Chapter 151: Havoc in Salt City 2

“Your Excellency, you are human as well. Surely you wouldn’t really…”

Wood felt his scalp prickle as he watched Kent’s attitude and hurriedly tried to calm the situation.

Kent, however, had already grown impatient.

The men before him had been talking back and forth for quite some time, yet none of them had addressed the real issue. It was obvious they were trying to turn a major incident into a minor one, and then make the minor one disappear altogether.

There was clearly more going on beneath the surface.

Kent decided to stop wasting time.

“I’ll give you half an hour.”

His voice was cold and direct.

“Find the person who ordered our deaths within that time. Otherwise, you can wait for the dark elves to come looking for revenge.”

He swept his gaze across the group.

“You wanted to kill me and then take the dark elf girl away, didn’t you? If that’s the case, then perhaps all of you are eager to find out what it’s like to be hunted by the dark elves.”

Kent’s expression hardened.

“And don’t give me any nonsense about us both being human.”

“In my eyes, anyone who makes a mistake pays the price.”

He paused briefly, then added,

“You have twenty-eight minutes left.”

“When the time is up, don’t blame me for showing no mercy.”

“Gohanni! What are you still standing there for?”

Wood’s anger flared the moment he heard those words.

“Go find out who did this! Whoever it was, bring them here first!”

His voice grew harsher.

“If you don’t, then today may very well be the day both you and I die!”

Wood had already begun to find Gohanni increasingly unbearable.

Yet Gohanni still stood there hesitating.

“Lord Wood… Captain Martin was fairly close to my eldest son.”

Gohanni spoke reluctantly.

“You know my eldest son has always been highly regarded by the Grand Elder, so sometimes he can be a little… reckless.”

He gave Wood a meaningful look.

“You understand what I mean.”

Gohanni was furious as well.

The truth was, if his eldest son hadn’t won the Grand Elder’s favor, the position of Salt City’s City Lord would never have fallen to him in the first place.

Now that things had reached this point, Gohanni had no choice but to bring the matter into the open and hope Wood would deal with it.

“You…”

Wood immediately found himself caught in a dilemma.

He did not belong to the Grand Elder’s faction, but neither did he dare scheme against it behind the scenes.

Gohanni’s eldest son possessed excellent talent and was greatly favored by the Grand Elder.

And that was no small matter.

The Grand Elder had already stood at the peak of the ninth rank several hundred years ago.

Now, after so many years, even Wood could no longer tell how powerful the old man had become.

Wood gave Gohanni a long, piercing look.

The stare alone was enough to make the City Lord’s legs tremble.

Then Wood finally turned back toward Kent.

“Your Excellency, we’ve already investigated the matter. Captain Martin acted entirely on his own—”

“On his own?”

Kent cut him off before he could finish.

“Hahaha… hahaha!”

His laughter was filled with anger rather than amusement.

“Very well.”

His eyes turned cold.

“Then I’ll handle this according to my own wishes as well.”

“Your Excellency, please allow me to explain!”

Wood’s expression changed instantly.

The pressure radiating from the Dragon Turtle was still growing.

Seeing the enormous beast’s aura rise higher and higher, Wood hurriedly spoke again, afraid that even a moment’s delay might bring disaster down upon the entire city.

“Wood, stand down. I would like to see for myself what gives this brat the confidence to run wild in Salt City.”

Just as Wood was growing increasingly anxious, a cold, sinister voice rolled across the entire city.

“The Grand Elder…”

“The Grand Elder is here!”

Wood and Gohanni exclaimed almost simultaneously.

Yet their expressions could not have been more different.

Gohanni’s face immediately lit up with delight, while unmistakable apprehension appeared in Wood’s eyes.

A moment later, a warrior dressed in plain martial garb appeared in the distance, flying directly through the air toward them.

Kent carefully studied the newcomer.

The man’s face was pale and perpetually gloomy, as though the entire world owed him a considerable sum of money. His icy eyes settled on Kent without the slightest trace of warmth.

“Hmph. You’ve barely caught a glimpse of the threshold of the Legendary realm, and you think that’s enough to act so arrogantly?”

Kent didn’t even need to answer.

The Dragon Turtle spoke first, its voice filled with undisguised contempt.

In its eyes, every one of these people was weak.

If the decision had been left entirely to the Dragon Turtle, there would have been no need for all this useless talking. It would simply have wiped them out and been done with it.

The newcomer remained silent for a long moment before finally answering in an unhurried voice.

“Perhaps I cannot defeat you easily. But if I keep you occupied, will your master still have any chance of surviving?”

His gaze shifted toward Kent.

“There are several ninth-rank experts on our side. And him?”

A trace of disdain appeared in his eyes.

“A mere sixth-rank mage.”

“Hahaha! Hahaha!”

Kent couldn’t help bursting into laughter.

“That may be the funniest thing I’ve heard all day.”

He looked directly at the Grand Elder.

