Chapter One Hundred: The Cunning Target! [Request for Recommendation Votes]
2016-08-23
Author: Floating Tower
Soren’s figure moved quickly along the trail.
About ten kilometers into the Ghost Spirit Forest, Soren’s figure suddenly paused.
The tracks here were noticeably denser, with many other footprints, indicating that others had caught up to a part of his trail. It was highly likely that they were the pursuers who had reached the battlefield first, as there were numerous and very light footprints. Then, most importantly, Soren discovered evidence of a struggle and battle nearby.
“Could they have been captured?!”
As this thought crossed Soren’s mind, he couldn’t help but frown, but soon he realized that was not the case.
The traces of the battle were left by others.
A strange and eerie presence was quickly approaching Soren, a massive creature coming into his perception range, yet it made no sound.
Nearby, spider webs had become noticeably thicker.
Soren seemed to remember something and murmured, “Ghost Spirit Spider Mother?! This creature is quite clever, knowing to lure enemies to the territory of a wild boss.”
The Ghost Spirit Spider Mother.
A well-known wild boss near White Horse City.
Many adventurers had previously attempted to team up to defeat it, but the outcome always ended in failure. The Ghost Spirit Spider Mother had a biological level of 27 and a challenge level close to 24; it was a massive semi-undead creature capable of triggering saving throws simply by its gaze, and could continuously cast the ‘Finger of Death’ spell.
The shadow rapidly approaching Soren was the Ghost Spirit Spider Mother.
When the enormous shadow descended, a massive, hideous spider almost six or seven meters in diameter with twelve legs and eight eyes appeared before Soren.
It seemed a bit uneasy.
As a powerful beast, it wasn’t particularly intelligent, but even though Soren did not show any divine power, it felt a deep sense of threat. Yet, the faint aura of divinity was so enticing that it was eager to absorb the power of divinity, thus it instinctively launched an attack.
A silver-white streak of light appeared!
Soren’s figure vanished from his original spot, and the next moment, two images of Soren appeared, one on the left and one on the right.
—[Shadow] Field!
—[Death] Field!
Soren’s figure transformed into a silver streak of light and struck the Ghost Spirit Spider Mother, causing it to emit a cry of pain. The artifact easily broke through its defenses, inflicting significant damage.
The entire battle did not last long.
As the Ghost Spirit Spider Mother faced the two simultaneous attacks from Soren, its injuries increased at an astonishing rate. It attempted to activate death-triggering abilities to kill Soren, but due to the activation of the [Death] field, its abilities were completely suppressed, and Soren did not trigger any death saving throws.
Accompanied by a strange silver light, Soren plunged the artifact into the back of the enemy’s head.
Then, a data prompt appeared:
“Killed the wild boss [Ghost Spirit Spider Mother]!”
“Extracting target soul energy! … You have gained 1,050,000 points of killing experience! …”
“The target has divinity value!”
“Extracting target divinity value! … You have gained 1 point of divinity value! …”
With the death of the Ghost Spirit Spider Mother, the participating souls were bound by the field, and a gray-white soul crystal emerged.
This was a legendary-level undead soul.
There was not much of value on the Ghost Spirit Spider Mother; Soren merely cut off its eyes and quickly approached its lair.
As expected!
Soren discovered many corpses here.
“Humans? And Drow?”
Soren saw the bones of eaten humans and Drow, easily identifiable by the shapes of the bones. Scattered weapons and swords were nearby, clearly indicating that these pursuers had resisted fiercely after encountering the Ghost Spirit Spider Mother. Although the Ghost Spirit Spider Mother could not hold out for more than a quarter of an hour against Soren, it was still a high-level legendary boss in the wild. Confronting a legendary team was no problem, so it was naturally very easy for it to kill these pursuers. The one who obtained Saphiras’s scepter was quite clever, purposely leading people here to distract them.
“He must have something very important on him!”
Soren observed the traces inside the Ghost Spirit Spider Mother’s lair; everything indicated an important point to him.
That is, the target had also entered the territory of the Ghost Spirit Spider Mother and had been active near its nest. However, the Ghost Spirit Spider Mother had not attacked him; it seemed completely unaware of this person’s traces.
“What is going on?”
Soren looked at these deliberately left traces and fell into deep thought, muttering, “The Ghost Spirit Spider Mother is a semi-undead creature.”
“Ordinary stealth and invisibility spells don’t work on it, let alone its ability to sense minds. To enter the Ghost Spirit Spider Mother’s lair without being attacked, this guy must either have some special ability or possesses some very powerful special item.”
Soren pondered for a moment.
Then he continued to follow the traces; the target’s pace was not fast.
