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Chapter 811: Battle in the Mist

Translator: TransN Editor: TransN

"You mean these things are capable of cracking the mountain and the earth?"

Elena widened her eyes after she heard the Ice Witch's concise introduction about the explosives. She condemned angrily, "What if these things explode in Fran's stomach? How could they not think of that?"

Fran's giant body could not help quivering at the thought.

"It's the lab sample that easily explodes," Agatha said as she rummaged through the box for a bag of copper pipe and showed it to Elena, "not these kind of explosives, which won't ignite on ordinary impact or heat. The only way to make them explode is to put these pipes in explosive containers."

The explosives had aroused the other God's Punishment Witches' interest, who had heard of the splendid scene of the artillery exercise long ago from Phyllis, the God's Punishment Witch who they called No. 76. They had witnessed the First Army's battle against the incursion of demonic beasts a few times since moving to the Western Region of Graycastle and were not unfamiliar with gunpowder. But this was their first time to be so close to this kind of weapon.

"Is it really okay to burn it? The thing that can create such a loud sound when it explodes should be very volatile at ordinary times."

"It looks very much like a brick..."

"How to make it work? Does it explode once the copper pipe is put into it?"

"Who dares to do that?"

The questions troubled Agatha too, for she only knew the general principle of those firearms that His Majesty had made. Her knowledge of how to use it was no more than her Taquila fellows.

"The thing with the red mark on it is the detonator that must be ignited for it to work." Lightning suddenly leaned over and said professionally, "The blue-marked one is the detonator that is needed to pull out the string to trigger it. I remember there is another kind of detonator with a yellow mark that will be activated by electric current, but this bag only has the red and blue ones."

That got Agatha amazed, and she blurted out, "How did you know that?"

"Because I'm an explorer!" The young girl touched her nose. "I was basically present at every new weapon test that the First Army held."

"So, should we bury these things in the cave mouth beforehand and blow our way out or cast them along the way as we retreat and carry Fran with us?" Elena tried to work out a solution. "If the explosive could hold back the enemies, I believe 10 God's Punishment Witches are able to move Fran."

"It doesn't matter, leave me behind..."

"Shut up!" Elena cut in. "Even though we're not afraid of sacrifice, we'll never give up our companions easily. Don't forget what Lady Eleanor has told us."

"Every witch is of equal importance." The rest of the people joined in and nodded.

"I'm afraid... neither of your plans work," Lightning muttered. "One bag of explosives is enough to tear us into pieces if you set it to work at the mouth of such a small cave. But if we put the explosives in a larger cave, the explosion will be unsatisfying." She looked at the shovels and spades on the ground and went on, "The explosives should have been used to make caves or open passages. They're not formal weapons, and the fire and air current created in the explosion is only able to kill the beasts within 10 paces."

A silence came over them, who knew that the explosion might be fearsome enough to drive away general beasts, but not the swarm of demonic beasts that were obviously summoned by the monster on the dome of the cave. They'll never stand a chance to get out unless most of those demonic beasts were destroyed.

"Maybe we have one more choice." Nightingale chimed in suddenly. "Bring down their boss."

"You mean... the monster dwelling in the dome?" Elena frowned. "We can't fly."

"Even if you could fly, that's too dangerous!" Agatha said before Lightning found her words. "It's not a defensive battle where we have support whenever we ask. We all know that it's not uncommon that some hybrid demonic beasts are able to fly, and Lightning loses her speed and flying height considerably as long as she's load-bearing, so it's highly possible that she'll never get herself close to the monster once the enemies spot her and besiege her."

"I'm not proposing to make Lightning do it," Nightingale said word by word. "I'm planning to put this bag of explosive into the monster's mouth with my own hand, given it does have a mouth."

"You?" Agatha was shocked. "Don't be ridiculous... You should know that your Mist can't hide anything in front of Magic Eyes. Wherever you see it, it notices you too."

"Its ability to see me doesn't mean that its underlings can notice me. I'm confident that I can get through them, even if they are under their boss's order to intercept me." She paused. "Do remember that the Mist can do much more than concealing."

