Chapter: Chapter 452
So, this black-clothed man with horns is also probably a merchant?
Perhaps something can be learned from him.
Leticia didn’t know why she wanted to figure out the secret hidden behind this. By her nature, she should have stayed out of it, but now, a desire to investigate had arisen in her heart.
It was as if something tempting awaited her ahead.
Licking her lips, Leticia reached out and gently gripped the fleeing horned beastman.
Magic surged from her body, appearing at the horned beastman’s side at an extremely fast speed and solidifying into substance. Several earth-colored spikes emerged from the ground, surrounding the fleeing horned beastman.
Then, green tendrils slowly climbed up his body from his feet, finally stopping at his neck, like a fearsome plant covered in thorns.
If he moved, his neck might be pierced! The horned merchant immediately understood his predicament: a hidden spellcaster had him under control.
But the spellcaster didn’t seem to intend to kill him; otherwise, these earth spikes would have appeared directly from beneath him, piercing him, instead of forming a cage.
The sound of flapping wings came from afar. As the sound grew clearer, the horned beastman wanted to turn his head to see who was binding him, but as soon as he moved, the vines around his neck tightened.
The person behind him didn’t want to be seen, the horned merchant understood.
“Mighty spellcaster, what do you wish to gain from this humble servant? But let me say in advance, I currently cannot…”
“I ask, you answer. If your answer satisfies me, I will let you go,” a cold, neutral voice interrupted the horned merchant.
Standing behind the horned beastman, Leticia crossed her arms and observed the one she had controlled. To be honest, this guy didn’t look like a bad person; his face even seemed somewhat honest.
As for his strength, it could only be described as pathetic. He probably hadn’t trained in a long time, which matched his identity as a merchant.
“Alright, alright, ask whatever you wish to ask. I will tell you everything I know!” The horned merchant didn’t know why the person behind him was holding him. He didn’t remember having any dealings with the Bone Wing Tribe.
As a merchant, he had confidence in his memory. He had only been in this grassland border for a short time, and during that period, he had been assisting that esteemed individual in the Steel Spear Tribe. After that individual left some days ago, he had taken over their position. This left no room for any connection with the Bone Wing Tribe.
Besides, his attire was a bit conspicuous, but the current situation in the Steel Spear Tribe was so chaotic. Even their lion chief lacked the courage to fight and had fled with his personal guards. The main force of the Bone Wing Tribe should be pursuing that chief.
Then where did such a powerful spellcaster come from?
Although the horned merchant’s strength was not impressive, his knowledge was extensive. The ability to cast two completely different spells remotely meant he was definitely a spellcaster of Intermediate level or above. Such an existence would be a powerful figure in the grassland border, one that all forces would strive to recruit.
But he hadn’t heard even a single word about this person before. This was strange, wasn’t it?
Unless he had arrived here recently, then why would he involve himself in the conflict between these two small tribes?
The horned merchant couldn’t understand; he truly couldn’t comprehend the person behind him’s intentions.
“Is the underground array your creation?”
Array? What array? the horned merchant became even more confused. What did the underground array have to do with him? He was just a seller; what did he know about arrays?
“I don’t know!”
“You don’t know… Then this is interesting.” A hint of interest entered the voice of the person behind him.
A mass of colorful mist appeared before the horned merchant and gradually approached him.
“What are you doing? I’m telling the truth, I’m not lying to you!” Seeing the colorful mist getting closer, the horned merchant instinctively struggled.
This colorful mist gave him an unusually ominous feeling. If he came into contact with it, he would probably be annihilated without a trace.
Driven by his survival instinct, he began to struggle violently, even though the thorny vines on his neck were drawing blood. However, this small resistance yielded no miracle; the colorful mist still enveloped his head.
The moment he came into contact with the colorful mist, the horned merchant’s eyes suddenly lost their focus.
The power of a god is indeed useful… Leticia lowered her head and looked at her hands, sighing inwardly. Unknowingly, she had also gotten used to using such methods.
She had to admit, this ability was effective. Under hypnosis, no one could hide their secrets.
Unless…
“Huh?!”
A surge of heat erupted from within the hypnotized horned merchant. Leticia instinctively teleported into the air, putting distance between herself and the horned merchant.
