Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic-Chapter 743 - : The Ice Lake under the Moonlight

Chapter 743 -743: The Ice Lake under the Moonlight

The Ring Sorcerers of the Sun Church, who had encountered Jesters on the shore, intentionally moved the battlefield onto the ice and gradually approached the members of the Truth Society. Of course, the magicians of the Truth Society did not want to engage with them, so the ice continued to extend towards the distant part of the lake until everyone had gathered in the middle of the waters.

The March moonlight illuminated the lake surface, where spiritual light flickered in the night. To Shard, watching from the lakeside, the scene was serene yet eerie.

And Shard had finally located Mr. Joey Barton, a man who should have been between the Truth Society and the Church squad. Somehow, he had fallen unconscious at the edge of the icy lake, lying alone under the moon, his life hanging in the balance.

As the battlefield drifted further away, people moved further from him, and to Shard, this was an opportunity.

“Be careful, don’t move recklessly.”

Shard opened his coat and stuffed Mia into the large pocket inside his coat, near his chest. After rebuttoning his coat, his left chest puffed out slightly.

He put an Ever-Youth Leaf in his mouth, bent his fingers, and let the returning Red Butterfly land on them. As the butterfly disintegrated into light particles, which entered Shard’s chest, he felt the power of the Whisper Element.

The essence of the Red Butterfly’s power was distortion and sorrow. Shard needed to quickly utilize this power to avoid the element’s influence on him.

Putting on his mask and preparing his Spellcasting Materials, Shard crept out of the woods, bent at the waist. Looking up and seeing a group of people fighting under the moon, he jogged onto the ice:

“Lagre’s Leap.”

Moving soundlessly across the ice, the night, the Steam Mist, and the Illusion Technique all helped him conceal his presence.

Soon, Shard arrived beside Mr. Barton. The shadow of the vast mountains covered both of them, and the sound of the lake, stirred by the night wind, brought peace to the heart.

“Mr. Barton, Mr. Barton!”

Shard gently patted his face, and Joey Barton’s swollen eyes gradually opened. His constricted pupils and heavy breathing made him look like a dying man’s last struggle.

“It’s me, John Watson. Come with me quickly, they’ve started to fight over there.”

“The Truth Society found the nail of resurrection and wanted me to confirm the death time of the target. But that was someone the Church had long set their sights on. They deliberately let the Truth Society’s professor discover him in order to trap all the professors who came to Milestone.”

Mr. Barton was gasping for breath. As Shard reached out to pull him up, he didn’t expect the middle-aged man to forcefully push him away, sending Shard to the side.

~Buzz~

Where Shard had previously crouched, a metal Roder Card vibrated ceaselessly on the ice.

“Who?”

Shard turned around to look behind him, where moonlight spread over the smooth ice. The shadowless Jester faced away from the moonlight, wrapped in the white mist specific to the Interstice, with four weapons aimed at him simultaneously.

“The third Jester? Do I get a piece too?”

He frowned as he stood up, slipping the Witch’s ring onto his right hand. The feeling of power surged once more, and even the Spirit Rune of the Light of the Witch grew restless.

“Hee hee hee hahahaha…”

Amidst that mad laughter, the Jester disappeared under the moonlight, and in the next second, he raised the black dagger high and stabbed towards Shard’s neck from behind.

The amber Longsword illuminated the shadows, and the slashing move on the turn left a dazzling trail of light in the mist. As the golden Moonlight Sword shattered, Shard’s figure also vanished from the spot, then reappeared above the Jester:

“Moonlight Greatsword!”

With both hands gripping the greatsword, he cleaved downward while the “Spatial Stabilization Aura” prevented spatial movement abilities. The potential energy of the fall, combined with the kinetic energy of the cleave, allowed Shard’s greatsword to strike down on the jester’s head, but the figure turned into a wooden sculpture:

“A doppelgänger?”

Laughter came from the left, and a red nose ball flew over like a cannonball. The prepared Shard fired a Roder Card, which, upon touching the nose ball, scattered into a pile of tiny pieces that were blown away by the night wind.

The jester’s metal Roder Cards, reflecting the moonlight, shot towards Shard like a swarm of bees. Shard hastily threw out his own full set of Roder Cards. Facing the night wind, 53 Roder Cards left trails of afterimages in the air before the two types of cards collided at high speed over the icy surface. The paper Roder Cards, imbued with the image of the Red Butterfly, flickered overhead as they confronted the jester’s cards head-on. In the air, a delicate sound resonated, as if musical instruments were playing high above in a thin mist.

