Chapter 822, Killing the Second Prince
Escaped using a transport ticket?
Wu Heng and Glenda both frowned.
They were just discussing whether to join the battle when the news came that the Second Prince had taken the ghost train and fled.
That decisive?
No wonder he was so hard to catch.
Glenda asked, "The army was gathering over there. How did he still manage to flee?"
All along the way—cavalry, infantry, squads—they were all gathering in that direction.
He shouldn't have escaped that easily!
Beni said, "Those assassins had a clear target. They probably had a tracking item or were using a specialized profession. They already broke into the building. Maybe realizing they couldn't stop them, the Second Prince took a few old men and jumped on the train."
That did make sense.
The army and the Second Prince were two separate matters.
Staying would only increase the danger. Escaping immediately was the smart choice.
Wu Heng asked, "How many boarded the train?"
Beni thought for a moment and said, "Four people. None were high-level, and none looked like combat-focused professions."
Wu Heng nodded. "Call Xiaoxiao. We're leaving the city."
Beni floated into the sky and called back Xiaoxiao, who was observing the surroundings.
Wu Heng turned to leave. Xiaoxiao floated beside him, asking, "Uncle, we're not going to watch the action? It looked like the place was up in smoke."
"The Second Prince fled on the train. We're going after him. The others don't matter," Wu Heng said while walking.
"Oh, he ran? What a disgrace," Xiaoxiao muttered.
As they spoke, a patrol squad walked past and glanced down the alley.
"You, stop right there!"
Wu Heng stopped and looked over, Xiaoxiao's voice echoed in his ear, "Uncle, the highest level is 7."
"What is it?" Wu Heng looked at the sudden patrol squad.
The squad captain swaggered over with a cold tone. "Why are you coming from that direction?"
Wu Heng narrowed his eyes. "I'm heading home."
"Home? You don't look like you're from the city..." One team member stepped forward, scanning him up and down.
"I really am just going home. Please, sirs, don't make this difficult," Wu Heng said directly.
"Hmph!" The captain snorted and ordered, "Search him. See if he's carrying any weapons."
The team member immediately understood and approached Wu Heng with a grin.
Sigh~!
Wu Heng sighed and said directly, "Do it."
Crack~crack!
One by one, the squad members who approached had their necks snapped.
The captain in the back widened his eyes in horror.
His teammates had just died in front of him.
It's over. They'd caught the real deal.
He tried to turn and run, but his body was frozen, stuck in place.
"No, no, sir, I don't know anything. Please, do your thing," the captain stammered, sweat beading on his forehead.
Wu Heng said, "Cut the nonsense. We've got business."
Business?
Is he talking to me?
Confused, the captain felt a massive force crush his neck. His vision spun and then refocused forward.
His body dropped. Wu Heng took a few straw mats from his space ring, wrapped the corpses, and stored them away.
These weren't high-level bodies, but leaving them behind would cause issues. Better to take them.
Avoid unnecessary trouble later.
Honestly, he didn't want to fight with these low-level people.
But there wasn't time to waste on them. Just their bad luck.
He had the wraiths scan the surroundings again.
He cast [Teleportation] and warped out of the city, landing in a deserted wilderness.
Wu Heng pulled out a rifle and checked the bullets. Then he said to the wraiths, "Return for now. We're boarding."
The three wraiths returned into his body.
Wu Heng took out the [Conductor's Hat] and put it on. The train whistle sounded, and the ghost train materialized.
......
Onboard the train.
Outside the window was a chaotic blur, a swirling void.
Inside the simple carriage, cold white lights shone down on four nervous, shaken faces.
The four sat around a plain folding table, with a fountain pen and a piece of paper on it.
The ghost train blocked all senses except vision, so writing was the only way to communicate.
One man, sweating heavily, was first to grab the pen and quickly wrote, "How did they find our location?"
Another took the pen and wrote, "Must be some Exotic Item or special profession. Our security was solid. As long as His Highness is safe, we didn't fail. It's okay!"
An old man in the corner dabbed sweat from his face with a handkerchief—though he had no senses, he still wiped casually. He wrote, "Once we're back, we need to rearrange everything. This can't happen again."
The blond, blue-eyed Second Prince flipped the page and wrote, "News says Rentam City is sending a messenger, should arrive within days. We need to consider taking over that place to strengthen our stance against 'Ditalio.'"
