Dorian Owen's battle against Skyvault Palace Sect ended in utter defeat...
All eight thousand troops Dorian brought with him were forced to retreat, every single one of them reeking of excrement and urine. The entire army was unbearable to smell.
"If I don't get my revenge, I'm not Dorian Owen!" Dorian fumed, stomping his feet, while Sean Xuan casually cleaned his ear and pretended not to hear.
Of course, Dorian's surname isn't actually Owen, so his threat didn't have any effect. Sean Xuan couldn't care less.
If you’re so tough, why not do something real—bring your men and charge up here, see how you handle Skyvault Palace’s mechanisms...
Dorian had lost, and lost so miserably he couldn’t show his face. Naturally, he refused to let it go. He kept jumping around, demanding revenge on Sean Xuan, but Sean stayed hidden inside Skyvault Palace and wouldn’t come out. Even if Dorian wanted payback, he couldn’t find his target.
"Should we just storm the place directly?" Dorian, ever the man of the people, began soliciting his staff officers' opinions.
His staff officers were quick to deflate him: "General, putting aside whether our eight thousand men could even break into Skyvault Palace, let’s start with why we’d attack in the first place."
"If we do attack, can you guarantee His Majesty won’t punish you?"
"If the casualties are too high, how will you answer to the soldiers?"
"And most importantly, General, are you sure we could actually win if we attacked?"
......
A barrage of questions left Dorian utterly deflated. "Fine, I won’t attack, okay?"
"General, wise decision." His staff didn’t miss a chance to flatter him. Dorian shot them a sour look and promptly kicked them out.
At this moment, anyone stopping him from taking revenge was the enemy.
But how was he supposed to get his revenge?
Sean Xuan was holed up inside Skyvault Palace, completely out of reach. That wasn’t the point—the point was, Dorian couldn’t even get at him...
What now?
Dorian squatted on his chair, scratching his head for ages without coming up with a good idea. In the end, he decided to write a letter to Left Shore for help—he was sure that once Left Shore heard about his tragic plight, he’d come running to the rescue.
Of course, the reason he turned to Left Shore and not anyone else was because he refused to let his master or Serena know about such a humiliating mess. He’d only tell them after he’d won back his dignity...
Unwilling to leave in defeat, Dorian camped at the foot of Skyvault Palace. After suffering a setback, he didn’t dare launch another attack, so now he just waited for Left Shore to come help.
Half a month later, Left Shore finally arrived at the base of Skyvault Palace. The first thing he did was drag Dorian out of the camp and toss him into a nearby grove, and then...
After giving Dorian, that hopeless fool, a thorough beating, Left Shore turned and went back, leaving Dorian alone in the woods...
One day, two days... three days passed, and the army’s officers couldn’t sit still any longer. They went to Left Shore and asked, "Young Master Zuo, where’s our general?"
"In that little grove up ahead," Left Shore replied coolly, pointing without another word.
The officers looked in the direction he pointed and saw that the grove was less than a hundred meters from their camp. Even though they’d seen Dorian get lost before, could he really get so turned around in such a tiny area?
Was Left Shore messing with them?
But judging by Left Shore’s expression, he didn’t seem to be joking.
With no other choice, the officers went into the grove to search. What they found left them speechless...
Dorian really had gotten lost in the grove, but he’d gone the wrong way and wandered farther and farther off.
Luckily, Dorian knew he couldn’t navigate, so he left marks along the way. But...
"We’ve circled this grove three times already—where did the general go?" The search party was nearly in tears; they’d never seen anyone get so lost.
"Just keep looking. If you don’t find the general, you’re all doomed." The veteran who’d been with Dorian for years knew his quirks and resigned himself to searching.
They searched for another two days.
Forget about the rest of the army—even Left Shore was baffled. He was sure he hadn’t tossed Dorian very far, and he hadn’t hit him that hard; he’d even left him enough strength to fend for himself.
"You guys go in and look too." Sensing something was off, Left Shore led Dorian’s personal guards into the grove to search...
This time, Left Shore’s face turned dark. Turns out...
After wandering in the woods for ages without finding a way out, Dorian gave up and started searching at random. That’s when he stumbled upon a nest of giant snake eggs.
Snake eggs might be delicious, but they’re definitely not easy to handle—especially when they’re this big, which means the snake itself is no joke. But...
Dorian, being both a glutton and a fool, wasn’t afraid at all—he went right ahead and stole the eggs. And not only did he steal them, he didn’t even bother to run away. When no snake showed up, he set up a campfire right next to the nest and started roasting them.