Nobilis of War novel Chapter 1376

Darren and the young man traveled together. They stopped for a rest every now and then. They eventually came across a human along the way, but he appeared to have just died.

"The straw men must have killed him," said the young man, squatting down to look over the body.

"Yes, it would seem so," Darren responded.

Darren raised his head and scanned the area for footprints left by the straw men. He soon located some, trailing off into the distance.

"Let's follow the footprints and see what this is all about."

They tracked the marks on the ground for as long as they went.

A long walk later, they stopped, stunned by what they discovered.

There were many straw men of all kinds of different shapes and sizes, standing on the ground in front of them. They were all rough, tattered and damaged; some without arms and legs, some without heads and some with their buttocks turned the wrong way around.

"Darren, look!" screeched the young man, his voice trembling.

Among the straw men lay around a dozen corpses. Judging from their clothes, they seemed to be the human talents.

Darren's heart stopped at the sight of the bodies.

He quickly ran over to check the corpses, praying in his heart that Finley and his other companions were not among them. If they weren't, they might still be safe somewhere.

Relief washed over him after he had looked over them all, finding that Finley, Weber and his other companions were not one of the dead that lay there.

"Let's get out of here. These straw men are quite vicious and I want no part of it," said the young man, a slight nervous urgency squeaking in his voice.

"Yeah...sure."

Darren didn't want to provoke these many straw men either. Falling back did seem to be their best option at the moment.

However, just as he was about to leave, he noticed something else that caught his attention.

Several straw men had tied a group of humans together with straw ropes and had dragged them over nearby.

Darren sensed that the humans were all still alive.

"You'd better let go of me now, or I'll be forced to burn you all to ashes!

Are you pretending to be deaf? That's it, you've sentenced your whole family to die..."

Darren was shocked. There was no mistaking that voice; it was none other than Weber!

Weber had been captured.

In fact, it seemed that he was not the only one. Darren also detected the auras of Eallard, Finley and Sally.

Although he burned with rage, he felt grateful as well. At least they had only been captured and not killed.

He could not leave now. Finley, Weber and his other companions were being held; he needed to free them.

"Darren, what are you waiting for? Let's go!" urged the young man softly, lying in the grass on his stomach.

"Go? Have you checked to see if any of your friends are among those captured over there?"

"We don't have time for that. Staying here is just asking for death. All we can do now is pray for them. God bless them," said the young man, backing off and wanting to leave.

"Ha-ha," Darren sneered. "You're right. You can run away now."

"What do you mean, Darren? You're not leaving with me? Why are you being so stupid? Saving your own life should be your first priority, and then you can think about other things," said the young man seriously, a true coward at heart.

"I do not need your advice! Leave if you want to so bad!" growled Darren back at him, angered by his insistence on running from doing what was right.

"As you wish, do as you please then," sighed the young man.

He then quietly slipped away after seeing Darren's intense displeasure, wondering why Darren took his words so hard. Staying was obviously not the wisest move at the moment.

But he had failed to consider whether Darren thought of his own safety when he had rescued him.

Darren hid in the grass alone, holding his breath and crouching low, meditating and waiting for his time to strike.

The straw men dragged the group of humans over to where even more straw men had gathered.

It was then that Darren saw a little girl limping out to the crowd. From what he could see, it seemed to be a little straw girl, but she still looked as rough as the others. Both her pigtails had been tied haphazardly with different kinds of withered straws.

"Where is my mom?"

she asked in a childish voice, so loud in the stillness and quiet of the wilderness.

How could the straw girl speak?

Darren was astonished by the sound of her voice. He had not heard a creature utter a word since he had entered the Archean relic, apart from the straw man who would repeat his words. Not only had she spoken, she spoke the human language in the Primitive Wilderness.

How could this be possible?

There was a gap of billions of years between the Archean Age and the present. How did she manage to learn the human language in this era?

Darren stayed hidden, waiting to see how this would play out. If these straw men intended to kill Weber and the others, he would have to rush over and rescue them, no hesitating.

"Where is my mom?" the childish voice asked again.