Chapter 27 Night Talk
Everyone was exhausted after cleaning up the mess. Transporting the huge bear and three corpses also required a cart. Lucius ordered two guards to go back and call a few more people, while the rest stayed in the jungle temporarily and finally camped for the night.
For some reason, deep down, Byrne still longed to see that beautiful elf again.
He sat up again in the middle of the night, feeling a little sleepy but unable to fall asleep.
"Byrne."
A deep voice sounded from nearby, and Byrne found his father Lucius keeping vigil, his arms folded across his chest, staring at him with a tired look.
Lucius had been thinking constantly since that battle. The selfish thoughts that suddenly appeared at that time were hidden in the deepest part of his heart, and he always felt guilty about it.
Byrne is his only bloodline son.
But would I really be willing to die for him?
He always said that blood-related relatives were the most important, but at the critical moment, the selfishness and meanness deep in his heart would still surge up. Lucius shook his head.
Byrne was acutely aware that something was wrong with his father, but he couldn't tell the specific reason.
"Father, what's wrong with you?" he asked.
Lucius looked at Byrne calmly, and suddenly realized that he had grown up without him noticing. He was even more handsome than he was when he was young, like a truly noble young man.
As for myself, I have inevitably shown some signs of aging.
Aging, a word that Lucius had never thought of before, suddenly jumped into his mind and could not be shaken off.
He spoke very slowly, "There are some things in the past that I want to talk to you about, things in the past that I have never told you before."
"Okay, okay."
Byrne stood up, feeling a little excited. In fact, he didn't know much about his father's past.
After he was born, Byrne was raised by his mother alone. His mother was the daughter of a famous painter and had a talent for painting. However, the family did not believe that women could become painters, so his mother could never learn painting systematically.
She had always placed her hopes on Byrne to become a painter, but in the second year of Byrne's painting studies, a terrible plague struck and half of the city's population died in this horrible plague that lasted for several months.
He came after his mother died.
His mother seldom mentioned the man who claimed to be his father, but her tone was always full of admiration.
Byrne, who survived the plague but was weak and sickly, followed Lucius in confusion. During the long and aimless journey, he kept observing the strange yet familiar man.
Although he looks lazy, he is actually brave and smart. He can respond to any emergency situation intelligently. His eyes and words are full of confidence and charm that can lead others to move forward.
His father might not be a great hero in poetry collections, but Byrne really admired him and was subconsciously imitating this dangerous man with squinting eyes and a smile.
The campfire crackled in the night as the two men came to the edge of the camp.
The forty-something old man with a resolute face sat on the stone and stared into the dark night in silence for a long time, as if he was staring deep into his heart. Finally, he slowly spoke:
"I have long forgotten your mother's name. In fact, I forgot it not long after I left there. After all, I only spent a month with her."
What?
Byrne looked stunned!
"Our mercenary group once stayed in the city where you grew up for a month. I met your mother there by chance. Perhaps because the dangerous temperament in me was fatal to those who lived a comfortable life, she quickly fell in love with me."
Byrne lowered his head as Lucius continued speaking expressionlessly.
"I grew up in a famous mercenary group. Those old mercenaries were like my family. I never thought about leaving the mercenary group. I just wanted to die there."
He had never thought of leaving the mercenary group, so why did he come back to find himself and his mother? The perceptive Byrne couldn't help but feel confused deep down.
For some reason, Byrne hoped his father would stop talking.
Lucius' voice gradually became lower.
"I used to love gambling and cheating even more. I would often use cheating techniques to win money, until one day I met a very rich guy."
He was an old man with yellow eyes wearing a black robe. His pupils were as creepy as snakes.
"He stared at me with a sneer at the gambling table, as if he could see through my cheating methods, but in fact he lost to me again and again. At the beginning, I was very proud and happy."
"But as I won more and more money, I subconsciously felt scared because I had never won so much money before."
"So I found an excuse to leave the casino, and after returning to the mercenary group, I never went there again. After a few days, I completely forgot about the incident."
As he spoke, Lucius gradually fell completely into his memories.
At that time, he subconsciously felt the uneasy aura coming from the old man in black robe, and hurriedly found an excuse to leave the casino. Nothing happened in the first few days after returning to the mercenary group. Their team marched in the wild as usual, and everything was normal as usual.
Until one morning, he had just woken up and suddenly felt a terrible malice coming from the tent.
It was a breath of death that I had never seen in my life, and it made my body tense unconsciously!
Lucius was extremely alert and walked carefully outside the tent.