"But..."

A cacophony coming from the rock formation interrupted Agatha's next words. It sounded as though numerous cicada were eating leaves, or gravel was clashing, being smashed and ground.

The witches' faces changed. The sound was not unfamiliar to them.

"Damn it. They've sent the devouring worm," Elena said with a stern face. "The enemy is coming. Get yourself ready."

A worm carrier was hardly a threat, but as soon as their concealed vantage point was uncovered, they were to be faced with endless demonic beasts that traveled through the worm's stomach.

"Don't worry about me. No one is more competent in this kind of mission. Back at the time when the Witch Cooperation Association was running in the old king's city, my title was well-known everywhere in the central region of the kingdom," Nightingale said as she packed four bags of explosives in her bag and bound it tightly on her back. "At that time, people used to call me 'Shadow Killer'."

"Wait..."

"Rest assured. I'll finish that deformed thing before the worm tunnels its way here."

Before Agatha could say anything to stop her, she disappeared into thin air.

The last sight Agatha had of Nightingale was a thumbs up.

...

In the world of black and white, directions meant nothing to Nightingale, and everywhere would become flat and level if she wished.

It felt as though she was the manipulator of this world where everything was under her order.

Passing through the collapsed stones, she straightway jumped up to the steep cliff and rushed to the dome of the cave.

Suddenly, her vision changed the angle by 90 degrees. The monster that should have been above her hid somewhere was ahead of her now. The turbulent underground river looked like a ribbon beset on the precipice, while the broad subterranean lake now rose up like a huge window.

By then, she had caught sight of the monster, and it had her in sight as well.

Nightingale did not look away.

With her eyes fixed on the monster's star-like eyes, she sped up to it. In the Mist, the glare radiated from the monster's powerful Magic Cyclone and looked like a bloody moon, outshining the crowded light spots.

This monster could not be a simple hybrid demonic beast, she thought.

Its magic power outperformed even Anna's.

For a moment, Nightingale sensed her mind had been connected with the monster's.

The feeling was chaotic and unspeakable, but she was sure that both of them had received the undisguised hostility from each other.

She grinned.

The monster raised its tentacles.

With a low roar, the demonic beasts in the cave flocked to her.

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Chapter 812: Segmentation

Translator: TransN Editor: Meh

Nightingale soon discovered that she was right.

Most demonic hybrid beasts could not locate her, so hardly any beasts could clamber onto the cliff to block her. The flying beasts swooping in the mid-air looked terrifying but always missed her like an arrow that missed its target. As long as she kept moving, it was uneasy for those beasts to hold her back.

The only beasts that could "spot" her were those mutated ones with sickle-shaped forelegs. They writhed their robust bodies and nailed their supportive legs in the stones so that they were able to move about the cliff. Under the command of the monster, they moved towards the dome of the cave, intercepting Nightingale and the alerted Magic Eye.

She had to destroy those beasts before meeting head-on the monster.

The vast dome of the cave had become Nightingale's personal battlefield. Fighting alone had been an experience she had not had for a long time.

She had been walking alone in the Mist in the past and had been forced to serve her wicked aristocratic relatives until Wendy had found her and helped her out of such miseries.

But her feeling at present was dramatically different from the feeling she had had when she had roamed in the Silver City.

Alone she was, she felt no boredom or hatred in the least, for she volunteered to participate in this dangerous duel without being compelled or threatened.

Her mind was saturated with the faith to protect her companions.

Nightingale did not feel alone at all, for she was in the protective suit made by Soraya, with the explosives produced by Agatha in her bag, and the gun designed by Roland around her waist, which was engraved with the words "To Veronica".

All of these gears gave her a feeling that everyone was fighting alongside her.

As she revolved a multitude of thoughts in her head, the enemies were drawing near. The beasts started to close up, their sickle-shaped forelegs in the air.

There was a total of 16 of them.

Nightingale took out the pistol, pulled the safety, and waited until the nearest beast was within a few paces. Then she went out of the Mist as she pulled the trigger.

