Acma was standing facing the sunset, bathing his body in a golden glow. His adrenaline was all time high, forcing his heart beating faster and faster. Killing more than 600 enemies in a single blast, there is no way he could calm down.

He swept his eyes across the destroyed space in front of the temple. The knights gradually halted their actions and focused their full attention toward Acma. The wanted to charge, but with Acma’s hand gripping their princess’s neck, they won’t risk it. They could only swallow their rage and listen to Acma.

After a while, the only group that was still fighting was the princess guardians who were still facing an attack from the unicorn. However, since the unicorn was alone, injuries began to accumulated across it body. Before long, the unicorn unable to fight anymore and limped down to its belly.

Acma felt pity and wanted to save it. He took out the rest of his guardians and spread them around him.

“Alice, save the unicorn”, he ordered.

“Yes, Master”

Five Guardians reappeared around the unicorn and deflected any attacks thrown toward it. The appearance of the Guardians forced the princess guardians to halt their attacks and retreated. They had to. They knew who the owner of these Guardians and he was currently holding their princess as a hostage. So they decided not to fight against the Guardians. Thus, the unicorn was saved.

Acma arranged his Guardians around the residents and have a few of them enlarge the gap between the residents and the knights.

“Back off!!!”, he shouted at the knights who refused to bulge from their position.

They were forced to comply and one by one they began to distance themselves from the residents.

“Fiend!!!”

Suddenly, a knight shouted from the front of the troop. Acma remembered him. He was supposed to be Eilavel, an aide who the prince talked to before the fight.

“Release the prince and the princess!” Eilavel continued with a gritted teeth. His face was twitching with anger.

“Idiot. Do you think I will listen to your order?” said Acma in his head.

Acma raised the princess higher and tightened his grip that made the princess’s mouth letting out a strange noise.

“What did you call me?” he asked while looking at Eilavel.

“You!!!” Eilavel really wanted to curse but he swallowed it. “What do you want!!” he said with a pressed voice.

“Retreat from this place and come back with someone who can talk”, Acma commanded.

“...”

Eilavel was quiet for a while. Thinking.

“Captain Eilavel, we can’t retreat”, a shout was heard. It came from Acma’s right side. Both he and Eilavel turned their head and looked at the speaker. The speaker was Eruben, leader of the princess guard.

“We must save the prince and the princess”, Eruben continued.

“Captain Eruben...”, said Eilavel with a low voice. He was hesitated.

“Eilavel”, Acma called. “Make your decision fast. You don’t have time to waste”.

“Don’t take things too far, human. If anything happened to the prince or the princess, I assure you, Isebial will never forgive you. His Majesty will deploy the Divine Generals to hunt you and eliminate this town. Think, human. Is it worth to lost everything you care for?” shouted Eruben.

Acma just took a glance at Eruben as he didn’t care about what Eruben said just now.

“Looks like you still need a push”, he said to Eilavel. He swapped the battle hammer in his hand with a pipe bomb and show it to Eilavel. “This thing can kill your men just like the explosion before and I have tonne of them. I really don’t mind if you want to try to free this princess from my hand. But you will pay the price”

“Stop!! Alright, alright, we will retreat. But, if anything happen to the prince or the princess, I’ll make sure you will never be able to step out of this town”, Eilavel shouted.

“Captain Eilavel! We..” Eruben tried to said something but was cut off by Eilavel.

“Captain Eruben. I’ll explain to the headquarters later and take responsibilities for this. Let’s retreat”, Eilavel explained. Then he raised his voice and ordered the surviving knights to pack up and retreat.

The knights reluctantly preparing to retreat. Then they discarded all the difficulties after survivibg the blast and systematically marching out of the town while bringing the injured with them. Before they left, they threw a menacing glare at Acma like they were warning him that they will return.

Acma took a deep breath and put the princess on his shoulder before jumped down.

“Alice, bring the princess into the temple”, he ordered as he took off his helmet.

“Yes, Master”

“Collect the equipment too”

“Yes, Master”

A Guardian took the princess into its arms and then teleported while the other Guardians began to spread out to collect the equipment littered on the ground.

“Collecting those equipment one by one is really troublesome. I should turn back the setting to auto-collect. Although it’s more pleasureable to see what I gained from my kill, but looks like it’s really not practical. I might miss some of the loot too”, thought Acma.

Acma swivelled his head and looked at the freed residents. Some of them were crying, probably the relative to the deceased. What puzzled Acma was that the bodies of the deceased residents didn’t disappear unlike the dead elves or the other creatures. He will thought about the answers later.

He walked to them.

After a step, his feet kicked a small leather pouch, most likely belong to the impaled magician just now. He bowed and took the pouch.

Seed Pouch

“Interesting. I wonder what kind of seed in it”

He unfurled the rope that strangled the mouth of the pouch and his eyes glittered as he saw many seeds glowing faintly with either green, blue or purple colour. He pinched one of the purple glowed seed and took it out.

~ Ding

You’ve obtained an uncontracted Seed of Elder Pine Treeherd. Do you wish to make a contract?

Yes/No

“So, those previous treeherd came from a seed like this. Awesome. I should make a contract”, he said in his head.

However, before he could say yes, Alice gave a warning.

“Master, a captured resident threw a stone toward you”

“Eh?”

Acma was startled. He swivelled his head to the left and saw a fist sized stone was flying toward his head. His eyes contracted and immediately swung his body to the right just enough to avoid the stone. The stone missed the target. At the same time, the blue notification panel on his sight disappeared.

