Chapter 63: Pursuit
Tilroghzakh’s incident had served as an alarm bell for Li Wen. Her ability to strike a deal with the tiger and deceive demons into providing help, by leveraging her past life’s advantages, relied entirely on the fact that, in her Player state, she wouldn’t be killed by a enraged demon upon exposure, thus facing true death.
However, last night’s situation was different. It wasn’t a threat of death, but a ritual of advancement that was nearly interrupted.
All rituals carried a probability of failure, let alone a ritual of advancement, which decided the sublimation and transformation of life.
Every advancement on any Path required the consumption of Spirituality, which was a life’s inherent qualification, determining the upper limit of its sublimation and transformation, and even the limit of the Paths it could tread.
If the advancement ritual failed, it was highly likely to deplete Spirituality. In her past life, Li Wen was unable to advance to Stage Four precisely because of excessive Spirituality depletion.
Failure in a Stage One advancement ritual was generally rare, primarily depending on the accuracy of the ritual array. Yet, after defeating Tilroghzakh yesterday, Li Wen still felt a sense of lingering fear.
She didn’t know the consequences of a failed Witch Disciple advancement; this wasn’t clearly stated even in The Primordial Codex. In her past life, when Li Wen was part of the Strategy Team, she had learned about many powerful and harsh Paths, whose advancement failures usually yielded nothing significant, either posing a threat to life, forcibly bestowing terrifying negative extraordinary traits, or even completely stripping the chance to ever advance on that Path.
This was unacceptable to Li Wen.
All her hopes, even the hopes of the Strategy Team, and indeed, the hopes of everyone in the world, were pinned on The Path of Ending.
Once she failed her advancement and could no longer tread this Path, Li Wen had better hope that The Primordial Codex could be bound by more than one person.
Otherwise, the consequences would be dire.
Therefore, despite winning the battle last night with the powerful strength of Witch Form, Li Wen felt no joy afterward, only lingering fear and reflection.
The advancement requirement of The Path of Ending and the impending Doomsday Twilight brought her immense pressure, which was why Li Wen was so eager to advance as a Witch Disciple. She had to improve her strength quickly and then search for clues to the next Original Text.
However, while ensuring efficiency, Li Wen also needed to make thorough preparations and have confidence, at least for her next advancement.
Perhaps because everyone’s only hope rested in Li Wen’s hands, the pressure she bore was beyond anyone’s comprehension.
Defeating Tilroghzakh earned Li Wen 2100 experience.
This was even with the penalty of only 70% experience acquisition due to her holding two professions.
Li Wen currently had no plans on how to allocate this experience. For now, with her Witch Form, she was capable of handling any enemy within level ten. Even for demons with counter-abilities like Tilroghzakh, she had confidence in winning even at Stage Two.
Therefore, it was better to save it for future needs rather than upgrading or learning existing abilities.
After the battle with Tilroghzakh, both abilities of Li Wen’s Emerald Star Cloak were in a long cooldown, while the corruption of her second use of Witch Form was only at 13%. Now, this time had fully recovered, making it sufficient for another use.
Her next goal was to leave Black Dragon Territory, escape any potential investigators from the Kingdom’s Disciplinary Bureau, and search for clues to the next lineage Original Text.
To leave Black Dragon Territory, the best route required passing through Leicester City, and Li Wen was currently heading there.
*
At sunset, as Twilight permeated the sky, Li Wen walked through the dense forest, holding a short-handled bone knife in her hand.
She had confiscated it from a goblin. Although not sharp, it was sufficient for cutting through ordinary flesh and blood.
The outskirts of Black Dragon Territory, besides annoying beasts and monsters, were also inhabited by low-intelligence humanoid creatures like goblins and little brown demons, which were ferocious in nature.
These beasts and creatures frequently attacked nearby villages and towns, so Li Wen killed them whenever she encountered them, showing no mercy.
Li Wen did not plan to spend the night in the forest. She needed a quiet place to meditate and recover her Mana, so she tried to follow the water flow, as it was likely to lead her to a village.
After the sun completely set, Li Wen left the forest and saw firelight not far away.
But it didn’t look like normal torchlight.
Li Wen furrowed her brow slightly. She could already smell the stench of blood, so she tightened her grip on her weapon and walked directly towards it.
The light source came from a burned-down village. The ground was covered in bloodstains, but there were no corpses.
As Li Wen walked through, she saw not a single living person or livestock, not even a corpse.
This eerie scene made it difficult not to wonder what had happened here.
Was it bandits or goblins?
They would use fire to eliminate traces or kill any potential survivors. With the intelligence of brown demons, they couldn’t perform such an operation. But why were there no corpses left? Goblins didn’t have the habit of eating people.
Li Wen didn’t detect any visible traces of Extraordinary Power, so the attacker was unlikely to be a Transcendent.
Blind searching like this would likely yield no results. The perpetrators were probably an efficient and cruel group, not leaving any obvious traces at the scene, not even excessively dense footprints. Their strict discipline made them unlikely to be bandits or goblins.
Should she get involved in this matter? Li Wen pondered this question.
If she did encounter them, given their cruel actions, Li Wen would have no reason to let them go.
As she thought about this, Li Wen suddenly remembered a simple ritual for tracking by blood, which she might be able to use here.
Some old Hunters who lived deep in the woods would perform strange procedures on arrows stained with animal blood and use them to track prey.
The ritual Li Wen knew was simplified from this method.
There was blood everywhere here, but Li Wen needed to find a separate bloodstain. Otherwise, if the blood mixed together, the ritual wouldn’t know who to track.
She found a suitable bloodstain near the village entrance. The blood had dried and turned black, suggesting it had been a while since the incident occurred.
Li Wen fumbled in her backpack, took out a yellowed canine tooth, and placed it into the blood. Simultaneously, she sprinkled a handful of powder ground from yew leaves and gray wolf fur.
As soon as the powder touched the bloodstain, a bright yellow flame ignited, and the canine tooth melted in the heat of the flame.
Then, a fierce canine bark echoed from somewhere unknown. The flame trembled violently as if something imperceptible to the eye emerged from the fire, leaving a trail of canine footprints that led into the distance, beyond the reach of sight.
Seeing that the ritual was complete, Li Wen glanced at her remaining Mana and then closely followed the tracks.