The beast lurched to her at the same time.

Its powerful tail and supportive legs enabled them to dash forward. The strike was completed in a split second, as quick as a predator plunging at its prey.

It was more like that the beast struck the bullet itself than the other way around.

Even though the beast was shot, the shockwave of the bullet could still wound Nightingale.

But she had prepared for this.

The moment the bullet left the muzzle, Nightingale re-entered the Mist and stepped onto a fast receding borderline that represented the contour of the earth.

This was perfect timing.

An outsider might think she leaped backward all of a sudden for a few meters; but in fact, it was the ground underneath that was moving backward.

"Bang!"

The bullet smashed into the sickle monster's pointy head and blew it up. Its shell and brain splashed like a blooming flower. The magic glow dissipated quickly and its invisible body twitched and reappeared. The lifeless beast fell to the subterranean lake like a stone dropping into the water. Yet in Nightingale's eyes, the dead body moved headlong upward, as if it were sucked down to the bottom of the surging lake.

Taking advantage of the changeable lines in the Mist in this way, Nightingale chased and fought against her enemies. Even though the beasts moved very fast, they succumbed to the negative impact of the gravity. When Nightingale lured them into the battlefield on which they had had a fight earlier, they had to slow down to make sure their legs were deeply rooted in the rock, as the previous battle, which had left hundreds of holes in the rocky walls, greatly reduced the friction between their legs and the surface.

But her tactics were not flawless. Because she had to step out of the Mist and expose herself temporarily to fire at the enemy, she had drawn increasing numbers of beasts to her. What was worse, she had become more vulnerable to the flying demonic beasts because those deformed winged monsters had started to hover in the air close to the dome to bide their time, rather than "swoop down" blindly as they did before. When she fired at the enemies, those flying beasts would dodge the bullet so that she had to hide in the Mist again to relocate her target. Sometimes she had to relay on the borderline in the Mist to dodge the massive attacks from the enemies.

Nightingale got injured in less than seven minutes after the battle began.

After all, she could not find a good hiding spot in the Mist every time after she fired. The change of the lines in the Mist was not subject to her will, so the misty world was as perilous to her as to everybody else. A battle of such high intensity was a challenge both to her physical strength and her mentality.

The greatest injury was to her ribs.

She had failed to dodge a strike when being besieged by two flying beasts. Their razor-sharp claws had torn her coat, leaving a deep cut from her flank to her waist. The coated protective suit made by Soraya had saved her from being gutted, but the coating could not block the power of the strike. The pain almost took away her breath, and she had to rest for a long time to recover herself.

Evidently, it was Multi-eyed Demon that manipulated the frantic demonic hybrid beasts, for those hybrid beasts, which were usually prone to fight against each other, actually worked together and launched fierce and continuous attacks this time. That made Nightingale even more determined to destroy the demon. She did not understand why it would rather hide in this Great Snow Mountain than attack Neverwinter. But the demonic beasts with a commander would be a great threat to Prince Roland.

Her 10 bullets had all been used up, and there were still four sickle monsters left —10 of the beasts had been killed directly by the bullets, and two fell into the lake during the battle. Judging from the turbulent currents of the lake, Nightingale believed that the two beasts barely got a chance to survive and come back to the battle.

The violent attack from the demonic beasts left Nightingale no time to reload the bullets, and neither did she intend to. She tucked the pistol back to her belt and leaped over an invisible beast and reached its back when a swarm of demonic hybrid beasts came to her. She then pulled the invisible beast into the misty world.

The beast got shocked as his vision changed from the battlefield to the world of black and white.

Nightingale's magic power streamed from her fingertips. The following beasts that clashed with the first one were all pulled into the mist subsequently. As the number of the beasts entering the Mist increased, her magic power exceeded the consumption limit and began to drain. Just at that moment, one of the lines constituting the dome the misty world curled up and went flying toward her.

