He wandered around the area for a bit before ultimately deciding not to stay. He would head down the mountain to look for the other players.
After all, he had no idea that the specter had already been repelled by Zhang Tinglei, and he was still rather terrified of being left all alone.
“There are campfires at the bottom of the mountain. I'll go check over there.”
Standing near the edge of the cliff, he looked down and spotted two... no, three campfires.
Zuo Lin'an, however, knew exactly who those three campfires belonged to.
One was occupied by the father-son duo, Jin Qianwen and Jin Youwu, along with Zhou Shan.
Another belonged to Zhang Tinglei, General Zhong Cheng, and Liu Baixu.
The third actually belonged to the three ordinary men who had never practiced martial arts.
As for the four women who had split from Liu Baixu, they had already found a cave to rest in. While they had naturally lit a campfire as well, it was hidden from the view of anyone standing on the mountain peak.
There was also another campfire near the edge of the white mist, belonging to the two female disciples from Mount Yinxian. But at such a distance, he naturally couldn't see it either.
He looked down at the wild pheasant in his hand, its neck already snapped.
“I'd better head down the mountain. If I run into a powerful senior, I'll tell them everything I saw earlier in exchange for protection.”
“Preferably that senior of the Xiantian Rank...”
Mumbling to himself, he turned around and began to make his way down the mountain.
“What I saw earlier should be an extremely important secret, no matter who hears it.”
Though he wasn't particularly clever, his mind functioned normally. After all, he was a martial artist who had reached the Third-Rate Rank, even if he could be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes.
Since waking up, he hadn't faced any more attacks, and this period of peace had been more than enough for him to calm down.
Now that his head was clear, he had the spare energy to carefully ponder the scenes he had witnessed earlier, as well as the attack he had suffered afterward.
At that thought, he raised his hand to rub his head, but quickly lowered it again.
Nourished by his true qi, the superficial injuries had long since healed.
Now, there was only the occasional throb of pain.
“What exactly was that rock...”
At this point, he even suspected that the rock had been thrown by the specter.
But...
He also knew that specters only attacked players using rules. As for any other methods of attack, let alone seeing them, he had never even heard of such a thing!
“Still, how did that unconscious player the specter used to trick us get there in the first place?”
He felt quite puzzled by this.
“If the specter didn't knock him out, why did he lose consciousness? And why was he being carried around by the specter to lure us into attacking?”
He carefully weighed the possibilities before ultimately giving up in frustration.
Because he realized his strength was simply too lacking.
Even if he could deduce something, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it on his own.
“This information isn't of much value to me anyway, since I can't repel the specter myself. I'd better find the others as soon as possible...”
Zuo Lin'an's God's-eye view proved incredibly useful.
He easily overheard every word of this man's ramblings.
He frowned slightly. “It seems things are about to slip out of my control.”
The player had spotted three campfires from the peak and had picked one at random to head toward.
As luck would have it, the campfire he chose happened to be the one where Zhang Tinglei was resting.
Zuo Lin'an sighed.
“Forget it. Under the current circumstances, there's nothing I can do to stop it anyway.”
“Let's see what Zhang Tinglei does once he gets his hands on this information.”
If worst came to worst, he could always just keep lying low.
In any case, he had already gained an unsolvable specter. For him, this dungeon run was already a profitable endeavor.
After some time, the night grew deep and dark.
Hurrying as fast as he could, the man finally reached the vicinity of the campfire.
“Who goes there!”
Zhong Cheng stood up and peered into the darkness, only to see a familiar face.
“Someone from the Martial Alliance?”
The man bowed and scraped obsequiously.
“Yes, yes! I'm Wu Zhao, a disciple of the Martial Alliance. I mean no harm.”
Zhong Cheng frowned. “Why are you alone?”
He recalled there being three people from the Martial Alliance earlier.
One was in the Second-Rate Rank, and two were in the Third-Rate Rank. How was there only one left now?
Had they encountered a specter?
But hadn't the specter already been repelled by Zhang Tinglei?
Or could it be...
Zhong Cheng wondered if the three had turned on each other, but quickly dismissed the thought. Things hadn't deteriorated to that point yet.
This meant that Wu Zhao and the others had most likely encountered the specter before Zhang Tinglei had repelled it.
If that was the case, then it was purely a stroke of terrible luck.
Upon realizing the newcomer was from the Martial Alliance, Zhang Tinglei grew interested.
The original trio had dwindled to just one, and the man looked as though he had come seeking refuge.
There were generally two possibilities.
Either the three of them had a falling out and parted ways...
...or the other two were dead.
As far as he knew, only the newly born unsolvable specter had killed a player so far.
He had been wondering which idiot had killed a player and triggered the creation of the unsolvable specter.
Now, it seemed he was about to get his answer.
Faced with Zhong Cheng's question, Wu Zhao couldn't help but recall what had transpired earlier.
“I... well, you see.”
“It's a bit complicated...”
He stammered, clearly hesitant.
“I do know a few things, but I'm sure you understand how dangerous this dungeon is, General. Right now, I have nowhere else to go. If only I could find a safe place to stay...”
Zhong Cheng naturally understood what he was getting at.
Wu Zhao wanted to stay here, but... that wasn't for him to decide.
He turned back to look at Zhang Tinglei and saw the other man nod in approval.
Only then did Zhong Cheng reply, “If you want to stay, then stay.”
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
Zhong Cheng gestured for him to come over. “Come, sit down. Have some food and water, and then you can tell us the story slowly.”
He was actually quite hungry himself. He had caught a wild pheasant earlier, but since he hadn't found anyone when he went up the mountain, he hadn't eaten it there.
Now was the perfect time to eat and talk.
Wu Zhao casually tossed the dead pheasant aside and picked up a couple of pieces of roasted meat to eat.
Perhaps realizing that food was scarce in this dungeon, he refrained from eating too much at once.
“It happened like this...”
After taking a few bites to temporarily stave off his hunger, he finally began his tale.
“At the time, my big brother, my junior brother, and I were searching for food at the foot of the mountain.”
“We never expected to suddenly run into the specter.”
At this point, he frowned slightly.
“The very moment we saw it, we realized something was wrong. The specter looked completely limp, its head hanging down over its chest, yet its body was stiff as it floated there silently.”
“In any other environment, we definitely wouldn't have been fooled. But the freezing aura surrounding the area was so overwhelming that the three of us made a critical error in judgment.”
In truth, it was because the specter's sudden appearance had sent them into an absolute panic.
He had nearly wet himself from fright.
Of course, he couldn't possibly admit that now.
Rate on N.U.