The moment she moved away from the merchant, he turned into a golden firework.
Boom!
The surging blast tore through the magic Leticia had cast, drawing the attention of all the nearby beastmen.
But when these beastmen rushed to the scene, they found only a deep pit on the ground, and the person was long gone.
“Hiss, miscalculated…” Leticia, hidden in mid-air, frowned, looking somewhat dejected. She certainly hadn’t expected such a insignificant character to possess a means of counteracting mental control within him.
Logically, her hypnosis should be excluded from mental control. She had used it before to control those thugs.
At that time, the collars on those people’s necks were also said to be able to counteract mental control, but after making eye contact with her, they were still useless.
Could it be because last time it was eye contact and this time it was mist control? But the essence of these two methods was the same… Unless the countermeasure within this horned merchant was much more advanced than what was in that collar, capable of detecting this abnormal hypnotic state.
In that case, things were becoming more and more interesting. This horned merchant was clearly a minor character, not even aware of the sacrificial array beneath his feet. Someone like this in the organization could only be considered peripheral personnel. Yet, such peripheral personnel possessed such advanced counter-mental control measures…
Heh, the secrets hidden behind these merchants were becoming more and more numerous, it seemed.
Returning to the clouds, Leticia briefly told Bai Ling, who was still acting as a human GPS for Linglong and the others, about what had just happened.
“These guys’ issues are more than I imagined…” Leticia pondered, unsure of what adjective to use to describe these merchants.
More than she had imagined? But she had already known for a long time that these guys were connected to a god.
Anything and anyone connected to a god was never easy. Leticia had already prepared herself mentally back then; these guys would definitely be a big trouble.
Now that she discovered these merchants had secretly buried a sacrificial array targeting souls underground, it didn’t seem too unexpected for Leticia.
For a god to break through a seal, sufficient energy was needed. Even the God of Dreams, whose unsealing conditions were exceptionally simple, had strict energy requirements. And what the God of Dreams did back then was no different from what these merchants were doing now.
At most, Miss God of Dreams was better at a slow and steady approach, while these merchants had no intention of future benefits. In essence, there was really no significant difference between the two; both were extracting energy from souls.
“Wait, that’s not right… Didn’t their god die? I saw the corpse!” Suddenly, Leticia realized a crucial point. The god of these merchants was clearly a dead giant bird.
That golden blood had flowed from the body of that giant bird. Logically, these merchants shouldn’t be receiving orders from a god.
Could it be that their god wanted to be resurrected, so they were helping their god collect energy?
“Could it be possible that their god is about to revive, and thus requested these people to help them collect energy?” Bai Ling proposed another hypothesis.
Leticia immediately shook her head. Although this guess was logical, she knew it was impossible. That giant bird was definitely dead, completely annihilated, body and soul.
As a god herself, she could tell the state of that fellow deity with just a glance. In such a state, to put it mildly, she was even more thoroughly dead than the God of Dreams.
Though both of them had died quite thoroughly…
“If a god were truly behind them, the array I discovered wouldn’t be so crude,” Leticia pointed out another doubt. Gods were almost all beings who had lived for eons and possessed immense knowledge. Wouldn’t these gods know about sacrificial arrays?
If a god were to have their subordinates collect energy for them, couldn’t that god produce a sacrificial array of such a low grade? Wouldn’t that be counterproductive?
The array she found looked more like these merchants had seen a prototype somewhere and then tinkered with it themselves, creating a defective product. It could be used, but the effect was just so-so.
Spreading her hands, Leticia displayed the sacrificial array she had perceived with threads of magic. “Look at this array; it has no aesthetic appeal. Many of the lines inside are useless. Not only do they fail to enhance the array’s effect, but they also conflict with each other, weakening the array’s efficacy.”
If Leticia were to evaluate it, it would probably be a level “not even a first-year elementary school student from the demon race could compare.”
“However, I can still faintly discern the foundation of this array. Without these messy modifications, this sacrificial array would be presentable.” Immediately, the array on Leticia’s hand began to be simplified. Soon, the complex array that previously made people dizzy became simple.
However, for Miss Bai, Leticia was still speaking in riddles. She was just a Sword Saint and didn’t understand magic.