This was the moment she had been waiting for. As more beasts had been pulled into the misty world, her magic power quickly drained and the misty world became unstabilized. The twisting lines had thus become a lethal weapon, although at other times they helped her leap a few meters away.

The white line swept over the beasts, and their figures suddenly froze.

It was like those beasts had vanished instantly, and in a split second, a "blank space" emerged in the sky of the misty world. But when the beasts reappeared, the weirdest thing happened. The lower parts of their bodies remained in the place where they had disappeared, while the upper parts several meters away as if a sharp longsword had cut all of them into halves with one swing and the body parts had been transported and floated in the air.

The bodies suspended for a few seconds before they hailed down into the lake, creating numerous water columns.

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Chapter 813: "Monster"

Translator: TransN Editor: Meh

Suddenly, Nightingale's view was no longer obscured.

Seeing this shocking event unfold, the demonic beasts slowed down and instead of crazily trying to surround her, they refused to move forward as if they were scared of her.

These demonic hybrids were scared.

The monster hanging on top of the cave waved its tentacles and roared furiously, but it didn't achieve the desired effect. The only ones who still followed its orders were three sickle monsters. They were now powerless and could no longer threaten Nightingale. The tight line of defense had now been broken.

No enemy could now stop her.

Nightingale gathered what was left of her magic power and rushed towards the dome center.

As she was closing in, she finally understood what Fran meant by abnormal.

The opponent was not so much a creature as it was a pile of exposed organs. It had neither epidermis nor muscular tissue while vascular intestines, tentacles, and organs that couldn't even be named were all stacked up, looking both unstable and horrible.

Obviously, throwing explosives into the monster's mouth was not possible. Nightingale turned her gaze to a pack of vibrating "meatballs". Although she was not certain whether it was a vital organ of the monster or not, it was at least placed much deeper and had flowing magic light inside. She guessed that the explosion of the explosives would inevitably cause more damage there.

It was a risky plan, but she only had one chance.

This fight required one fatal blow.

The more she was closing in, the more she could feel its size. Those complex intestines were as thick as a house while the rest of the stacked up organs looked like a castle.

The only difference was that this castle was alive.

Seeing that the sickle monsters could not stop her, the monster started moving.

It shot several slender tentacles from within its body, trying to stop Nightingale. Some of the tentacles were like steel whips, which could easily break the rocks in the mountain, but were not very difficult to deal with. As long as she observed the silhouette of these tentacles in advance, she could use the empty spaces between them to avoid them. It was similar to penetrating a wall.

A few tentacles that contained magic power and could use different abilities were a different problem all together. Those colorful magical beams were particularly striking in the black and white world and Nightingale definitely did not want to experience what was like to get hit by them, so she used flash to avoid them. This, in turn, would greatly increase the consumption of her magic power.

Thankfully, the distance between the monster and her was not huge.

Only a few moments had passed before she stepped on the monster's huge body, who roared furiously, but in fear of hurting itself, stopped attacking recklessly with its tentacles. Nightingale instantly felt very relieved. She didn't hesitate to open her backpack, took out a pack of explosives, and rushed straight towards the meatballs.

She pulled off her next moves instantaneously. She pulled the fuse, stuffed the green smoked explosive and the backpack into the meatballs, and then returned to the misty world, hanging upside down. Then, she pushed with both of her feet and lunged towards the underground lake like an arrow.

The monster also noticed her movements but it did not seem to understand why the enemy would try so hard to get near just to leave a moment later without doing anything. As for the bag, in the monster's eyes, there was no threat at all. For a moment, it even forgot to move its tentacles to chase after the witch who was quickly falling.

The most dangerous place in the misty world was in midair. She would break into pieces if she hit some airflow silhouettes when she was falling and so she stopped exerting her ability and waved goodbye to the monster.

Curiously, at that moment, she thought of Roland.

Whenever they were testing gunpowder, he would always turn his back to the testing ground and say that real warriors never looked at an explosion. Even though both Agatha and her would roll their eyes at him, he didn't mind as if he had just completed a ritual that only he knew about.

Thinking about that, Nightingale coudn't help but smile.