"Rentam City's real power comes from the Gold-Silver Island Lord. He's growing fast and backed by the Guild. He'll be a threat."
"I suspect he was behind the recent official disappearances."
"Impossible. He doesn't have a ghost train. Getting here from Gold-Silver Island isn't easy."
"There was word last time the Church and Gold-Silver Island had disagreements. We could set something up to get the Church to go after Rentam's skeletons. We just need to deal with the lady city lord and take the city."
"Dragging the Church in might mess with our plan."
"These are just early ideas. Once safe, we can plan properly."
The paper kept rotating, line after line written.
A rough plan was taking shape.
As the train carried them away, their unease began to fade.
The attack on the residence was a warning. They had to pick a safer place next time.
Once the page finished its round—
They stopped writing and waited to reach their destination.
Whoosh~!
Suddenly, light shone through the chaotic darkness outside.
The four opened their eyes, confused, and looked out.
Even with senses blocked, they shouldn't have arrived this quickly.
The train jolted slightly.
Then, the carriage door opened and a figure walked in.
Eyes met. Everyone froze.
The door closed again, and the train sank back into the void, continuing its mysterious journey.
They stood frozen.
Staring at each other, the four passengers showed disbelief, shock, and confusion.
Someone else boarded the train?
They examined the man carefully.
Thank god—it wasn't one of the assassins who attacked the residence.
Wait!
Black hair, black eyes, Guild-issued obsidian-scale armor!
The Lord of Gold-Silver Island?
Damn it!
Why is he here? How does he have a ticket?
Were the missing city officials really his doing?
No way.
Thought after thought raced through their minds. Panic and fear swelled.
......
Wu Heng wasn't wearing a mask.
He wore the Guild's obsidian-scale leather armor and held a rifle.
His gaze locked onto the four people across from him. Three were dressed lavishly like wealthy merchants, and the other one—from his features—was clearly the Second Prince.
After all, there were public rumors about the Second Prince's appearance, and after seeing the decoy, he could be recognized at a glance.
The four exchanged glances, then each drew the weapons from their waists.
Their mouths opened, seemingly shouting loudly.
But no sound came out.
Before they could react, Wu Heng raised his rifle and aimed forward.
With no physical sensation, he wasn't sure if he could fire accurately, so better to be cautious.
He flicked the safety off and pulled the trigger several times.
Bullets silently shot from the barrel, flying forward.
The four stared in horror.
The shots hit their foreheads and chests, penetrating clean through.
The train dulled their senses, so they didn't feel pain. Their expressions turned blank as their bodies slowly collapsed.
The Second Prince was hit in the chest. He didn't die immediately and crawled toward the table, reaching for something.
Wu Heng walked over and fired three more shots into his back.
The Second Prince finally collapsed and didn't move again.
With everyone dead, Wu Heng picked up the piece of paper on the table. It looked like they had been using it to communicate.
When he saw the lines about using the Church to target the skeletons while focusing on Wen Mansa, he raised a brow.
Looks like he got on the train at the right time.
If these people weren't dead, the situation in Rentam City would never be resolved.
It was also clear the Second Prince didn't have the strength to confront the First Prince directly, barely able to defend against the assassination attempts.
He picked up the pen to examine it—just a standard pen from Gold-Silver Island.
This guy even got his hands on a pen?
He casually pocketed both items.
The train kept moving.
Wu Heng walked to the door and glanced at the schedule posted above.
Destination: Sidi City.
Never heard of it.
But it was probably a city within the Echo Kingdom.
Wu Heng returned to his seat, stepping over corpses to sit down, lost in thought.
......
With the Second Prince dead, the mission was complete.
If he'd known he'd kill him on the ghost train, he wouldn't have bothered investigating or summoning a messenger from far away.
But that's how things go. No one can predict the outcome.
Now that the Second Prince was dead, it was time to plan next steps.
The city under the Second Prince's control was now the most valuable resource.
A full-on invasion would catch the Church's attention. But leaving it alone meant the First Prince would reclaim it soon.
Rentam City would still face the First Prince as its new enemy.
Just as expected—no matter who won the throne, they'd try to reclaim Rentam's territory, and with full legitimacy.
Should he impersonate the Second Prince?
That might work.
But Wu Heng didn't know the Second Prince's history well enough—too easy to slip up.
