The scout puchi bounced rapidly through the mountain forest, its tendrils waving as it casually sliced two overconfident slimes in half mid-air.
Lin Jun was truly fed up with the sheer number of slimes in this area.
At this rate, if left unchecked, they'd strip the mountain forest bare in three or four months.
He still didn't know whether the abnormal surge in magical density brought by that mist was temporary or permanent, but at least for now, there were no signs of it receding.
As for the mist itself, it remained a complete unknown. To this day, Lin Jun hadn't figured out the pattern behind its forward encroachment and sudden retreats.
As a reconnaissance-specialized puchi, the scout puchi was quite fast. Despite the distance, it became the first to arrive at the scene.
The puchi landed steadily on a thick protruding branch. Below on the ground was a freshly blasted crater, with scorched wood fragments and metal shards scattered around.
This was... an explosive arrow?
It wasn't that Lin Jun had keen observation skills—he was simply quite familiar with this thing. Explosive arrows were a common tool among adventurers.
But aside from this blast crater, there were no other signs of combat at the scene. A single explosive arrow detonating here by itself seemed very strange.
Cycling through several perception skills in turn, he immediately made discoveries.
In the distance, a succubus was sneaking away furtively.
Nearby, a mixed team of humans and demons was cautiously approaching the blast site. They were already very close and would arrive momentarily.
And right in front...
The scout puchi tilted its mushroom cap slightly upward.
On another leafy branch not far away, a dark green slime that had almost perfectly blended with its surroundings was quietly lurking in the leaf shadows.
The key point was that Lin Jun's initial use of mana perception had completely failed to detect its presence!
Only after switching to the more physically-dependent sonic detection did its outline become visible!
And its status panel was unusual too:
[Status: Thrall]
This status tag only appeared on the panels of individuals controlled by the thrall manipulation ability.
Just like this scout puchi that Lin Jun controlled—its panel also displayed this status.
A fellow practitioner!
The other two groups had become irrelevant. In Lin Jun's field of vision at this moment, there was only this slime.
Puchi and slime faced each other across branches.
The wind stilled. The forest fell silent.
The scout puchi's tendrils drooped slightly, its center of gravity sinking.
The dark green slime's surface rippled almost imperceptibly as it quietly gathered power.
A withered leaf broke free from its branch, spinning and swaying as it drifted toward the gap between the two.
The instant the leaf tip touched the ground!
The slime's body contracted, the accumulated force exploding outward, transforming its entire body into a dark green arrow that viciously hurtled toward the puchi!
No feints, no detours—only the most direct killing strike.
Foolish!
Though the slime moved quickly, Lin Jun could still react.
The mushroom cannon that had been primed and ready fired, shooting toward the target that couldn't change direction mid-air!
However, the expected scene of the slime being blasted into splattered juices didn't occur.
In mid-air, that mass of dark green slime actually stretched itself into a hollow tube, allowing the mushroom cannon to pass right through the center!
All of this happened in the blink of an eye.
The puchi used the cannon's recoil to retreat rapidly, but was still half a beat too slow. One corner of its rounded mushroom cap was shattered by the high-speed passing slime, with fungal fragments flying.
In the first exchange, the scout puchi had actually fallen into disadvantage.
The damaged area of the cap was quickly stained with a layer of dark green—clearly poison carried by the slime's bodily fluids.
However, puchis had always been resistant to most poisons.
Lin Jun didn't pause, whipping out his tendril blade to strike directly at the opponent's core.
The slime fought back fiercely, its liquid body similarly splitting into several viscous tendrils to meet the challenge head-on.
When the nine cultists drawn by the explosion hurried to the scene, what they saw was a scene beyond comprehension:
Two "supreme beings" were fighting from the tree branches down to the forest clearing. Wherever they passed, vegetation was either silently severed by sharp energy, blasted apart by magical cannons, or corroded into rapid blackness by splattered dark green poison.
"A slime... and a puchi?"
The cultist squad leader rubbed his eyes, almost unable to believe the absurd scene before him.
The ones making that explosion earlier were these two... low-tier magical creatures?
Puchis were one thing—the various incidents over the past year had somewhat changed people's previous impressions of puchis—but what was with this slime?