But right now, she didn't want to imitate him.

It was not about being a real warrior or not.

She simply wanted to watch the monster explode into pieces.

Just as soon as the sound between the lake and the underground river meeting eachother could be heard, a red light suddenly lit up the ceiling of the dark cave.

In a place where there was never daylight, a ray of light seemed as bright as the dawn. The darkness quickly faded, leaving behind the long shadows and for the first time, bright waves appeared on the lake's surface.

What followed was a thunderous roar—

Suddenly, the whole cave shook!

Nightingale clearly saw, among the dazzleing fireworks, the body of the monster convolsuing fiercely, as if it was suffering greatly. Half of the "Bloody Moon" covering the dome suddenly disappeared and some of the organs were shot out like volcanic eruptions. As for the area close to the explosion, it was instantly set on fire, generating a thick , dark smoke.

Splash!

She crashed into the water.

The world momentarily became quiet, leaving only the sound of her beating heart.

The fast spinning of the water formed a bottomless black hole under her body and it seemed like it wanted to drag her into the abyss. In the face of such force, any struggle would be meaningless.

But, thankfully, Nightingale was prepared.

She released what little of her magic power that was left to summon the Mist and used the spiraling white lines to climb to the surface as if climbing the stairs.

At this point, the magic power in her body had been completely depleted and the after effects of overuse began to appear. Her brain was attacked by intense pain and dizziness, her limbs could not stop trembling, and she could hardly control her body anymore.

As she struggled to get to the lakeshore, Nightingale knew she was running out of strength. Before losing consciousness, she saw a worm breaking through the wall and a golden figure flying towards her in a hurry.

...

"Nightingale... Is she ok?" Fran asked anxiously.

"It's nothing serious, she just exhausted her magic power," Agatha briefly examined Nightingale and then handed her to the God's Punishment Witch, "You carry her. We must leave this place at once."

When Nightingale left, everyone decided that no matter what, they would go to meet her after the explosion and decided to let Fran eat all their remaining food. Even though it was not certain she could find a way out, she could still crawl with them to the camp site.

But they did not expect the explosion to be so effective. It not only stopped the worm carrier inside the walls, but it also made the rest of the demonic beasts flee the area.

"Leave her to me," Elena personally took Nightingale. After witnessing the battle, the Taquila survivors became more respectful toward the blond witch.

"Don't we need to finish it off?" Lightning looked at the struggling monster, as if not satisfied, "It doesn't seem to be dead."

"Dying beasts are the most dangerous and you can only bring one pack of explosives at most, so it's better not take this risk," Agatha said with a deep voice, "by the time the First Army has been assembled, it'll be dead sooner or later.

"Uhm... fine," the little girl hesitated before nodding.

Just when everyone was ready to leave, the monster suddenly issued a cry. Following the dull and muddy sound, the lake suddenly changed.

Under the sparkling flames, a huge skeleton came out of the water and opened a row of rib claws towards the top of the cave. Even in such a fast current of water, it remained steady.

The monster loosened its tentacles that were clining to the top of the cave and fell into the skeleton. The sinking skeleton suddenly stirred up layers of waves, making the lake water push toward the shore. Even the surging underground river flowed backwards for a time. The ribs began to close, as if wrapping up the monster into a package and then slowly sunk back into the lake. The instant it came into contact with the water, the burning flames on the monster turned into white smoke and emitted a pungent odor.

Right before the monster vanished, everyone saw its densely packed eyes. Although half of them were gone, the rest of the eyes expressed a strong sense of hatred toward them.

Moments later, the swirling lake engulfed the monster as if it had never appeared.

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Chapter 814: Impartial person

Translator: TransN Editor: Meh

"The demonic beasts have fled! They all fled!"

Cheers were heard across the battlefield. The demonic beasts that were previously gathered at the entrance of the cave had all fled away leaving several corpses behind them. The machine gunner released the trigger only to find out that his finger joint had gone numb. Because there was no time to change the gun barrel, it had turned red which, according to the shooting regulations, meant that it was scrapped.

