Chapter 130: The High Cliff by the Sea: Magic Method Laboratory (22)

The high cliff by the sea.

The cliff curves inward, forming a hidden and safe sheltering bay.

Just beneath the water near the bay's entrance, Luosen and Lartelis lie hidden.

In the water, the silent Crystal Wall spell's concealment effect is set to maximum.

It acts like a black hole, perfectly masking the two's power aura while still allowing external scents to enter.

Thus, the pair can stay within the Crystal Wall, safely using spells to detect the outside situation.

At this moment, Lartelis is employing Pure Water Divination to probe the bay's interior.

Luosen, of course, has also learned the technique, though he is not yet proficient; he now uses the Soul Bridge to instantly share Lartelis's divination results.

Guided by the pure water, Luosen sees the bay's interior with great clarity.

The whole bay is oval, about 500 meters wide and over 800 meters deep; the space is not large, yet it crams two sailing warships each over 70 meters long.

Although the hulls are wooden, many critical parts are reinforced with iron armor, giving them a fierce and majestic appearance.

Around the bay, along the steep cliffs, simple structures of various styles are hastily erected with gray cement and planks.

Many people are visible, totaling over 1,200.

All are warriors clad in standard leather armor, with average strength above intermediate, wielding fine weapons.

Most of the battle‑chi warriors carry steel crossbows, likely repeating crossbows.

Another portion, about a third, are battle mages whose weapons are not staffs but rune fire guns!

These rune fire guns are naturally less exquisite than Queen Kao's, and their power is certainly far inferior.

Nevertheless, they must not be underestimated.

Because there are so many, the camp likely holds over five hundred of them.

Luosen winces: 'Levinde still has too much money!'

These days, fire guns are new weapons; the fact that all these battle mages are equipped with them shows they are Levinde's elite troops.

They also conceal their official status in a "cover‑your‑ears and steal the bell" manner, indicating they are involved in shady deeds.

Where is the laboratory, then? The pure water quickly tells Luosen.

It is hidden inside a natural cavern at the bay's deepest side.

Obviously, the captured succubus is locked inside, and the Succubus King is probably there as well.

But the defenses outside the bay are already high; the laboratory inside the bay is naturally even more fortified.

Sneaking in silently to rescue them is extremely difficult.

Luosen thinks for a moment and gets an idea.

"Lili, can you contact your mother? I mean, can you let her know you've arrived and have her cooperate with us as much as possible?"

Given the current situation, a forceful approach is impossible; the only way is to infiltrate quietly.

The safest infiltration method is with inside assistance.

Lartelis ponders briefly, then nods lightly: "I can use Blood‑Kin Resonance to secretly inform my mother."

She adds: "It is a spell that combines mind and pure water, extremely secret, and should not be sensed by non‑kin."

After speaking, she closes her eyes, lowers her head, presses her palms together at her chest, and silently casts.

As the spell runs, Luosen sees her palms enveloped by a blood‑red flowing light.

The light radiates outward in all directions; after spreading about thirty centimeters, it vanishes into the flowing water.

After ten seconds, the spell ends and Lartelis slowly speaks.

"I've reached my mother; she's not doing well—her magical power is restrained, her body injured, but fortunately she's not in immediate danger."

"She told me she's imprisoned in a sturdy cage forged with premium resources, and a very powerful Six Rings Frost Mage is beside her, and they're conversing."

Luosen's mind flashes: "Six Rings Frost Mage? What's his name?"

"I'll have my mother try to find out."

Lartelis pauses, then nods: "His name is Lafengge."

Luosen feels a slight chill: 'Ha—there's such a big fish in the laboratory!'

Frost Envoy Lafengge, the Levinde Royal Family's Guardian Sage.

He has now ascended to Six Rings, becoming a Guardian Saint.

He's quite a remarkable figure!

He guards the royal family, even slept with the queen, gave the king a cuckold's hat, and pushed his own son onto the throne! Now he himself has touched the Six Rings, becoming a Law Saint—truly a peerless prodigy.

Having such a person as the head of this secret Magic Method Laboratory makes matters even more thorny.

Conversely, it shows the laboratory is extremely valuable, surely hiding highly precious magical knowledge.

Not only to rescue, Luosen covets this trove of knowledge.

At the same time, he is very interested in Lafengge himself.

Because this fellow is essentially Levinde's supreme ruler.

After pondering, he says: "Lili, have your mother steady Lafengge, draw his attention, and keep him from wandering."

"Alright."

"My mother says she'll try her best, but Lafengge is very cunning; she doesn't know how long she can hold him."

Given that, they must accelerate their actions.

Luosen thinks and says: "Lili, go back and send a batch of your sisters to fly over, drawing the bay's warriors' attention from afar; I'll slip in amid the chaos."

Lartelis can think of no better plan, nods and says: "Lord, you must be very careful."

"Will do, go ahead without worry."

Lartelis turns and silently swims away from the water's depths, while Luosen carefully continues his underwater advance, finally hiding beneath a small wooden boat on the shore.

After a while, he heard the wailing of a harpy coming from the sky in the distance, not too far nor too near, about one or two thousand meters away.

The sound was extremely sharp, and naturally very grating.

The garrison in the bay was instantly alarmed.

Luosen heard shouts coming from overhead.

"Alert—Alert~~The harpies are coming to rescue their queen~~"

"Goo-dong~ Goo-dong~~"

The warriors ran across the dock planks, quickly taking up combat positions.

"Sir, shall we engage?"

"Sir, the number isn't large—just a dozen or so." "We'll wait until they get closer, but I doubt they'll dare to approach, haha~~"

"Mages, any way to shut these noisy women up?"

