Chapter 45: Chapter 42 Return Home! Return Home Immediately! (Seeking Follow-up Readings)

A few minutes earlier, above the Mist Sea.

A burly man clenched the long knife in his hand and savagely swung it toward Laud, but as the blade fell, it suddenly stopped. His fierce expression gradually became incredibly conflicted as he carefully spoke out.

“Mr. Laud, are we really going through with this?”

“Stop talking, just do it!” Laud, the cripple, gritted his teeth and said, extending his right hand straight out, revealing a very prominent flame mark on the back of his hand.

As he spoke, Laud’s heart also clenched fiercely, but this was an utterly unavoidable choice.

From the beginning, he had little faith in a certain Wizard’s bold and outrageous rescue operation. So when he noticed that the town harbor was suddenly in chaos, and all previously laid plans had come to an end even before they had begun, Laud immediately judged that the Wizards staying in the town would soon be done for!

Exactly because of this, Laud made a decisive decision, taking advantage of the chaotic situation in the harbor town to organize a getaway.

Thanks to the Church focusing most of their efforts on dealing with Lynn and the others, they had managed to take control of this ship without much effort and, taking along those portable assets, sailed away from the harbor town.

Now the only thing causing Laud concern was the flame mark on his hand; if the Wizard Lord found out he had fled when facing peril, he might drag him to hell right before dying.

For him, who didn’t understand much about magic, the only countermeasure he could think of was to cut this hand off!

The muscular man, conflicted, held the knife but hesitated to strike, and Laud’s mood fluctuated uncontrollably until, annoyed, he grabbed the long knife himself—it would be faster than all this dithering!

“Boss, the signal, it’s the signal!”

At the bow, a sailor suddenly shouted loudly. Laud instinctively looked up, seeing a fireball rising from the docks at the harbor and bursting open in the night sky.

Laud was somewhat surprised; he had thought that deceitful and ruthless wizard was most likely dead. He hadn’t expected the other party to actually make it back to the harbor docks.

Thinking this, he involuntarily looked toward his first mate, who was holding an alchemical monocular.

“I see many Black Armor guards; they’ve all come out, and Archbishop Anluoke is there too! Those Wizards seem to be surrounded…” the executive officer swallowed hard, struggling to speak.

Laud immediately understood; they had been pursued to this point. Thinking briefly, he spoke straightforwardly.

“Proceed with the plan, fire a volley of rockets, and then we immediately set sail across the sea!”

Since the other party had already successfully lured Anluoke and his followers to the prearranged location, he naturally wouldn’t act so heartlessly. Shooting a distant volley wasn’t much trouble, but coming ashore to support was out of the question.

Laud didn’t believe that in such a predicament, the others could make any significant moves.

It’s not like he could advance to a great Wizard on the spot and then destroy these thousands of elite guards with a few spells, right?

This was beyond unbelievable.

Over three hundred sailors and guards immediately took out the oilcloth-wrapped arrows they had prepared, lit them with torches, and drew their bows to shoot the arrows toward the distant harbor, completely disregarding accuracy; after all, the Wizard’s command had been merely to hit the harbor docks.

Laud glanced briefly and did not look again, restless as he gestured with the long knife in his hand.

To cut or not to cut…

Just how much should be cut…

This is a question worth pondering deeply!

Just as Laud had made up his mind and was about to take action, the entire ship suddenly shook violently. A loud booming sound erupted beside his ear, followed by an immense force that knocked him to the ground and sent him rolling to the base of the mast, where his head slammed hard against the crossbar.

Laud’s head buzzed, his clothes soaked by the waves he had rolled through. Only after a while did he manage to sit up, clutching his bruised abdomen, and looked up to ask his first mate, “What’s going on, did we run into a storm?”

However, at his question, the first mate did not reply, his gaze fixated blankly towards the direction of the port docks, muttering under his breath, “It’s all over, all over…”

“What’s all over?” Laud frowned in dissatisfaction.

Could it be that the battle at the docks had been decided and those wizards were all done for?

Laud turned his head to look and immediately took a sharp breath at the scene before him.

He realized it wasn’t the wizards who were done for, but the entire port town itself!

A massive cloud of dust was rising from above the city, and the originally dim night sky had now turned a blazing red, as if something had ripped through the darkness.

What had been a prosperous and splendid dock was now nothing but ruins, with thick smoke billowing and intense heat waves sweeping upwards, turning the sky a fiery red, and a dense rain of fire falling from that vast cloud of dust, creating a hellish scene.

Laud swallowed hard, his legs trembling. Even though he was too far to see clearly what had happened on the docks, he understood that under such power, the so-called Black Armored Guard and Church Priests were inconsequential.

Could it be that he had really misjudged, and the opponent was actually a powerful wizard in deep hiding?

The magic they named “Fireworks” was terrifying… Laud wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. The fall of a port city was indeed the most “brilliant” spectacle he had ever seen.

“Mr. Laud, should we head back now?” a sailor stuttered, asking.

Before Laud could respond, a dazzling light of death shot from the docks and struck the sea hundreds of meters away, creating a wave tens of meters high. The sail battleship shook violently again, and Laud immediately jumped up, shouting in panic.

“Return to port! Get us back immediately!”

The sailors hurriedly pulled the sails and adjusted their course, not daring to delay a moment.

To everyone on board, this was undoubtedly a bare warning from the mighty wizard!

If they did not return to port now, the next spell might well strike their ship!

Laud hastily changed into a proper set of clothes and tidied up his appearance. Although his legs were still a bit wobbly, he managed to wear his most welcoming smile, preparing to meet the fearsome wizard and no longer mentioning anything about cutting hands.

A brawny man beside him vigorously pulled on a rope, feeling very fortunate about his earlier judgement. Thankfully he had not acted to cut earlier, or else he would have been the one cut down!