Beneath the clashing Roder Cards in the air, Shard clapped his hands together then pulled them apart fiercely:

“Moonlight Slash!”

Bathed in moonlight, the tilted Holy Silver Blade cleaved forward. The tall and skinny jester, laughing loudly, raised his gun muzzle, and the bullets that could cause rifts in space perfectly neutralized Shard’s all-out attack.

“Seems… not that strong after all.”

Shard held the sword and thrust forward while deftly stepping forward. In the next instant, along with the thrust, Shard reappeared behind the jester. As the jester’s uncanny waist-twisting move turned him around to block with a short dagger, black chains like serpents surged out of Shard’s sleeves.

At the same time, a second Moonlight Greatsword summoned by the “Blade of Chaotic Time” pierced out from the void. The jester’s black dagger quickly parried the greatsword then blocked Shard’s second stab below.

As the clanging of their weapons rang, the jester threw his red nose ball at Shard with his left hand in an attempt to force him back, only for it to be blocked by the “Genesis: Silver Moon” among the fluttering Roder Cards.

Clearly, the power of the Interstice Nail was not enough to dissolve the “Impermanence Card.”

The Great Sin Chain wrapped around the jester’s left hand and swiftly spread across his body. The chains constrained movement and supernatural abilities, causing those metal cards colliding in the air to lose control and fall onto the ice.

The jester tried to resist the power of the chain of sins, but when the Red Butterfly landed on his shoulder, his movements eerily paused for a moment.

“The powers of Grace and Helen are really useful.”

Taking a deep breath, amid the valley’s moonlight and the falling cards all around, Shard lunged forward in a bow stance with both hands on the sword, decisively cleaving from the upper left to the lower right:

“Ha!”

Another arc of a light trace appeared in the moonlit night, and after the blade fell, it cut directly into the ice. As Shard struggled to lift his sword again, the jester’s maniacal laughter finally ceased.

Ahead tumbled to the ground, a painted face rolled a few times and then lay still, facing up. It rolled from the shadows of the mountains into the moonlight, still bearing a maniacal expression.

Shard approached with his sword, gripped the hilt with both hands, and plunged it fiercely downward into the head, nailing the Moonlight Greatsword into the ice after piercing through the skull. The Outlander and the jester bore no grudge against each other, but keeping the deceased from the world of the living is what the living ought to do.

And far on the icy expanse, the fight was still not over—it appeared he had only killed one of the jester’s clones.

“Mr. Barton, let’s take cover in the woods for now.”

He didn’t redraw the sword but allowed it to disintegrate into silver light particles that vanished in his hand.

Shard turned to look at Mr. Joey Barton, who was surprised by the recent fight and was just coming to his senses. He saw Shard standing on the ice, bathed in moonlight, saw the Phantom Red Butterflies fluttering around, and for a moment, he didn’t know how to express his feelings:

“I had no idea you were so powerful.”

Shaking his head, he struggled to stand up on the ice. Standing in the shadows, he looked toward Shard who was out in the light, still under the moonlight:

“You are one of the few good people I know, but I can’t follow you.”

Bowing his head, Joey Barton spoke with an air of apology.

Shard frowned slightly. Mr. Barton seemed different from a few hours ago:

“No, I’m not asking you to come with me. The agents the Truth Society sent to Milestone were nearly all annihilated, and not many are left. I want you to seek refuge in the Church, and we remain friends.”

This was the outcome Shard was most satisfied with.

But the middle-aged man, who looked like a physically challenged child, still shook his head:

“The scholars of the Truth Society are not good people, but the Church will not let me do what I want to do.

Mr. Watson, you’re right, I probably do have a special power. The moment I looked at the Jester with my eyes, I saw his origins, I saw the interstice shrouded in white fog, I even saw the deepest depths he had fallen into… the deepest depths of true death.”

“You saw it? That’s where the deceased should go, but what does that have to do with you leaving with me?”

“Mr. Watson, the waters bathed in the light of the Nether Moon are the place that appears in my dreams.”

Mr. Barton spoke in a low voice, and Shard had a very unpleasant suspicion:

“So…”

“I might be able to find her.”

Mr. Barton bowed his head and Shard couldn’t see his face in the shadows of the mountains.

