School Transmigration: I, Chosen as the Saint by Dragons at the Start-Chapter 186 --Bargain with the Demon

Afterwards, Hawkes dispatched his scouts to meticulously map the terrain under Ironblade City’s jurisdiction, as the Lord of Ironblade City had not left behind a single map.

He then gathered the remaining supplies in the city and relocated the surviving citizens to the north side, forbidding them from taking any belongings.

They were provided with only the dry food and water collected from the city’s supplies before being sent northward back to the empire.

Having completed these tasks, he returned to his tent to meditate and heal his wounds.

As night deepened, so did the questions in his mind.

Before the campaign, the high priest had told him and Melania not to worry about the city walls, assuring them that the wizard legion would take care of the southern outer wall.

And indeed, the wizard legion had succeeded.

However, upon inspecting the damage to the southern wall, Hawkes found it to be neatly severed, as if done in an instant.

Could the wizard legion possess such powerful sorcery?

Or was there someone else, a master, aiding them?

Unable to come to a conclusion, Hawkes decided not to dwell on it.

Whoever was responsible, if there truly was such a master, he vowed to challenge them to a duel if they ever crossed paths, even if it meant death.

But first, he mused, he had to defeat Melania.

With that thought, he drifted into sleep.

...

After an indeterminate amount of time, Owen awoke from unconsciousness, his body aching all over.

The entrance to the secret passage had been sealed off, leaving him in darkness illuminated only by the cold light emanating from his trident.

Struggling to sit up, Owen reached for his trident but instead touched something else.

Grasping it, he realized it was a small vial.

Without a second thought, he drank the liquid inside and, gripping his trident, stood up.

It was probably a demon’s secret potion, Owen thought, impressed by its effectiveness.

Why would the champion king save him, and what was her purpose?

These questions flickered through Owen’s mind, but he did not dwell on them.

The demon army’s assault had been unusual from the start.

Owen approached the first junction of the secret passage, inserting his trident into a gap in the side wall and pressing down.

Lamps on both sides of the left passage lit up.

Owen removed the trident, not in a hurry to proceed.

He stood still, looking at the lights.

After a few minutes, the lamps went out.

Owen then gathered his thoughts, reinserted the trident into the gap, and pressed down again.

This time, the lamps on the left side lit up again.

Owen pulled out the trident and stepped into the left passage.

The design of the secret passage was incredibly intricate, with many forks, and the wrong paths filled with various deadly traps.

To prevent outsiders from finding the guiding mechanism at the first junction, one must press the mechanism again after the lights go out the first time to reveal the correct path.

Owen followed the lights, memorizing the path he took, and finally emerged from the secret passage.

Before him was a vast stone wall, with an unlit lamp on the left wall and a protruding mechanism underneath.

Owen hesitated for a moment before deciding not to manipulate the lamp but instead pressed the protruding mechanism directly.

The stone wall slowly rose, and Owen could faintly hear the clamor outside.

It seemed that during his unconsciousness, the demon army had bypassed the broken barriers of Ironblade Forest and advanced to this location.

Now, Owen was left with little fighting strength, yet a cold smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

As the stone wall fully ascended, a demon army troop of seventy to eighty soldiers, clearly dispatched to search for Owen, was taken aback by the sudden opening.

The leader, a dog-headed priest, hastily reorganized his unit and faced Owen.

"It seems you’re the only one left," the dog-headed priest said tentatively.

"Surrender."

Owen remained silent, slowly retreating back into the secret passage, causing the lamps on either side to extinguish instantly.

The dog-headed priest stamped his foot in frustration.

"Go, all of you! A hefty reward for whoever finds him, dead or alive."

Seventy to eighty simple-minded orc warriors streamed in, oblivious to the traps within the passage.

Owen retreated a third of the way back down the passage, silently listening to the screams echoing from within.

A couple of orcs, luckier than the rest, nearly reached his position but lost their judgment amidst their comrades’ cries.

In their panic, they forgot their way and died in other forks of the passage.

After the last scream died down, Owen waited five minutes before retracing his steps out of the passage.

The dog-headed priest, still waiting at the entrance, collapsed in terror upon seeing Owen emerge from the shadows.

The dog-headed priest, likely a medic with no martial skills or sorcery, had foolishly sent his guards to their deaths.

He was now as vulnerable as meat on a chopping board, at Owen’s mercy.

Yet, Owen didn’t wish to kill him.

Pointing at the dog-headed priest, he declared, "I could spare your life. Go back and tell your commanders that I, Owen, will reclaim Ironblade City!"

For some reason, this thought emerged strongly in his mind.

"Alright, I’ll leave right now," the dog-headed priest stammered, terrified.

