The black sun hangs high

Chapter 317 Parasite (Part 2)

"So this is where it was hidden; it was well concealed."

Upon hearing those words, Badosa's mind went blank.

He couldn't understand what Hugh was talking about at all, but he was certain that something was crawling or wriggling rapidly along his spine—it felt as if a piece of skin on his back had suddenly become aware and started acting independently.

The next moment, Hugh, who had been sitting, suddenly stood up.

Immediately afterwards, the nearby waiters and passengers gasped in surprise, because they saw that the two who had been "having a good talk" seemed to have some unexpected conflict.

Hugh, who had been sitting in his seat, quickly approached the dwarf Badosa. Before anyone else could react, he grabbed the dwarf by the back of his neck and lifted him onto the table.

With a slight turn in Hugh's hand, the Black Sun Scepter was enveloped in dark magical light. As he raised and lowered his arm, the magically glowing scepter, like a slender knife, pressed straight against the back of Badosa's neck.

The sudden change caught the attention of the dwarves not far away, and these hot-tempered fellows immediately jumped up, rolled up their sleeves, and rushed towards Hugh.

Fortunately, several members of the Dawn Order were still on the deck. They had noticed Hugh's actions and, seeing that the situation seemed to have taken a turn for the worse, they immediately gathered around and managed to block the dwarves who were trying to rush toward Hugh.

Although these members of the Dawn Order had limited knowledge of magic, they had great trust in their young leader. They firmly believed that Hughes's seemingly extreme actions must be due to some special circumstance or some important discovery.

Hugh, who was launching a "surprise attack" on Badosa, paid no attention to the situation around him. He exerted force with his right arm, pressing down the Black Sun Scepter which was wrapped in magic. Suddenly, his right hand rose up, and a strangely shaped short sword appeared in his palm in a flash of black light.

Seeing this, everyone nearby froze in place. The next second, they saw the young man steadily raise his left hand, and the sharp blade was aimed directly at the poor dwarf's back. It seemed that he wanted to cut his target in half alive in front of everyone!

"Damn it!"

"Stop!"

Chaotic shouts rang out one after another. Tension and anger caused the rushing dwarves to crash directly into the crowd trying to stop them. In an instant, the scene was in complete chaos. Richard and the other members of the Dawnblade had no choice but to fight back.

However, the forces exerted by the two sides in this situation were not the same at all. The members of the Dawn Society had some doubts and were not willing to be too harsh on these dwarves who wanted to save people, but the dwarves were different. These guys, who were known for their vicious nature, had already gone mad. Not only were punches and kicks not enough, but one of the female dwarves even picked up a kitchen knife and slashed it at Richard, who was at the front, without any regard for his own safety.

Fortunately, Richard had considerable practical experience and was able to respond promptly to the situation. The knife only grazed his thigh, and the slightly dull blade didn't even damage his trench coat.

Just then, the black short sword, exuding a chilling aura, fell, accompanied by the clean, sharp sound of clothes being torn. Some timid passengers turned their heads away, while some bolder passengers or those who enjoyed a morbid curiosity couldn't help but widen their eyes.

However, the instant Hugh made this move, a curtain of magic suddenly descended, and orderly magical patterns formed a semi-transparent ring barrier, keeping everyone who tried to approach him out, which also prevented the onlookers from clearly seeing how things were going.

Then, a sharp ice spike with thin, cold magical threads flew out of nowhere. It passed through the crowd at an extremely fast speed, successfully separating the Dawnbreakers from the dwarves who were wrestling together. The cold magic trailing behind the ice spike then transformed into a solid, cold rope, preventing the fighters from making any further moves.

"This is murder!"

One of the most ferocious charging dwarves, whose hands were bound by magical ropes, roared.

Numerous plains slang terms and dwarf-specific curses poured from his mouth, causing the ice spike to immediately turn back. It nimbly circled the dwarf's head twice before the cold, magical rope completely sealed his mouth shut.

With a frown, Violet stepped out from the crowd. Facing the sailors of the Windless and the mages of the Legal Committee who had arrived at the scene, she remained extremely calm: "Alright everyone, there was no murder or attack here... Did you smell even a trace of blood? It's just some unexpected situation!"

Under the current circumstances, Vera's words were naturally not convincing at all, but in any case, when one side of the conflict showed enough strength, the chaotic scene was eventually calmed down a little.

Two monks from the Legal Committee stepped forward with worried expressions. They had never expected this situation to occur. Although Vilin's appearance and explanation calmed them down a little, as members of the Legal Committee, they had to demonstrate sufficient impartiality in this situation.

"Ms. Weilin..."

Facing this young female mage who had once been on Merlinle's blacklist alongside Hugh Ernst, both members of the Law Committee felt a slight unease, but their uniforms ultimately compelled them to ask Verin: "In any case, we need a reasonable explanation... If Mr. Hugh didn't attack Master Badosa, then what are they doing now?"

However, Vera slowly shook her head: "I don't know."

Upon hearing this, the two mages' expressions immediately fluctuated violently, but then, Vilin explained, "I just want everyone to understand that Mr. Hugh is not a mad killer, much less a butcher who is prejudiced against dwarves... On the contrary, he is a spellcaster with a strong bottom line and principles, and a staunch opponent of the Black Sun Society."

Vera paused slightly: "At the same time, he is also a scholar who is extremely knowledgeable about those strange lost powers."