"Too far away, sir."

Amid the chaotic chatter, Luosen seized an opening, transformed himself beneath the water into the likeness of a Levinde battle mage, and then used the chance to flip onto the shore.

On the shore was a dock, half made of concrete and the other half of wooden planks.

Because the bay's terrain is complex, the structures built along it are stacked in layers, extremely intricate, with many blind spots.

This greatly facilitated Luosen.

Since only a dozen or so harpies arrived and were still far away, they didn't cause much chaos.

There are over a thousand warriors in the bay, but only a few dozen are on guard, and most of them haven't even moved from their posts.

Some warriors are chatting, some are patrolling, and some are hiding in corners smoking.

Luosen used the Ten Rings‑powered secret Transformation Technique, taking the form of a junior officer.

He walked the whole way without arousing any suspicion, and even received numerous salutes.

As he walked, he observed; whenever he reached an open area, he covertly placed a Detect Guard sigil.

All the observed information was fed to Laifu's Heart of the War God, which then analyzed the optimal combat strategy.

If his cover were blown, Luosen would hand the combat authority over to the Heart of the War God, making survival his top priority.

Fortunately, his luck was good.

He walked all the way to the innermost cave entrance of the high seaside cliff without drawing any special attention.

Forty‑plus meters ahead lay the cave entrance, which had a dedicated guard outpost.

Besides a High-Level Warrior stationed on each side of the gate, many elevated defensive posts were also set up nearby.

Anyone attempting to breach the checkpoint would instantly be met with a swarm attack from over twenty warriors, ten of whom wield rune‑fire rifles as battle mages.

Luosen walked over and saw someone using that contraption for target practice.

Estimating its power, the strength was roughly early Five Rings level.

Naturally, it's far inferior to the queen Kao's fine stuff, but it makes up for it in quantity; once surrounded, it's truly dangerous.

It can't be entered by Invisibility Spell.

Because the Invisibility Spell only works for bullying ordinary people.

In such a highly guarded place, the mana fluctuations of the Invisibility Spell would be detected immediately.

Optically it's invisible, but mana‑wise it's about the same as brandishing a torch.

Luosen leaned against an inconspicuous stone wall corner, lit a simple unfiltered roll‑up he'd found on the road, 'puff‑puff', pretended to smoke, and pondered a reasonable way to enter the cave.

At that moment, he suddenly noticed a squad of warriors in leather aprons emerging from a wooden house in the distance.

There were over twenty warriors, each pushing a small wooden cart bearing a large wooden barrel.

Steaming water vapor rose from the barrel lid's cracks, accompanied by a strong aroma of food.

They pushed the carts toward the cave's main gate.

They were kitchen warriors delivering meals to the laboratory inside the cave.

Because ventilation inside the cave is poor, preparing meals outside and bringing them in is normal, but it made Luosen's eyes light up.

He immediately went over, stood in a narrow corridor with poor visibility, and waited patiently.

Soon, the food cart passed through the corridor.

Luosen seized the moment and took the place of the last food‑delivery warrior.

As for the original warrior, he was knocked unconscious and tossed into a corner to hide.

He pushed the cart all the way to the cave's main gate without trouble.

He could see various detection devices installed on the gate.

As he passed the gate, Luosen felt a bit uneasy, ready to make a run for it at any moment.

Fortunately, his carefully developed secret Transformation Technique passed the test and didn't trigger the devices' alarms.

He entered the cave safely.

The cave was very bright, its defenses unusually tight; each corner had a guard post of four High-Level Warriors—a veritable dragon‑and‑tiger lair.

Fortunately, even the strongest warriors need to eat, so the passage was unobstructed.

Luosen walked while quietly imprinting a Detect Guard sigil near every corner.

In open areas, one can be swarmed by human‑wave tactics; no matter how strong an individual is, it's extremely perilous.

But inside a cave with complex terrain and many blind spots, it's the perfect setting for an individual's strength to shine.

Thus, this cave is Luosen's home ground.

Besides the Detect Guard, he also used his newly mastered pure‑water knowledge to quietly sense the flow of vapor inside the cave, determining its internal layout.

This sensing ability naturally can't match Lartelis, who's been immersed for centuries, but with Ten Rings‑enhanced sensitivity, the gap isn't large.

As he walked, Luosen suddenly saw the cave where the harpies were imprisoned.

It is a very large room, with rows and rows of special round cages made of thick iron bars.

The demonesses were locked in the cages, their hands bound to the kryptonium clasps on top of the cages, their waists and legs also tightly shackled with the same manacles, leaving them unable to move except to stay standing.

There were a great many round cages, over two hundred of them, and almost each one held a demoness.

At a glance, one saw black iron, white flesh, blue long hair, and faces filled with despair and fear.

What shocked Luosen even more was that he discovered half of the demonesses had swollen bellies, appearing to be pregnant.

"Let the demonesses bear children to deeply study bloodline inheritance, so as to achieve a more perfect bloodline disguise, Lafengge?"

Luosen roughly guessed the thoughts of this frost envoy.

After walking a while, they arrived at the cavern restaurant's location, and the soldiers began pushing the food carts into the restaurant.

Luosen also gained a firm grasp of the cavern's terrain, and vaguely sensed the approximate location of Lily's mother.

He found a suitable opportunity, quietly slipped away from the food cart team, followed the passage, and sneaked over.

"The situation has basically been figured out; it's time to act!"

Luosen rarely kills, because in many situations there is no need to kill,.

His lordly status, with a little manipulation, could turn the other party into a friend and create wealth for him.

But when needed, he strikes without any hesitation.

(End of chapter)