DK – Ch 24

The Dark King – Chapter 24
Desolation

I would like to thank spiritsong for editing this chapter and previous few which I have forgotten to mention him.

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“Little devil, let’s see how long can you hold on!” The old man wore a dark green mask, only to reveal a pair of cold eyes. He stared at the table. His fingers were on crossbow, ready to shoot at Dudian at any time.

Sou!

A shadow suddenly flew out from the table.

Old man’s finger instinctively pulled the trigger of the crossbow. It shot out a short arrow which flashed quickly but it didn’t hit the shadow. It nailed right into the rear of the wooden cabinet.

At this time, a bottle of powder fell in front of old man’s foot.

His face changed and quickly looked up to see Dudian jumping up from the ground. He did not jumped across the work table towards him but to the cupboard. Dudian casually grabbed the bottles and jars and threw them at the old man.

The old man’s anger burst to sky. It was very difficult to amass all these experimental materials. To see them casually knocked to ground made him crazy. He loaded another short arrow into crossbow and aimed at Dudian.

However, in his short time to reload the crossbow, Dudian had already once again retreated behind to the table.

“Damned little devil!” The old man’s angry eyes could almost spat fire. He missed the chance to shoot Dudian the second time. If somebody before this asked him if he would feel threatened by a small child, he would have laughed at the idea. But not now.

“I’d like to see how long you can hold!” Old man checked the green fog that was slowly filling up the chamber.

“Got it!” Dudian held a large glass bottle. It was the bottle filled with sulfur which he spotted before.

At this moment, he felt suffocated as there was less oxygen due to the green fog. Unfortunately there was nothing to lit it up.

“Damn it! No fire, no fire!”

Dudian’s mind was in despair. As he was desperately thought of a way out, his eyes concentrated on the wooden wall where shadows were reflected. “The oil lamp”, he whispered to himself.

“How did I not thought of the oil lamp before?”, Dudian was in joy.

The despair in his heart vanished. He quickly used fabric torn from his shirt to envelop the bottle of sulfur. He gritted his teeth. His life and death would be result this move succeeded for failed.
Sou!

The old man saw large group of flying shadows. By nature of self-preservation he shot the crossbow.

The short arrow penetrated one of the bottles. But another bottle which was aimed at him was not affected. In a hurry he raised his left arm to block the oncoming shadow.

Unfortunately for him, he blocked the bottle covered with fabric. It cracked and some of the sulfur smeared onto his arm and clothes. He swayed his arm which hit the table when another bottle hit the oil lamp and overturned it.

Dudian saw the fabric burning up so he quickly lied down.

Bang!

Suddenly a thunder-like explosion sound resounded in the chamber. Few pieces of the wood on top of the chamber cracked and fell down. Dust filled the room.

Dudian felt a massive destructive force hit the table and which then projected onto his body. He felt as if his ribs were going to break. Tears flowed out of his eyes because of the pain.

At this time he could not control his slow and restrained breath. Therefore he inhaled large amounts of air. There was the flavor of burned sulfur. Moreover, he inhaled residue of the previous green fog.

His limbs felt soft.

The top of the chamber collapsed at some parts. The cold wind flowed into the chamber which pushed out the air filled with the smell of sulfur and green mist outside. He slowly began to inhale the fresh air.

Dudian immediately began to crawl out  because there was a big blast in the chamber and nobody knew when it will completely collapse. He did not want to be buried alive.

As a result of the previous explosion, the oil lamp blown out. At the moment, the chamber was covered in darkness.

Dudian began to move towards the old man’s direction even though he couldn’t see what was in front of him. He relied on his previous vision to remember the distance between him and the old man. It didn’t take long before his hand touched a wet, sticky but hard object. His face became ugly.

It was the bones of old man.

Although being in the dark, Dudian knew that what he touched were the parts of the body that had remained after the explosion. He did not expect the power of this sulfur explosion to be so terrible. It was not made into gun powder so the reason for it to be so effective should be due to ‘dust explosion’ principle.

“I killed a human being … …”. Dudian’s mind trembled. A living human was killed. He had seen the situation of poor in this world and at some point faced the distortion of the law. But to personally kill someone. He did not dare to think of such things previously.

He was slightly shaken, so he secretly whispered in his heart: “It was just self-protection. I wanted to protect myself, so it’s not a crime… not a crime…” His heart was filled with sadness. The proper laws had long since disappeared from this world so even if it was a crime ,who can convict him of a crime?
In this dark pit which was illuminated under the starlight, he suddenly felt so lonely and desolate.

Gradually he relaxed his body. The fear in his heart disappeared. Instead, a kind of faint indifference was born. He silently looked at the derelict part of the old man’s corpse. His body slowly moved, not to leave but to explore.
He checked the crossbow.