"Their numbers were intimidating, but once we start fighting them, they didn't look so scary."

"The Church's God's Punishment Army was much more fierce."

"They are only beasts after all."

"Beasts? Why are you talking nonsense? Go fight them with a bow if you dare. Three years ago, these things were terrorizing the Western Region. Everything changed because of His Majesty, do you understand!"

"Ye-Yes, Captain!"

"Instead of celebrating, change the gun barrel."

Edith was standing in the back of the battlefield. She had a thoughtful look while watching the busy yet orderly First Army. After following Roland's army to participate in the Tooth Extraction Campaign and the Church's destruction, she always tried to imagine how would she command the army in order to achieve the maximum effectiveness of the firearms.

Without a doubt, this was a completely new kind of army and so the combat strategy was different from that of the knightages and the mercenaries from before. It was not easy to forget her previous successful experience of fighting through charging, relying on excellent weapons, and personal bravery. But when she realized that knights could no longer compete against the new army, she promptly discarded all of her previous experience and started watching all of His Majesty's actions closely. Through today's battle, she was able to verify that her thinking was basically correct.

The most notable feature of the firearms was their ability to kill opponents with extreme efficiency before they could get closer without regard to the spacing between soldiers and their physical condition. Therefore, the narrower the shooting area, the more intense the firepower would be. As long as the ammunition supply did not stop, they could fire from morning to night.

Two platoons of soldiers could be arranged in a battlefield where previously only three to four knights would be able to charge from. They could only arrange three machine guns not because more could not fit but due to limited ammunition. But even so, their fierce firepower still made it hard for the demonic hybrids to advance—they did not even get tired or need to aim. They just had to pull the trigger. Whenever the opponents were too close together, she would even see a thick blood red mist arising in the entrance.

If His Majesty was in command, he wouldn't have done anything different.

The only thing she did not understand was the behavior of the demonic beasts.

Obviously, some of them had basic intelligence. When it got difficult to attack the cave entrance, many of the demonic hybrids began to wander outside the cave, occasionally howling, but still not advancing as if they were encouraging the other demonic beasts to sacrifice themselves. But since they had the ability to think, why did they still obey the weird commanding voices? The demonic beasts apparently did not need a relationship between lords and subjects, which was about mutual support and protection. As long as they escaped into the Barbarian Land, they could totally survive alone, unlike humans who had to be part of a group in order to survive.

Could it be that there was an inexplicable connection between the demonic beasts and the owner of that voice whose importance was above the beasts' own survival?

It was hard for her to imagine that.

She thought she should ask His Majesty Roland after the search was completed.

Currently, the only thing in Neverwinter that she found surprising and hard to figure out was His Majesty's thoughts. Whenever they were talking, she would always ponder over the same question: how vast could the human mind be?

"Miss Edith, you were very helpful this battle..." Brian's voice interrupted her thoughts. She turned around and saw the young officer's face full of gratitude. "I'll definitely mention your contribution to His Majesty in the battle report!"

"I only did my job," Edith smiled, "I wasn't sure it would be successful at that time so you don't need to mention my suggestion in the report."

"Unacceptable!" Brian shook his head again and again. "His Majesty said that in the army, the result and not the process is the only thing that matters. A victory is a victory. If I don't mention your contribution, then I'm no different than a thief. Plus, it's also unfair to you!"

"Fine... " The Pearl of the Northern Region shrugged. "If you insist."

"Of course." At this point, he paused and then made a military salute. "Furthermore, I now understand more what you said before about trust. The First Army thanks you for your advice. I'll leave now as I also have many things to attend to."

Looking at the captain leaving, Edith suddenly understood why His Majesty chose a patrol captain of the border to serve as an important military officer. Battle achievements were the basis for the knights when requesting a reward from the lord and the last thing they would want was to share with others. There were countless cases that involved faking and lying, and not even her trustees could resolve them.

