Lin Gui cast a speechless glance at the two women.
How could he possibly feel any sympathy for nobles?
After all, he was the one who had personally thrown the minor nobles of Caran who opposed the new policy straight into the demon hordes.
Steering the wooden raft, Lin Gui left this troublesome place and returned to their original route.
He pulled out the map of the borderlands from the wooden crate, spread it open, and said,
“The natural habitat of the Brain-Digger Demon is the desert.”
“The forest soil is damp, and the elemental energy it contains makes their skin extremely uncomfortable.”
“Though not fatal, it is highly unpleasant for them.”
“Therefore, without a very specific reason, they would never leave the desert to venture into a forest.”
Theia caught his drift.
“Are you saying... it shouldn't be here? By the way, Lin Gui, how do you know so much about this demon?”
Lin Gui replied flatly,
“Because in another place, a long time ago, I almost had my brains sucked dry by one.”
Centering on the Whispering Forest, he traced his finger across the map, trying to locate any potential desert regions.
A gust of wind blew, rustling the map.
A few Transcendent demons had just passed by, and since he was keeping the 【Shroud of the Gloomy Night】 active, he didn't dare make any large movements.
He was about to ask Theia to help hold down the map.
This thing had cost him 1,420 gold coins; it was incredibly expensive.
Before he could speak, a fair hand reached over.
It grabbed the map and held it firmly against the wooden board in front of him.
It was Elvia.
Her expression was solemn as her fingers moved quickly across the map.
She meticulously searched for any signs of a desert around the Whispering Forest.
“I hope this thing just got lost and ended up in the wrong place...” she muttered.
However, the climate of the borderlands was mild, and arid regions were extremely rare.
After scanning the map, she couldn't find a single decent desert.
There weren't even any small patches of arid wasteland.
And a demon nearing the Legendary Rank would absolutely never nest in such tiny wastelands.
Elvia's face gradually grew pale.
Finally, her finger stopped on an area labeled "Red Clay Desert".
This desert was far beyond the borders of the borderlands!
Its straight-line distance from the Whispering Forest was over nine hundred and eighty kilometers!
This could not possibly be an accidental detour. It was a purposeful migration!
Lin Gui's gaze instantly darkened.
The Red Clay Desert was the only path from New Covenant City to the Magic City.
It was there that he had encountered this kind of demon and nearly lost his life.
Shortly after Lin Gui's raft vanished, concealed deep within the woods,
the "baits" at the center of the trap on the grassy clearing below remained steeped in overwhelming fear and despair.
Several men and women, dressed in once-luxurious but now muddy and torn clothes, huddled together, shivering.
A plump old man chewed on his fingernails neurotically, muttering under his breath.
“...Officer Bob... Officer Bob and the others will definitely come back to save us... They just went ahead to scout the way... Yes, scout the way...”
Beside him, a noblewoman whose makeup was smudged, revealing fine wrinkles, shoved him hard and shrieked,
“Scout the way? What scouting!”
“They abandoned us and fled! They ran off with the last of our rations and all the guards!”
“Leaving us to rot in this demon den!”
“That bastard Bob! He took so many gold coins from our family! How did he swear back then to keep us safe?!”
Her words triggered even more painful memories.
A frail young man clutched his head, his voice cracking with tears.
“This whole way... escaping from Caran... so many people have died... The carriage broke down, monsters chased us... Count Lister's family was torn to shreds by demons... Sir John suddenly vanished during his night watch, leaving nothing but a pool of blood...”
“And those monsters that kept popping out of nowhere!”
Another noblewoman wrapped her arms around herself in terror.
“We were clearly following the safe route map we paid a fortune for from the 'Blood Wolf' adventure group!”
“How could there be so many demons?! Those damn adventurers lied to us!”
“Shut up! Stop talking about those filthy commoner adventurers!”
“Look at yourselves!” the fat man growled irritously, pointing at several female relatives huddling together.
Their faces were already stained with tears, and their jewelry lay scattered across the ground, completely ignored.
“If you hadn't dragged your feet insisting on bringing these useless trinkets, we would have already...”
His words cut off abruptly.
Because everyone felt the ground beneath their feet... tremble slightly.
Fear quickly fermented, turning into mutual accusations and resentment.
“It's all your fault! Insisting on bringing so much heavy jewelry! You slowed us down!”
“Bullshit! It was your idiot son's screaming that drew the demons!”
“It was your family who insisted on taking this route!”
“You were the ones who suggested bringing those injured servants! Otherwise, we could have made it out!”
The argument quickly escalated, and someone initiated a shove.
Before long, these noble lords and ladies, who usually lived in pampered luxury and prided themselves on their "elegant" decorum,
were rolling on the ground, brawling like street shrews, tearing at each other's hair and clothes.
They cursed each other with the most vicious words imaginable.
Gold coins and jewelry were trampled into the mud, completely forgotten.
Just as they were exposing their ugliest sides, completely consumed by fear and rage,
Pfft!
A few soft squelches, like wet mud breaking open, echoed.
Several slimy, dark purple tentacles covered in bizarre suckers and patterns
erupted without warning from the earth beneath their feet!
The brawling and cursing stopped instantly.
Everyone froze in place, their blood turning to ice from absolute terror.
Slowly and stiffly, they lowered their heads,
staring at the cold tentacles wrapping around their ankles and calves.
“Ugh... ah...” The fat man tried to scream, but only a wheezing gasp escaped his throat.
“No... please... I beg of you...”
The rage on the noblewoman's face dissolved into absolute begging, tears and snot streaming down her face.
“Anyone... please save us... We can give you money... so much money...”
But any pleas or promises were already too late.
The tentacles suddenly tightened, dragging them to the ground.
At the same time, the tips of the tentacles hardened and sharpened.
They aimed straight for the backs of their heads and stabbed in mercilessly!
With a soft "pop," like a cork being pulled,
and after a brief, violent spasm, all struggling and pleading ceased.
Their eyes bulged wide, their pupils dilated.
The extreme terror and disbelief they felt right before death remained frozen on their faces.
Yet, their bodies shriveled up at a speed visible to the naked eye.
A moment later, the tentacles retreated underground,
leaving behind several empty husks of skin that collapsed limply onto the glittering gold coins and jewelry,
creating a grotesque and terrifying scene.
Not far away, the ground swelled slightly.
An unspeakable creature slowly emerged from the earth, exposing a portion of its body.
It had no visible eyes, only a gaping maw lined with concentric rings of densely packed, razor-sharp fangs.
Thick fluid still dripped from the edges of its mouthparts.
Its sensory organ—or rather, its head—
slowly turned toward the direction where Lin Gui's raft had vanished, pausing for a moment.
Then, it noiselessly sank back into the earth, as if it had never been there at all.
It left behind only the scattered wealth on the grass, and those few once-illustrious corpses that were rapidly swallowed by the dead silence of the forest.
Rate on N.U.