At this point, Vera raised her hand and pointed to the magical barrier that blurred the vision: "Please wait here for a moment, everyone involved. I guarantee with my personal reputation that what is happening has absolutely nothing to do with murder. On the contrary, what Mr. Hugh is doing now is very likely to be helping Master Badosa!"

……

As the center of this incident, Hugh was not unaware of everything happening around him.

In fact, he didn't need the members of the Dawn to stop any of the dwarves for him. He was even prepared to show everyone the strange things that had happened to Bardoza. However, the actions of the Dawn members and the intervention of Virin made Hugh abandon his original plan.

Now that Verin had successfully created a relatively stable environment, Hugh would naturally not waste such an opportunity. The sharp black short sword transformed from the Touch of Karron did not cause any damage to the dwarf Bardoza's body. Under Hugh's extremely precise control of his power, it merely cut through the clothing on Bardoza's back, thus exposing the dwarf's spine directly to Hugh's view.

At the same time, the extremely panicked Badosa finally realized that the real danger he was facing was probably not Hugh, but the strange entity that was constantly "crawling" along his back.

So, trembling, he managed to ask, "What happened to my back... what happened to my back?"

"Um……"

Hugh stared at the dwarf's back, his brows furrowing slightly. The black short sword in his left hand flashed, and deep dark abyssal magic surged forth, directly enveloping the dwarf's back.

Badosa felt as if his back had been touched by a large amount of ice, so he shivered and urged, "Please tell me, what's on my back!"

His voice trembled incessantly, as if he were about to burst into tears.

Hugh's hands clenched slightly, and the cold magic applied to Badosa's back began to contract rapidly, like a semi-transparent claw closing in.

Under the influence of this force, Badosa felt the tingling and crawling sensation on his back finally stop, and then he heard Hugh's slightly strange voice: "Mr. Badosa, I have good news and bad news..."

"bad news!"

The dwarf cried out, "Damn it, please tell me what's going on!"

"The bad news is that a piece of skin on your back... it may have developed its own ideas, not only growing legs and feet, but even a mouth and teeth."

Hugh carefully examined the strange object that was constantly writhing in the dark abyss magic: "The good news is that it won't kill you for its own survival for now, but who knows what will happen in the future."

Hugh's statement was not an exaggeration at all. On the broad back of the dwarf Bardossa, there was a patch of skin the size of a palm, or rather, the flesh had undergone a strange change.

Under the influence of some unknown force, this piece of flesh neatly "detached" from Badosa's body and had become an independent "life".

It looks like a flat, diamond-shaped worm, with remnants of Badosa's skin texture on its back. Countless tiny tentacles grow from the edges of this "skin," making it look somewhat similar to those flat insects. The tingling sensation Badosa had felt earlier was caused by the crawling of these tentacles on the "skin."

In the very center of this "skin", Hugh saw two small black dots.

Those were eyes, or rather, some kind of eye-like organ. As Hugh stared at them, the two black dots trembled violently, clearly terrified that they had been discovered.

In the blink of an eye, Hugh's magic had completely encircled the area, causing the skin to struggle and writhe violently. Seeing that he had successfully restrained the target's movements, two Calronian tentacles immediately appeared from behind Hugh. Like two pairs of pliers in a surgical scene, they precisely reached down and hooked tightly onto the edge of the writhing "skin".

Karron's Touch gently pulled back, and then Hugh saw the normal flesh exposed beneath the skin. He noticed that there seemed to be many connecting "flesh tendrils" between this mutated skin and Badosa's flesh.

Hughes breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I'll help you get it off now... It might hurt a little, just bear with it."

"Good! Good!"

Badosa's body was twisting and turning at such an astonishing frequency that Hugh felt as if he were convulsing.

The dwarf yelled at the top of his lungs, "I can feel it... It's trying to tear me apart, trying to suck my blood... Help me get it off!"

Having obtained Bardoza's permission, Hughes no longer hesitated. He quickly pulled back the two tentacles of Kalron that were hooked on the target, forcing the twisted skin of the tentacles away from Bardoza's body. Then, a third Kalron tentacle appeared. It was thinner and more flexible, and its end evolved into a thin and sharp short blade, which was covered with dense dark abyssal light.

In the blink of an eye, the short blade swept across Badosa's back, and the emanating dark abyssal magic easily destroyed all the disgusting tendrils that connected the skin to Badosa's flesh. The twisted life force contained within was also completely stripped away and destroyed in the process.

"Gah! Gah!"

The piece of skin fell onto the deck of the cruise ship, thrashing violently, a crisp sound constantly emanating from its thin body.

As the twisted parasite left Badosa's back, the wound where skin had been missing returned to normal, blood flowed out, and Badosa couldn't help but let out a miserable howl.

At this moment, Hugh finally released his grip on the dwarf. He casually tore a page from the spellbook at his waist and threw it at Badosa. At the same time, under his control, dense magic quickly constructed a semi-transparent magical cage, imprisoning the monster that was trying to escape.

The parasites on Badosa writhed and struggled violently inside the magical cage.

The removal method used by Hugh was quite violent, which clearly caused some damage to the parasite. As the parasite twisted and struggled, "blood" was constantly being splashed onto the deck.

Hugh narrowed his eyes involuntarily as he looked at the bloodstains.

These "bloods" surprisingly revealed a familiar, psychedelic quality.

(End of this chapter)