Besides, he couldn't stay here long. He still had to return to Gold-Silver Island.
How to pass the territory to Wen Mansa naturally, or install someone new to manage it?
......
Who knows how much time passed.
Outside the window, the void shifted into forests and dirt roads.
The train slowly came to a stop.
Clatter~!
The door opened.
Hearing and touch returned.
They had arrived!
Wu Heng checked the time—roughly half an hour had passed. It must be a nearby satellite city.
He dragged two bodies out with one hand and exited the train.
The door shut and vanished.
Ahead was a stretch of woodland. In the distance, the city's silhouette could be seen.
Wu Heng released the three wraiths.
They hovered in the air, staring at the four corpses in shock.
"You just killed them like that?" Glenda asked.
"I didn't want them pulling out some Exotic Item or tool. Better to play it safe," Wu Heng replied.
One was a prince. The other three were from the Secret Cult.
Who knows what bizarre stuff they might've been carrying. Wu Heng wouldn't be surprised by anything.
On the train, he couldn't summon wraiths. Without his skeletons, he was just a fragile mage. Caution was necessary.
"Good riddance. Fewer surprises now," Glenda said.
Xiaoxiao urged him from the side, "Uncle, hurry and loot him. He's a prince—he must have good stuff."
Wu Heng stepped forward and began searching the bodies.
Weapons, armor, ornate brooches, gold and silver jewelry, and four space rings.
He slipped on the Secret Cult members' rings and checked their contents.
Wu Heng continued equipping all three cultists' rings.
Bags of gold and silver coins, financial documents, shop deeds, spell scrolls, defense items, and gold rings marking their Secret Cult identity.
Seven sacks of coins and all those deeds amounted to a massive fortune.
Secret Cult members really were gold-spitting babies.
Kill one, and you loot a pile of cash.
He glanced over it all and set the valuables aside.
Then he equipped the Second Prince's space ring.
Luxurious clothes, exquisite jewelry, coin pouch, scrolls, and a bunch of documents.
He pulled everything out and picked three notable items.
[Bone Nail (Exotic Item)]
[Effect: Extracts remnant souls from corpses.]
[Side Effect: Shocks the user's soul.]
(Description: A finger bone radiating ominous power. Drive it into a corpse's brow to extract the lingering soul.)
Judging by appearance, this Exotic Item was a finger bone.
Who the hell died and turned their finger into an Exotic Item?
Its surface was dry and yellowed, stiff like a nail.
"A finger?" Glenda floated closer, and the other two wraiths peeked with curiosity.
Xiaoxiao flinched back. "So gross."
Wu Heng explained, "It's called the Bone Nail. An Exotic Item. Drive it into a corpse's brow to extract remnant souls."
Xiaoxiao said, "Seems useless. We already have the Soul-Absorbing Gem."
The Bone Nail worked similarly to the Soul-Absorbing Gem.
The difference was, the Gem could extract from a group and the cost was the soul being harvested.
Wu Heng used the Soul-Absorbing Gem to pull remnants from Zombies. It worked great.
But this Bone Nail had to be driven into each corpse individually. Way slower.
And its side effect hit the user's soul.
That was a serious drawback.
Compared to the Gem, this was way inferior.
"Definitely not as good as our gem," Wu Heng said.
Glenda thought aloud, "The ghost we saw imprisoned in the basement—was it extracted using this?"
Wu Heng paused, remembering that local city lord ghost.
The memory fragments had no related clues, so it couldn't be confirmed.
"Not sure," Wu Heng shook his head.
Beni looked at the corpse and asked curiously, "Why would a prince be researching ghosts?"
"No idea." They all shook their heads.
No one could figure it out. Wu Heng moved on to the next item.
[Saiyidu's Honor (Exotic Item)]
[Effect: Adds holy damage to attacks. Speech becomes more persuasive.]
[Side Effect: Permanent piety.]
(Description: The radiance of a hero grants you divine glory.)
It was a pendant, engraved with common Church symbols.
The name "Saiyidu" belonged to a Church hero.
The same one spying on the First Prince in the royal capital.
He had an Exotic Item too?
Why was it on the Second Prince?
Wu Heng glanced to the side. The three wraiths weren't paying attention and were sorting scrolls and tools.
He turned to the final Exotic Item.
[Ghost Train Ticket Dispenser (Exotic Item)]