Chapter 11: Living to the Death
The sun was blazing, and beads of sweat kept rolling off his body.
Thirty or so mercenaries practiced the same set of punches over and over again with their bare shoulders, and the earth-shattering snappy shouts resounded neatly in the mercenary group's martial arts arena.
Under the shadow of the fence, Arthur followed the movements of the mercenaries, gesticulating one move at a time, and it was actually decent.
Once Arthur is free, he likes to run to the martial arts field in the side yard of the mercenary corps, watching the mercenaries practicing martial arts and fighting is his greatest pleasure. Even if there is no one to teach, watch for a long time, the mercenaries usually practiced this set of martial arts Arthur will see.
"Punch out hard!" A voice suddenly sounded behind Arthur.
"Uncle Randall." Arthur retrieved the punch he had thrown and turned his head to greet Randall with a smile.
"Do you know what this martial art is called?"
"They say it's called the Decision of the Past Life, what a strange name." Arthur scratched his head out of habit.
"Its real name is actually called Deathward Determination, and these guys changed the name out of obscurity. It's a set of martial arts that originated from the death squad in the human army, and the core of the martial arts is to live to the death. Martial skills were originally used to kill, and it is only with the courage to put death before life that one can burst out with the most powerful combat power, thus killing one's enemies on the battlefield." Randall explained with surprising patience.
"Then can you teach me the Duel to the Death?" Arthur asked tentatively, summoning up enough courage.
Randall froze for a moment, his eyes suddenly going a little out of focus for a long time before he sighed, "These are pretty much all that's left of the people who know this martial art now that they're dead, it really is a martial art that leads to death."
Arthur froze for a moment as well.
Just then, a clamor sounded from the corner door of the side yard, and a dozen mercenaries ran in clustered around two stretchers.
Tony rushed to the front of the line like a madman, "Randall, quick! Help!"
Randall and the mercenaries on the drill ground all quickly gathered around.
The two mercenaries on the stretcher were all bloody and pale. One's entire chest was wrapped in layers of gauze, and the blood had completely crimsoned the gauze; the other mercenary had fainted, his left half of his pants leg was empty, and the stretcher was dripping with blood.
As soon as Randall ripped open the fainted mercenary's pant leg, half of his calf had completely disappeared, ripping away the wrapped gauze, blood spewed out with it, revealing dog-eared wounds.
Randall took a sharp axe from the mercenary next to him, and with a flash of the axe blade wrapped in fighting aura, the mercenary's calf was chopped off at the knee.
The mercenary completely fainted with a scream.
Randall dropped his axe, and the white light of fighting qi erupted from his hand, completely caging the mercenary's wound and suppressing the gushing blood in a raw manner. Beside him, there was already a mercenary who was good at medicine who used a tourniquet to tightly strangle the wound.
"Let me do it!" A wizard with gray hair quickly walked over.
The Blue Leprechaun Mercenary Corps had paid heavily for a third level wood magician, Walpole, and a mage of the healing department was a must-have for all major mercenary corps.
As the chanting of the spell sounded, a light green magical glow passed through Randall's white fighting aura enveloping the mercenary's wound. Under the moisturizing of the magical light, the blood from the wound completely stopped. Not only that, the flesh and blood at the edge of the wound grew rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye, quickly closing the entire wound.
The second level wood magic "Wood Sprout" has a powerful healing ability.
The pain of growing blood and flesh made the fainting mercenary wake up again, looking at his leg that was only half cut off suddenly yelled hysterically, the mercenaries on both sides rushed forward to hold it down.
As Walpole went to save the other mercenary, Randall pulled Tony over by the hand, "What the hell is going on?"
Tony's eyes were bloodshot, "It was those bastards from 'Stabbing Blood', when we were rounding up a three-eyed spirit ape, they deliberately attracted a berserk demon bear. They used a bloodthirsty potion to make the demon bear completely enter a berserk state, and suddenly broke into our arranged hunting circle from behind, Hagrid and Bobby were seriously injured as a result."
"These assholes are playing dirty!" Randall also immediately fell into a violent rage.
"I'll gather my brothers now, let's go and raid 'Stabbing Blood's' lair!" Tony turned around and was about to call for people.
"Wait a minute, if we go straight to the door now it's the same as declaring direct war with 'Stabbing Blood', it's not time to go to war with them yet without Cairns." Anger, however, did not cause Randall to completely lose his mind.
"So what do you say? Hagrid and Bobby's injuries are just going to go away, and we're just going to put up with this?" Tony stared at Randall with glaring eyes and questioned.
Randall's eyes glared and he yelled at Tony, ''Tony, how do you talk to me, you little brat? Don't forget that this isn't a battlefield, if we go to war with 'Stabbing Blood', the city's army and mercenary union will surely intervene. How to settle this account wait for Cairns to come back."
As soon as Randall got angry Tony's aura shrunk.
"Well, Bobby has saved this life." Walpole shook his body and stood up. Healing two seriously injured people consecutively was already the limit of a third level magician.
"Are they both okay?" Tony once again went over to see the condition of the two mercenaries.
"Bobby was fortunate that he didn't injure his internal organs or meridians, and he can recover after a few days of nourishment, but Hagrid is considered wasted." Walpole shook his head helplessly.
"Is there really no way out? Didn't I hear that there's magic to regenerate broken limbs?" Tony and the surrounding mercenaries looked at Walpole with bated breath.
"The 'Deadwood Rejuvenation' in wood magic and the 'Light Salute' in light magic both have the power to save people from near death and regenerate their limbs, but that is an ability that can only be mastered by a twelfth level Grand Magician. " Walpole sighed and continued, "And even if we can find a twelfth level Grand Magician, our mercenary group can't afford to pay the price of a single strike from someone else."
"Never mind, we're lucky to have saved a life, send Hagrid back." Randall gave a feeble wave of his one arm.
An atmosphere of sadness spread over the scene, and everyone knew that Hagar's career as a mercenary was over.
Arthur had been silently watching what was happening in front of him.
Randall suddenly turned around, his eyes fixed on Arthur, "You see, now you still want to learn the Duel to the Death?"
"If I don't learn, I don't have to die?" Arthur's tone was surprisingly flat.
"At least it won't die so quickly, mercenaries are a profession that faces death at any time, and the Toward Death Decision is even more demanding of the practitioner to survive in death."
"When my mother was killed by the orcs, I thought I would die too. When I was captured into the orc camp, I watched one child after another die, and at that time I thought I was dead as well. Since I'm destined to die, I don't want to be powerless in the face of death again!" There were slight tears in Arthur's eyes.
Having seen his mother killed first hand, he was the only one of the children captured into the orc camp with him who ended up surviving.
It was at this moment that Randall and the mercenaries vaguely realized what terrible things the boy who always had a smile on his face had been through!
"Good boy! Since you have this courage to live to the death, get ready to start meeting death!" Randall's large hand slapped heavily on Arthur's thin shoulder.