“Why don’t we make a wager, then? Let’s see whether you destroy us first—or we destroy all of you.”

Kent had every reason to be confident.

After half a month of relentless tempering, the strength of his body had reached an astonishing level, nearly comparable to the Dragon Turtle’s own physical toughness.

He might not necessarily be able to kill every ninth-rank expert before him, but preserving his own life would hardly be a problem.

As for the Grand Elder, he had merely taken his first step toward the Legendary realm.

Against the Dragon Turtle, a true Legendary-class magical beast, he probably wouldn’t survive more than a few exchanges.

“Hmph! We dark elves aren’t so easily bullied either.”

At that moment, another calm voice drifted across the battlefield.

“Old ghost, what do you have to say for yourself this time? Are you truly planning to start a war with the dark elves?”

Kent turned toward the source of the voice.

Only then did he notice another large group approaching.

At their head stood the Grand Elder of the dark elves, accompanied by the Third Elder and a sizable contingent of dark elf warriors.

The dark elf Grand Elder had already investigated what had happened before coming here.

What he had learned had left him furious.

Dark elves disappeared every year without explanation.

And now, it turned out that someone in a major human city had actually dared to set their sights openly on a dark elf woman.

Who could say how many of those previous disappearances were connected to similar schemes?

The dark elf Grand Elder’s voice remained remarkably calm.

But the overwhelming aura spreading from his body told an entirely different story.

The moment the human Grand Elder saw the Grand Elder of the dark elves, his expression changed.

Within the Underdark, the dark elves were widely regarded as the foremost race.

It was not because they possessed the largest population.

Rather, they simply had far more powerful experts.

The dark elves had several dozen ninth-rank experts among their people, while humanity possessed barely more than a dozen.

And above them all stood the Dark Elf Empress.

Only members of the dark elf race were permitted to meet her, so outsiders knew little about her true strength. Yet according to legend, she had already reached the peak of the ninth rank a thousand years ago.

At that time, the current human Grand Elder had not even been born.

The dark elves also possessed a natural advantage in the Underdark.

They could see in darkness.

Their vision might not extend especially far, but it was still vastly superior to that of humans. Humans, by comparison, had to rely heavily on magical perception and their other senses simply to move safely through the subterranean world.

That difference alone was significant.

For ten thousand years, humanity had dreamed of replacing the dark elves as the dominant race of the Underdark.

Yet these two advantages—the number of high-ranking experts and their natural affinity for darkness—had always formed an almost insurmountable barrier.

Even the dwarves, who maintained close relations with the dark elves, enjoyed a higher standing than humans.

Humanity had only managed to maintain a degree of balance by drawing the gnomes closer to their side.

Unfortunately, the gnomes were obsessed with machinery, calculations, and invention. They had little interest in racial politics or struggles for power.

That was also why most merchants in the Underdark were either humans or gnomes.

Faced with the dark elf Grand Elder, the human Grand Elder forced a smile onto his face.

“What are you talking about? How could such a thing happen in territory governed by humans?”

“Heh.”

The dark elf Grand Elder gave a cold laugh.

“That is no longer for you to decide.”

His voice remained calm, but his anger was unmistakable.

“If you cannot give us a satisfactory explanation today, then perhaps there is no longer any need for several of you to continue existing.”

He was genuinely furious.

Over the past ten thousand years, countless dark elves had disappeared without explanation.

The dwarves and gnomes were generally straightforward by nature. In his mind, neither race was likely to engage in such underhanded behavior.

That left only the humans.

Cunning, ambitious humans.

Of course, he had no actual evidence connecting humanity to all those disappearances.

But intelligent beings had always been inclined to draw conclusions from suspicion and circumstance.

Humans themselves were no different.

The human Grand Elder’s face turned ashen.

To be threatened so openly in front of so many people was nothing less than a public slap in the face.

He gave a cold chuckle.

“Heh. Whether we deserve to exist is not for you to decide.”

His eyes narrowed.

“But everything requires evidence. Without proof, even the dark elves have no right to accuse humans without cause.”

“Evidence?”

Kent immediately spoke up.

“I am the evidence.”

His voice was filled with anger.

“Your people tried to seize us in the middle of the street, inside your own city.”

He pointed toward the soldiers below.

“I’d like to know who gave them that authority.”

“And they repeatedly claimed that the dark elves themselves had issued a warrant for our capture.”

Kent sneered.

“Wonderful. The dark elf Grand Elder is standing right here. Why don’t we ask him directly whether the dark elves ever issued such a warrant?”

His expression grew colder.

“You want evidence?”

“The soldiers down there are the evidence.”

Kent had every reason to be furious.

If he had been weaker, he might already have been killed by the City Lord’s men.

And as for what would have happened to Daphne afterward—

that hardly required imagination.

The human Grand Elder’s expression darkened.

He suddenly turned toward Kent and shouted,

“We are speaking here. What qualifications do you have to interrupt us?”