Chapter 534 385 The Wolf to Be Slaughtered (Part 1)

The standing Dacus looked down at Skylan, who was lying on the ground. The communication was transmitted between their eyes, which made Skylan feel a little trembling in the depths of his soul.

For the first time, Skylan had a crazy idea. He felt that Vlad appeared in front of him, but this was impossible. The other party was an elf. He had seen him when he followed Vlad to attack the city wall, and Vlad was dead. However, he saw Vlad's figure in the elf's eyes. The figure was so deep, ancient, intellectual, and so cold and ruthless. The eyes that looked straight at him stripped off layers of lies and disguises, revealing the heart.

Looking at Skylan, Dacus saw awe and fear in Skylan's eyes. In addition to these, there seemed to be a little recognition. He didn't know what Skylan recognized him for. There were so many people in the cell, and it was not convenient for him to ask. After all, it was the first time he saw Skylan. As for the city wall, there were so many vampires. How could he know which one was which?

"Sorry, I'm not him. He's dead. I just attended his funeral. He'll never come back." After thinking for a moment, Dacus spoke. He paused and continued, "Let me introduce myself. As you can see, I'm an elf. My name is Dacus, Dacus Herban."

"But you look..." Skylan hesitated for a moment and said uncertainly.

"Like him? What do you want to say? In your opinion, I'm a monster like Vlad, right?" Dacus said what Skylan didn't say. He squatted down and stopped looking down. After he finished the action, he continued, "But you only saw the surface, not the inner essence."

"I... I smelled his scent on you..."

"Maybe I was standing in the wrong place just now? I have attended some funerals, all kinds of funerals, but there is no doubt that Vlad's funeral left a deep impression on me. Even if he died, he was not so... peaceful? Smoke, air, smell." Dacus made a not-so-funny joke, and then he turned his head to look at William III standing there and asked, "Maybe the priest put too much kerosene?"

William III knew that Dacus was joking, he smiled and agreed, nodded, and spread his hands. It seemed like this, and it seemed like it was not the case, everything was so ambiguous.

"You know that's not what I'm talking about."

"I know, what should I do?" Dacus responded to Skylan in an indifferent tone.

Just as Skylan thought that Dacus was like Vlad, Dacus also saw a shadow in Skylan, a shadow that had disappeared for a long time, Malus Blackblade. He could feel that Skylan's heart was darker than any vampire of the same kind. This darkness had already existed when Skylan was still a human. Life and various experiences made Skylan's heart dark. In his opinion, Skylan did not live in complete harmony with the world around him and lost some kind of anchor point, which was the most basic thing for a creature or a person. It was a mark in this world to determine who he was.

Perhaps Skylan was a victim of the survivor's curse, entangled by ghosts who loved him too much and didn't want him to be alone. This influence was very great for a person, but he did not choose to fight, but chose to devote himself to it wholeheartedly and could not extricate himself.

"Can I ask a question? This question has troubled me for a long time." The silent atmosphere echoed in the narrow cell. In this oppressive atmosphere, William III looked at Dacus and asked in a deep voice.

"Of course, my friend."

"Jon Skylar, can you answer a question for me?" William III nodded, then supported his body and half-crouched on the ground like Dacus. He stared at Skylar and asked seriously after a moment.

"Of course, Your Excellency the High Priest."

"Stephen, Stephen Fisher, he is not only your friend, he is also my friend. As his friend, I want to know what happened to him in the end." William III asked in a deep voice.

William III reached middle age and was moving towards old age. After he turned from a dog-hating drunkard into a Sigma believer, he assumed many responsibilities and identities. Strictly speaking, he and Stephen Fisher were not only friends, but also partners and comrades. When he was in the Silver Hammer Knights, he often went on missions with Stephen until something happened. After that thing happened, everything changed. Stephen brought back a melancholy and impulsive person, that person was Jon Skylar, but the former Skylar, not the current Skylar.

A question has been lingering in William III's mind, especially after he knew that Skylan was captured. He wanted to know what happened to Stephen in the end. Did he become a vampire like Skylan and die in a battle, or did he die in an internal fight among vampires, or did Skylan not become a vampire and have other experiences.

Skylan was stunned there, and all kinds of memories came out from the forgotten places in his mind. The name Stephen triggered his reaction like a switch. As the memories came out, all kinds of emotions flickered in his pupils. He followed the memory back to nineteen years ago, that is, the year 2009 of the Imperial Calendar. Stephen brought him here, that is, the Cathedral of Sigmar, and then went out from here to Sylvania.

