Dean was a very talkative person.
Coupled with his knowledge of a lot of internal Noxus gossip, his mouth didn't stop from morning till noon.
Most of the time, he recounted the Noxus gossip from his remaining memories; and for a small portion of the time, he explained some basic Ionia grammar concepts to Riven.
It wasn't until noon, as the sun grew hotter, that Dean finally stopped.
"Need to rest?" Riven asked, looking at Dean who was glancing around, "Eat something?"
"Aren't you hungry?" Dean first agilely scurried up a large tree by the road, shaded his eyes with his hand at the top of the tree and looked for a long time, then jumped down and returned to Riven's side, "I'm just confirming the direction and our location."
"I'm fine." After a morning, Riven had become a little more cheerful, "It's only been a morning."
"Yes, your warband once belonged to the Northern Legion and the Southern Legion." Dean nodded, "Whether it's the Freljord tundra or the Shurima desert, the natural environment is much worse than this."
Riven didn't respond, merely tacitly agreeing with him.
"But this is Ionia." Dean came to the tree he had just climbed and called Riven over, "There's no need for forced marches; three meals a day cannot be missed."
"Elder Souma brought me a lot of dry rations." Riven took off the bundle on her back, "He calls this bread… mantou?"
"Mantou," Dean corrected, "It tastes good, and I just happened to prepare some pickles."
As he spoke, he also took out his own bundle and pulled out a few jars from it.
Seeing the familiar jars, Riven felt a sense of familiarity—these familiar glass jars were one of the most common supplies for Noxus warbands, filled to the brim with various pickles, the most common food for imperial soldiers to supplement salt.
"I snuck these out of Weili." Dean opened a jar of pickles, "I have to say, for all these years, Noxus's pickle-making hasn't really improved much."
Riven nodded subconsciously.
"But this should also be related to the stalled territorial expansion." Dean handed the pickles to Riven, "No new territory, no new products, no new ingredients for pickles, tsk tsk tsk."
Hearing Dean say this, Riven's expression looked a little bewildered.
Having served in the army for so many years, she often ate these canned imperial pickles, but she had never had the same thoughts as Dean.
"How do you think of these things?" Riven, without any ladylike demeanor, leaned against the tree with Dean, Devouring mantou and pickles, "I always feel like your thoughts are very similar to those high and mighty… important figures?"
"If the important figures of Noxus still had these thoughts of mine, the empire wouldn't have become like this." Dean snorted, took a swig from his water skin, "Now, what's left of the Immortal Bastion are all a bunch of vermin."
The vermin analogy slightly tickled Riven's funny bone, making her twitch the corners of her mouth a few times.
Then, just as she swallowed the food in her mouth and was about to speak, a dangerous light once again gleamed in Dean's purple eyes.
With the experience of fighting side by side last night, Riven this time did not hesitate at all, immediately threw out the mantou, swung the jar full of pickles, and fiercely smashed it towards where Dean's gaze was fixed.
With a crisp "pop," an assassin who emerged from the shadows was immediately splattered all over his face, sour and salty pickle juice flowed across his face, and the salt seeped into the wounds made by the glass jar, causing him to let out a painful wail.
Under the intense pain, this assassin, who wanted to launch a sneak attack but was instead hit on the head with a jar, couldn't even retreat into the shadows; when he barely managed to get up, Dean had already grabbed him and twisted him under him in a reverse joint lock.
However, the capture of one assassin did not mean the end of the battle—on the contrary, it was only the beginning of an assassination.
Because at the same time, five similarly dressed assassins appeared from the shadows, and on the road not far away, many figures wearing robes and carrying pitchforks also appeared.
"Shadow Order." Dean firmly tied the captive beneath him into a zongzi, and his sharp gaze swept over the masked assassins in front of him, "As expected, you're like lingering ghosts."
"Noxians." The eyes on the mask of the leading Shadow Stream Assassin showed no joy or sorrow, "Die."
Ink-black shadows began to spread, and using his own shadow, this assassin quickly approached Dean and threw several flying knives—or shurikens, if you will—at him from close range.
Dean let out a low growl, and a barrier appeared in front of him.
However, compared to the assassin from yesterday, this guy who was acting now seemed stronger, and this barrier only deflected the shurikens' flight path.
Dean was also quite agile; as the shurikens deflected, he decisively reached out and plucked them from mid-air, then decisively turned around and returned them in kind.
Unfortunately, his shuriken-throwing technique didn't seem very precise; the assassin merely tilted his body slightly to avoid the throw, while the other assassins took this opportunity to surround Dean from four directions.
Fortunately, at the same time, Riven was also ready for battle; she drew the "saber" from her waist and actively stood back-to-back with Dean.
This "saber" was, to be honest, a bit too crude; it was actually an unpolished blade blank, and throughout Jianpai, only this heavy blade blank felt comfortable for Riven to use—she was accustomed to heavy greatswords, and the sharp and light sabers of Jianpai were not very handy for her; instead, the blade blank was more suitable.
"Break through, or take them down?" After preparing for battle, Riven asked in a low voice, "You decide."
"Break through, but we need to take our captive with us." Dean kicked the assassin tied up like a zongzi on the ground, "Hurry up, these assassins probably have reinforcements."
"You saw them just now?" Riven, poised for battle, was a little surprised, "Damn it, why didn't you say so sooner?"
"If I had said it sooner, we wouldn't have caught this tongue." Dean's tone was calm, even carrying a natural confidence, "It seems you rarely fight as a scout."
"These guys are not pushovers." Riven's tone was serious, "Breaking through probably won't be easy—"
"Coincidentally." Dean shifted his shoulders and took the initiative to attack, "Neither am I."
The assassins opposite had already thrown shurikens again; although Riven was a little worried about Dean's situation, she still had to wield the awkward blade blank and fully confront the weapons in front of her.
Just then, she heard a crisp sound like hammering iron from behind her.
"Clang—"
It didn't sound like a sharp blade piercing a body, so it shouldn't be Dean who got hit?
Riven, slightly relieved, leaped forward, her blade blank using brute force to quickly repel the two assassins in front of her.
Taking advantage of the brief moment the opponents retreated into the shadows, she intended to lead Dean to break through in her direction.
However, when she turned around, she was surprised to see Dean's height suddenly increase by a segment—Dean was swinging his fist, punching an assassin in the face.
It was hard to imagine that this iron-hammering sound was actually made by a fist contacting a face.
The assassin hit by the punch was disoriented and clearly suffered a heavy blow, but before falling, he still tried his best to swing the short sword in his hand, cutting Dean's chest.
The sharpness of the short sword cut through Dean's robe, revealing a patch of crimson.
However, this crimson was not blood, but a very unique-looking… armor.