Chapter Ninety: Driven into Desperation

“This can’t go on!” Buddy, his strength nearing its limit, cried out in pain beside Jia Zhengjin’s ear. “Lord Keane! We’ll protect your escape from the city and get you somewhere safe!”

“What?!” Shock flashed across Jia Zhengjin’s face. “You want me to run?”

“There is no other way!” Buddy shouted. “A single Ruruto swarm numbers at least thirty thousand! Our town guard and the kobold troops together amount to barely more than five hundred, not even six! The gap in strength is far too great—we cannot stand against them at all! Lord Keane, please leave at once. We will defend you with our lives!”

“You’ve got to be joking! If I flee, what happens to the villagers here? What happens to my city?” Jia Zhengjin roared, turning to look at the stone-brick houses already beginning to crack beneath the swarm’s assault. Inside them, the villagers huddled and trembled in terror.

There was no doubt about it. If the attack continued, the swarm would soon reduce everything to ruin, and all his hard work would be utterly destroyed.

More importantly, every single villager here would be killed by the giant bees.

“Lord Keane! We cannot resist a Ruruto swarm. They are fearless killers! They will never allow any other living race to remain within their newly claimed territory. We must protect you and get you out. So long as you survive, everything can begin again! As for the villagers... we no longer have the power to save them!” Buddy shouted. “Please, hurry and flee the city with us!”

“Lord Keane!!”

The town guards all closed in around him, clearly prepared to carve a path for his escape.

“What kind of absurdity is this?!” Jia Zhengjin could not accept such a proposal. Being a deserter was one thing—but abandoning these thousand-odd villagers, abandoning the livelihood he had built with such toil? He could not do it.

“Lord Keane...” Buddy and the guards looked at him with pleading eyes. They had placed all their hopes in Jia Zhengjin. Naturally, they did not want those hopes extinguished with his death.

Wolf had also withdrawn with the kobold troops to Jia Zhengjin’s side, awaiting his command. He hoped Jia Zhengjin would lead them in retreat, but if Jia Zhengjin gave the word, he too would remain and fight to the death without stepping back.

“That’s right!” Jia Zhengjin suddenly shouted. “The garden! Escort me to the garden!”

“Lord Keane?” Buddy was utterly baffled.

“No more questions! Get me to the garden, now!”

“Yes, sir!”

Under the ceaseless assault of the swarm, the troops began moving toward the garden. Naturally, there was no pause in the fighting. Every one of them was desperately defending and slaying giant bees. But they were growing more and more exhausted, and the movements in their hands were slowing with every moment.

As they passed the animal pens, Jia Zhengjin saw the two triceratops mounts and two draft horses lying at death’s door beneath the onslaught. He knew the four beasts could no longer be saved, and with a sigh he could only press on.

After hacking and battling their way into the garden, Jia Zhengjin called frantically for the forest fairies.

A green radiance appeared. The forest fairies gathered around him and sang through telepathy, thinking he had come for flower nectar. They offered him today’s portion once more.

Jia Zhengjin put away the nectar and urgently begged the fairies to help drive off the giant bees.

“I am sorry. The Ruruto are part of nature and possess their own laws of survival. As beings who are also part of nature, we cannot intervene in the wars of the Ruruto.” The forest fairies answered through telepathy, and with that, Jia Zhengjin’s last sliver of hope was shattered.

When he came out of the garden, he looked dazed and bereft. Was he truly to abandon these thousand villagers, abandon everything he had built, and become a shameful fugitive? How could he then face Tina? How could he answer the trust of the villagers? Most of all, how could he answer his own conscience?

“Lord Keane! Please make your decision at once! While we still have the strength to escort you out, give the order now!” Buddy cried anxiously after cutting down several giant bees and retreating to him. “A ruler cannot be too soft-hearted. When useless villagers must be abandoned, they must be abandoned! So long as you remain safe, one day you can return and rise again!”

“Lord Keane!”

“Lord Keane!”

“Lord Keane, give the order!!” The town guards all stared at him anxiously.

Jia Zhengjin felt a terrible suffocation in his chest. He knew Buddy and the guards were right. If they stayed, everyone would be buried here together. But he simply could not make such a bitter decision. Only after a long while did he speak.

“Buddy!”

“Yes, Lord Keane!” Buddy’s face lit with joy, thinking Jia Zhengjin was finally about to order the retreat.

“Take the town guards and withdraw,” Jia Zhengjin said to him.

“What?” Buddy froze. “Lord Keane, this is no time for jokes! If you do not flee, what use is there in our escape?”

“I understand what you mean.” Jia Zhengjin tightened his grip on the Spear of Lightning. “But I cannot abandon my own people and seek life alone! Since they chose to follow me, then even if I cannot save them, I will still fight beside them to the very end!”

“Lord Keane, you mustn’t!” Buddy cried out in alarm.

“Buddy, all of you should go,” Jia Zhengjin said, looking at him. “This is my own war.”

The moment the words left his mouth, he raised his great shield, leveled his spear, and charged once more toward the residential quarter.

Wolf, with the kobolds at his back, immediately rushed after him to protect Jia Zhengjin, hurling themselves into a frenzied assault on the giant bee army.

“Lord Keane...” Buddy lowered his head to look at the splendid sword in his hand, then raised it high. “Since this is Lord Keane’s choice, then the town guard shall follow him unto death!”

“Unto death!!” All the town guards were so exhausted they could barely lift their swords, yet they still shouted in unison and followed Buddy in pursuit of Jia Zhengjin.

The battle raged on. The city had already been battered into a wreck by the giant bees. The walls of many homes had been shattered by sharp stingers, exposing the panic-stricken faces of the villagers within. Nearly everyone had sunk into despair. Inside the residential building, Palin was desperately defending the shattered windows, while Tina, flustered and pale, assisted from the side with tiny fireballs.

The droning in his ears rolled on without cease, like bombers in endless waves. Jia Zhengjin suddenly felt as though he had been cast into a modern war. It was as if he stood upon the battlefield of a world war, facing the merciless bombardment of countless enemy aircraft...

Was his journey to this other world going to end here? What a ridiculously short life it had been, he thought with bitter inward laughter.

At that very moment, a thick cloud of smoke suddenly appeared.

The smoke was acrid, and it grew denser and denser, soon spreading through half the city.

“What’s happening? Has something caught fire?” Despair deepened in Jia Zhengjin’s heart.

“Lord Keane! Lord Keane!” At that moment Amber came running over in great haste. “Smoke can drive away the Ruruto! Quickly—have people light more bonfires!”

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?!” Jia Zhengjin lunged forward and threw him to the ground just in time to spare him from the dive of a giant bee.