The speed of that dark shadow was outrageously fast.
Dean's subordinate had struck the instant Eugene was snatched away.
A spiraling arrow whistled in pursuit, closely followed by an arc of electricity.
However, both missed their mark. The arrow disappeared into the horizon, and the electric arc blasted onto a rock in the distance.
The dark shadow's speed was simply too fast.
Dean himself pursued.
As an outstanding figure among the Demon-kin, his speed was enough to leave most of his kin in the dust.
But at this moment, he could only watch helplessly as the dark shadow ahead grew further and further away, the distance widening little by little.
Behind him, another Demon-kin skilled in speed barely managed to tail along, but catching up was obviously impossible.
Noticing that people were chasing from behind, Little Black, carrying Eugene with one claw, flew even harder.
One of her claws tightly gripped Eugene's head. Between her claws, one could still see the Duke's pained and bewildered face.
Little Black's other claw wasn't idle either. From time to time, she scooped at a spot slightly above Eugene's head. There was clearly nothing there, but she scooped very seriously, her claw tips brushing past Eugene's hair every time.
From her perspective, a giant, translucent gemstone hovered there.
That gemstone was not only beautiful but also slowly rotating, tempting her.
Unfortunately, she couldn't catch it.
No matter how she scooped, she couldn't catch it.
The more she scooped, the more anxious she became; the more she scooped, the harder she grabbed. The head of Eugene under her claw was on the verge of being crushed.
"That's an image. You have to bring him back to exchange for the real one!" Lin Jun explained in the mycelial network.
"Awoo!" Only then did Little Black stop her attempts.
She didn't forget to look back carefully at those two Demon-kin still chasing behind. Only after confirming their heads were completely empty did she accelerate, completely throwing off the two of them.
Within the claws, Eugene finally broke free from his initial dizziness and the pain of having his head squeezed.
But he didn't struggle immediately; instead, he was thinking.
He couldn't understand.
He had clearly used his life-saving trump card. At the cost of consuming a massive amount of his bloodline power, he cleared all magical tracking marks on his body while instantly bursting forth with speed far exceeding his normal state to arrive here.
Even if the other party knew of this method beforehand through some channels, with such a massive escape radius, it should have been impossible to find him.
If it were a massive army blockading the entire border, he would have accepted it.
But right now, the dragon-kin squeezing his skull until it hurt was obviously acting alone; she must have known his exact location.
The enemy commander, Louisa—although they had only clashed a few times, he could clearly feel that she was the type to have a comprehensive plan before a battle. It was impossible for her to leave such a high-end combat power wandering around idly in the rear.
Then, how... exactly did the enemy locate him?
Catching a glimpse of the boundless fungal mat below from the corner of his eye, Eugene's pupils abruptly contracted.
"So that's how it is..."
Why was I found and caught up to?
Why couldn't spies infiltrate the Northern Territory?
Why could some Puchis act over long distances even when their Puchi Masters weren't nearby?
In an instant, all his doubts were resolved.
The answer had always been right beneath his feet. Why hadn't he noticed it before?
No, it wasn't that he hadn't noticed.
It was that even if he had considered it, he would quickly dismiss this answer.
Using the fungal mat to monitor the entire Northern Territory?
In other words, every single strand of mycelium was equivalent to a reconnaissance magic array.
And someone had to process such a massive amount of monitoring information.
This was completely illogical.
But now, apart from this possibility, there was no other explanation.
"No wonder we lost so miserably..." The single eye of Eugene visible between the dragon claws turned toward the endless ice plains and mycelium to the north. By this point, he was incredibly certain that Louisa was absolutely not the true leader of the Mushroom Fortress. "Just what kind of monster is it?"
Unfortunately, he couldn't satisfy this final curiosity of his.
"Ha... hahaha, wanting to capture me, a Duke, alive?"
"No matter what kind of thing you are, you've miscalculated!"
"Your biggest mistake was not killing me immediately!"
"Blood Manipulation: Finale!"
In the next moment, Little Black's claw closed on empty air. Eugene's entire person abruptly exploded into countless droplets of fresh blood.
But unlike when he exploded blood to escape, the fresh blood didn't condense; instead, it directly scattered and shot out in all directions!
And from Lin Jun's perspective, his status panel also directly disappeared at the same time.
Most of the scattered fresh blood fell onto the fungal mat after shooting out a certain distance. Only a single strand flew out, made a small detour, flew back the way it came, and slapped directly onto Dean's face.
At the same time, some brief but shockingly horrifying information was transmitted into Dean's consciousness upon contact.
After briefly digesting it, Dean looked incredulously at the fungal mat by his feet.
Beside him, the Demon-kin who had barely managed to keep up saw Dean suddenly stop and couldn't help but ask: "Patriarch, are we not pursuing anymore?"
"No need to pursue, retreat!"
"Retreat... do you mean back to the troops?"
"No, retreat to the Empire, immediately!"
"Ah?"
The Demon-kin really wanted to ask why?
What about their kin following Eugene?
But Dean was already hurrying back rapidly, so he could only temporarily hold his questions back.
However, just as he was preparing to catch up with the Patriarch, a complex magic array suddenly lit up beneath his feet.
"It clearly wasn't there before..." The brief moment of shock made him lose the chance to rush out.
On the other side, a magic array similarly appeared suddenly beneath Dean's feet.
Although he didn't recognize what kind of magic array this was, nor did he figure out how it got there.
But Dean reacted instantly.
[Trample LV10]
The earth split open, its center even stomped into a massive crater by a single foot.
This large-scale terrain destruction directly caused the yet-to-activate magic array to collapse. Massive amounts of mana spilled out, triggering several sizable magical explosions.
Confirming there were no subsequent attacks, Dean looked back at that Demon-kin.
However, the latter had already been split into three chunks by now.
Dean's expression was frighteningly gloomy.
He leaped over, trampled the ground into pieces again, dug the magic core out from the chunks, took one final look north, and then headed back without turning his head again.
...
It seems using temporary magic arrays to trap and kill experts is unrealistic.
Neither Dean nor that Demon-kin were spellcasters, and they weren't considered sensitive to mana; otherwise, they wouldn't have only noticed during the final activation phase of the magic array.
But even so, Dean easily destroyed the temporary magic array.
And the only battle achievement was taking effect due to suddenly activating while he was thinking. Obviously, it couldn't be used as a regular attack method.
Although he didn't want to let Dean go back, his main forces were still over by the Luo River right now. He indeed only arranged for Little Black and some sporadic clean-up troops on this side; it was unrealistic to want to keep Dean and the troops he brought.
Ultimately, he hadn't expected that a Duke like Eugene would actually commit suicide just like that.
Lin Jun even thought that the longer these immortal guys lived, the more reluctant they would be to die.
However, it wasn't a big problem.
He changed his previous strategy of playing weak and swallowed Eugene whole in one breath this time because, after harvesting some new information from Fatty Xi, he no longer planned to play the pig.
The Northern Territory border of the Empire was also due to be brought under Mushroom ownership!
(End of Chapter)
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