Scrambling to his feet, he fumblingly pulled out a magic potion from his pocket, offering, "This is a potion I concocted. It aids in recovery. If you would not disdain it..."

As he approached, the dog-headed priest’s nose instinctively sniffed the air, then he staggered back in disbelief, "You’ve used it! A top-tier... How is this possible...?"

He had detected the scent of the champion king’s magic potion.

Owen’s thoughts shifted quickly, and with a single stroke, he beheaded the priest.

Perhaps it was best if no one knew about this...

He twisted the lamp by the stone wall, activating the noise of traps being reset within the secret passage.

Tossing the dog-headed priest’s body into the passage, Owen pressed the mechanism under the lamp and exited through the stone wall.

As the wall closed heavily behind him, he looked back to see its exterior covered in shrubbery, completely disguising the hidden door from the outside.

"Such ingenious design," Owen marveled.

The mechanism to enter the secret passage was clever enough to ensnare most, and the exit was thoughtfully planned.

Everything reset as if untouched, with no trace left behind, and the murder traps reactivated.

Unbeknownst to Owen, after he left the passage, acid would flow out from the trap activation points, dissolving any remains on the floor.

The creator of the passage had considered everything: the amount of lamp oil, the quantity of acid, the number of arrows for the murder traps, the number of forks and their directions, even the angles between them, and how many times the mechanisms could withstand pressure—all meticulously calculated.

Indeed, the builder was both a genius and perhaps a bit obsessive.

Owen walked for a while before finding the horses of the demon army search party in the secret passage.

He chose the best one, took enough food and water, and without changing his attire, spurred the horse northward at a gallop.

In Owen’s view, although the demon army might have completely overtaken Ironblade City, their control over the surrounding territories was surely not absolute.

However, the route back to the dragons was blocked, and with his current strength, breaking through was impossible.

Taking this opportunity to rush to the Empire’s Mingate to recuperate and remove the seal on him seemed the wisest course of action.

Traveling incognito and slowly would only make it easier for him to be intercepted.

That Rakshasa must have spread the news of him killing five orc lieutenants.

Owen wondered what her ultimate aim could be.

Originally, Owen intended to let the dog-headed priest return to the demon army to announce that Owen was still alive and determined to reclaim Ironblade City, ready to face any scheme head-on.

Yet, the dog-headed priest’s discovery of the so-called top-tier magic potion he had consumed, despite the priest’s foolish slip of the tongue, convinced Owen that the priest could deduce the potion’s origin.

In a moment, he decided to kill the dog-headed priest.

Rakshasa’s motives remained unclear, and her saving him was a fact that couldn’t be disclosed to the demon army.

Objectively, Owen was protecting Rakshasa, the champion king, in doing so.

Considering these intricacies was perplexing, but fortunately, he had neither the time to dwell on them nor to explore his true feelings.

...

Bladen, the reigning Snow King, is one of the three grand dukes of the empire.

As a king, Bladen has never set foot on a training field, much less a battlefield.

The Snow Kingdom has always thrived on commerce; wherever there is money to be made, there you will find the trace of Snow Kingdom’s merchants.

The kingdom’s elite mercenaries serve as their trade caravans’ guards.

These mercenaries, hailing from all corners of the world, boast formidable combat skills.

Their primary duties include protecting the caravans and performing the merchants’ dirty work, such as assassinating competitors.

The latter tasks are often handled by the elite members of the guard, and over the years, slip-ups have been rare.

Even on the off chance that mistakes occur, the shrewd merchants of the Snow Kingdom are not worried.

They understand all too well the adage that money can move mountains.

Now, at the time of Ironblade City’s fall, the Snow Kingdom’s ironclad army was steadily marching towards the demon army’s defensive perimeter around Ironblade City.

Upon the ironclad army’s arrival, Army Maquis Hawkes was already waiting in formation to the north of the city.

The sight of the tens of thousands in the ironclad army was imposing.

Disembarking from his mount, an officer walked forward — this man was the Snow Kingdom’s Third Centurion, Blight.

Stopping five meters in front of the Army Maquis, Blight felt an uncomfortable sensation stirring within him.

Hawkes had only brought 20 orcs with him outside the city, yet these 20 men exuded a formidable presence, each wearing a face that spoke of fearlessness in the face of death.

In contrast, the more than ten thousand men behind him were mostly driven by fear of death, their imposing appearance owed solely to their shields and polished armor.

Blight looked towards the Army Maquis, seeing disdain written all over the fierce orc’s face.

Feeling his blood boil, his right hand almost drew his sword, but he clenched his fist tightly and raised it instead.

The ironclad army parted to the sides, and hundreds of carts laden with weapons, staves, and other supplies rolled out, heading towards Ironblade City.