“Um, talking to me about this doesn’t seem to have any use. I don’t understand magic at all…” The Sword Saint meekly raised her hand, not hiding her illiteracy at all.
Uh… that’s right. Leticia, who had been enthusiastically explaining, froze. She realized she was indeed talking to a deaf person. She seemed to have subconsciously treated Bai Ling as Xue’er or Kira.
But Bai Ling wasn’t them. Bai Ling was just an ordinary human girl who knew nothing about magic.
“Cough, cough, it’s good to learn more about other knowledge. Maybe you’ll use it in the future?” Bringing a small fist to her mouth, Leticia coughed deliberately, giving a reason that was not very convincing. “Look, as for arrays like this, as long as energy is injected into these few points, they will spontaneously collapse due to internal power conflicts.”
As she spoke, Leticia demonstrated with the array model in her hand.
This time, Miss Bai did not interrupt. Instead, she meticulously noted down what Leticia said. Not only did she note it down, but she also asked, “Can’t I attack other places?”
“If your strength is sufficient, of course, you can. But when encountering very, very large arrays, breaking them with brute force is not cost-effective,” Leticia shook her head. Often, such skills were indeed not useful to Bai Ling, but perhaps one day a magic array that couldn’t be broken by brute force would appear before Bai Ling?
“Don’t you still have me then?”
“I’m not always available, you know,” Leticia said with a hint of helplessness, tapping Bai Ling’s head. “For now, just remember it. The foundation of the arrays used by these merchants is like this. As long as these few nodes are found, they can be easily broken.”
“No, we will always be together,” Bai Ling said, seizing the opportunity when Leticia tapped her head, and hugged the girl beside her, then said with a smile.
“If you disappear, I will definitely be able to find you.”
This girl… Hearing this, Leticia sighed helplessly. This white-haired girl’s words were becoming sweeter and sweeter.
If it weren’t for her, perhaps this girl would already be a heartthrob, having harmed countless girls?
Tilting her head and looking at Bai Ling’s delicate side profile, smelling the faint fragrance emanating from the girl, Leticia couldn’t help but feel a touch of smugness.
Such a girl now belonged to her, was her private possession. This feeling was truly quite pleasant.
Moreover, such a perfect girl would even show a fawning expression in front of her. Heh heh, if humans knew that their Sword Saint was already the subordinate of the Demon King, they would surely despair.
Thinking of this, Leticia’s expression immediately became a little smug.
Then her face was grabbed. “What are you thinking about, smiling so smugly?”
“I’m thinking that I’m really lucky to have such a beautiful girlfriend.”
“You only just realized your luck is good?” Miss Bai raised an eyebrow and squeezed a little harder.
“Hey, gently, it hurts!”
…
The sky was a reddish-gold, and the dark red sun scorched a barren land. Fierce flames burned across the earth, and rivers of bright red lava divided the ground into many small sections.
Poisonous gas, enough to be fatal, spread through the space. This was undoubtedly a forbidden zone for life.
But there would always be some uniquely gifted beings in this world, and in this hell, there existed such a group of people.
Black robes adorned with golden patterns isolated them from the high temperatures and poisonous gas. A group of beastmen with various appearances sat around a piece of ground not yet swallowed by lava, discussing in low voices.
“How much longer until the divine adult’s revival?”
“Soon, soon, it’s just these days.”
“You keep saying soon, soon, but I haven’t seen any progress!”
“Be patient. The prophecy will not be wrong. The divine adult will surely revive in the near future.”
“Our actions have already alerted those guys. If this continues, we will be exposed sooner or later…”
“So what if we are exposed? The divine adult will protect us.”
The people in black debated amongst themselves, their voices low and their speech rapid, as if fearing something.
Silence. After a chilling silence, a black-robed man impatiently waved his fist. “So, is there any certainty?”
“…No.” Another black-robed man pondered for a moment, then finally told the truth.
“But the divinity egg’s activity is rapidly increasing. It will absolutely hatch within these days,” another black-robed man added.
It was impossible to give an exact time; they were only following prophecies, and the prophecies only indicated that this divine being would hatch and be reborn in the near future.
As for when exactly it would hatch, that was a secret.
