been waging a guerrilla war against loan sharks all over the city, outwitting and outmaneuvering them, a conflict that continues to this day.

Thinking of his parents, he muttered bitterly, "Two useless pieces of trash." He wiped away his tears.

Chapter 141 Pureblood Human Liberation Front

Ivy Beatrice strolled along the cobblestone path, her mind still preoccupied with the strange beholder.

The greed and malice in the dozens of gazes it cast upon her were as dazzling as torches in the darkness to a demon.

This made her slightly wary, yet she also scoffed at it.

—Although I don't know what the giant-eyed tentacle monster is after, come and take it if you dare.

Ivy Beatrice looked around and turned two more corners along the main street until she noticed that there were fewer and fewer buildings on the side, and then she realized that she had reached the edge of the town.

She looked ahead along the path and saw a shimmering river lying in front of her.

A stone bridge spanned the river. On the opposite side of the bridge stood two warriors in full armor, their stance a "Halt!" gesture. Judging from the shape of their armor, they were likely two women. Although they wore helmets, obscuring their faces, they both exuded the unique aura of dragons. However, unlike the bronze and red dragons Ivy Beate had previously encountered, this aura was a chilling, biting coldness.

She had a feeling that their gazes were silently watching her through the gaps in their helmets.

Looking further into the distance, the road near the bridge widens and flattens, leading all the way up the mountain. Lush forests line both sides of the road, with the Silver Dragon City Lord's fortress appearing and disappearing above.

Ivy Beatrice stared for two seconds, then suddenly felt a chill run down her spine: it was as if something in the void had sensed her gaze and was now eyeing her instead.

Ivy-Beate quickly lowered her gaze, no longer looking directly at the fortress. She then saw two large, fluffy balls of fur trembling at her feet, their round, orange-yellow eyes filled with terror and grievance. The bear, in particular, had been greatly frightened by the little cub's act of picking it up and throwing it at the goblin; it was even starting to urinate. Without a word, she quickly turned and walked away with the two terrified owl-bear cubs.

That feeling of being coveted vanished without a trace.

Ivy Beatrice breathed a sigh of relief. Instead of turning back, she strolled along the riverbank in a circle. She planned to take another route, casually sightseeing while searching for a tavern to stay in.

—Was that counter-surveillance that was directed at her just now the silver dragon wife of the two-headed evil dragon who rules this city, Georgrosia?

Ivy Beatrice is uncertain.

However, this alert and swift reaction was vastly different from that of the half-dead, almost invisible bronze dragon in the City of Flame.

She decided to avoid all trouble and rest here for a day before heading to Hesconti. Following the instructions of the Red Assassin Patrick, she was to find the bar with three boots hanging outside and meet with Shibaragu.

But things don't always go as planned: no matter how hard you try to avoid trouble, it often ends up happening to you.

Ivy-Beate walked back and found herself leaving the commercial district and entering a more densely populated and chaotic residential area.

Looking around, all she saw were houses with blue and red brick roofs, all looking pretty much the same. After walking among the dense brick and tile buildings for fifteen minutes, she reluctantly admitted: she was lost.

Just then, the owl bear cub at her feet grabbed her leg and let out a piercing scream.

Ivy Beatrice looked down, puzzled.

"Goo Bear?"

Gu Xiong stretched its head toward a dark alleyway, howling angrily as it ruffled its fur, making it appear a whole size larger than the bear next to it.

Ivy Beatrice looked down at the guy speechlessly as he screamed and tried to hide himself behind her legs.

She looked in the direction the bear's large face was pointing and saw several figures faintly visible in the alleyway, with a short man in the middle. Around the short man stood three tall men, laughing and shoving him.

She immediately recognized the boy who had thrown the bear at the goblin as the one being pushed in the middle. As for the three big guys around him, they were not goblins, but three adult humans.

"gone."

Ivy-Beate called out to the bear, then turned and continued walking along the road, thinking happily to herself that even if the boy were torn to pieces, it wouldn't be her problem; he deserved to bully her pet.

But the next second, staggering footsteps emerged from the alley, accompanied by the boy's desperate scream: "It's her! She's my guarantor, she can guarantee I'll pay off my debt!"

Ivy Beatrice stopped in her tracks.

She turned her head, her face expressionless, to look at the panting boy running towards her, and the three people following behind him. Her emerald green vertical pupils grew even deeper.

The boy looked even more disheveled than when they first met: Eric's face was covered in blood, a triangular piece of skin had been peeled off his left cheek, and his ear had been cut off.

Three humans followed leisurely behind. One of them was fiddling with a dagger in his hand; it seemed the boy's face was his handiwork.

All three were dressed in light gray-black leather armor, and all were slender with long arms and legs. The moment they saw Ivy Beatrice's face, their eyes lit up with amazement, and they involuntarily straightened their backs, adjusted their hair, and gave the tall, red-haired beauty a sly smile.

The person wielding the dagger moved it more than twice as fast, almost dancing with incredible skill.

But Ivy Beatrice wanted to kill them after just one look: the three guys were filthy, their hair was matted and hadn't been washed in ages, they had sparse beards, and their faces and armor were covered in grease.

"stop."

She spoke sharply, involuntarily taking a step back.

The three people opposite exchanged glances and reached a tacit consensus: this girl is clearly all bark and no bite; she's scared.

“So you’re this little rascal’s guarantor,” the man with the dagger said with a grin, “and you have to pay off his debts.”

"I do not know him."

Ivy Beattie calmly stated, "He's just making baseless accusations."

“She’s lying,” Eric screamed, his face covered in blood. “Look, her pets all know me!”

Ivy Beatrice looked down speechlessly at the little rascal, who was cowering behind her legs and still screaming at him.

Eric escaped the moneylender, Harlinus the Eye-Warrior, and fled to Lazy Bear Bay, hoping to catch his breath. However, he was unexpectedly ambushed by another group of moneylenders' thugs. The moneylenders were furious that his house had been used to pay for two separate properties, so after cornering him, they first demanded interest: Eric's ear and a piece of his face, and then forced him to lead them to his brother and sister.

Eric's eyes darted around, trying to seize the opportunity to escape—he had no other choice now, and he didn't care who this woman was or what the consequences might be. This was the last straw he could grasp.

Before Eric could run away, Hal, the man with the dagger, placed a hand on Eric's shoulder.

He heard Hal's gentle voice above him: "Don't run around, or I'll cut your Achilles tendons first."

Eric didn't dare to move an inch.

The moneylender who dared to arm wrestle with the Eye Demon Harlinus was certainly no pushover either.