Chapter 429: Advancement and Demons

Rod followed the mother and daughter as they hurried forward.

Very quickly.

The demon's signature sulfur smell came rushing toward them in the poorly ventilated cave.

They saw the Land Naga and the Scattered Tower Lin people frantically dealing with a mixed horde of demons — Thorn Demons, Hedgehog Demons, Shadow Demons, Cackling Demons, and the like.

Lady Lilian was the first to cast.

Light of magic flared simultaneously from her exquisite headdress and ancient staff, then formed behind her a faint ancestral spirit phantom woven of pale blue mist.

Fwoosh!

A massive surge of blue torrent gushed forth.

The torrent stood like a pillar.

The deep, grating roar of magic lit up the pitch-black cave in an instant.

Its power was equally formidable, punching straight through the chitinous armor of the Cackling Demon — a demonized, giant hornet-like creature.

The spell's power was a touch excessive: not only did it blast the Cackling Demon clean in half at the waist, splashing green blood across a wall, it also smashed a huge crater into the cave's rock face.

This surprised both the demons present and the Scattered Tower Lin people.

Especially the Scattered Tower Lin people — aside from the two half-beasts hacking away furiously, the rest of them visibly paled.

The quality of that magic was already at the level of a high-stage seventh-tier.

Her spell attacks had always been brutally fierce; producing a magic torrent like that with such ease meant she surely had even stronger tricks.

Earlier they had assumed the Land Naga had only one seventh-tier mid-stage mage, easy to handle — even pulling a bridge-burning stunt afterward wouldn't be a problem.

Now it seemed the Naga's priestess magic truly had its terrifying aspects.

"Eh?"

Lady Lilian herself was stunned — that smooth, with results that good?

Casting was faster too, and even the magic consumption was lower.

What was going on?

Eve drew weapons in all four arms, twisted her torso, and hurled a ruby-tipped long spear in one motion, skewering two Hedgehog Demons together.

She laughed: "Truly worthy of Mother — her priestess magic has improved again."

"Mm, coming out on this trip, my communion with the ancestral spirits has actually grown closer."

Even as Lady Lilian said it, she herself wasn't sure.

Logically speaking, their ancestral tomb lay in the Mirror Desert; coming all the way to Axe Beach in the Sword Bay region should have weakened her communion with the ancestral spirits by some five to ten percent.

So why had it strengthened so much now?

I haven't even really meditated or practiced these past few days.

Not only have I not meditated, I've spent two days in a row with a man—

Lady Lilian suddenly froze.

As if something had occurred to her, her sandalwood lips parted slightly and she let out an unconscious murmur: "Ah— could it be that thing with little Rod?"

"What?"

Her eldest daughter, guarding at her side, seemed to have caught something; the scythes in her four arms whirled like a cyclone, reaping demon lives.

"Nothing — focus on the fight!"

"Yes, Mother!"

Lady Lilian hurriedly pressed down the guess in her heart.

She couldn't think about it anymore.

The moment the name Rod surfaced in her mind, the scenes from those two nights in the tent began to rise up, all sticky and tangled.

Not in the middle of combat — that would easily disrupt her casting focus.

She forced herself to get serious, and her concentration immediately rose.

In an instant.

In the still-roomy cave, spells flew everywhere — Fire Blades, Acid Arrows, Sticky Spheres, Shock Pearls, and more.

Although none of these spells were particularly high-tier, there were plenty of them, and combined with Lady Lilian's fast casting speed and the boost from her magic tier, they packed a punch.

More often than not, every time one of those spells hit a demon, it killed it.

Eve watched her mother slowly rise, blue-white light shining from her eyes — holy and radiant.

Behind her, an ancestral spirit phantom continued to take shape, more solid than ever before.

She couldn't help feeling envious.

This was something she had always longed for but never obtained.

In her twenty-eight years of life, communion with the ancestral spirits had never descended upon her even once.

Though people often said the multi-armed Naga were proof of noble blood, she had hit high-stage sixth-tier three months ago and made no progress since — making that saying look like a joke.

And that one breakthrough had only happened because she'd spent several days tangled up with that so-called master in the forest.

"It must be that damned Nu Yi Zhou messing with my head — I actually misheard Mother calling that man's name just now. What the hell."

Eve shook her head.

Clear away the stray thoughts.

Seeing the other tribesfolk fall back to her mother's side, she began to cut her way forward.

The weapons in her four arms moved like ocean waves, swinging so densely not even wind could pass.

Blood, sulfur stench, severed limbs, scalding entrails.

Fighting demons was always this absurdly brutal.

Before long.

The demons in the cave were quickly cleared by a quarter.

Eve, focused entirely on charging and killing, also arrived at the cliff's cave entrance.

Just then, a boom rang out not far from the cave entrance.

It was clearly the tremor of a heavy object hitting the ground.

Eve, with her rich combat experience, immediately locked onto the direction the tremor came from.

She turned her head to look, only to find nothing there but dust kicked up into the air.

"Invisibility spell."

She judged it in an instant, and was about to activate the magic ring in her hand that detected invisibility.

However, just before that.

A fierce gust of wind had already swept in from the side.

Eve's face changed.

The powerful force carried by the gale, like a battering ram, looked about to slam into her head.

Suddenly.

She felt as if she had been lifted, her whole body shifting back by a full body's length.

The gale swept past her delicate Gao Ting nose, just barely missing it entirely.

Eve instinctively glanced back.

Her companions behind her were all some distance away, and her mother was still focused on killing enemies—what was this?

"This—"

【What's with this 'this'—another one coming from the right.】

A voice of magic from a messaging spell entered her mind.

Eve immediately slithered her strong, powerful serpentine body, and, nearly grazing the ground, dodged another fierce punch of wind.

Hearing that familiar voice, she was also quite surprised that so much excitement welled up inside her.

"It's you! Ro—"

【Don't call my name. Eve, did you miss me?】

Rod laughed in the shadows and sent the message.

"How did you know I was here?"

【Hearts aligned, I suppose. I thought about you and found you.】

Tally in the shadows clicked her tongue, rolled her eyes, and said to the air in a sarcastic tone, "Hearts aligned, huh"—her master was too shameless, flirting without even bothering to hide it from her.

Eve crushed the magic ring that detected invisibility.

The magical glow spread over the cave, and a red-furred, green-skinned demon ape over two meters tall was revealed.

Judging by its rank, peak of the sixth tier.

"Cut the useless chatter, come out and help me cut this thing down," Eve said bluntly.

【For certain reasons, I can't show myself for now. Besides, this thing is pretty weak.】

As he spoke.

The demon ape over there flew into a rage, pounding its chest and roaring, and actually spoke in a not-quite-standard Common Continental Tongue.

"Santalin! Where's the thing we wanted!"

Just as Lady Lilian and Eve, mother and daughter, had guessed, the demons here were indeed at odds with their cooperation with Santalin.

(End of this chapter)