When Skylan arrived in Sylvania, he realized that there was no sign of life on the land, no frogs, no birds, not even the sound of the breeze blowing through the leaves. Although his experience was not so rich, he knew that this silence was unnatural. Evil corroded everything. Darkness was deeply rooted in the land of Sylvania. Morbidity devoured everything. Every inch of the land was festering and wailing.

Even in spring, the trees were still bare, with no signs of sprouting and welcoming spring. The bird's nest on the tree was also empty. Skylan, who was a farmer before, could tell that the bird's nest had been empty for a long time. The land was full of blood, despair and cruelty. Stephen beside him also saw everything in ruins, but Stephen didn't say anything. It seemed that he was no longer surprised by this situation. After watching for a moment, Stephen made a Sigma Hammer symbol in the air in front of him.

Skylan and Stephen came to Sylvania with a purpose, a dual purpose. They were very far away from their hometown, and it was not just the distance. Sylvania was different from any place he had been before. As a farmer before, he had heard some stories about Sylvania, but like most people, he thought these stories were exaggerated by rumors and absurd stories. However, the truth was crueler than he thought.

In fact, it was William III and Stephen who were going to Sylvania to carry out the mission, not Skylan. He insisted on taking this mission, and everything was because of what happened seven years ago. It was his choice to become who he is today. Reality shaped him and changed him. Reality polished his edges, but reality did not defeat him. Seven years have passed, and he is still pursuing, pursuing his enemies, and letting his enemies get the final rest.

Skylan and Stephen are not brothers, and their heights and physiques are also very different. Although they are not brothers, their heights and physiques are also different, but reality has closely linked them together. Fate is so cruel. Stephen is Skylan's brother-in-law. Stephen in the 2009 Imperial Era is nine years older than Skylan. If there is any similarity between them, it is their eyes. Their eyes are telling stories. They once pursued happiness in the future, but this pursuit was taken away.

They both lost their families at the same time. With the loss of their families, they are more mature than their peers, and their souls are old and hard. They have experienced the most terrible things in their lives, but they survived, and now it is the beginning of revenge.

"Have you ever thought about... what if? What will happen?" Skylan asked after Stephen finished drawing the symbol of Sigmar's Hammer. He did not explain the word "if", and his brother-in-law knew what he was talking about.

"I think about it every day, every moment. It's like when the story is halfway through, it suddenly stops. You don't know how the story will end, and you are always troubled by the story. What if... what would life be like? Where would we be now? Definitely not here, maybe not us, but me and William. I miss that old drunkard a little bit."

"In fact, that day... not only them, we also died. Sebastido took our lives, just like a sword stuck in our hearts. We are nothing now."

"Yes, I agree, we are nothing." Stephen responded.

If this word has a heavy burden for Skylan, if this word refers to the death of his and Stephen's wife, who died seven years ago. He accepted this matter because it had happened, but he did not forgive, let alone forget, the seven robbers that day.

Revenge is a long journey. Under Stephen's guidance, Skylan changed from a farmer to a Sigmar believer and a fanatical witch hunter. He took advantage of the opportunity of the mission to pursue the seven robbers. The long seven years buried six of the seven robbers in the land and paid the price for their past crimes.

The price was painful. Skylan showed no mercy. The six robbers died in agony and did not look so beautiful. After all kinds of torture, he chose to kill the six robbers in the way that witch hunters are best at. He calmly watched the robbers wailing in the fire and crushed the robbers' bones to ashes.

"Answer me! This is very important to me!" William III scolded Skylan who was in a daze.

However, William III's scolding did not call Skylan back, but made him sink deeper and deeper. His forgotten memories kept emerging, and a name echoed in his mind.

Sebastian Angna.

In Skylan's view, Sebastian was a ghost. Sebastian seemed to not exist. Every time he appeared there after hearing the news of Sebastian, he could not find any trace of Sebastian. Sometimes he even thought that Sebastian did not exist, but was an illusion in his heart. Even though he knew that he was very close to Sebastian, so close that there might be only a wall between them, so close that he could hear Sebastian breathing into the back of his neck, the closer he was to Sebastian, the more unpredictable he became.

Skylan was always one step behind Sebasti, and any reliable information he collected was ultimately proven to be false. Every path seemed blind, and even those brokers who sold information would not tell him what they knew. Using the witch hunter to question local officials was useless, and he could clearly feel that the officials looked at him like a walking beast. Sometimes, the identity of a witch hunter was not so useful in the empire, and was even excluded. Sometimes he would take out his meager income to bribe, but it was useless, and Sebasti seemed to disappear.

