Primordial Sage: Plight of Immortality

Once he finished talking, he quickly took the man they were holding into his care. This man was also unconscious, and Illyan didn’t plan on waking him up.

His left hand was completely crushed by the rubble, and Illyan decided that amputation was the only way to save him.

After treating this man, he went around and treated the rest of the gangsters and a few of the real soldiers who were helping out in the arena during the event.

Once he found that most of the people were already stabilized, he was told to hurry up to the squad leader who was a few streets away.

Someone led him to the street, which he immediately recognized as the place where he and Ezekiel had a death fight.

There, over a dozen men lay on the ground, unmoving with their eyes wide open.

However, nobody was giving these even a simple glance as they were surrounding the man in much more intricate armor, indicating his status as squad leader.

Unfortunately, his lofty look was no more as his body was twisted into weird angles.

It was obvious that even if the man was alive, it would be just a temporary occurrence.

Illyan slowed down when he noticed the man was waking up.

He saw the others taking out the leather flask full of water and trying to let him drink. Illyan was watching that placidly, knowing that they were dooming the guy because of that, but didn’t stop them. After all, if he died, then his secret would be safer.

Letting a person who had a broken spine drink water was something that could easily kill him. It could aggravate his injury or choke him as spinal injuries can impair the ability to swallow…

Unfortunately, Aziro didn’t just stand by.

“Stop.” His voice was strong as he stared at the soldier who planned to let the squad leader drink the water.

“But, sir…” Before he could finish, a spear bone flashed in front of his head. Not even a second after, it easily passed through with some blood and brain matter gushing out.

Other soldiers were horrified by this scene as they watched the man’s body plop on the ground.

“If I say something, then do it,” Aziro said as he then turned his attention to the squad leader.

He looked delirious and didn’t even notice what just happened.

“It hurts so much, urgh… I want to move to a different…ugh… position.” The man seemed to struggle, but it showed up only on his face as his body didn’t listen to him.

He was paralyzed from his neck down, so even if he survived, he would probably drive his family to poverty. Seeing that, the soldiers felt pity but didn’t dare to stand out to say or do something after seeing the fate of their colleague.

“What happened here?” Aziro asked indifferently, without caring for the squad leader’s discomfort.

The man turned his eyes to Aziro, but his eyes were hazy as he just muttered to himself.

“We heard a big commotion here…” He gasped for air as he started explaining.

“However… When we came here, it was already over…”

“What was over?” Cornelius asked as he felt his body tense up in nervousness.

“The fight…Cough… Cough.” The man fell into a coughing fit as the blood was rising through his throat and flowed across his mouth on his neck.

“What a waste…” Illyan heard Aziro mutter as he took out one vial with blue content and forcibly let it slide down the man’s throat.

“Huh..huh..huh..” They waited for a moment before his breathing finally got even and he could talk again.

“Who fought whom?” Cornelius asked.

“Ugh… Gray-skinned man… He was monstrous. Weird monster limbs were protruding from his body…”

The man gasped for air as he explained.

Aziro narrowed his eyes. He knew that Ezekiel ran away since he probably didn’t plan on fighting him to the death, but why would he pick another fight after being injured?

‘Did he want to catch that guy?’ Remembering the guy that let the troll go wild made him gloomy.

“The other one… When we finally came here, he stood in the middle of the street. Covered in grime and blood… Next to him were the body parts of the second man who was throwing some kind of gray mist to escape. The tail, mantis blade… Cough… Even arm and leg. It lay in the puddle of blood while that man stood there…”

For the first time, the squad leader showed an expression of horror. Meanwhile, Aziro furrowed his eyes as he looked around. Unfortunately, everything was swept by Illyan, so he didn’t find any of Ezekiel's body parts.

“At first, we thought that it would be easy to subjugate him as the man was heavily injured… He even had his intestines in his palms… But he just laughed as his body recovered at high speed… When he finally lifted his head at us, it was the most dreadful thing I have ever seen… His mouth was twisted, and his smile went from ear to ear with a bloody maw where its teeth were growing at a rapid pace… Its nails were also long and sharp… But the worst were its cold eyes full of madness… He massacred us with a smile on his face… It was truly… The devil…”

With that, he breathed his last as he closed his eyes in peace. He said everything he knew and felt he fulfilled his duty.

But the others had their breath stuck in their throats as they listened to him.

Most of them were just normal soldiers and were in no way stronger than the man that just passed away. If they were part of the squad, they would be already dead.

And as they were mostly uneducated and superstitious, this caused a huge ripple in their hearts.

“Did you hear that?”

“A devil…”

“What do we do…”

Cornelius knew he should stop them and berate them for their stupidity, but he felt the lump in his throat stopping him from doing so. After all, he was aware of who Ezekiel was. And someone who could literally tear him apart with a smile still plastered on their face… It couldn’t be human.