The black-robed men could only guess that it would be within these days. The great egg was rapidly activating. Previously, they could still approach and observe it, but now they couldn’t even get close.
Once, a disbelieving black-robed man tried it, and then they lost a companion. From then on, they dared not approach the giant egg as they had before.
Fortunately, they had already drawn arrays around the great egg, using special materials that could withstand high temperatures. Now, they only needed to activate the arrays in other locations to continuously transmit energy to the great egg.
Perhaps it was due to this feeding, the great egg’s activation speed was very fast, even causing the surrounding environment to deteriorate.
Even these black-robed men could no longer withstand the environment here.
“Our stock is running low. We can no longer access the divine remains, and the divine blood and those divine blood minerals cannot be mined,” the aged black-robed man sitting cross-legged on the ground stated.
The divine egg was located within the divine corpse’s abdomen. Since this great egg began to activate, they had been unable to obtain the necessary materials from the mountain-like corpse.
Fortunately, they had already stockpiled quite a bit of divine blood and divine blood minerals, which had barely managed to maintain the supply. However, this situation could not last long. Their business was too large. Almost all the tribes on the grassland had done business with them, and divine blood and divine blood weapons were extremely popular commodities.
This was undoubtedly an advantage before, but now it had become a disadvantage. Once the supply of these items was cut off, who knew what those tribes would do? The black-robed men dared not gamble that those roughnecks would obediently give up super weapons like divine blood.
“Temporarily reduce the supply of goods and have the peripheral personnel return as soon as possible. Time is on our side. As long as we hide well, ultimate victory will surely belong to us.”
“That’s the only thing we can do now…”
“Do we need to continue pursuing the dragons? Our current resources are probably not enough to hire those hunting hounds.”
“Continue. Even if we have to cut off goods from other places, we must continue to hunt the dragons.”
“I heard there were traces of dragons on the grassland border. That dragon has even become the leader of a tribe. Do we need to eliminate her?”
“That’s a white dragon. Our target is black dragons. Can’t you distinguish colors?”
“But she’s also a dragon. Better to kill by mistake than let go! Don’t you remember what the prophecy said?”
“That place is too far from us. Let’s clear out the dragons in the Sleeping Dragon Mountain Range first. Compared to a lone white dragon, that dragon gathering place is more important…”
The black-robed men discussed and finally made a decision.
Faint phoenix cries echoed in the space. This sound had gradually become clearer in recent days, as if heralding the revival of some slumbering great entity.
In the center of this scorched land was a bubbling lava lake. Within this great lake lay a mountain-like golden corpse, quietly resting. And in the corpse’s abdomen, a great egg covered in golden patterns was hidden.
The golden patterns on the egg seemed to be breathing, flickering on and off.
At a certain moment, the golden patterns suddenly erupted with a brighter color than before, as if sensing something.
The faint phoenix cries also carried a hint of impatience, but the black-robed men, still discussing other matters, did not notice the unusual emotion within the cries.
This peculiar phenomenon only lasted for a while. After just a few breaths, the patterns on the egg dimmed. Perhaps due to excessive consumption, the egg trembled slightly and tilted a little to the side.
It… seemed to have fallen asleep.
The phoenix cries paused for a moment, then became louder, as if conveying a sense of disappointment.
Of course, there was no one here who could understand the emotions contained within the phoenix cries. Perhaps something could understand, but it was happily sleeping right now.
…
Night fell. The sky in the beastmen’s world had no light pollution like human cities. Looking up, one could see the vast and boundless brilliant starry sky. Under the high-hanging crescent moon, a cavalry finally caught up with their enemies.
Guided by the starlight and after killing waves of enemies who tried to obstruct them, Linglong’s cavalry finally surrounded the fleeing chief of the Steel Spear Tribe.
Looking at the tall beastman beside her, with fewer than ten men remaining, Linglong’s expression was blank.
If it weren’t for Miss Bai’s subtle guidance, she might not have been able to catch up with this chief today. But there were no “ifs,” and she didn’t reject the help offered by that lady.
“Are you ready to accept your fate?” Linglong asked, holding her dragon spear, her brilliant golden dragon eyes fixed on her enemy, and said coldly.