In Skylan's view, Sebasti did not seem to be as simple as a bandit leader. Sebasti seemed to have many friends, and the influence of these friends was enough to help Sebasti disappear. In his cognition, this was abnormal. Speaking is human nature, and words are alive, just like chaos and evil, constantly spreading among the crowd. However, there was no place for the words surrounding Sebasti, which was abnormal in itself.

Maybe others would choose to give up and let Sebasti disappear into the air and become a ghost, but Skylan would not. Sebasti was his obsession, driven by a strong desire for revenge. Sebasti led a group of bandits to kill his wife, which he could not accept. It was unforgivable. Without forgiveness, it was impossible to forget!

Frustration and obsession tortured Skylan. He had been in Sylvania for a year. It was a difficult year, a year of failure, and frustration weighed heavily on him. Pain and disappointment were branded in every wrinkle on his face, and his eyes showed extreme pain. He was troubled by one thing. Sebasti was still alive and in Sylvania, but he just couldn't find it. It seemed like a humiliation, playing a cat-and-mouse game.

Since Skylan and Stephen came to Duncan Hoff, he almost found Sebasti several times. He could feel that he was very close to Sebasti. He smelled Sebasti in the air of the hotel and the casino, but he just couldn't find Sebasti. Whenever he started looking for him, Sebasti always disappeared without a trace.

Skylan combined all the circumstances and came to a conclusion that he could draw. This conclusion was surprising, but also reasonable. Sebastian's friend was more powerful than he thought, so powerful that he could shelter the murderer who killed his wife. This was not a conclusion that made him uneasy. This made him unable to believe those brokers. He began to reject any information provided by those brokers and started to search in his own way.

In the end, Skylan, as a witch hunter, still found clues. Everything pointed to the Dance of Death. He and Skylan found a wine merchant. In his opinion, the wine merchant was undoubtedly a good man. There was a reason why the wine merchant was a good man. During the chat, he learned that the reason why the wine merchant risked his life to keep him and Skylan by his side was because he sympathized with them and had the same experience as them.

A few years ago, the wife and daughter of the wine merchant were also killed by robbers. To some extent, he was jealous of Skylan and his ruthless pursuit of the bandits. This was something he could not do, but he was still willing to help Skylan and Stephen. As the provider of wine for the banquet at Dunkenhof Castle, he had a way to get Skylan and Stephen to blend in. He let Skylan and Stephen hide in the wine barrel.

Skylan and Stephen quickly came to the kitchen from the basement. They stopped at the door of the kitchen. The sounds from the kitchen reached their ears. There was no doubt that the staff in the kitchen were working hard to prepare carefully made food for the banquet.

"If we can't leave here, what kind of life will you choose in your next life?" Stephen whispered, his eyes flickering in the dark.

"I once had a good life, an obscure imperial peasant, living in a remote corner of the empire, living a happy life with my wife. I am willing to pay any price to go back to that time and be who I was in the past, not who I am now."

"I also want to go back to that day, but I think I will choose to die with them instead of living like this."

"Let's start, my brother-in-law, I can feel death calling us." Skylan said in a firm tone, and then he carried the barrel of wine on his shoulder, pushed open the door and walked up the narrow stairs used by servants.

Stephen, who had gone from being a farmer to a witch hunter, had experienced a lot. He ignored the expressions of the kitchen staff and kept moving forward. Carrying a barrel of wine, he shuttled through the lower floors of the castle, looking for stairs to the upper floors. The corridor was full of ornaments, from the cold floor to the walls covered with velvet. Finally, the noise led him to the hall.

The moment he entered the hall, the noise turned into a roar. The hot and humid hall was crowded with people. The sound of conversation and laughter kept pouring into Skylan's ears. All the people wore strange masks. It felt as if those people had just crawled out of the grave. Fortunately, when he appeared in the hall, a young waiter appeared in front of him and stuffed the mask into his and Stephen's hands.

After putting down the barrel, Skylan moved among the crowd, searching. Various sounds washed over him like a tide. People moved gracefully, as if those steps were planned beforehand. He kept searching, looking at those dazzling masks. Now he was very sure in his heart that Sebastian must be lurking among these masked people.

The rhythm of the music gradually became melancholy, and Skylan, who kept searching, finally found his target.

A haggard young man stood on the mahogany railing. His eyes were cold and firm, seeming to despise the dancing figures on the dance floor. He seemed to see a group of flies squirming on the corpse of a dead animal. The look on his face The disgust was unabashed.

