Dongfang Jiang carried the half-empty safe and found the checkpoint at the town entrance by following the route from memory.
Xiao Chong and Yue Ge were still there.
“Here’s your knife back. Sorry, I got it dirty.”
Dongfang Jiang handed the blade over.
The scabbard still had mud splatters from the swamp.
Xiao Chong took the knife, pulled it out for a look, and his expression turned odd.
“You… actually cut something with this knife?”
“Cut a person. Of course, it was self-defense.”
Dongfang Jiang said it calmly.
Xiao Chong and Yue Ge exchanged glances.
Yue Ge reached out, took the knife, and ran his thumb across the blade.
His brows furrowed.
“There’s a faint chill on the blade… Not like ordinary ice magic. Who was that guy you ran into?”
“I’d like to know that too. By the way, is it okay that I cut that guy?”
Dongfang Jiang briefly recounted what happened in the swamp, omitting the Proxy Combat part and just saying he erupted with a strange power in the critical moment.
“Hey, even if you killed him, it’s no big deal. You can even collect a bounty for killing this kind of desperado.”
Xiao Chong chattered at Dongfang Jiang.
Yue Ge listened, then fell silent for a moment.
He sent Xiao Chong to switch posts and lowered his voice to ask.
“How many of those rings are left? Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
“…Three.”
“The four that got lost—they ran off on their own, didn’t they?”
“You know?”
“Although this set isn’t the Valen Ring, it’s certainly no ordinary item. Rings with a bit of intelligence choose their own masters—that’s common knowledge, isn’t it?”
Yue Ge leaned against the stone pillar of the checkpoint, took out a cigarette, lit it, took a drag, and blew a few smoke rings.
“But the legend says ‘rings respond to the wielder’s will.’ Your rings running off on their own seems like they have their own thoughts and went looking for people themselves. That’s a bit different.”
Dongfang Jiang obtained this information from Yue Ge.
He cursed the System in his mind, but kept his face calm as he asked his question.
“What exactly is this Valen?”
“You don’t even know Valen?”
“I’m from out of town.”
Yue Ge gave him a look but didn’t press further.
In this day and age, ‘from out of town’ was sometimes a convenient excuse.
“King Valen unified the continent three hundred years ago.”
Yue Ge exhaled a puff of smoke and lowered his voice.
“Some say he was the Savior, others say he was the World Destroyer. The only sure thing is that he forged seven rings, each sealed with a different power. He was a rare man who could wield all seven energies at once. But after his death, the rings scattered across the land, and every time they appear, they stir up rivers of blood.”
“What if—I mean, what if—someone put one on?”
“A person who puts on a ring is said to gain the power the ring acknowledges. But at the same time…”
Yue Ge knocked his pipe against the stone pillar and continued.
“They also inherit a part of King Valen’s will. Some have glimpsed a fraction of his authority and become kings and ministers. But nothing comes for free—in most cases, those who obtain the rings go mad.”
Dongfang Jiang silently repeated those words in his mind, then asked.
“What’s in the northwest corner of the town?”
“Northwest? That’s the Old Mining Area. Been abandoned for over ten years. The people living there now… probably some miners’ families who refused to move, and…”
Before he could finish, a dull thud suddenly came from the town.
It sounded like something heavy had crashed to the ground.
Then came screams.
Dongfang Jiang and Yue Ge both looked toward the direction of the sound—the northwest.
“Sorry, I’ve got to go.”
Dongfang Jiang broke into a run.
Only after three steps did he realize he had no knife in his hand.
But his body moved faster than his mind.
By the time he realized it, he was already more than twenty meters down the street.
His enhanced physique showed itself to the fullest.
With one hand, he vaulted over a two-meter wall.
He ducked under a bedsheet flapping on a clothesline.
He leaped over a pile of barrels at the alley entrance.
The dull thuds grew closer.
Not just one—several in a row.
Like something was smashing against a wall.
Dongfang Jiang passed through the last narrow alley, and the view opened up.
