300 Chapter 217: For Jerry
Quickly moving through the air, Adryan's expression remained serious.
It had been 10 minutes since he started walking in the sky and with the speed he was moving, he must have already left East Borough and was now over Cherwood Borough.
'With his wounds and the spirituality he had spent he couldn't have fled very far...' The red-haired man thought as he followed the man's trail.
The smell of blood was getting stronger.
Tensing his muscles, Adryan saw in the distance a figure barely hovering.
Quickly a bow of fire formed in his left hand.
The moment he took a step, he aimed and pulled the string, he quickly concentrated a great amount of spirituality on the fiery arrow that went from burning orange to white.
Releasing the string, the arrow flew swiftly through the air and impacted full-on Qilangos' back which received it full-on along with the explosion that followed.
Adryan observed this, stopped his technique, and followed the man into the void.
Cutting through the clouds, he watched as they were over one of the multiple forests of Cherwood Borough and Qilangos' smoking body fell with speed until it was lost in the trees and a resounding thud sounded.
"Will he have survived the fall?" Adryan mumbled as he fell. Not sure if a fall from such a height was capable of killing the man.
"The scales of his pathway should have been able to save his life but he should be severely injured..." Adryan said calmly as he slowed his falling speed with small explosions on his feet.
At about 40 meters from the ground, Adryan let himself fall completely.
And just 2 meters from touching the ground, his body was enveloped in shadows and he calmly walked out of the shade of a tree.
'It seems that the artifact that prevented me from using Shadow Jump was working in an area of effect...' The red-haired man thought calmly as he jumped into the tree branches and approached where Qilangos had fallen guided by his nose.
Being already close, he could see a tree split in half and a burnt body on top of it.
His muscles tensed in preparation in case he had to fight.
Approaching silently through the tree branches, Adryan got a better look at the pirate's body.
Almost the entirety of his back was black with burns, his remaining arm was bent at an odd angle, clearly broken, and his legs were the same.
Adryan looked at this with cold, emotionless eyes. He jumped from the branch to the ground and walked to stand in front of the body.
The man's chest was moving slowly.
'He's still alive...' the red-haired man thought in surprise looking at the Pirate who was unconscious.
Shaking his head, Adryan didn't finish the job but first formed a wall of spirituality around the body and then pulled out 5 small candles of different colors from his vest.
Placing the goat fat candles around the man's unconscious body, Adryan lit them one by one in the order of black, gold, light blue, blue, and white.
That done, he took out of another of his pockets a metal vial, and opening it, he spread the contents over Qilangos and placed some on his forehead.
Adryan closed his eyes and prayed in Ancient Hermes.
"I pray for the power of knowledge;
I pray for the power of rationality;
I pray that you allow me to communicate with the spirit of this heretic."
The instant he felt that the wall of spirituality had 'calmed down' he activated his spiritual vision.
The spirit of Qilangos floated still attached to his living body.
'The creator of this ritual is a genius. Even if the person is alive you can still invoke his spirit...' Adryan thought inwardly praising the author of the book.
Qilangos' green eyes were blurry and his arms were hanging.
Seeing that everything was in order, Adryan asked his first question.
"Why did you come to Backlund?"
Qilangos' brow quivered as his hand shook, but after a moment he answered.
"I accepted a job to capture and deliver James Holmes alive."
Adryan's eyes widened in shock and his mouth hung.
'I didn't mishear what he said earlier... That's why he didn't go for the kill...' Adryan thought in a daze.
'Does the Paranoid know I'm here? Shit...' Adryan wanted to laugh in disbelief.
That 'He' knew he was here... It made him feel an emptiness in his stomach.
If it wasn't for Tauk Millenium preventing him from feeling fear, he was sure he would have trembled at this.
Letting out a light sigh, he asked the next question.
"Who are the people who commissioned you to do this job?"
This time Qilangos' head moved and his eyes regained some sparkle but this only lasted a moment and he returned to his previous state.
"I don't know. They never said their names, they just gave me the job and the delivery location."
Adryan narrowed his eyes.
