Chapter 50

Lead-colored clouds hung low, and thunder rumbled in the sky.

The black-robed man squatted beside the corpse broken into two halves and roughly tore open the cargo bag with withered fingers.

After a thorough search, the black-robed man simply grabbed the last half of the bag and shook it violently, dumping everything onto the muddy ground.

Other attackers also gathered one after another, dumping the contents of the other three cargo bags together.

Eight black-robed men squatted on the ground, searching earnestly as if looking for soybeans in a pile of rice.

However, they hadn't found what they wanted.

One in the middle irritably crushed a crystal in his hand on the spot; the other black-robed men on both sides retreated one after another, not knowing whether to avoid the flying fragments or the leader's anger.

"Not here... not here... not here, not here! Why is it not here?"

The suppressed voice was wrapped in anger, but what was spoken wasn't human language.

"The information can't be wrong, and these low-class humans couldn't have discovered the anomaly so quickly; there must be something wrong somewhere!"

"My lord," a black-robed man next to him stepped forward and reminded him carefully, "could it be on the corpses?"

"Then what are you wasting your breath for? Why don't you go find it!"

"Yes, yes!" Several black-robed men scattered in panic to find the other three corpses.

Ten minutes later, all the attackers arrived at the initial ambush site, looking at the blood-stained arrow on the ground.

The leader picked up the arrow and said softly: "Avina?"

One of the black-robed men immediately knelt down and defended himself hurriedly: "Lord Lacus, I swear that arrow absolutely pierced his heart!"

"Then how do you explain this?" The arrow was pressed against Avina's forehead, as if it would pierce in the next second.

Avina didn't dare to move, and could only tremble and beg for a chance:

"H... he must have other life-saving means; I can track him! Please, my lord, let me make up for my mistake!"

After a brief but suffocating silence, the arrow was stuck into the mud in front of Avina.

"Chase! If you can't find what the superiors want, just wait to become blood-livestock."

Hearing the words "blood-livestock," not only Avina, but even the other black-robed men shuddered together and hurriedly replied:

"Yes!"

————

Drizzling raindrops hit the forest, Dylan's boot soles sank into the pile of rotten leaves, and every time he lifted his foot, it brought up thick mud.

He leaned against a big tree, bent over, and panted, trying to calm his violently heaving chest.

Running wildly for more than ten minutes, his physical strength had almost bottomed out.

Becoming a half-mushroom man didn't improve his attributes, but his heart didn't hurt much anymore.

No movement was found behind him; he might have shaken off those attackers, or maybe they didn't even notice he had run away?

Dylan found a small slope with cover, intending to take shelter from the wind and rain here.

In fact, raindrops falling on Dylan's face felt quite comfortable, but it would be uncomfortable if his clothes were soaked.

And he still had this book in his hand...

Right, this book!

Dylan brought the book in front of him, stroking the wrinkles on the cover.

What exactly was written in this book?

When Dylan thought this, he naturally opened it.

Blank—blank—blank—

On the leather pages... there was nothing?

Dylan quickly flipped through the pages to the end, but couldn't find a single note.

So, is this a new book with nothing written in it?

It was a waste of effort that I didn't throw it away even when I was running away.

Dylan thought this, but suddenly discovered that a line of delicate small characters had appeared on the page at some point.

[Not running anymore? You'll be caught, you know!]

After seeing the words clearly, Dylan instantly felt a chill on the back of his neck.

There was indeed no shortage of high-level magic items with a certain degree of intelligence in this world.

For example, magic rings that could autonomously cast shields, golems that could identify whether someone was an intruder.

But almost all of them only had vague or relatively low-level intelligence.

And when a creation could talk to you, there must be one material that was indispensable when making it—

Soul!

Although it's not to say that soul items are equivalent to evil, given its cruel production method, its creator is likely not a kind person, and the possibility of making dangerous items is naturally higher.

For a moment, several horror stories related to soul items flashed through Dylan's mind.

He immediately wanted to throw it away.

But that line of words made him very concerned.

What does it mean?

Are those black-robed men still chasing him?

In the end, Dylan opened the book again, but the words on it had changed!

[Six minutes left]

"What does six minutes left mean?" Dylan asked the book directly.

As soon as he finished speaking, the previous handwriting disappeared, and a new row of handwriting emerged.

[Five minutes left, they'll be here]

!!!

Not daring to delay, Dylan rushed into the rain and continued to run for his life.

He wasn't sure if this book was lying to him, but the current situation was, better safe than sorry!

Rainwater hit his body, soaking his clothes, but it couldn't wet the book in his hand; any water stains couldn't soak into its pages.

While running, Dylan opened the book, wanting to ask something else, but found that there was already a line of words on it.

[You can't escape like this, run in the southeast direction]

Dylan had no other choice now; he quickly identified the direction and fled toward the southeast.

He didn't know how long he had been running; when his strength was about to be exhausted, Dylan's feet suddenly went empty.

"Wahhhhh—"

His whole person suddenly lost weight, rolling and falling into the deep pit beneath his feet...

————

"Is this it?"

Beside the deep pit, the black-robed man called Lacus asked behind him.

Avina stepped forward two steps to confirm:

"Yes, although I don't know why the prey suddenly gave up resting and chose to continue running.

But judging from his last footprints, his physical strength has bottomed out; he might have slipped and fallen down in a daze."

Turning his head to look at the deep pit in front of him, Lacus jumped in without hesitation, and the other black-robed men followed closely behind.

At the bottom of the deep pit, Lacus landed lightly, his boot edges not even causing a ripple.

His subordinates' landing posture wasn't as elegant; several of them smashed mud pits into the ground, but fortunately, no idiot dared to splash mud onto Lacus's robe.

What appeared in front of the black-robed men was a natural cave.

These wild natural caves were far inferior to the caves inside the dungeon in terms of size and depth.

So there was no need to worry about it being difficult to find the prey after it burrowed into it.

What's more...

In the stagnant water at his feet, a streak of blood caught Lacus's attention.

Not just in one place, the blood streak extended into the cave faintly—it seemed the prey was injured when it fell.

Just by relying on this bloody smell, Lacus could track the prey himself.

His scarlet tongue slowly licked his canine teeth: "Little bug, wasting so much of my time, I hope your blood isn't too hard to drink."

(End of chapter)