It was an abandoned lot paved with cracked stone slabs, with waist-high weeds growing in the gaps.
At the far end of the lot stood a row of low stone houses, their walls covered in dark green vines, their windows glassless like a row of hollow eye sockets.
And in the middle of that lot, a girl in a gray cloth skirt was being surrounded by three men.
The girl looked about sixteen or seventeen, slim, standing barefoot on the broken stones, gripping a rusty iron rod with both hands.
Her skirt was caked with mud, her hair a messy tangle covering her face, leaving only a pair of eyes visible.
There was fear in those eyes, but even more defiance.
On the ground in front of her lay several scattered pieces of rubble.
Not far away, the stone wall had a basin-sized crater.
The dull thuds just now must have been those stones hitting the wall.
The three men surrounded her in a triangular formation.
The leader was a bald man with an old scar on his left cheek, holding a short knife.
The other two—one with a club, one empty-handed but with chains wrapped around his forearms.
“Little girl, hand it over. That ring isn’t something you can wear.”
The girl took a step back, gripping the iron rod tighter.
Dongfang Jiang noticed a dark green ring on the index finger of her right hand.
The ring’s surface looked like a murky pool of water, slowly flowing.
To confirm Dongfang Jiang’s guess, the System promptly added a supplement.
[This is the Swamp Ring.]
“I see…”
Faced with this situation, Dongfang Jiang decided to wait and see.
“I don’t know you. I found this.”
“Found it?”
The man with the club laughed.
“A ring this precious chooses its owner. Do you think we’d believe you just ‘found’ it?”
The man said, then seemed to think of something.
His eyes turned cunning.
“Heh heh, little girl. You don’t have to hand it over. Just come with us, and we’ll…”
Before he could finish, a stone kicked up dust at the bald man’s feet.
Dongfang Jiang stepped out of the shadows, raising his hands to show he was unarmed.
“You three. That ring is mine. If you want it, you should ask the owner first.”
Four pairs of eyes turned to him at once.
The bald man looked him over, saw that Dongfang Jiang was just a young man in his twenties, and his expression shifted from alertness to disdain.
“And who the hell are you?”
“I’m the unlucky bastard.”
Dongfang Jiang pointed at the ring on the girl’s finger and spoke seriously to the three men.
“That ring ran off from me. If you want it, you should negotiate with me.”
“Bullshit.”
The bald man spat on the ground.
Clearly, he saw Dongfang Jiang as some hot-blooded chuunibyou kid.
He was very agitated and began cursing at Dongfang Jiang.
“When a ring runs off, it means it’s chosen a new master. It has nothing to do with the original owner. You’re either here to snatch the ring or to save the girl. Either way…”
He held his short knife horizontally, signaling his two underlings to spread out, briefly shifting their target from the girl.
“You all die.”
Dongfang Jiang took a deep breath.
He had no knife now.
His body was twice as strong as a normal person’s, but he was facing three armed adult men.
On the System Map, the coordinate for the girl and the coordinate for himself almost overlapped.
There was nothing around that could serve as a weapon.
“Go to hell, you brat!”
Dongfang Jiang watched the three men charge at him.
He changed his tactic.
He leaped up, aiming to step on the bald man’s shoulder and use the momentum to get to the girl’s side.
But Dongfang Jiang’s combat experience was too limited.
He didn’t land on the bald man’s shoulder; instead, the bald man kicked him in frustration.
However, his reaction speed was fast.
He used the momentum to roll a few times and ended up beside the girl.
Seeing the trembling girl, Dongfang Jiang took her hand.
The girl felt an indescribable strange sensation in her heart.
She looked up at Dongfang Jiang, who had saved her from her plight.
“My name is Dongfang Jiang. Could you tell me your name?”
Dongfang Jiang’s calm voice reached the girl’s ears.
She took a deep breath to calm herself.
“Pandna Douglas, sir.”
“Good. Pandna, let’s get through this crisis together.”