novelraw Chapter 277: The Flesh God
Chapter 277: The Flesh God
Two hundred and fifty million French Indochinese piastres.
This astronomical figure not only successfully won Julian the legendary thousand-year-old Tai Sui, but also made him and the mysterious ancient French family behind him the focus of all eyes that night.
Those gazes hidden in the darkness intertwined with awe, jealousy, and ill-intentioned greed.
Under the escort of the auction house guards, Julian completed the subsequent handover procedures.
The funding channels prepared by Ethan operated with precision comparable to Swiss clockwork, flawlessly transferring the enormous sum.
And that piece of thousand-year-old Tai Sui, placed within a massive glass container, was loaded onto a specially reinforced, enclosed freight carriage pulled by four large, powerful horses.
"Congratulations, Monsieur Belloc." The auction house director was a plump, amiable-looking merchant who appeared to be of mixed Chinese descent. He personally escorted Julian to the auction house's secret exit. "Your boldness tonight has impressed all of Saigon. According to our rules, we will provide you with the highest level of security service until you safely reach the boundaries of the French Concession."
Julian glanced at the two rows of Yaksha-masked guards with fierce auras standing behind the merchant. He smiled politely and declined the offer.
"That won't be necessary, sir. My friend has already arranged the subsequent itinerary for me."
As soon as his words fell, a seemingly ordinary black four-wheel carriage silently stopped in the shadows near the exit.The carriage door opened, revealing the sculpted, stern face of the Knight Templar, Guillaume, inside.
"Get in, Monsieur Belloc. The truce agreement between us remains in effect until we reach a safe location."
Julian nodded and boarded the carriage.
He understood very clearly that from the moment he won the bid for that Tai Sui, he had become the common target of all factions within Saigon's inner world.
At this moment, the only one who could temporarily ally with him and had the capability to protect him was this Knight Templar, who also hailed from Europe and likewise viewed the Black Lotus Sect as a mortal enemy.
The two carriages, one in front of the other, swiftly left the perilous underground market and returned to the humid, sweltering surface world of Saigon.
The freight carriage carrying the Tai Sui led the way, followed by the carriage carrying Julian, Guillaume, and his two attendants, forming a small but heavily guarded convoy.
They did not take the broad, tree-lined avenues, but chose a more remote route, better suited to avoid the eyes and ears of the French colonial police, passing through the local residential districts.
The atmosphere inside the carriage was exceptionally oppressive.
Julian and Guillaume sat facing each other, neither speaking.
Julian was thinking, pondering the look the Black Lotus Deacon had cast him at the final moment.
That look was like a poisonous thorn deeply embedded in his heart, filling him with intense unease.
Meanwhile, Guillaume was meticulously cleaning his ancient steel crossbow.
A flicker of anticipation for the impending battle occasionally flashed in his eyes.
Guillaume also surmised that the Black Lotus Sect would never simply let the matter rest.
Their path of retreat was destined to be anything but smooth.
Suddenly, the "whoosh" sound of sharp weapons cutting through the air came from outside the carriage!
Followed by several dull, heavy "thuds," like objects falling to the ground.
Everything happened in the blink of an eye.
"No need for alarm, Monsieur Belloc." Guillaume didn't even look up, still focused on cleaning his crossbow bolts, his tone flat and calm. "Just some... wretches in a hurry to meet their False God."
Julian lifted a corner of the carriage curtain to look outside.
He saw that four or five bodies clad in black clothing had appeared on either side of their carriage at some unknown time.
Ancient-looking crossbow bolts were embedded precisely in their throats.
Guillaume's two attendants were slowly retracting their small hand crossbows back beneath their trench coats.
"Such swift skill!"
A chill ran down Julian's spine.
The combat prowess of the Knights Templar was even more terrifying than he had imagined.
"They've come, as expected..." He lowered the curtain, forcing himself to appear composed. "They're planning to use this tactic of sending in waves of attackers to test our defenses first."
"It's their usual trick." A trace of contempt appeared on Guillaume's face. "A pack of rats who only dare to hide in the gutters, forever incapable of learning to fight honorably."
However, the unease in Julian's heart did not lessen because of this easy victory.
On the contrary, the sense of foreboding grew even stronger.
"...Something's wrong." Julian pondered silently in his heart.
"This is too simple, so simple that... it feels like a deliberate trap. They absolutely would not only send such disposable assassins."
The instant this thought formed—
"Something's not right."
Guillaume also sensed the abnormality.