Were these bottom-tier magical creatures all lining up to start making their comebacks?!
Sizzle!
A severed dark green liquid tendril flew over, smashing into a tree trunk beside a cultist and splattering several drops of viscous poison.
The squad leader reacted extremely quickly and dodged in time, but another cultist behind him wasn't so lucky—several drops of poison splashed into his wide-open eyes.
"My eyes! It burns! It burns so much—!!!"
The man screamed and curled up on the ground, both hands desperately covering his face. The other cultists had no time to save him, because the two magical creatures fighting with increasing fervor were already drawing closer.
A mushroom cannon dodged at the last moment by the slime landed on the unfortunate cultist, ending his suffering.
Faced with two clearly abnormal magical creatures in a death match, the cultists originally hadn't planned to get involved, even if it meant losing one companion.
Unfortunately, the battle circle kept moving and inevitably drew these uninvolved parties into the fray, turning it into a chaotic melee.
......
The noise of the chaotic battle and the fluctuations of exploding magic lured Mengya, who had already fled to a distance, back again.
She cautiously poked out half her head, gazing at that patch of forest that had completely devolved into a chaotic battlefield, feeling it was utterly ridiculous.
She'd only triggered one explosive arrow... how had it escalated into this situation?
However, she noticed that one cultist who seemed to have injured his arm was taking advantage of the chaos to crawl away from the battle group on all fours, abandoning his companions and fleeing frantically through the forest in a direction slightly off from the church, not looking back once.
Clearly someone whose will wasn't firm enough.
Mengya's eyes darted, and after a moment's hesitation, she quietly followed.
......
Meanwhile, inside the abandoned church.
The church's structure wasn't particularly complex, but the space was quite large.
Vera was hiding with Feiyin in the shadows by the wall, while Feiling nimbly leapt onto the crossbeams and quietly crept forward.
Vera pressed close to the shadows behind a thick stone pillar with Feiyin, holding their breath.
Feiling, meanwhile, moved like a feline, using the crisscrossing broken beams and vault shadows above to advance silently, finally landing on a section of jutting beam that overlooked the hall below.
The church's original altar area had been completely transformed. The floor had been carved with an enormous and intricate circular magic array, its grooves dark and deep, filled with magical materials.
Seven or eight humans were bound tightly with ropes, placed like livestock for slaughter at the array's edge. Most were unconscious or semi-conscious.
Feiling's gaze swept quickly across them, soon identifying Anton among them.
This adventurer captain who had once helped them now had his eyes tightly closed, his face deathly pale, his chest rising and falling slightly. He seemed to still be alive, but his condition was clearly dire.
In a spot closer to the shadowy corner of the wall, she also saw a goblin.
Perhaps because they felt a mere goblin posed no threat whatsoever, the cultists hadn't even bothered to knock it unconscious.
As a result, it had become the only sacrifice that was fully conscious—and therefore the most terrified.
Its mouth seemed to be stuffed with something as it writhed uneasily, its eyes wide with terror, staring at the center of the array.
Its mouth was tightly plugged with a filthy rag, only able to emit muffled whimpers. Its eyes were round with fear, staring fixedly at the robed priest figure.
The priest conducting the ritual wore a ceremonial robe of light blue and white, the fabric soft, the cut simple yet solemn—a completely different aesthetic from the black robes worn by the surrounding cultists.
The hood hung half-down, revealing her graceful profile and jaw.
In the firelight, her features were serene, even carrying a kind of compassionate, loving expression for all living beings.
If one wasn't familiar enough with the Light Church's vestments, an uninformed person might even mistake her for a legitimate clergy member serving the Light.
At this moment, she lowered her head slightly, her slender hands elegantly clasped before her as she chanted prayers.
When the final syllable fell, she lifted her eyelids slightly, her gaze crossing the mottled shadows to land in the direction where Vera and the others were hiding.
Her voice remained gentle: "Lost travelers, there's no need to hide. The Goddess will not refuse any child suffering in this mortal world. Come out—the ritual has just enough room for you."
If Lin Jun were here, he would recognize this cultist priest Jinni, whom he'd encountered once before and who had sacrificed almost an entire adventurer team.
A year apart, she had now reached diamond rank.
(End of Chapter)
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