Chapter 156: Miseries Of The Protagonist

A faint smirk was on Lee's face as he had a hint who the owner of the high pitched voice could be. Since his left eye is not in a functional state, and is bleeding slightly, Lee witnessed the familiar face. For someone who did not get what had desired, her face reflected anger.

"Chu Hua."

Lee said her name as he identified the person. As he had evaluated, there was no other person he had pissed off, with a high pitch tone. His swollen left eyelid dripped blood as the staff in her hand made contact with his right shoulder bone. The force threw the pathetically beaten up protagonist onto the floor.

"It was because of you that she rejected my invitation. So you better not exist."

Lee got the gist of the situation. The rejection Chu Hua faced from An Fenfang was like a slap on her face. She would have backed off after a few more attempts, but the revelation that Lee was the reason why An rejected the invitation, burned anger in her. Chu Hua did not know about their marital relationship, thus she considered Lee as an adversely affecting variable in her plan.

"She….is my….wife."

Lee spoke as he spat out a mouthful of blood, and tried to support himself up. The leader of the Moon Water sect glared at him as she heard this piece of information. Lee was expecting to pacify her anger, but it only added oil to it.

"You male chauvinist bastard, no wonder she is afraid of you!"

According to Chu Hua, all husbands were male chauvinists. They harass and 'enslave' their wife/wives. They restrict the basic rights of the women and use them as a toy for releasing their libido. The scars etched in Chu Hua's mind were deep and painful, and all these conclusions stemmed from that past.

The staff made from a Scorch Vulture's backbone was swung horizontally. It made contact and dislocated Lee's lower jaw. Before he could even touch the ground, she had swung the staff one more time. This time, it broke his left shoulder bone. Lee writhed in pain as he gritted his teeth. No matter how much he suffered, Lee was unwilling to even let out a small groan.

When the hits halted, Lee had his face dyed in blood. He can tell that his health has been greatly depleted and is at the verge of dying. He lied on the ground immobile and still. Sect leader swung her staff and blood splashed from it. She then turned around and walked away from him.

"Our payment."

The familiar rough voice sounded and Lee slowly opened his eyes. Four orcs, five elves, three goblins and six beastfolks stood a few distance away from her. Chu Hua paused her steps and glanced at them. She took out a pouch from her spatial ring and threw it at them. One of the elves caught it and held it in her hand, and determined the weight of the reward. She glanced at her companions and nodded, signifying that the promised amount has received.

"What are you going to do about him?"

Chu Hua was about to walk, when a question arose from the midst of mercenaries. The voice was rather resolved and firm, which she found familiar.

"Musk, do not interfere with my actions."

She gave a statement and walked away. The mercenaries looked at the back of the crowd, and peered at the face of the druid. A sense of curiosity was visible on their faces, but none voiced their doubts.

Lee was barely able to make an outline of those 19 faces. His consciousness waxing and waning made it difficult to memorise them. But before he passed out, he was sure that he could recognise at least two of them. Before completely going blank, he felt a pair of hands dragging him away.

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26 HOURS TO COMPLETION.

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Normally when Lee is unconscious, he is able to enter the chamber of consciousness. But for the past three hours, he was unable to access the place. He can feel his consciousness suspended in a space, devoid of color and craft. Not only could he not access the chamber, he was unable to sense anything for the three hours.

A large quantity of saline water came down on Lee, who was slowly restoring his wounds and health. The uncommon amount of vitality he had saved his life in many situations, and it repeated here. A great extent of blood loss was obstructed by the high vitality, while his health was slowly picking up. The hours he spent restoring himself were disrupted by the painful sting of salinity.

Lee was stiff from the painful process of suffering, and blood had covered his body. His clothes sticking to his skin adversely affected the healing process, but to a very slight extent. The irritation of saline water made him twitch instantly, which made his situation worse. His broken bones and dislocated joints sent out pulses of agony and Lee became motionless instantly.

His eyelids were not swollen anymore, and he could open his eyes without any difficulty. His nose picked up the smell of blood, which he realised was his own. The blood's traces on his skin had stiffened and gave an uneasy feeling. As he tried to move his limbs, a faint and barely audible conversation fell in his ears.

"Who has the leader brought for today?"

"Someone who offended her at the tournament."

"Another one to the doors of death."

"Obviously, she-"

The voices faded away as if they were walking away from him. Lee deduced that he is in a place which has walkways around, and he was inside the Moon Water sect. The second piece of information invoked the introduction D gave to him about the four giants. In it, Dnekewy had mentioned that the sect is a feminist one, and gives emphasis to female empowerment.

Nothing except darkness could be seen by Lee, when he opened his eyes. He was confused for a second, as his eyes had night vision property, which he added using the system feature. Lee tried to rub his eyes, and moved his limbs. To his surprise, he noticed something on his limbs, which he did not feel before.

Lee felt the object on his all four limbs. On his hand, the thick and heavy metal like object had covered his fist and wrist, and to the elbow. The L bent at the elbow limited his hand's degree of freedom. The heavy object was more than he could lift at the moment.

On his feet were similar objects, but much heavier. They also somehow inhibited any large movements made by him. He couldn't even stand, and the maximum he could do is to stand on all four.

The lack of visuals made Lee greatly uncomfortable. He used the round metal object enveloping his fist to feel his head. But what he did not expect was the sound of metals clanging together.

One thing was sure for him. It is not thet Lee could not see, but something placed around his head was restricting the view. From the clanging, he assumed that the object around his head was also made of metal. Just to make sure, he hit the metal case around his head with the metal covering over his fist, and an ear piercing sound fell in his ears.

The sound subsided and Lee began to move his limbs around him. Lee felt his rear sitting formly on the ground and found that he was in a room. Before he could find more conclusions, the sound of chains were heard by him. Before he knew, something was connected to the metal covering around his fists, and Lee was slowly being dragged away.

A myriad of noises were audible to Lee, which ranged from barely audible murmurings and mechanical noises, to clear voices of people chanting a name in unison. Lee couldn't help but relate the atmosphere with that of a boxing match.

*bang*

Something hit the metal case covering Lee's head from the outside, and resulted in a head splitting noise in the inside. As the irritating noise subsided, Lee sensed the nauseating multiple sources of noises non-existent. An internal sigh was Lee's reaction to this change. With nothing to do, our protagonist stayed still obediently and he was being dragged away like a sack of cement.

The heavy restrictions on his feet made his mobility to near zero, and he was being dragged away. Lee can tell that he had been dragged upstairs, and was even able to keep the count of turns he had taken. From the multiple sets of stairs and more than ten sets of turns, Lee concluded that he was kept in an underground prison, or worse, sold to a slave market. The restrictions on his body gave weightage to the latter assumption.

Suddenly, the force which was dragging him stopped. The chains were still attached to his fists, and gave a hint that he was only taking a break from the long journey. There were loud voices in near proximity, but somehow, Lee couldn't hear them. He sharpened his senses, but ended up in vain. According to his evaluation, something has been added onto the currently existing load of weights, or it is a speciality of the chains to scramble all the auditory signals nearing the person. Whatever the cause was, the effect turned out to be hearing nothing intelligible.

The force came again and he was again pulled away. The intensity of noises increased exponentially, as if entering a big stadium full of spectators. The scrambling was high enough to counter the entering noises and Lee was able to construct a few words from the incoming signals, only to comprehend that the words made no sense.

It was then the dragging force slowly came to a halt, and the chains attached to the fists were released. As Lee was wondering what was happening, the surroundings were disclosed in front of him.

'You have got to be kidding me!'