Chapter 130: Ratted Out

Words : 1262 Updated : Oct 6th, 2025

Chapter 130: Ratted Out Bishop Haswith spoke with a peculiar expression: "Maybe dead, maybe still kicking. But that’s neither here nor there..." In an instant, beads of sweat popped up on Salimo’s forehead as various spine-chilling possibilities raced through his mind. Philomei’s life or death truly didn’t matter—the real question was whether anyone had figured out her identity as a Golden Sand Society member. Once found out, the higher-ups would be madder than hornets. That lord would definitely throw him under the bus immediately. His best outcome might be getting chopped into pieces? As for the worst... Salimo shuddered. Various torture methods that made death impossible and life pure hell—the higher-ups would definitely not hesitate to use them on backstabbers. Bishop Haswith watched Salimo’s terrified expression with confusion: Could the camp’s location really not have been spilled by this old coot? To test further, Bishop Haswith laid it on the line: "That camp in the Desolate Desert was hidden tighter than Fort Knox. Besides our faction personnel, among outsiders, only you knew about it!" Salimo got the picture, his face darkening as he snorted coldly: "Bishop Haswith, are you suggesting that I ratted out your faction’s camp location?" Haswith kept his trap shut, his gaze glued to Salimo’s weathered face, trying to catch him in a lie. This silence made Salimo immediately realize that this numbskull actually suspected him of spilling the beans! "What would I gain from squealing? To be caught red-handed trading with your faction and meet the fate of death and family extinction?" Salimo’s tone turned sour. Since teaming up with the Black Poison Faction, forget deliberately leaking—he didn’t even dare talk in his sleep, scared someone might catch wind of something fishy. "Death and family extinction! Death and family extinction!" The wolf-head parrot’s screech was particularly sharp in the dim underground chamber. These words immediately hit Salimo where it hurt. Bang! Bang! He raised his staff and brought it down hard: "Blasted bird! Are these words you should be squawking!" "Wrong! Wrong!" The wolf-head parrot got beaten until its feathers flew and blood splattered, but didn’t dare dodge once. Only when the wolf-head parrot was barely breathing did Salimo stop. "You’re right—ratting out the camp’s location wouldn’t do you any good." Bishop Haswith mulled it over. Indeed, as this old buzzard said, he valued keeping quiet more than they did. Once their scheming was exposed, the Black Poison Faction could cut and run and hide again. But the Golden Sand Society would only face the chopping block. As president, Salimo’s fate would be especially gruesome. "It might have been stumbled upon by Psionics." Salimo threw out a possibility. A camp with hundreds of people wasn’t small potatoes—being accidentally discovered wasn’t out of the question. "Ha ha..." Bishop Haswith clearly didn’t buy Salimo’s theory. The camp had been tucked away there for ages. Not discovered early, not discovered late, but wiped out precisely when you sent people there. This was why Haswith still had his doubts about Salimo. Salimo also knew this was a sore point: "Do you know which faction was behind it?" Rock Sand City? Ember City? White Water City? ... Salimo was chomping at the bit to know this. Only by knowing which faction it was could he make the right moves. "The camp was completely wiped off the map—we can’t tell which faction was behind it!" Bishop Haswith thought, had this old goat’s brain gone soft with age? Didn’t he hear that not a single soul survived? Where was he supposed to find out who did it? "To eliminate so many of your people in the Desolate Desert would require sending in armies of Psionics. You could investigate which city-state recently had large-scale low-tier Psionic movements." Salimo now suspected he’d picked the wrong horse. With no survivors, they couldn’t identify the attacking faction? But Bishop Haswith showed little interest: "What’s the point of finding out which city-state was responsible?" Could they hit back? This was a fool’s errand. As a traitor bishop, Haswith knew the faction’s strength like the back of his hand. In dark mist areas, they might rely on terrain and monster buddy-buddy relationships to duke it out with or even get the upper hand on Psionics. But in the outside world, especially within major city-states, taking the offensive and showing their faces meant signing their death warrant. If the camp was toast, so be it—they could build another down the road. As long as human weakness existed, there would be no shortage of people jumping on the dark mist bandwagon! Seeing Bishop Haswith’s complete unwillingness to fight back, Salimo cursed under his breath: Yellow-belly! Too chicken-hearted! If you don’t find out who did it, how can I cook up the right strategies! If you don’t hit back, how can you grab the higher-ups’ attention! "A camp of hundreds destroyed—isn’t your faction steaming mad?" Bishop Haswith said helplessly: "Salimo, you’re not from the traitor camp—you don’t understand our day-to-day grind." The old man thought he really didn’t know how these guys had made it this far. Haswith sighed: "As a human, you should understand the various beatings we take from humanity." Salimo’s eyelid twitched. Beatings? What beatings? That didn’t exist—clearly it was only kill! Kill! And more killing! "The current environment is tougher than nails! Competition between factions is cutthroat, and we stab each other in the back constantly. One wrong step and an entire faction vanishes into thin air. We have no choice but to eat crow." Haswith’s old eyes faintly reddened. How many times had he wanted to go on killing sprees, but held back each time. But other factions’ experiences told them that the more they acted up before humans, the faster they kicked the bucket. Only those who understood bottling up their anger and knew that cutting losses was the smart play could survive and hang on until the dark mist’s complete takeover! After hearing this, Salimo sighed inwardly. These traitors didn’t have it easy! Wait? As a human, why was he feeling sorry for them? He was supposed to be at each other’s throats with them! Only being between a rock and a hard place made him team up with them. "Bishop Haswith, the life-extension serum experiments weren’t thrown off track, were they?" Salimo’s sudden question made Haswith’s heart skip a beat. He still asked about it! Haswith had prepared for this and said cool as a cucumber: "Don’t worry! We’ve reached human testing phase—everything is going according to plan!" Salimo’s eyes were full of doubt: "You once told me the experiments were conducted at the Desolate Desert camp, which is why I sent people there. With the camp destroyed, weren’t the experiments found out?" Haswith stayed calm as a millpond: "The experiments were conducted at two locations." Salimo stared daggers at Haswith, finding no signs of guilt. But he still wasn’t buying it. "One month—I want the first version in one month!" "Deal!" Haswith sounded sure of himself, as if very confident about the experiments. "Good! I’ll wait for your good news in one month!" Salimo’s weathered face crinkled into a smile as he slowly got up to leave. After Salimo left, Haswith turned toward a secret passage: "This old buzzard has caught on to problems." After leaving the underground chamber, Salimo’s face immediately turned stormy. "Blast it, I must immediately wipe out the Black Poison Faction!" He couldn’t give a hoot about the life-extension serum anymore. If he didn’t eliminate them and completely bury evidence of their scheming, he probably wouldn’t live to see next year.

Chapter 130: Ratted Out

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