253 Every Tom, Dick, and Harry
“But I’m a good guy…most of the time, at least…maybe…well, sometimes…” Dilan teased while smiling faintly.
Only when Dilan said this, did the first Soldier understand that Dilan was not one of their colleagues. Fear spread through the young man’s entire body, but he unsheathed his longsword nonetheless.
His eyes were overflowing with the fear of dying, yet, he was still ready to fight with his life on the line.
‘Not bad. Looks like the Blue Star camp has a few sensible people.’ Dilan concluded before his body leaned forward.
A moment later, he disappeared from the sight of the young Soldier. The young man’s hand suddenly shook, and a second later, he saw that Dilan had reappeared…holding his sword!
“Don’t play around with that weapon. You might hurt someone accidentally.” Dilan cautioned in a light voice as if he was not the slightest bit afraid of getting attacked, let alone killed by the soldiers around him.
All of them had unsheathed their weapons, but none of them dared to make the first move.
They were still running in the same direction as before. However, contrary to before, it was not to flee from him. It was because Dilan didn’t stop running in that particular direction..
“Where are we headed to?” Dilan asked while taking a look at the weapon in his hand.
“Jikma longsword, a Bronze Tier-1 treasure that amplifies your Strength stat by 10 Units. Not half bad.” Dilan didn’t even wait to receive an answer.
He threw the weapon back to the Soldier, who had reacted first when he found out about Dilan’s ‘true identity’.
The Soldier caught the weapon clumsily before Dilan repeated his question for the second time.
“Where are we headed to? Is that the direction of the Blue Star camp?” He added the second question to make sure that they were running in the correct direction.
Some Soldiers flinched upon hearing Dilan’s voice that sounded aloof as well as commanded their respect and attention, just like their seniors who didn’t allow anyone to ignore them.
However, there were also a few Soldiers, who felt that the situation was a little bit odd.
“You…are not one of the bloodthirsty Ascenders, who attacked us, right?” A rather young woman asked.
Dilan smiled at her question, feeling like rejoicing. “Finally, a smart one.”
If Dilan was one of the bloodthirsty Ascenders, he would know where the Blue Star camp was located. But that was obviously not the case, otherwise, he would have killed the scouts by now before entering the Blue Star camp on his own.
“Is the Blue Star camp destroyed?” Dilan bluntly asked, causing many Soldiers to flinch. He didn’t show any consideration toward their situation and it was as if he couldn’t care less about the Blue Star camp’s condition.
‘Is he really not one of the bloodthirsty Ascenders,’ one of the younger soldiers asked himself, goosebumps covering his entire body when he looked at Dilan.
“Such a terrifying presence…Just how many monsters did he kill…” The same young Soldier mumbled, without realizing that he was wondering out loud.
However, Dilan’s smile just widened as he turned his head to the young soldier before he said two simple words,
“A lot.”
The young soldier’s hand began to tremble at the sight of Dilan’s sky blue eyes. These sky blue eyes told a tale that was worth thousands of words and revealed the pain and the deaths they had felt and witnessed.
And this was more than enough to tell the young Soldier that Dilan was not someone he should take lightly, not if he wanted to stay alive.
“I guess the camp is not destroyed, but you got attacked by some Evil Ascenders. Were they more powerful than I am?” Dilan enquired, answering his earlier question by himself.
“If you mean other humans, who mercilessly slaughtered everyone irrespective of the fact whether they were old, ill, children, women, or crippled, with ‘Evil Ascenders’, yeah, then we were attacked by Evil Ascenders…” The same female Soldier from before answered.
She couldn’t say whether they were stronger than Dilan or not, but the feeling she got from Dilan was completely different from the Evil Ascenders, who had attacked them.
Dilan was still able to control himself, and he didn’t seem like he would kill them, not without reason, at least.
Meanwhile, the Evil Ascenders had killed everyone and everything in their way. They were bloodthirsty and unreasonable and it was impossible to talk to them.
They were out for the blood of humans, that was their ultimate goal.
“And you don’t know if I’m stronger than them, or if they were stronger, alright,” Dilan answered himself once again. It was quite difficult to talk to the Soldiers and make them answer him, but that was something he could roughly understand.
With the attack of the bloodthirsty Ascenders, everything made sense. It was logical why there had been no news of the Blue Star camp back in Shiron, and why the long-awaited attack had yet to happen.
“Looks like they have too much trouble with that one group to even think about teaching me a lesson. To think that I took them seriously…what a big joke.” Dilan just shook his head, ignoring the disdainful gazes the others threw at him.
It didn’t take long before he spotted something ahead of them. There was a huge military base that was surrounded by electric fences. Signs of human life entered his view at this moment, but Dilan could also see puddles of dried blood, and signs of destruction all around the place he presumed to be the once thriving and flourishing Blue Star camp.
“Looks like nobody had time to clean up. The moral of the Survivors should be close to non-existent.” Dilan continued to speak, mostly to himself.
He couldn’t care less about the people around him as he made his own assumptions about the situation in the Blue Star camp.
The fact that they didn’t even bother removing the blood said more than enough about the fact that the leaders believed that the Evil Ascenders would return soon.
In their opinion, it could be a waste of time to clean the base if everything would get bloodied soon, either way. That was one possible reason why nobody removed the blood.
Another one was that nobody except Tier-1 Ascenders dared to go outside the military base. It was possible that everyone was scared to death, and that most Survivors didn’t dare to do anything but to cower in the place they presumed to be the safest.
“The Evil Ascenders are probably giddy with euphoria after seeing the state of the Blue Star camp. Your leaders are truly weird. To think that they were higher authorities of the government and the military before the Primordial Ascension.
Looks like every Tom, Dick, and Harry, could just climb the social ladder through connections and make a name for themselves before the Primordial Ascension happened. This is more than just a little bit disappointing…” Dilan commented, not even trying to lower his voice.
Everyone gritted their teeth at this comment, but nobody dared to say something. It was humiliating and an embarrassment, but it was also a fact that they were in a dire situation.
Their leaders hadn’t been able to protect them, and the morale of the Survivors, and even more so, Soldiers was even lower than it had been when the Primordial Ascension had happened.
Every single word Dilan had said until now was nothing but the bitter truth.
“What is that?!” Dilan suddenly asked upon spotting something to his left. Turning their heads in unison, the Soldiers frowned before their faces turned paper-white.
“That cannot be… how?…why?…why now???”