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044 His Legend
🕑 Added 2025-02-21 15:42:02 +0000 UTC“You mean to tell me you cannot fly?” Jiang Zhen’s voice carried a hint of amusement, barely concealed behind a facade of solemnity.
I shot him a glare. “I can fall with style. That count?”
Perched atop his flying shovel, Jiang Zhen smirked, arms folded like some sagely immortal. The wind tugged at his robes, making him look infuriatingly majestic.
“No, my friend,” he said. “It does not.”
I resisted the urge to scowl and instead retrieved Lofty Jade Proposition from my storage, draping the armor over my current gear. The armor had an impressive air to it, though it felt cumbersome compared to the flowing robes I had grown accustomed to.
Jiang Zhen stroked his chin, eyes filled with what could only be judgment. “A cultivator of your strength, yet you lack even the most basic flight techniques…” He sighed as if lamenting the injustice of the heavens. “Truly, fate is blind.”
I rolled my eyes. “Are you done? Go report to the City Governor.”
He arched a brow. “And you?”
“I’ll stay behind.”
Jiang Zhen frowned. “Why?”
“Healing,” I replied simply.
For a moment, he seemed surprised. Then, much to my irritation, he nodded approvingly. “Hm. At least you bear some responsibility.”
“I could just leave it all to you,” I said dryly. “You’re the one who can fly, after all.”
Jiang Zhen snorted. “See you later, ground-dweller.” With a flick of his sleeve, he soared toward the City Governor’s manor, vanishing into the sky and leaving me in the ruins of Yellow Dragon City.
I exhaled, then reached into my storage and retrieved Chibi Perfume. With a single spray, my body shrank, my features softening into something small, harmless, and utterly unrecognizable as the Paladin who had just fought an eldritch nightmare and a fallen angel with too much xianxia energy.
Time to get to work.
I moved through the city with inhuman speed, darting through alleys, leaping across rooftops, and casting Cure on every wounded soul I encountered. Most were unconscious or too dazed to question their sudden recovery, which suited me just fine.
It was bad.
The city had suffered more than just a demon’s wrath. Panic had taken root, and where chaos reigned, opportunists thrived. Looters prowled the streets, thugs and desperate cultivators clashed for spoils, and the lingering aura of the abyssal entity had driven men to madness. Fights erupted in every corner—brawls between those too shaken to think, too paranoid to trust, too consumed by fear to remember their own humanity.
Yellow Dragon City was a battlefield still.
And I had much work to do.
I remembered how it worked in Lost Legends Online. Merely standing in a demon’s presence could warp an NPC’s mind—fear, rage, and desperation, all magnified a hundredfold. The strong-willed could resist. The weak? They would snap, lashing out in madness or blind terror.
Brukhelm’s aura had drowned all of Yellow Dragon City. If not for the Great Barrier that Ren Jin and his people had deployed, the city would’ve been reduced to a wasteland of corpses and ruin.
I kept running. Kept casting Cure. Kept moving—because I wasn’t sure I wanted to stop and truly see how much had been lost.
Then I passed by Lin Lim’s camp and knew, immediately, that something was wrong.
It wasn’t just the exhaustion that came after catastrophe. No, this was worse—thick with resentment, simmering on the edge of violence. Lin Lim’s people were gathered at the center, tense, wary. Surrounding them was a small but growing crowd of Yellow Dragon City residents.
“This wouldn’t have happened if you people weren’t here!”
The accusation cut through the murmurs like a blade.
Lin Lim stood at the front, her mask nowhere in sight. Scars marred her closed eyes, yet she moved with an unerring confidence, as if sight were a trivial thing. Her expression was unreadable, but I could tell—she had expected this.
“Do you have proof of this claim?” Her voice was calm, measured.
A man at the front scoffed. “Proof? The whole city saw what happened! Ever since you and your people arrived, everything has fallen into chaos. First, the tournament is ruined, then a monster appears, and now look—looting, destruction, our own people turning on each other! Don’t act innocent! If it weren’t for your kind, none of this would’ve happened!”
Murmurs of agreement spread like wildfire. A woman clutched her child close, eyes burning with grief and fury.
“People died,” she spat. “People lost their homes! And while we were fighting for our lives, you were—”
“We were protecting who we could.” Lin Lim’s voice was steady, but beneath it was a steel edge. “Do not twist the truth.”
The woman’s glare only darkened. “You call that protection? Some of your own people fell under that demon’s influence! You couldn’t even control them! And now you expect us to believe you’re on our side?”
Lin Lim inhaled slowly.
“None of us were immune to that presence,” she said. “I tried to contain the chaos. I tried to hold my people together. But there are limits to what one person can do alone.”
A muttered voice in the crowd sneered, “You shouldn’t have been here at all.”
Lin Lim shook her head. “Would you have fared better without us?”
An uneasy silence settled over the square.
“I do not ask for gratitude,” Lin Lim continued. “I understand fear. I understand loss. But you must also understand—none of us chose this.”
A few people looked away. The anger hanging in the air did not vanish, but it shifted. Doubt crept into some faces, uncertainty replacing the absolute fury of moments before. Yet, others still clung to their resentment, unwilling to yield.