In general, though the First army was different in many aspects, promotions and rewards were still linked to battle achievements. She was not a member of the army so even if the other party had completely concealed this matter, she wouldn't have personally argued her case to His Majesty. To be able to calmly share with others whatever benefits he had gained just to be fair, in fact, compared to other knights, this former patrol captain was actually much more of a knight.

Loyal to his king and honest, this was probably why Roland entrusted him with such an important task. Commanding and knowledge could both be learned, but a person's character was hard to change. Edith had noticed very early on that the spirit and manner of His Majesty's First Army were completely different from those of the knights. It was something new completely. Probably the key to creating such an army was abandoning the noble's power and selecting only civilians to enlist, coupled with the ideological education in the primary textbooks.

And now, she had also left her name in the army.

...

Half a day later, Roland received intelligence that the situation had been resolved. At this point, the one hundred emergency reinforcements had already embarked on the boat while the rest of the reinforcements were also preparing their belongings, waiting for the dispatching order. Even the newcomers of the Witch Union—Annie, Broken Sword and the rest were prepared to go support them. From the City Hall to the First Army, the whole of Neverwinter was nervous as if the city had been attacked by demonic beasts, but in the end, it all proved to be just a false alarm.

The messenger was, once again, Maggie. Looking at her tilted head and slightly opened mouth, Roland did not know whether to laugh or cry. He took out some beef from the drawer and threw it on the table. She immediately picked it up happily.

However, taking morale into account, he eventually did not order the first platoon to return but instead replaced Annie's team with Soraya and Summer in order to conduct a more comprehensive exploration of the ruins.

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Chapter 815: Discoveries and Decisions

Translator: TransN Editor: Meh

In the next three days, the reports and messages about the exploration in the Great Snow Mountain had been sent back to Neverwinter one after another

. Roland had felt his heart skipping a beat the moment he had heard that Nightingale had exhausted her magic power and passed out during a fight. Fortunately, she had been alright when this news had arrived. In order to reassure His Majesty, she had also asked Maggie to let Roland know that she was alright.

The exploration results showed that inside the Great Snow Mountain there was indeed a city in ruins, which was left by the underground civilization. However, as compared to the maze inside the Impassable Mountain Range, this city was not that well preserved. Most caves in the newly discovered ruins had collapsed long before, and several intact compartments were just filled with spoiled food, bug eggs and corpses. Near the underground lake, a broken magic core was found by the Taquila witches. According to the scouting team's reports, they found no documented records there, and the best part of their journey was the discovery of an original carrier and two devouring worms inside the mountain.

He was surprised by the results.

If this monster with many eyes was just a dumb beast who happened to settle down in the ruins, he would never find its destructive behaviors strange. However, it was obviously not just a stupid animal. He still remembered that something in this Great Snow Mountain had sent devouring worms to swallow Agatha's laboratory and the Blackstone Pagoda in the Devil's Town. These actions were clearly not just for food. In this exploration inside the mountain, the team had also spotted both human beings and demons trapped in the strange bug eggs. These facts made him believe that the unknown enemy must have been trying to collect information about the other two species it was going to fight against in the Battle of Divine Will.

When he received the first batch of "bug egg corpses", he noticed that their decomposed skin was apparently not caused by corrosion but corpse wax formed by long-term storage. That meant these corpses had been kept in the egg for a very long time and were apparently not stored as food.

Only an intelligent individual would make other creatures into specimens. In that case, he really did not understand why the monster had destroyed this underground city.

He wondered whether it was because that the monster did not care about the things treasured by Taquila witches.

He scanned through Soraya's pictures of the scenes inside the mountain and became lost in thought.

He found that the moment before the monster sank into the water, its remaining hundreds of eyes seemed to be filled with resentment. He did not know whether this was a false impression or not. He felt its eyes became different when it was severely wounded. In the beginning, those eyes appearing on the cave roof were simply gazing at the witches, but after they hurt it badly, its eyes showed an obvious emotional expression. When he put those two pictures together to compare, he felt as if the monsters in those two pictures were not the same one.