'There was no reaction like the time with Clark's spirit... Why would the Paranoid want me?'
"That was the only reason you came to Backlund?"
"Yes."
'... Shit' the redhead clicked his tongue in annoyance.
What did this mean? The whole thing was confusing the redhead immensely.
Shaking his head, he let out a long, heavy sigh.
'I have too little information to think of the motive behind this... Besides, I also can't deny the possibility that the Paranoid had nothing to do with this... If 'He' wanted to see me so badly all he would have to do is appear before me...'
'That could be good or bad... If it is the Paranoid at least I can get an idea of why... but if it's an unknown organization that wants me... I take it back, both options are complete bullshit!' He thought with his eyebrow twitching in annoyance.
Letting out a sigh to calm himself, Adryan pulled out a piece of goatskin parchment and a broken paper pencil.
If he had brought a fountain pen to today's fight, he was sure it would have exploded.
"What are the formulas for Folk of Rage, Seafearer, and Wind-Blessed?"
Qilangos' spirit convulsed for a few moments and his eyes gained clarity but the ritual suppressed him.
His mouth opened shakily and he spoke.
"Folk of Rage.
Main ingredients; all the scales of the shadow shark and 30 milliliters of the blood of the northern plumed snake. Supplementary ingredients; 15 milliliters of 10-year-old whiskey, 5 Henbane leaves, and 30 grams of South Sea salt.
Seafearer.
Main ingredients: the guts of the Nomad Macaw and the testicles of the Swimming Tern. Supplementary ingredients: 5 feathers of the Swimming Tern, 30 milliliters of blood of the Nomad Macaw, and 4 drops of cerebrospinal fluid from the brain of the Nomad Macaw.
W-w-wind-blessed"
As he tried to say the Wind-blessed formula, the spirit of Qilangos tried to resist but the ritual suppressed him again.
With his mouth more trembling than before, Qilangos mumbled.
Primary ingredients: 6 crystalline feathers of a Blue Shadow Falcon and A pair of the Dragon-Eyed Sea Condor eyeballs. Secondary ingredients: the wings of the Blue Shadow Falcon, 15 milliliters of blood from both creatures, and-and the claws of the Deep Sea naga."
Writing down the formulas on the goatskin parchment and stowing it in his jacket. Adryan looked into Qilangos' eyes.
"What is the name of the Organization that hired you to capture James Holmes?"
"I don't know." Was the short answer of the pirate who said it almost instantly.
Letting out a sigh, Adryan nodded and finished the ritual.
The spirit of Qilangos returned to his body and shivered with a spasm before opening his eyes.
Noticing the man in front of him, he grunted and tried to get up but could barely lift his head.
A choked breath was heard and Qilangos' only functional eye watched him with pure hatred.
"You regained consciousness... Those scales are cheating you know." Adryan commented calmly looking at the Pirate.
"I'll... kill you..." Qilangos spat with hatred before he started coughing up blood.
"What a horrible choice of last words." Adryan commented as he extended his left hand towards the pirate's mangled body.
In the palm of the glove, a mouth full of sharp teeth opened.
"Try to leave the head intact. I need it to claim his bounty." Adryan spoke calmly looking with emotionless eyes at the man.
Seeing the sharp teeth of the glove he never thought would be his meal, Qilangos' eye filled with fear and he tried to move to escape but his body was too wounded to do so.
"No..." The man growled with pure terror in his voice.
"If you can, do it slow." Adryan added.
The sound of flesh being consumed filled the forest along with Qilangos' screams of pain.
...
With a satisfied burp, Creeping Hunger spat out a lime-green stone that landed in Adryan's palm.
'This has at least one potion from sequence 9 to 6... I just need to find a way to separate them.'
Looking at the Wind-blessed characteristic in his hand, Adryan simply placed it in the container he had prepared and sealed it with a wall of spirituality.
He calmly placed the container on the fallen tree trunk. His eyes moved to the left and collided with an empty green eye.
Qilangos' head rested on the forest grass with an expression of pain and pure horror.