His muscles tensed instantly as he witnessed with great fear the bizarre scene of everyone around him being petrified. Every member of the mercenary group turned into lifelike stone sculptures with a dazed look on their faces!
The old man in black robe is finally here!
He recognized the other person's eyes at first sight. Although the true form of the "old man in black robe" was now a nearly 100-meter-long black dragon, the pair of yellow snake pupils had not changed at all!
It said: "Let's gamble again. You just need to beat me once. Even if you win completely, I will let everyone go."
It sneered and said, "It's either your own internal organs or those people from the mercenary group. You can choose the chips yourself."
Lucius was extremely frightened by the powerful and terrifying dragon's might. His heartbeat began to speed up, sweat poured down his forehead, and his palms were wet. It seemed as if something was stuck in his throat, making it impossible for him to breathe smoothly.
He had to make a decision, but when he saw the black dragon's cold and mocking eyes, his heart instantly sank into an ice cellar, and he subconsciously knew that it was almost impossible to win the bet.
But I don’t want to die at all! No matter what, I don’t want to die!
Lucius spoke out the deepest words in his heart with great difficulty and trembling.
"They, they are used as bargaining chips."
The moment he said it, he actually felt a sense of relief and liberation.
But Lucius still subconsciously thought that he had hardly ever met an opponent in his life when making bets with others, so he might not necessarily lose miserably, so he must try his best to win the next bet.
It suddenly laughed!
"good!"
The gambling game that continued for a day and a night involved all kinds of unprecedented gameplay. Even though Lucius tried his best and even tried to cheat, he was always unable to win even a single game. Most of the gambling games were simply impossible to complete with the strength of ordinary people, and the final result was almost one-sided.
And for some reason, the dark dragon always had very good luck. Even if Lucius had the upper hand by chance, he would always be overturned by the opponent in the end.
Fear, powerlessness, despair, madness, negative emotions as deep as the ocean flooded into his mind. Lucius trembled and knelt on the ground listening to the sound of the sculpture constantly breaking.
As the sculptures of the people in the mercenary group were shattered one by one, he finally learned a terrible thing.
"You've run out of chips, bug, goodbye... no, never again."
The pitch-black dragon's voice was extremely cold and without any emotion, it didn't even bother to mock him anymore, and then it soared away with great pride, leaving Lucius sitting alone on the ground, collapsed and crying.
Lucius, who was at the edge of the camp, gradually came out of his memories and continued speaking in a calm tone.
"I was in complete despair at the time. Almost everything was taken away from me all of a sudden. I was in a daze for an unknown period of time."
The dragon is a powerful and extremely rare creature among the mysterious creatures. What his father said was totally unbelievable. Byrne was stunned when he heard it.
Some emotion gradually fluctuated in Lucius' eyes, and his breathing became increasingly rapid.
"I haven't gambled for many years since then. If I really have to say, I'm afraid the only thing that can be considered a gamble is the initiative to find the Lost Lord, and it's a most important gamble."
His eyes were filled with resentment and malice, and the sound he made through gritted teeth was so hoarse that it was almost hysterical and creepy:
"As an ordinary person, it is impossible for me to win. Many of the gambling games of that old black lizard require strong enough extraordinary power to complete. One day! One day when I become strong enough, I will find it again!"
"I must defeat it! And kill it! And skin it with my own hands!"
Byrne stared at his father who was sitting next to him. His expression was grim and he had completely lost his lazy temperament. It was almost like he was someone he had never really known.
He opened his mouth, and finally asked with great difficulty:
"If the people in the mercenary group were still alive, would you still come back to find us?"
"Of course I..."
Lucius was stunned for a moment, and wanted to answer "Of course I can", but in the end he couldn't finish the sentence for some reason. It was very rare for him to be at a loss for words when communicating with others.
Byrne understood, so he stood up calmly and walked to the other side of the camp.
He didn't continue to dwell on it, but just realized an objective thing.
My mother is not important at all in my father's heart, and my existence is just an emotional substitute for him.
If it was a few years ago, Byrne might have collapsed, found it completely unacceptable, and even burst into tears, but as an adult, he just felt an indelible discomfort from the deepest part of his heart.
Lucius moved slightly on his tiptoes, trying to stand up and comfort Byrne with his usual skillful language skills.
In the end, he was unable to stand up, but just looked quietly at the jungle outside the campfire with deep eyes.
In that dark jungle which was completely dark without any light and seemed to be able to swallow up all hope, almost any rationality and kindness would be strangled by the madness and coldness of the night. The people around the campfire were just like the members of the Fisher family. They should never step into that quiet night casually.
(End of this chapter)
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