They had a peaceful night's rest.
The next day, once Lin Gui had fully recovered his mana, the group set off once again.
Today, they would enter the Whispering Forest.
Compared to the wide-open Molan Hills,
the forest environment was complex, and the demons within were both more numerous and far more powerful.
Simply put, the Whispering Forest was much more dangerous than the Molan Hills.
Of course, for Lin Gui, who had the 【Shroud of the Gloomy Night】 active,
as long as he didn't run into some High-tier Legendary powerhouse,
there wasn't much difference between drifting through the hills and drifting through the forest.
Elvia leaned near the front, pointing the way for Lin Gui.
Watching the aerial demons fly right over their heads as if completely blind, despite being close enough to touch,
she couldn't help but comment.
“I have to say, this concealment spell of yours is just ridiculous. Are you sure you're only a High Rank mage? You're not some old Epic monster pretending to be young, are you?”
“I wish I were, but unfortunately, I'm not,”
Lin Gui replied flatly, steering the wooden raft deftly around the towering trees.
Guided by Theia from a distance and Elvia from up close, the raft twisted and turned through the woods.
Suddenly, Theia let out a low shout. “Stop!”
Lin Gui immediately brought the raft to a halt, scanning their surroundings with a frown.
Within his range of perception, there were already three distinct Hero Rank demon auras.
This was definitely not a safe place to stop and hide.
He looked in confusion at Theia, who was standing on a wooden crate and peering into the distance.
Her emerald eyes were locked on the distance, and without turning her head, she said to Lin Gui,
“Go up a bit higher!”
Lin Gui did as she asked.
In truth, when they first arrived, he could have flown directly above the forest canopy.
But doing so would have prevented Elvia from identifying landmarks on the ground to map out the 'golden route.'
Nor did Lin Gui dare to fly around blindly.
If they accidentally drifted over the lair of some Legendary or Epic demon, they would be in serious trouble.
The raft slowly rose, moving away from the Hero Rank demons below.
With a nimble leap, Theia sprang onto the tip of the tallest nearby tree, shading her eyes with her hand as she scanned the distance.
Before long, she hopped back onto the raft and looked at Lin Gui with a rather peculiar expression.
“Lin Gui, guess what I saw over there?”
Lin Gui gave her a look that clearly said, Why are you playing games at a time like this?
Without waiting for him to guess, Theia couldn't hold it in anymore, her eyes shining slightly as she spoke.
“Gold coins! I saw tons of gold coins! And a massive pile of jewelry!”
“Huh???”
Following the direction Theia pointed, Lin Gui guided the raft over.
When they reached an open clearing in the forest, they indeed saw a vast amount of gold coins scattered across the grass.
At a rough glance, there were probably over ten thousand.
Not to mention the red and green gemstone jewelry mixed in with them.
After taking a closer look, Theia's excitement instantly vanished.
Lin Gui also raised an eyebrow, warily scanning their surroundings.
It was too quiet.
There wasn't a single demon in sight, which was incredibly anomalous.
And... right in the middle of the clearing, there was actually a group of people!
A crowd of ordinary people, dressed in once-luxurious but now ragged and filthy clothes, huddled together in terror, looking around fearfully.
“It's a trap,”
Elvia concluded in a flat tone.
“These people are likely the families of Caran nobles who fled when the city was besieged by demons.”
“Their Transcendent Rank guards probably abandoned these liabilities.”
Her analysis was cold but realistic.
Ordinary people would severely slow down their escape and consume precious resources.
More importantly, they couldn't execute concealment orders perfectly like trained warriors.
A single scent or an involuntary noise could expose the entire group.
Not everyone possessed a near-perfect, all-encompassing concealment technique like Lin Gui's 【Shroud of the Gloomy Night】.
“Let's go,” Elvia urged.
“We're still a long way from the Withered Rift. You don't want to spend the night in this forest, do you?”
Seeing that Lin Gui made no move, she couldn't help but mock him.
“What? Has our 'kind' Mage Lord developed a sudden wave of sympathy for these noble lords' families? Do you want to save them?”