Even Aziro felt a bit shaken. He thought the man was responsible, sure. But he thought it was through some plan and trickery. Not through strength. He wasn’t as arrogant as to think that he was the only one who was strong as Ezekiel, but it was alarming to find out that someone of that strength would visit this barren kingdom. Not only that, but he didn’t feel any fluctuations from the man. It was as if he didn’t take mana into his body.

Only Warlords could clash with them without mana and mind power. But then Warlords definitely didn’t have this kind of ability to recover.

And why did they fight in the end?

‘No… Maybe it is exactly because of that regeneration that Ezekiel was interested. He is a biomancer, after all.’ Aziro ignored everything around as he pondered.

After a while, when the soldiers finally recovered from the man’s last words, they decided to collect the bodies for the cremation. The constable, however, beckoned them not to do so after seeing Aziro’s glare.

After this day, Aziro lost most of his human undeads and was in need of new bodies, which were perfect. The soldiers weren’t content but couldn’t do anything against it.

Seeing that it was over, Illyan decided to just wait for his payment as he didn’t have anything else to do here.

However, the constable didn’t seem to be in the mood as he just threw a money pouch at him.

“It should be enough for your services. You can keep it.”

After saying that, he walked off with urgency with Aziro.

Illyan just stood there for a moment before he started to count the money he got. All in all, there were exactly fifty silver coins inside.

Today, he saved around twenty people, so he got ten more silver coins than he should have.

“I am quite lucky…” Illyan muttered to himself.

The only thing that kept him on edge was the squad leader who leaked a lot of information about him. His strength, his recovery rate, and even his ability to use his nails which could be used as surprise attacks. The only comfort was that they didn’t know that it was exactly him.

They only knew it was the bald man with scars on his face.

Illyan was glad that he put the effort into his disguise or he would already be exposed by now.

He sighed as he looked at the pouch and then at the surroundings. However, the destruction didn’t have anything to do with him now.

All work was done here, and he didn’t have any reason to stay. Knowing that, he turned on his heels and went back to his manor.

A day and a half had passed since then and Illyan did use that time to efface any possible traces that could lead to him. He had a strong urge to isolate himself in the hidden room and look at his spoils, but he didn’t fall for the temptation.

Caleb still didn’t wake up, so he didn’t have to be in a hurry. It looked like the medicine was really strong that it took him out for so long.

He decided that he would test it later on if he could replicate it.

However, for now, he would pretend to be a good citizen.

Thanks to that, he could finally finish some of the miscellaneous work he was delaying because he was always busy.

He went out in the town to splurge the new money he got. While a lot of stalls and stores were closed because of the incident, it was mostly only those close to the slums. In better districts, the situation was better and the mayor called off his command of not going out yesterday.

Illyan decided to buy several big chunks of meat to fill the missing nutrients his body was lacking and some other ingredients. Mushrooms, vegetables, fruit, eggs… Everything.

The more he lived, the more he realized that life wasn’t only about unseasoned meat and porridges. He decided that it was time to learn how to cook properly.

Unfortunately, while there were some recipe books in the library, they were not professional in any way. Illyan didn’t care and decided to learn by himself. The food he ate in the cafeteria for months completely numbed his taste buds, and he wanted something new.

He also decided to buy a lot of gardening tools, seeds, and some fresh herbs in hopes of cultivating them.

Tending to his small garden was quite a calming experience. Not to mention, those herbs were useful for him.

‘Should I read some Botanic Books?’ Since he decided to be serious about it, he would read some books about it too.

Once he bought everything, he went to visit Koran. Once in a while, they would always meet and discuss mathematics. After all, that was a deal.

They had a debate for around two hours before Illyan left. Once again, he learned something new, but he wasn’t really happy knowing the man had ulterior motives.

The moment he left, he decided to still visit someone. The old man Vael, who already retired. He considered visiting the man since he gave him almost the entire laboratory. And it shouldn’t be too fruitless either. After studying medicine and herbs from different angles, Illyan found himself asking questions that couldn’t be answered in the books.

Thus, he decided to visit the old man and ask him.

Vael was pleased to meet him and had a very long debate with him that answered all of his questions. Once he got to know Illyan was also interested in botanics, he recommended some books and even gave him his recipes for fertilizers and the place where he collected the best dirt for the plants.

All in all, today’s harvest was grandiose.

However, after taking the books about botanics from the library, he started to hear some rumors which were rapidly spreading.

‘Who leaked the information? Haaah…’ Illyan could only sigh in defeat.

The rumors were about the Smiling Devil who slaughtered the soldiers of the town like livestock with a huge smile on its face while doing so…