Chapter 423: Act 176 – Luring the Enemy Deep
Brendel thought that as long as Veronika could hold off Andisha, he and Xi would have a chance to escape. But he realized he had underestimated the situation.
Carrying the unconscious Xi and Faina, they had been winding through the valley for less than half an hour when suddenly a sharp cry echoed from the sky. Brendel turned around to see a flash of blue light in the night.
Then, with a loud crash, a figure fell before him, crashing into the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust. As the dust settled, Brendel could see it was Veronika.
He was startled and took a step forward, parting the dust to find the Crusian goddess of war lying in a large pit, covered in blood.
Lady Veronika’s battle attire was unrecognizable, with many parts revealing the inner armor. The friction from the armor crashing into the ground had generated intense heat, causing it to steam.
Brendel initially thought Veronika had passed out, but as he stepped closer, she let out a low moan and opened her emerald green eyes:
“Get out of here, cough… Andisha is coming after me.” Veronika’s eyelids were heavy, but her gaze remained resolute.
She was wounded all over and could barely move, but still struggled to reach for the longsword beside her, only to find Brendel had already picked up the Azure Sky.
The lady was taken aback, looking up at the young man in surprise.
Brendel felt a headache coming on; if Veronika still had fighting capability, he would certainly not interfere. But in her current condition, it was clearly a suicidal move, and he wouldn’t just stand by—no matter how unfriendly Veronika had been to him before.
He understood that it was due to Faina and the others.
“For Freya’s sake,” he thought, sighing, “you are no longer fit for battle, Lady Veronika.”
Veronika glanced at the two girls Brendel was supporting, especially noting he didn’t abandon Faina, which relieved her a little.
But she extended her hand to Brendel:
“Give me the sword.”
“Sorry, that’s not going to happen, Lady Veronika. You need to come with me now.”
“You know that’s the withering lord. If we escape together, you won’t get away.”
Veronika shut her eyes and frowned in response.
“If I couldn’t get away, I wouldn’t be saying this,” Brendel replied, “Lady Veronika, I like miracles, but I never rely on them; I like to gamble, but I won’t put everything on the line.”
Veronika opened her eyes, her deep emerald gaze fixed on him with a certain weight.
“How do you plan to take me with you? In this condition?”
She glanced at the two girls beside Brendel, then weakly smiled and shook her head:
“Don’t be stubborn, good boy, just give me the sword—”
But Brendel confidently smiled.
He raised his head to look at the sky, and as he lowered it, he extended two fingers, with black smoke winding around to form a card. Then Brendel lifted the card and flicked it forward.
Veronika watched in astonishment as a black hexagram appeared from thin air on the ground. After the light faded, a figure dressed in a black tailcoat, with long hair and a neat short hairstyle— a girl—walked out of the swirling smoke.
The pretty girl approached Brendel, placing one—her feminine hand—on her chest and respectfully bowing: “In the name of the honored darkness, I am Medephis, here to serve my master, at your command—”
She paused and solemnly added: “Also, I am male.”
Her voice was soft and slightly androgynous.
Brendel looked at this strange being with an odd expression, thinking: “Great, now I have a real trap queen.” But this wasn’t the time to dwell on that. He pointed at Veronika:
“Medephis, help this lady up and follow me.”
Medephis nodded respectfully and then went to Veronika’s side, easily lifting the armored general. Though the vampire trap queen seemed delicate, she was still of golden-level strength; carrying someone was not a challenge for her.
Veronika appeared uncomfortable, raising an eyebrow at Brendel: “Bloodline of the Bloodseat, advanced black magic, necromancer?”
“It’s not advanced black magic, just a family heirloom,” Brendel replied.
Veronika pondered for a moment: “Summoning a statue?”
Brendel nodded.
The Crusian goddess of war then fell silent; if it were a higher-level necromancer, she could contend with Andisha, but summoning a statue had no significance.
Golden-level power was still insufficient in front of that woman.
After a moment of silence, she weakly spoke: “Andisha is right behind us. I barely shook her off despite my injuries, but she will catch up quickly. What do you plan to do?”
Brendel thought for a moment and replied:
“There’s a way.”
“Hmm?”
“Lady Veronika, do you know what lies ahead?”
“I don’t know.”
Veronika frowned, looking skeptically at Brendel: “Do you know?”
“I know a little,” Brendel replied.
“That’s a huge gorge, and it’s the center of the storm circle. Lady Veronika, you must not have seen the scene of it weaving through the vast sea of clouds…”
He raised his head, speaking as if witnessing it firsthand: “And beneath the mist, the raging winds rush through the gorge; the key is that the terrain is complicated, I can make it harder for Andisha to catch up.”
“But you won’t be able to lose her either.”
“I won’t lose her,” Brendel answered: “But I can find a way to get rid of that monster.”
Veronika lifted her head, her expression showing she wanted to see if this young man was being foolish. She exhaled softly:
“Have you found a way?”
“I’ve always had one,” Brendel turned his palm over, the gray gemstone shining brilliantly in his hand.
“It’s just a bit dangerous.”