“MURDERER!!!”

A woman shouted. Acma looked at her with a confused face. She still sobbing from too much crying. She bent her body to pick up another stone and hurled it toward Acma. Acma dodged again. She took several stones and hurled them. All of them missed.

The women fell to her knees while Acma still standing at the same place. She wailed loudly.

“Please die!! You killed my husband!! We surrendered so we can live, why must you fight them!! Waaaaaaaa!! Give back my husband!! Waaaaaaa aaa aaa aaa” She shouted in the middle of her wail.

Only then Acma understood. She blamed him for the death of his husband. Acma looked down at the ground, thinking for a solution. But unfortunately, he couldn’t found any. He looked again at the women. He tried to say something but no word come out of his mouth.

He saw several others who had a stones in their hands. They looked like they were inspired by the woman’s courage and tried to attack Acma too. But looking at a few Guardians who were just appeared out of nowhere to protect Acma, they stopped. They only looked at Acma with an eyes full of hatred.

“Murderer!”

“I hate you, murderer”

“You kill my father”

A few others joined in cursing Acma. There were only a few of them but they represented the majority. When Acma looked at the others, they just averted their eyes but didn’t say anything. Their silence could be translated as agreeing that Acma was the cause of the death of their friends.

Acma aborted his initial plan to greet the captured residents. He just walked away from them and headed toward the temple entrance. His heart was heavy. His steps were heavy. He felt like sinking into the ground.

In just a few minutes, he took a roller coaster ride of emotions. It began with he felt pressured after killing so many enemies with a single explosion, then he felt relieve when the enemies retreated, then he was elated when he found out about the seed and the contract. And now, he was feeling awful after he was blamed by a widow for her husband’s death.

Acma took a deep breath and raised his chin a little. He tried to throw the disturbing feeling to the back of his head, but it was futile.

‘BLINK’

He reappeared in front of the temple’s entrance.

“Acma, I’m sorry. I’m really really sorry”

Li Susheng greeted Acma with a face full of regret.

“I know what I had to do, but I can’t press the button. I don’t know why. I’m so sorry to disappoint you”, Li Susheng continued. He lowered his head.

“It’s okay, Mr Li”, replied Acma as he tried to smile.

“But you were blamed by those people. If only I had a courage to press the button, you wouldn’t face this situation”, said Li Susheng as he pointed his finger at the residents in front of the temple who were still cursing at Acma.

Acma smiled wryly when he heard that. He didn’t reply and headed into the temple compound, followed by Shi Ming, Li Susheng and the others.

After a while, they arrived at a small room where Prince Iandithas and Princess Nidhwen were held. A middle age monk was standing by the door, guarding the room. Both the prince and the princess were still unconscious and laying on the floor side by side. Their hands and feet were tied with a rope.

Acma squatted down and then stretch the rope with both of his hands. The result was he easily snapped it. Since the prince had a similar level to Acma, most probably that the rope wasn’t strong enough to hold them.

Acma was thinking the solution and unconsciously brought his thumb to the side of his chin. He had two options. either to break their bones so they couldn’t struggle or getting a stronger rope. But, the first option was immediately rejected since he wanted to use them as a bargaining chips if the Isebial Kingdom decided to negotiate for their release. Thus led to the third option which is stationing a few Supreme Guardians around them.

“Strong rope. Where can I find them?”, he thought.

Then he remembered about the treasure trove he took from the tomb. He opened the inventory and searched for the rope.

“Rope, rope, rope. This one? No. How about this one? Hmmm. I think this is good enough. A rope made from a Purple Eyed Spider silk”

He took out the rope and stretched it.

“Yup, it’s good enough”

Acma turned around and looked at Shi Ming.

“Mr Shi, please tie them with this rope. As you can see, normal rope can’t hold them”, he said.

“Okay”, replied Shi Ming short as he took the rope. He looked at Acma’s face and spoke. “Young friend, I will talk to those residents after this and have them understand about our decision to fight. Young friend no need to worry”, Shi Ming assured.

“Thank you Mr Shi”, replied Acma. He looked at the name panel above Shi Ming’s head and everyone inside the room. “Level 136. Looks like you level up quite a lot. Everyone too. Congratulations”, he said.

Shi Ming and the others smiled but the didn’t look happy.

“We did almost nothing, yet we still received the reward from the battle. We truly didn’t deserve it”, said Shi Ming.

“I don’t know how the Overseer decide who participate in the battle and who aren’t, but I think it is good for Mr Shi, Mr Li and the others to level up. You can protect the town better.”, Acma demurred.

“But if we face the enemies as strong as those knights, we’re still helpless”, replied Shi Ming dejected.

“We will find the way”, Acma said.

“Yeah, we will find the way. Thank you, young friend. May I know, did you level up too?”

“13 times”

“Just 13?”

“Yes. Because my level is quite high already. Anyway, I have to return to Orca Village to bring the elders here. I’m sure that Isebial Kingdom will send a delegation tomorrow and I think the Orca Village’s elders should participate too”

“We understand. But, what are we going to do with these two?”

“If they wake up, interrogate them. Let see what kind of information we can get. If anything happen, just call me. I’ll leave some of my golem here as a guard”

“Okay, we will inform you if anything happen. Young friend, thank you very much for coming”

“No problem, Mr Shi. I’ll go now”

“TELEPORT”