Chapter 265: Invitation

No wonder I got captured by the garden's creatures right away—what bad luck.

Bad luck? No no no, it was pure fortune. Being dragged into the Fear Field that day was the greatest stroke of luck in my life.

Luo De glanced at the dog-tribe girl.

A faint smile hid a trace of fanaticism.

You're seriously ill, Sharon.

The effect of 【Advanced Invisibility】 was still active.

The two followed the five stealthy students of Bahadur ahead.

They used a spell to burn through a section of the thorny vines serving as a fence, then crouched low and slipped into a courtyard filled with grotesque Blood Sui Trees.

Meanwhile.

【Tree's Blessing】 sent a prompt:

【The Blood Sui Tree has extended a mating invitation—do you accept?】

You're insane.

No.

As Luo De drew closer to the garden, he clearly felt the plants becoming increasingly active.

One older Blood Sui Tree split open a vertical mouth lined with sharp teeth on its trunk, turning the three female students ahead pale with terror.

Fortunately.

The garden's creatures were occupied with frontline combat, and no one had yet noticed a few intruders slipping in.

Clearly, they had also cast 【Advanced Invisibility】 on themselves, but its effect was nowhere near as strong as Sharon's 【Concealment Shu 】.

In truth, 【Advanced Invisibility】 wasn't a difficult spell to learn, and for mages, it wasn't even hard to detect—a simple reconnaissance spell would reveal it.

But its simplicity and ease of use had caused widespread chaos among ordinary people.

It had led to significant abuse of magic at the time.

Severe cases could even trigger magical disasters.

So nations including Aiselon had imposed some controls on the spread of simple, easy-to-learn invisibility spells.

But 【Concealment Shu 】 was different.

Luo De was no longer a magic novice.

This was an eighth-level spell—not something trivial.

"Be honest, Sharon. Even if your magical skill was mediocre before, you couldn't have improved this drastically in such a short time. Have you..."

Gained some kind of miracle?

Luo De didn't ask aloud—he suddenly realized that while miracles were rare in this world, such sudden power surges more closely resembled offering something to an unknown entity.

"You mean sacrifice?"

Sharon spoke it for him.

The dog-tribe girl looked like she was on a picnic, pulling a small fan from her spell satchel and fanning herself gently.

Suddenly she felt her shoes were getting in the way, but didn't want to touch the blood-soaked ground or bones.

So she had Luo De pick her up and performed a high-difficulty shoe-change without touching the ground.

"It's not as evil as you imagine... I'll tell you anyway. You asked what the plague mage Amel did to me. Well, you guessed right—he suddenly appeared and tried to implant a memory core into my mind."

Memory core?

Luo De's expression shifted slightly.

Over a month ago, they had raided the rat-tribe's underground city and encountered a man claiming to be Amel's disciple.

That man had carried Amel's memory core inside his head—Luo De had immediately killed him to avoid facing Amel again.

"So now what?"

Sharon laughed at his alarm.

"What are you thinking? I'm still Sharon! Amel saw my 【Plague Mark】 and fled like a ghost—he didn't even bother retrieving the memory core's contents. I spent time analyzing its structure and successfully absorbed most of Amel's knowledge and memories."

"So his memories haven't affected you at all?"

As she spoke,

The two maintained 【Concealment Shu 】 and followed the path burned open by the Bahadur students, officially entering the Plague Garden.

Almost instantly, nearby Blood Sui Trees extended vine-like tendrils, reaching for Luo De.

He swatted them away one by one.

Sharon pulled out a 【Frayed Disc】, placed it on the ground, then cast a spell to conceal it.

"Of course, do you feel I've changed since before?"

"Obviously—I only asked because the change is obvious."

Sharon rolled her eyes and had no intention of answering.

Watching the Blood Sui Trees desperately try to get close to Luo De,

she added: "So it's true—the garden has high affinity for you. I just can't figure out why this cosmic entity is so fond of you."

"Maybe because I spent so much time with Vivian—her tree-spirit's affinity for trees rubbed off on me."

Luo De shrugged, offering a clearly implausible excuse.

But she didn't drop the subject.

"Impossible. Even if a tree-spirit came here herself, she'd still be attacked by these things. Do you have some artifact or special physiology? Otherwise, why do I keep wanting to lick you?"

"Your dog genes are flaring up."

Luo De chuckled.

Then he pointed ahead.

"Look, they've stopped."

Through the thick spore-laden toxic mist of the garden, they could see the Bahadur students halted beside a pond.

The pond held yellow-green fecal sludge, with a few withered, mutated Blood Sui Trees growing along its edge—each with fleshy tumor-like growths at their base, resembling octopus tentacles, swaying lazily toward the sky.

Now look at the pond's center.

A gardener sat dozing in the water.

The gardener stood nearly three meters tall, his body covered in massive, piled-up tumors, sagging grotesquely like bulging fat.

Just by appearance, he was clearly dangerous.

Sharon cast 【See Through Invisibility】 on both of them, revealing the five students cautiously approaching the pond.

It looked like they were trying to collect water from it.

"Watch me."

Sharon raised her right hand, and a wave of oppressive pressure surged from her palm.

Luo De now saw clearly.

The dog-tribe girl wasn't using spiritual energy or magic—she was using aether.

Luo De didn't know how aether differed from magic derived from spiritual energy—his elf teacher's lessons hadn't covered extradimensional energy yet.

"Wait, what are you doing?"

"Of course—I'm drawing the attention of that fat gardener in the pond, so the garden focuses on these five little pests."

She picked up another 【Frayed Disc】, crouched on the ground, and repeated the procedure.

Her pants were clearly too small—Luo De's angle let him see a round, peach-like buttock.

He hadn't expected Sharon's upper body to be so slender while her rear was so plump.

"Destroying the garden requires setting up rituals—Amel's 【Frayed Disc】 spell is very convenient. But first, someone needs to draw attention so I can set up undisturbed."

"Huh? We stumbled upon these five students by accident. If we hadn't met them, how were you planning to lure them? Sharon, you didn't bring me here just to use them as bait, did you?"

She stuck out her tongue cutely.

Implicitly confirmed his suspicion.

Luo De raised an eyebrow.

Fine, fine, fine—you want to play tricks on me, huh?

You'll regret it.

But now wasn't the time for pettiness—focus on the bigger picture.

"Don't use your spell—the two seventh-rankers ahead might notice."

"Then how?"

Luo De placed his hand on a nearby Blood Sui Tree.

It was cool at first, then rapidly heated up, trembling slightly.

"..."

Why does this tree react like Vivian does when she's aroused—heat and trembling?

He shook his head, dismissing the thought.

He used 【Tree's Blessing】 to send a message:

【Tell the brothers by the pond to swing their tendrils and sweep those five things into the water.】

(End of Chapter)