At this point, turning back was unrealistic; the only way was to lure Andisha into the center of the Loop of Trade Winds. Brendel had thought this out from the beginning; his inner plan was incredibly bold:
If Andisha relentlessly pursued them, he would lure her into the lair of the Sanctified Hydra—
Pitting the two bosses against each other was something players loved to do in the Amber Sword. However, the higher the boss’s level, the more difficult it was to execute; this was the advanced intelligence that distinguished high-level bosses from lower ones, especially considering the existence of Andisha and the Sanctified Hydra.
They were cunning, even more so than many humans.
Getting them to fight wasn’t simple.
But Brendel knew it wasn’t impossible; he recalled that when he inherited the Fool’s fate, the gray gemstone had resonated greatly with some existence in the center of the Loop of Trade Winds. As the inheritor of the gray gemstone, Brendel sensed the familiar aura that had come from there.
It was the aura of the earlier Sanctified Hydra.
Although the Dark Dragon hadn’t told him about the connection between the gray gemstone and the Sanctified Hydra, Brendel wasn’t foolish. He could easily imagine that this thing must have been obtained by the monks of the Temple of Fire through some means, triggering the Hydra’s pursuit.
With this explanation, the strange actions of High Priest Amann back then made sense.
And why the Sanctified Hydra spared him and instead targeted Amann was also clear.
Brendel had reason to believe that the other end resonating with the gray gemstone was likely the Sanctified Hydra’s lair; of course, he couldn’t claim to be a hundred percent sure.
But the current dire situation left him no time to consider; he had to gamble.
Putting away the gemstone, Brendel continued forward with Medephis.
And as Veronika had anticipated, Andisha soon followed the traces left by them in the gorge—according to Brendel, this woman had a sharp tracking ability like an experienced hunting dog.
But considering her half-Druid identity, that was understandable; the Tree Shepherd was inseparable from the Loop of Trade Winds, much like the light and dark sides of the same coin.
Brendel and the others moved stealthily through the valley, and their pace inevitably slowed. Several times, Andisha passed right by them, but Brendel often managed to avoid her in advance thanks to his familiarity with the terrain.
This ability astonished Veronika; she even suspected Brendel had been here before, but regardless of how often she asked, he wouldn’t open up.
Eventually, she gave up.
After several hours had passed, Brendel’s group managed to enter the Ancient Gorge first. The Ancient Gorge was the final checkpoint guarding access to the Valhalla ruins and delved deep into the Wall of Clouds, with fog enveloping it so thickly that Brendel and Veronika felt as though they had returned to when they had encountered the Sanctified Hydra before.
However, the difference was that the terrain of the Ancient Gorge was notoriously complex within the game; winding valleys and intersecting gorges covered the area, devoid of plants, with volcanic rocks and obsidian littering the ground.
Massive rocks formed various dead angles of vision, making it much easier for Brendel to evade Andisha in this environment than before. But to his frustration, it seemed that the woman had an intuition, always lingering close to them, nearly discovering them several times.
The game of cat and mouse wasn’t fun for the prey, especially when it was a matter of life and death.
After trekking along the gorge for half a day, Brendel stopped for the first time. Having discarded their packs, no one had brought any food; Veronika would not have carried such items, and the Crusian rations were left behind with the group.
Moreover, it was likely this sword saint had not anticipated the current situation.
So, Brendel could only endure the feeling of an empty stomach, but after absorbing the Blood of the God, the sensation of hunger wasn’t too strong.
He sat quietly against a massive rock; though he felt a bit cold, he dared not light a fire; everyone knew Andisha was still nearby.
After being set down by Medephis, Veronika sat across from him. The Crusian goddess of war appeared fatigued from blood loss, but she looked at Brendel with a hint of admiration in her emerald green eyes:
“You know, kid, since you’re Erluin, I won’t thank you.”
Brendel was taken aback:
“I don’t need that.” He shrugged, speaking in a dismissive tone.
“Do you want to learn swordsmanship from me, Brendel?” The lady closed her eyes but smiled gently: “My swordsmanship, the Wall of the Sky—”
Huh? Brendel looked at Veronika in confusion, almost thinking he had misheard and nearly wanted to poke his ear.
“Not interested?”
“No…” Brendel was momentarily stunned; could this be correct? It was worth noting that he wasn’t even a Crusian: “I mean, I can’t become a Crusian. I said…”
But Veronika gently shook her head, interrupting him. She sighed as if wanting to say something, but after a sigh, Brendel did not hear anything further.
The young man waited for a long time, puzzled, and when he looked carefully at her, he realized the sword saint had fallen asleep from exhaustion; her head was drooping, and her breathing was long and even.
“Come on, you can’t be serious!” Brendel mentally screamed: “You could at least finish that before falling asleep! Don’t leave me hanging!”
But while Brendel was lamenting his lost chance to learn the Wall of the Sky swordsmanship, the only remaining conscious one among them, Medephis, looked at her master and spoke:
“Esteemed master, I’m hungry.”
Brendel was taken aback.
He looked at this noble looking like a girl but was actually male in a ‘vampire lady’ outfit, thought for a moment, then replied:
“Well, sorry, there’s no food left.”
Unfortunately, Medephis merely tilted her head and stared at him with blood-like crystal-clear eyes—
The look was as if she viewed him as a delicious feast.
But wait.
Brendel’s expression suddenly turned sour.
…(To be continued. To find out what happens next, please log in for more chapters and support the author for legitimate reading!)