“And then…”

“Bring her back. The Deceased, resurrected.”

Indeed, it was getting a bit cold over the lake in deep autumn.

Mr. Barton’s voice was very calm. He bowed his head, struggling to limp out of the darkness, looking at the young man’s mask in the moonlight:

“Yes, I want the dead to return.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Really impossible?”

Mr. Barton raised his palm and then lowered it:

“I am The Chosen One of death.”

He said softly, his gaze holding a meaning that Shard could not understand:

“Mr. Watson, if the treasure of your heart were to leave you, what would you do then?”

Shard touched his chest, feeling something very soft—Mia. He couldn’t imagine a scene where Mia left, so he didn’t answer the question.

“There are many things that only I can do. I’m sorry, Mr. Watson, I know you want to lead me onto the right path, but I have a lot to do. Fate hasn’t treated me fairly, so I will treat myself fairly… Life’s happiness must be fought for… Don’t follow me.”

Suddenly waving his hand at Shard, a black massive shock wave shattered a large area of the ice surface and sent Shard flying from the lake onto the shore, but Shard wasn’t hurt.

He climbed out of the mist on the shore, seeing Mr. Barton run towards the people fighting on the ice surface.

“How did he suddenly become so powerful? Isn’t he just a First Ring?”

[Compared to Iluna Beath’s immature understanding of balance and Ivan Daknis’s misguided grasp of darkness, Joey Barton clearly understands death better.]

A murmuring voice carried on the wind, and Shard stepped onto the water surface, hurrying forward. Ripples spread out beneath his feet, while Joey Barton had already entered into the center of the battlefield on the icy lake.

“Barton, come with us, you will find a greater power!”

Professor Johnson shouted loudly, forced to contend with the Roder Cards being crazily shot at him.

“There’s something wrong with this man, he could be The Chosen One!”

Iluna shouted at the top of her voice, while the Sunlight Gun in her hands finally pierced through the Jester’s chest. The long spear aglow with Golden Thunder bloomed in the mist, and as Iluna leaped high and hurled it at the last Jester, the limping Joey Barton, bizarrely, stepped in front of the Jester to protect him.

A black robe appeared in front of him, flitting through the mist like an invisible curtain, completely blocking the Sunlight Gun.

Everyone stopped, the Circle Sorcerers of the Truth Society gathering together, not understanding what Barton was attempting, while the Church’s squad, larger in numbers and stronger in force, spread out to prevent anyone from fleeing the battlefield.

“Barton, what are you doing?”

Iluna asked in a deep voice; she had met Joey Barton under the alias “Mary Watson” when she accompanied Shard and knew he was a decent person, so she didn’t attack right away.

“Ma’am, it seems we are kin.”

The Jester behind Barton, leaning on his shoulder, laughed merrily and showed not the slightest trace of hostility towards Joey Barton. As thin Steam Mist surged, the First Ring Sorcerer’s Ring of Fate appeared behind the two of them.

The white fog seeping from the Interstice quickly surged towards the crude Ring of Fate, while Shard finally made it to the edge of the shattered ice surface.

“You want to absorb the power of the Interstice?”

The professor with the rust spots of a Red Butterfly on his Ring of Fate inquired:

“Barton, have you seen our research materials? We’re more professional at merging the power of Relics, come with us.”

“Sorry, professor, I won’t go with you either. I intend to delve into the Interstice, break the boundary between life and death, and retrieve my lost treasure.”

He was indeed still a First Ring Sorcerer, but his talent as The Chosen One had been pushed to the extreme, such that when he invoked the power of the Interstice, Shard even felt Barton was a part of the Interstice at that moment.

“You want to break the boundary of life and death at this moment, are you trying to destroy the Interstice?”

The middle-aged man behind Iluna asked loudly, appearing to be the captain of the squad, Shard had just glimpsed that he was of the Eight Rings.

“Barton, do you know what you are doing?”

“I have always known, yes, always known. Fate hasn’t treated me fairly, but I don’t complain about it. Since I have seen hope, I will never give up. Everybody, please step back and let me take this Jester as a sacrifice.”

But no one stepped back; everyone was watching him beneath the moonlight.

Joey Barton looked at everyone. With his back to the moonlight, shadows fell across his face. And at his feet, the shadow of a childlike figure was being covered by another huge, abruptly emerging shadow:

“I’m sorry.”