Behind the young man, there were five people standing, two of whom looked very similar to him. They seemed to be brothers. They carry weapons and are ready to intervene at any time to control any disturbance that may occur. Their eyes were alert and cold, as if they were guards from a certain family, defending the honor of their master and family to the death. If the dance floor descends into chaos, due to the riot of drunkards or the anger of a border baron, they will immediately spring into action to maintain order and safety.

After finding the target, Skylan did not act rashly. He walked around in the venue, constantly using his peripheral vision to detect when turning around. As he continued to get closer to the target, he saw what he wanted to see. I saw the symbol on Sebastian's forehead. He kept breathing deeply, sucking the hot and humid air into his lungs to calm himself down. Otherwise, he was afraid that he would take out the hand crossbow hidden under his clothes and fire it at Sebastian's throat.

The more he controlled, the more that thought spread in his mind. He imagined taking out the crossbow, pressing the switch, and watching the fatal crossbow arrow pierce Sebastian's throat. The shock of the moment confused Sebastian. , and then blood spurted out from the arteries in his neck. This thought tried to dominate him, and he kept controlling his thoughts. He was not going to get out alive today, and everything would end tonight, but he was not going to take out his crossbow now. He was really far away from Sebastian. It's too far.

Stephen looked around the venue again, trying to find the stairs leading to the upper floor, but he found nothing. The stone pillars around the venue were covered with thick velvet, and the four walls were hung with gorgeous tapestries. Ideas spread in his mind, and people surrounded him, cutting off the connection with Stephen. He could only keep moving forward, trying to pass through the gap that did not exist at all, but the gap did not exist until the music The tone changes again.

Vlad and Isabella appeared, and people made a way. Skylan took advantage of this opportunity to squeeze out of the gap. When he squeezed out, he looked back and saw people While trying to approach the Earl and Lady, he sees Stephen trapped. Stephen was trying to squeeze out of the crowd, but his physique was so strong that he couldn't squeeze out at all. He had no choice, he couldn't look back, and he couldn't wait here,

When Vlad's toast drew a burst of applause, Stephen walked through the velvet. He tried to find a staircase leading to the upper floor. When he opened the second velvet curtain, he found the hidden passage. He didn't Choosing to go in, he thought the passage seemed to lead deeper into the castle than to the upper levels. There was a locked door hidden behind the third block, and he could only place his hope on the last block.

As the music started playing again, Skylan climbed up the stairs. At this time, more thoughts were surging in his mind. These thoughts were pointless, and he couldn't control them. He couldn't think calmly. His body was shaking with excitement and anticipation. He put on his gloves and took out a glass bottle from his arms.

Stephen was trapped in the crowd, which is what Skylan wanted to see, because he did not tell the truth to his brother-in-law. He knew the risks involved. He had to do it in front of hundreds of people in the venue, in front of the earl and countess. Killing Sebastian in front of him made him have no idea of ​​leaving Duncanhof Castle alive, but that didn't matter.

The important thing is that Skylan avenged his wife. The cycle of killing will stop tonight. He is not afraid of death. Death is nothing terrible to him. His wife is waiting for him in Maul's kingdom. He would be with his wife again, and maybe as Vlad said, death was something to celebrate.

The sound of music covered up Skylan's footsteps. He saw four people standing with Sebastian in the corridor, but he didn't care. He only had Sebastian in his eyes, and nothing else mattered. The fist of his left hand clenched the glass bottle, and as he approached, one of the men turned and saw him.

"Go down, you are not allowed to come up here."

"I can go anywhere I want."

Sebastian turned around as Skylan's voice sounded. The moment Sebastian turned around, he seemed to see a look of recognition in Sebastian's eyes.

"You did it, okay, but not today. Please hurry downstairs before I decide to teach you a lesson you will never forget."

"I forgot nothing, my wife, my daughter, my friends. They are all here, they are all here, burning!" Just as Skylan thought, Sebastian recognized him, But instead of turning around and going downstairs, he took two steps forward and said in a hateful tone, while pointing at his head.

"So... you are a witch hunter? Really? I thought you would be... very tall, but I didn't expect you to be... so short? Like a dwarf."

"It seems that you two... seem to know each other?" One of them came out and asked, standing between Skylan and Sebastian.

"No, there is no problem at all, because he is about to die." Sebastian shook his head with a smile. His smile was particularly cruel, and his lips curled back, revealing the sharp teeth in his mouth. (End of chapter)