As for the underground lake in the bottom of the ruins, where the monster sank in, Sylvie confirmed that it was connected to a water vein leading to the Swirling Sea.

On his current technical level, he was not able to track the enemy once it entered the Swirling Sea, and let this monster successfully get away. What he could do next was to block the water vein by collapsing the dome of the ruins with powerful explosives. By doing so, he could ensure the safety of Neverwinter.

The exploration team had also sent him good news.

In Lightning's reports, he read about some bugs. They looked the same as the "egg bugs", but had once gushed out very sticky jelly to tightly trap Fran. The mucus they spat out was able to become a consolidated, sticky thing like spider silk in certain circumstances. These bugs were neither intelligent nor aggressive. According to Agatha's studies, they were not from the Fertile Plains.

In other words, these bugs were probably brought here by the "monster".

However, what intrigued Roland most was not the origin of these bugs but the fact that their mucus could solidify quickly. According to Lightning's description, these bugs could be bred in captivity.

Therefore, in his reply, he asked Agatha to make a detailed report on the living and eating habits of these bugs and to investigate what kind of harm they might cause. He also required the team to collect the strange plants and fungi in the ruins. He was particularly interested in the fruits which gave out dim, cold light in the dark and the giant mushroom as big as an adult.

When he was about to review the wonderful pictures of the underground caves, someone knocked on his door.

Phyllis walked into his office.

She bowed and said, "Your Majesty, Lady Pasha would like to talk to you about the ruins."

He immediately nodded to agree. He had sent all the exploration reports of these days to the Taquila survivors and he also really wanted to hear the ancient witches' views of the monster.

"Good, let's hold a video meeting."

"Vi... what?" Phyllis was stunned and took a few seconds to realize what it was. "You mean a meeting through the phantom instrument?"

"Yes, in the usual place at the reception hall on the first floor." He could not help but grin as he was so happy to finally find someone who could understand his "nonsense".

"I got it." She laughed and said, "I'm going to inform Pasha."

...

When he walked to the reception hall, Faldi and all the other God's Punishment Witches all rose and bowed to him with both hands on the chest as if they were saluting a higher ascendant. They looked solemn, and were completely different from the they looked in the Dream World.

Since he had taken them into his Dreamland, he was now venerated as someone similar to the Three Chiefs of the Union. He could tell from their etiquette and attitude toward him that now they did not consider him as a common man anymore, though they still used the phrase "common people" to describe his subjects.

Though they had agreed not to care too much about etiquette as he had required, they still saluted him more formally than his own guards. Seeing this, he had no choice but to let them do whatever they wanted.

Inside the hall, he saw Pasha through the light curtain waiting for him.

"First of all, I have to express my sincere gratitude to you." She said while bending her main tentacle. "Your help is of great importance to Taquila in exploring the ruins and in restoring the God's Punishment Witches' lost feelings."

"I'm helping myself by helping you since we'll be fighting together in the upcoming Battle of Divine Will," he replied with a smile. "Well, what're you going to do with the newly discovered shells in the ruins?"

"There're only two ways to deal with them... Moving them here or moving the soul instrument to where they're located." She paused to think for a minute and continued. "I prefer the second method."

When the magic core was turned off, it would look like some dry skeleton. He could use a concrete boat to carry it, but he was afraid that he could not transport shells, even empty ones, in this way. The big blob and worms were too scary for the common people. He was clear that the universal education of Neverwinter had not yet prepared them to accept these dreadful shells that looked like monsters from hell.

Roland agreed with Pasha's suggestion of the second method, though the transportation of the instruments still posed a problem.

"So have you picked out the witches who're willing to accept the Soul Transfer?"

Half a month ago, Taquila survivors had been eager to search for ruins left by the underground civilization in the Great Snow Mountain, since they had earnestly hoped to find new shells in the ruins. Most of the God's Punishment Witches at that time had longed to merge with them to regain their long-lost feelings, such as touch, taste and smell, even though they had known that by doing so, they would look like monsters and would never change back into human forms.

However, now the situation was different, as they had another choice.