She deliberately emphasized the word "kind," her tone dripping with sarcasm.
Theia also looked at Lin Gui with a trace of doubt.
Back in Audo Canyon, Lin Gui had indeed risked his life to save the City Lord's daughter and her group.
But this time was different. It was an obvious trap, and they didn't even know who the enemy was. Acting rashly would be far too dangerous.
As the core of the team, Lin Gui's decision would determine whether they lived or died.
Lin Gui remained silent, but he didn't leave either.
Instead, he controlled the raft to rise higher, beginning to search the surrounding area meticulously with the huddled crowd at the center.
Calculating the distance, he expanded his sensory range outward bit by bit.
Finally, in the shadow of a dense thicket of bushes in the distance,
he spotted an imp that was exceptionally well-hidden, almost completely blending into its environment!
Lin Gui's brow furrowed.
“Did you find something?” Theia asked.
“To lay a trap like this, its intelligence can't be low. It's at least a High-tier Hero Rank.”
Lin Gui said in a low voice.
“There's nothing in the sky, and no ambush in the surrounding trees.”
“There aren't many types of demons that excel at invisibility and concealment.”
“And to control the trap's range so precisely, using those humans as bait...”
“With its power distributed in a perfect circle...”
He paused, a flash of understanding crossing his eyes.
“Then the creature that set this trap is, in all probability, hiding underground.”
“And I just happen to know of a demon that perfectly fits all these characteristics...”
“Even its style of laying traps by exploiting greed and sympathy is identical.”
“It's a Brain-Digger Demon.”
“A cunning and cruel High-tier Hero Rank demon that especially loves to suck out the brains of intelligent creatures, particularly when they are experiencing intense emotions.”
“A Brain-Digger Demon?” Both Theia and Elvia looked utterly blank.
“Who cares what kind of demon it is!” Elvia snapped.
“Even if it were an Epic demon, what does that have to do with our journey to the Royal Capital? We can just bypass it! Surely you don't actually want to save those people, do you?”
She leaned in close to Theia's ear and lowered her voice.
“Hey, half-demon, talk some sense into this idiot do-gooder!”
“Tell him more about the awful things those nobles did back in Caran to disgust him. Tell him not to stick his nose where it doesn't belong!”
How did Elvia know for sure that those noble families weren't good people?
Because she came from the highest noble circles herself; she knew their true nature all too well.
During the Golden Age, the nobility exercised some restraint because the wilderness was safe, and commoners could generate a great deal of value.
Now, in the City-State Era, the wilderness had become a death trap, and the value of commoners had plummeted.
In the eyes of the nobles, allowing them to scrape by inside the cities was already an immense act of charity!
Compromising their own interests? Not kicking these 'city-state pests' out was already considered 'merciful'!
In such an environment, with the exception of a few rare anomalies, Elvia had never seen a noble who didn't look down on and abuse commoners.
Even she herself was no exception, though she was just less flagrant about it than others.
After all, she was royalty and still had some pride to maintain.
Theia frowned, casting a displeased glance at the woman who was egging her on instead of speaking up herself.
Although she detested how Elvia constantly called her a half-demon day in and day out,
she had to admit that the princess was right.
Theia cleared her throat. Recalling the clothing and vague facial features of the families below, she quickly matched them to people in her memory.
In a flat tone, she began to recount what she had witnessed with her own eyes:
“That old woman in the purple dress—last winter, because her carriage splashed a bit of muddy water onto her skirt, she had her guards beat the carriage driver's youngest son to death in the middle of the street.”
“That blonde kid huddled over there—last month, he was riding his horse recklessly through the streets and knocked over an elderly fruit vendor, scattering her fruit everywhere.”
“He felt she was in his way, so he had his horse trample right over her... The old woman didn't survive the night.”
“And that man wearing the silk vest—his factory had over a dozen workers torn apart. To save on compensation, he led men to drag the workers' families and dump them out in the wilderness...”
Theia's voice remained level. In her eyes, such occurrences were all too common in Caran.
The deaths of commoners were half due to hunger and cold, and half due to offending the nobility.
Rate on N.U.