He stopped paying attention to those low-grade assassins.
"It's too quiet," he said gravely.
Julian immediately pulled his attention back from his own thoughts to reality.
Logically, the dull thuds from moments ago should have disturbed the residents of this alleyway.
But the alleyways outside the window, which should have been full of noise and the atmosphere of daily life, were now deathly silent.
All the doors were tightly shut, with not a single light visible nor any sound audible.
A strange aura permeated the air, carrying a nauseating smell of rotting fungi mixed with damp earth.
"Halt!" Guillaume suddenly roared.
The coachman violently pulled the reins, and the two carriages came to a screeching halt in the middle of the alleyway.
Not long after they stopped, several staggering, swaying black shadows poured out from the alley exits both ahead and behind, blocking their path.
These were not Black Lotus Sect assassins, nor armed personnel from any organization.
They were... a group of local civilians!
There were dockworkers, street vendors, even women and children.
Their eyes had become cloudy, devoid of reason and spirit, leaving only a primitive craving for flesh and blood.
"Those are..." Julian narrowed his eyes. By the dim light of the street lamps, he could make out the abnormalities on the civilians' bodies.
Their skin showed a sickly, milky-white color. On their exposed arms and necks, patches of strange, gray, fungus-like markings had appeared and were rapidly spreading.
"This is no ordinary riot." Guillaume sensed the danger. "There's something in the air."
Julian looked towards the light source.
Under the yellowish halo of the gas street lamp, he saw countless tiny white particles, almost invisible to the naked eye, drifting in the air like mist.
What sent a chill of horror down his spine was that the densest source of these particles was precisely the freight carriage ahead of them, the one carrying the thousand-year-old Tai Sui!
At that moment, the coachman driving the freight carriage ahead let out a piercing scream.
He clawed at his own face in agony, his nails digging deep into the flesh.
Within mere seconds, his skin visibly paled and hardened at a rapid pace. His eyes quickly lost focus, turning him into a living dead, just like those rioters!
"Spores!" Guillaume's expression changed drastically. He hastily tore two strips of cloth from his shirt, quickly tossing one to Julian. "Quick! Cover your nose and mouth! That thing is leaking!"
Julian fumbled to tie the cloth strip over his nose and mouth. The rough texture of the cloth helped calm him slightly.
He stared in horror at the carriage ahead, which was still spewing white "mist." A thought pierced through the fog in his mind.
"The source is the Tai Sui! The attacks from that group of assassins just now were meant to make it go out of control!"
Finally, Julian understood the meaning behind the mockery and pity in that Deacon's eyes.
This so-called thousand-year-old Tai Sui was not just a "divine medicine," but also an unstable biological bomb.
"ROAR!!"
Accompanied by roars, the civilians infected by the spores, now transformed into half-human, half-fungal monsters, surged madly towards their carriages!
"Protect the holy relic!" Guillaume let out a furious roar, kicked the carriage door open, and charged out first!
The steel crossbow in his hand transformed into an efficient killing machine at this moment.
Every silver crossbow bolt fired could precisely pierce through a monster's skull.
His two attendants followed closely behind, drawing the longswords at their waists, forming an impregnable medieval knight-style defensive formation, cutting down any monster that tried to approach the freight carriage!
Their fighting style carried a religious fervor and iron-blooded discipline.
They showed no mercy towards these civilians already corrupted by heresy; every move was a lethal strike.
However, the number of monsters was simply too great!
They were fearless, advancing wave after wave, endless.
Even with the formidable combat power of the Knights Templar, they were soon in danger of being overwhelmed by the tide of corpses.
Julian did not charge out.
With his combat ability, he would only become a liability in a chaotic battle of this scale.
He forced himself to stay calm, his mind operating at an extremely rapid pace.
The Black Lotus Sect's conspiracy was now laid bare.
Their goal was absolutely not merely to eliminate the two competitors, I.A.R.C. and the Knights Templar.
It was to trigger a massive-scale biochemical crisis in the capital of the French colony!
To turn civilians into terrifying monsters.
To plunge the rule of the French colonial government into chaos and panic.
"BOOM!!"
A tremendous explosion sounded from ahead.
The freight carriage carrying the Tai Sui, unable to withstand the frenzied attacks of the monsters, had its thick carriage walls torn apart!
The massive glass container rolled out from the shattered carriage, crashing heavily onto the ground!
"CRACK..."
A thick, tangible white mist, like a devil breaking free from its cage, erupted madly from the crack!