The Ancestral Legacy Begins in the Wild West

Chapter 154 I Can Save Him - Eastern Sage

The guards quickly carried him into the lounge at the end of the corridor.

The door slammed against the wall with a loud bang.

Someone kicked away the stool blocking the way, and someone swept the things on the table onto the ground to make room.

The stretcher was carried up by a few hands and feet, with several guards surrounding it, their shadows darting about in the flickering torchlight.

"Get out of the way! All of you, get out of the way!"

A middle-aged man in different uniforms rushed into the break room, his shirt buttoned up incorrectly, revealing his shirt underneath.

His name was Antoine, the captain of the guards on this floor. Behind him were several other guards who had been awakened. "What happened?" he asked, but his words caught in his throat.

Because the cloth on the stretcher had already been lifted.

Pierre lay there, his skin already ashen, but what truly left one speechless was the state of his body.

His entire chest and abdomen were densely covered with countless tiny, dark red fragments with irregular edges that reflected an eerie glow in the torchlight.

It looked like someone had shoved a handful of iron filings into raw meat, or like countless shards of glass. The skin around many of the wounds had already begun to turn black.

Even though his chest was still rising and falling, given the extent of his injuries, it still felt like he wouldn't live much longer.

"Today was the crystallization experiment," a high-ranking guard who had followed them out from the depths of the prison said, his voice trembling. "He was in charge of observing the crystallization process, but the crystal structure was unstable and it exploded—"

Antoine squatted beside the stretcher, looking down at Pierre, gritting his teeth and remaining silent.

Meanwhile, the guards nearby had already begun to take action. They tore open Pierre's shirt, brought him water, and held various tools, all at a loss.

"Dig," Antoine urged, pressing on Pierre's shoulder.

Finally, one of the guards swallowed hard, picked up a dagger, and ripped open a piece of flesh from Pierre's chest. Blood gushed out, which he wiped away with a cloth, trying to pick out a fragment.

But the moment he touched the fragment, the dark red thing immediately shrank inward a little.

"It's drilling in!" the guard's voice changed.

"Give me the knife!" Antoine snatched the dagger from his hand, gritted his teeth, and slashed down, tearing open flesh and causing blood to gush out even more violently. Although his hand was quite nimble, he quickly managed to cut a shard through the large blade.

But there were still too many fragments. He knew that, given the current situation, it was impossible to remove all the fragments before Pierre lost too much blood.

"Damn it—"

"Is this thing alive?!"

“They’re not alive,” said the guard who came out, his voice weary. “These fragments failed to solidify, so their nature is to break; whatever they touch, they break. Flesh, blood vessels, bones—so they will only continue to cut through things, going deeper and deeper.”

Antoine looked up, his eyes red-rimmed: "Where's the warden?"

The guard shook his head helplessly: "Captain, this isn't the first time. You know, the Marquis can only deal with this kind of problem by using human transmutation. The materials required for that ritual—Pierre and we can't afford them."

The lounge fell silent, and for a moment, only Pierre's hoarse breathing could be heard.

"Are we just going to watch him like this?" a young guard roared, his voice already trembling with tears. "He's the youngest among us!"

No one answered him.

"Release—" Antoine swung the dagger away and turned to punch the wall.

But soon another guard took his place, squatted down, and began to pick through the fragments.

The water was changed basin after basin, each basin still red. Less than ten fragments were picked out. The specks on Pierre's chest seemed almost entirely gone.

Instead, his aura gradually weakened.

These people were all too familiar with this scene. Last time, it was extensive skin corrosion; before that, it was half of an arm that had atrophied. "No—" someone whispered, "Some fragments have entered the internal organs; it's impossible to clean them all out."

No one responded; everyone looked sad and angry, but everyone also knew that he was right.

One of the young guards was crouching in a corner, covered in blood. He had already stabbed Pierre more than a dozen times. Looking at the bloody scene, his hands trembled uncontrollably.

In the end, however, he still chose to stand up, pick up the basin of blood that had turned dark red, and push open the door to walk towards the water source at the end of the corridor.

Soon, he carried the basin of water, which was stained with blood that was difficult to wash off, and walked back.

The cells on both sides were deathly silent; the prisoners had once again fallen into their habitual silence.

But right now, it was this silence that made him feel suffocated. The corridor was narrow and not very long, but walking through it felt incredibly difficult. Every step felt like walking on cotton.

The door to the lounge seemed incredibly far away from him.

Then a voice suddenly cut through the guard's emotions: "I can save him."

The guard stopped.

The sound was coming from the cell next door. He turned his head and saw a person sitting against the wall behind the iron bars of that solitary confinement cell, with only a very high iron window above his head.

Moonlight streamed in through the window, falling directly in front of him. The moonlight was so bright that it blurred his face, leaving only a hazy outline.

The guard couldn't make out his features for a moment; he was stunned and hadn't reacted yet, while his feet continued to walk forward.

"Your name is Julian, right?"

That sound made him stand still. He was holding the basin of water, half of his body covered in blood, his eyes still red. He looked at the cell in front of him and thought about it seriously. Suddenly, he remembered who was being held here.

He was a rare person, an Asian.

However, Julian didn't recall ever having any interaction with this Easterner. He was a guard, he was a prisoner, it was that simple. He was never even in charge of that kind of situation, so he had never spoken to this Easterner.

So, how did he know my name?

Julian gritted his teeth, took a step forward, and approached the iron fence.

He had bottles and jars hanging from his waist, and other equipment within easy reach.

He wanted to say something, to warn this arrogant prisoner, and even to vent his frustration and grief from the night before.

But when he got closer to the iron bars and saw the face clearly, he was instantly stunned.

That was naturally an Eastern face, and from his Western perspective, he couldn't really tell the difference between good and bad.

But the person in front of me was different. His face wasn't exactly stunning, but it inexplicably attracted attention. He looked exceptionally gentle and approachable.

Besides that, what left Julian speechless were the eyes of this Easterner.

After making eye contact with the man in the cell, the anxiety, pain, and suffocation he felt suddenly subsided. He calmed down considerably, and his thoughts seemed to become clearer. The hand he had previously removed from under the basin of water was now loosened from the equipment at his waist.

At the same time, he suddenly remembered something.

He didn't think he had anything to do with the person in front of him, but if you were to ask who the Orientals were in Paris, he might actually know one.

At that moment, Zhang Chang'an spoke up at the opportune moment: "Your uncle should have mentioned me to you."