Iros arrived at the Divine Tree Dungeon entrance camp, followed by several students including Salian with his Scout Puchi perched on his head, along with seven other mages.
The atmosphere here was completely different from the serene peace of the treetop city.
Hastily reinforced barricades and barriers shimmering with faint runic light surrounded the camp in layers. Elf rangers hurried about with clearly visible exhaustion and vigilance on their faces, and even the air carried a faint scent of blood.
A ranger squad captain in light armor with a longbow on his back quickly came forward and respectfully saluted Iros: "Chief, the Guard Captain ordered me to receive you all here."
However, before he finished speaking, a suppressed and pained howl came from a nearby medical tent, the voice full of inhuman frenzy.
Iros's footsteps halted as he looked toward where the sound came from: "Infection? Take me to see the wounded first."
The squad captain's eyes lit up slightly and he immediately nodded: "Yes, Chief."
When the ranger squad captain led Iros and his group over, two elf rangers were working together to carry out a druid.
"What happened to him? Is it serious?" Salian asked.
One ranger explained: "Nothing too serious. Duy pushed himself too hard. A day's sleep and he'll be fine!"
From the rangers' manner, this clearly wasn't the first time they'd encountered such a situation.
Inside the medical tent, several weary-faced druids sat before bound elves, maintaining the radiance of purification spells in their hands.
Under the continuous effect of the purification spells, the elves whose bodies were infected with dark red veins remained relatively calm.
On recliners a bit further away, several druids who had exhausted their energy had collapsed into sleep.
"Chief?!" Some druids quickly recognized the visitor.
Iros glanced at the druids' haggard faces and said: "I'll help out a bit. You all should rest too."
He stepped forward two paces, his lips moving silently twice, then raised his hand.
Gentle yet vast radiance rippled outward from him as the center, instantly covering the entire medical area like water waves.
This radiance wasn't blinding but carried powerful purifying force.
The infection marks on the wounded inside the tent melted away rapidly like snow meeting sunlight, and some wounded even made comfortable "hmm" sounds in their sleep.
The effect was so powerful that even the Scout Puchi felt somewhat more satiated!
That ranger squad captain reacted first, excitedly placing his right hand over his chest and bowing deeply to Iros: "Thank you for your help, Chief!"
The nearby druids only then snapped out of their shock, their faces full of awe and admiration:
"Such powerful area purification... instantly just..."
"Worthy of Chief Iros..."
Iros merely nodded slightly. He turned to the squad captain, his tone still steady: "Now, take us to the front lines."
"Yes! Please follow me."
The squad captain led the group into the dungeon, introducing the current situation as they advanced: "The cleanup and reconnaissance work is currently focused on the thirteenth to fourteenth layers. Progress... is very difficult. The monsters entrenched there are already powerful, and now due to infection, they've become extremely frenzied with extreme aggression, completely disregarding their own casualties. Even more troublesome is the supply line—every distance we advance requires tremendous effort to consolidate the defensive line."
They were currently walking on the "safe path" carved out by the rangers.
Along both sides of this path, occasionally visible were scorched magical burn marks or arrows deeply embedded in tree trunks—all traces left by combat.
Looking up, elf ranger figures could be seen on the giant trees at intervals, guarding against mad monsters that might suddenly attack.
Descending all the way, Salian could clearly feel that the entire Divine Tree Dungeon had become much more desolate. Monsters that were once commonly seen everywhere were now rarely encountered.
However, there were exceptions.
Throughout the forest, Puchis and slimes had become more numerous, with scenes of them chasing each other everywhere along the way.
The escorting rangers had long grown accustomed to this. As long as the Puchis and slimes didn't actively attack, they ignored them, letting them scurry about nearby.
This was because that mind-eroding Madness wasn't effective on all creatures.
Beings like Puchis and slimes that possessed almost no complex intelligence and operated only on the most primitive instincts were instead immune to infection.
Their thinking was too simple to be twisted, so naturally they had no fear of madness.
In fact, there were several other species in the dungeon unaffected, but Puchis and slimes, as typical scavengers, had welcomed their feast during this disaster.
The cleanup operations left behind large quantities of monster corpses. The elves themselves had no time to thoroughly process them, so these abundant resources were naturally devoured freely by these creatures.
With such abundant food, their numbers naturally grew explosively.
Salian watched those ordinary Puchis running around aimlessly, his brow slightly furrowed, and he unconsciously raised his hand to steady Little Ji on his head, who was being particularly well-behaved.
Unlike its fellow species, Little Ji clearly possessed higher intelligence, but because of this, it might now be at risk of infection.
This thought made him feel a trace of vigilance. He needed to pay extra attention to this little guy.
After all, if something really went wrong and he could only return to his sister holding a pile of broken Puchi pieces... that scene, he didn't dare even imagine it.
The other elves had different reflections.
"So many years of the Divine Tree's accumulated legacy... sigh..." Seldan, also one of Iros's students, looked at the scene before him and sighed softly.
His sentiment resonated with the surrounding mages, who all nodded.
Some even began discussing in low voices the ecological reconstruction plans after the war ended, deliberating whether they needed to specifically introduce certain monsters from outside to accelerate the recovery process.
Perhaps luck was on their side, or perhaps the rangers ahead had done thorough enough cleanup work—they encountered no monster ambushes during their entire descent, the journey unexpectedly smooth.
When they arrived at the front line position, it was completely different from the previous areas' desolation.
Lively—perhaps even a bit too lively!
The sharp, piercing howls and roars of monsters never ceased, like endless background noise constantly assaulting the eardrums.
In the deep darkness, swift streams of light from arrows would suddenly flare up from time to time, or massive fireballs would explode with a roar, briefly illuminating the shadows ahead.
Due to the large amount of continuous spellcasting, the mana concentration in the entire area had become extremely unstable, fluctuating violently like tides.
This abnormal energy environment disrupted the mana circulation within the bodies of newcomers like Salian, causing waves of nausea and discomfort.
"Go ahead and puke! You'll get used to it after a few times!" Amid the chaos, accompanied by a booming voice, Guard Captain Eko, covered in mud and dark red blood, strode forward.
In the flickering light of magic crystal lamps, he walked straight toward Iros. "Iros! The king finally deigned to send you over for support!"
As he spoke, he spread his arms covered in filth, looking like he wanted to give his old friend an enthusiastic hug.
But with only one step remaining, his form halted—a slender yet tough root emerged from the soil, wrapping around his ankle.
"Dirty," Iros said expressionlessly in refusal.
(End of Chapter)
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