Lin Lim had done what she could.
I had no doubt this would not be the last time her people faced such hostility.
She stood tall, surrounded by her own. They were not an army, but they carried weapons, bore armor, and had the sharp-eyed wariness of survivors. Their pilgrimage to Yellow Dragon City had clearly not been kind—every face was lined with hardship, every stance braced for the next battle. Their presence alone was enough to dissuade the weak-willed.
But intimidation only worked until someone got reckless.
A rock cut through the air.
It spun toward Lin Lim’s head, swift and unrelenting.
She moved before I could, tilting her head ever so slightly. With the barest shift of her hand, the stone landed in her palm with a muted clap. She let it drop to the ground.
Silence.
Then, movement.
One of her men lunged forward, blade flashing in the dim light.
His sword arced toward the crowd—toward the fool who had thrown the rock.
I was already there.
Clang.
The blade stopped. Not against a sword, not against armor—against my fingers.
Just two fingers.
Pinched like I was holding chopsticks.
The swordsman froze, his face locked in disbelief.
The poor bastard he had nearly cut down—the familiar arcade stall owner who had once sold Jia Yun a mask—had stumbled back onto the ground, pale and wide-eyed.
Then his gaze flickered to me.
And his eyes filled with recognition.
I exhaled. This was exactly the kind of mess I wanted to avoid.
“This farce ends now.”
My voice cut through the tension, sharp and unyielding.
The swordsman jerked his blade, trying to wrench it free, but I didn’t let go. My grip remained firm as I turned my gaze to the crowd, making sure every single one of them heard me.
“Let’s get one thing straight—none of you want this fight.”
With a flick of my fingers, I released the sword, sending a jolt up the man’s arm. He stumbled back, gripping his weapon like he wasn’t sure if it would protect him or betray him.
“You’re angry. You’re scared. I get it. But throwing hands right now? That’s just going to make things worse.”
Some looked away, guilt creeping into their expressions. Others still clung to their resentment, but at least they weren’t acting on it. Yet.
I shifted my gaze to Lin Lim’s people.
“And you. Do you think swinging weapons will help? Do you think making yourselves look more like a threat will solve your problems?”
A few of them shifted uneasily. No one had an answer.
I sighed and turned back to the city’s residents.
“You’re all looking for someone to blame, but take a good look around. This city suffered. Your people suffered. Fighting each other won’t fix anything. So unless someone really wants to see just how far I’m willing to take this—” I flexed my fingers, knuckles cracking like thunder. “—I suggest you all stop.”
Silence.
Then, one by one, weapons lowered. People turned away, unwilling to admit I was right, but none willing to push further either.
Crisis averted. For now.
Lin Lim exhaled, her shoulders still tense. Her scarred eyes stayed locked on me, as if trying to see beyond the surface.
“Thank you, young master…?” Her words trailed into a question, doubt clear in her tone.
Not surprising. I had just stopped a sword with two fingers.
I gave her an easy smile. “You handled that well.”
She stared.
“…What?”
Blinking, she shook her head, looking almost embarrassed. “Ah… Apologies, young master. You reminded me of my brother. He’s a genius too.”
Hearing that made me feel weirdly awkward. Like I was being lumped in with some prodigy I didn’t even know. And now… I felt oddly conflicted about revealing my real identity.
Still, I grinned. “He must be a genius with the ladies too.”
Lin Lim let out an awkward laugh.
…Wait.
Wait a minute.
Did she just see through me?
Did she know I was in disguise?
More importantly—how did she know I wasn’t good with the ladies?!
What gave me away?!
…Meh.
Jokes aside, a question lingered in my mind.
I gestured toward the tent behind her, where her people huddled—tired, uncertain, their spirits worn thin by hardship.
“What is it you hope to achieve by helping them?”
Lin Lim’s expression darkened, then hardened.
“Atonement.”
Huh.
That was… admirable, in its own way.
I didn’t ask what she was atoning for. If she wanted to tell me, she would.
Instead, I turned my attention to the wounded. There were too many—victims of the chaos, the looting, the paranoia that had swept the city when the demon’s aura had tainted the skies.
I wasn’t a saint. I wasn’t some divine healer with infinite power. But I was someone who could do something.
And so, I did.
I left Lin Lim behind—though not before flinging a few Cure spells across her camp.
Then I moved. Quickly.
Cure to mend open wounds and bruises. Cleanse to purge the lingering filth of fear and malice. Some injuries were beyond basic healing, so I reached into my inventory, fingers brushing against cold stone.
Low-level resurrection stones.
People called death permanent. But in LLO, it wasn’t. Not always.
It was painfully naive to expect zero casualties. Even more naive to burn through precious resources with no way to replenish them.
But this was my choice.
If I had the means to help, why shouldn’t I?
As I worked, whispers spread. Murmurs of a divine healer, a saint who brought salvation with one hand and destruction with the other.
I barely noticed.
Unbeknownst to me, that day marked the birth of a legend—a tale passed from mouth to mouth, a story of a wandering divine who wielded miracles as easily as he shattered mountains.