It seemed to be a spellcaster, and to avoid pursuit, he hadn’t even used flight spells or teleportation spells. Flight spells easily expose one’s location, and teleportation spells, if lacking a sufficiently safe destination, can also be easily traced by deity-level enemies to spatial markers.
This was an experienced expert.
And a very powerful legendary expert!
Soren followed the traces left by the target, but the further he went, the more astonished he became.
This guy was practically a monster!
Because in order to track his traces, by the time night fell, he had already killed three wild boss-level creatures.
The first was the Ghost Spirit Spider Mother.
The second was the Fleshworm – Morgan. (The Fallen Corrupted Treant.)
The third was the Rager – Furul. (The Bear Goblin Leader.)
This guy seemed to swagger around the wild boss lairs near White Horse City, leaving traces behind, yet showed no signs of having been attacked by any boss-level creatures.
This was simply unbelievable!
Soren had slayed three legendary-level wild bosses in one breath, yet he found that although the target had encountered these enemies, no battle had taken place.
“What does this guy have on him?”
“Could it be the power of the Saphiras scepter? That shouldn’t be! I’ve never heard of such abilities from the Saphiras scepter!”
Soren fell silent.
Even in his memory, very few things could accomplish this, and the target he was tracking undoubtedly possessed some very important item, possibly even another powerful artifact.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain this phenomenon!
This was a troublesome problem.
Because if Soren did not have the [Tracking] divine profession, he would not have been able to find this target at all. The strange special item he possessed would likely also cause some minor trouble for Soren.
The next morning.
After Soren had followed the traces around White Horse City in a large circle.
He finally pinpointed the target’s ultimate destination.
—The Ancient Red Dragon!
All the traces pointed to the mountains where the Ancient Red Dragon resided. Unlike the deliberately left traces before, in this location, the target created an illusion.
The first trace was easy to track.
Even a legendary-level ranger could accomplish it, and the destination pointed toward the ruins of Silver Moon City, starting from the vicinity of White Horse City, diverting through a city controlled by the Church of the Goddess of Magic.
This illusion misled quite a number of people.
Basically, all the pursuers headed toward the city controlled by the Church of the Goddess of Magic following this illusion.
The second trace, which was deliberately obscured, pointed towards the Ancient Red Dragon. This guy had not left the vicinity of White Horse City at all; after moving a certain distance, he mysteriously disappeared, and when the traces reappeared, it was already on the way to the Red Dragon Mountain Range.
“After obtaining the Saphiras scepter, instead of turning it over to the Church of the Goddess of Magic, he instead led the pursuers towards them.”
“What exactly is this guy’s identity?”
Soren quickly made his way toward the direction of the Red Dragon Mountain Range, secretly thinking, “Could he want to keep this artifact for himself? That does make sense! The Saphiras scepter encapsulates the essence of a true god! If he can extract its power, even a mortal could achieve divinity!”
Investiture of the Gods.
A temptation that is hard for a mortal to resist.
The target eventually carried the Saphiras scepter into the territory of the Ancient Red Dragon.
“The most dangerous place is the safest place?”
Before Soren appeared a plain, the place where he had first joined the army, in a battle against ogres.
Crossing here would lead into the territory of the Ancient Red Dragon, which enslaved many minions and built its lair deep within the mountains. Such a place was extremely dangerous; a chaotic and evil Ancient Red Dragon was not very friendly to any creature.
“The target actually chose to hide here.”
“Either he doesn’t care about the threat posed by the Ancient Red Dragon at all! Or he doesn’t worry about being discovered by the Ancient Red Dragon!”
“It seems the latter possibility is greater.”
An Ancient Red Dragon alone was enough to threaten even a god in the saint form; there was basically no mortal who could face it alone, so it would be unlikely for someone not to fear the threat of an Ancient Red Dragon. Thus, the greatest possibility was that the target had a way to evade the Ancient Red Dragon, able to lurk here without fearing detection by the enemy.
If that were the case!
Choosing the Ancient Red Dragon’s territory would make sense.
Because during the Saint’s Cataclysm, no one would easily provoke an Ancient Red Dragon, even if it possessed astonishing treasures; no divinity would attack it.
Even if there were only a 90% chance of success.
Divinities would be unwilling to take that 1% risk to slay the dragon and reap the treasures only mortals cared about.
This was an excellent hiding spot.
As long as one wasn’t discovered, with the Ancient Red Dragon drawing the fire, no one could suspect that the one who acquired the Saphiras scepter would be hiding here.
This was a very clever individual!
………………
(PS: Grandmother can get out of bed and walk now. I love you all. Mwah.) (To be continued ~^~)
