Mystery: The Stranger

Chapter 17 Intimate and Close

"Lord, protect us, but may the shadows remain forever."

Holding a Bible praising the fallen God, Lia, though still afraid, bravely activated the runes engraved on the knights' crossbow bolts. These runes were hand-carved by the secret prayer people within the territory; they were one-time enchanted equipment made in prayer to the fallen God. Lia's presence merely made the power surrounding the crossbow bolts more vibrant.

She didn't hold back at this moment. Although she was terrified of the Children of the Forest, she was equally afraid of the demonized Snow. With Snow's explicit instructions, this longer-term fear overcame the other.

Whoosh!Whoosh!Whoosh!

The knights in the back row quickly spread out into a semi-circular formation, aiming at the dark green gorilla's eye sockets, shoulders, neck, and sides—easy targets—and unleashed a volley of arrows, their dark hues piercing the intended points.

Roar!

The Forest Child tried to dodge, but its arm was still being held by the demon in front of it, making it impossible to change position flexibly. The two annoying things behind it were even chopping at its rear with axes, which made the Forest Child even angrier.

Its angry roar caused the crossbow bolts, which should have been aimed at vital points, to deviate slightly in mid-air, even twisting towards Snow and the two barbarians.

"retreat!"

Snow's words prompted Frye and Vernon to temporarily retreat.

"Degradation!"

The demon's filthy words directly detonated the corrupting power attached to the crossbow bolt.

The entire center began to degenerate into an abyss, and the aftershocks of the explosion turned into a corrupting black mist, covering Snow and the Children of the Forest with a slightly viscous black liquid. However, compared to the obvious discomfort experienced by the Children of the Forest, Snow, who was already a demon, was in a better state. He looked up at the ape's head in front of him and exhaled a mouthful of scalding steam containing deadly poison.

A piercing scream rang out. The Forest Child's eyes, affected by the toxic steam, turned bright red, severely obstructing its vision. It could only feel its entire body burning and stinging, and the surrounding temperature suddenly soared, as if it were in a sea of ​​fire.

The two barbarians who had just heard Snow's order to retreat and were carefully holding the line saw it clearly. Large beads of sweat rolled down their foreheads. The huge, pale blue cage that Snow had summoned, with its continuously burning flames, had given them a tremendous psychological shock.

They knew that the lord had gone to Black Rye Village to deal with a demon and obtained a powerful sealing artifact, but they didn't know the specific effects of this artifact. They didn't expect it to be so powerful. The lord's current appearance really looked like an abyss demon.

"Let's do it."

Snow deactivated his demonic transformation and used the Baron's Gloves to distort the Cage of Flames, giving this restrictive demonic spell a texture similar to a real cage.

The knights, upon hearing the order, dared not delay and raised their crossbows again, firing volley after volley. The two barbarians tried to throw their axes, but after being given a cold look by Snow, they instantly calmed down, obediently hanging their axes on their waists, and then picked up stones from the ground and smashed them against the children of the forest in the cage.

Normally, these attacks would have been easy for a Forest Child who had reached Sequence 6 and whose physical strength even surpassed that of some Sequence 5 beings. However, the corrupting power caused its once firm skin to soften, the toxic gas it inhaled was also consuming its lungs, and its stamina was being further depleted by these attacks and harassment.

Hearing the Forest Child's increasingly feeble cries, Leah, who stood behind Snow and watched all this silently, felt a pang of pity. However, seeing the weariness and excitement hidden in the eyes of everyone around her, and Snow's cold and hard back in front of her, she ultimately said nothing.

Once the knights had used up most of their arrows, Snow waved away the Fire Cage and walked step by step to the fallen Child of the Forest, intending to take the extraordinary material he needed—the head of the Child of the Forest.

However, as Snow approached, the Forest Child, which had been on the verge of death, suddenly found the strength to prop itself up, open its massive jaws, and bite down with an extremely ferocious expression. This was its final counterattack, a last gasp of strength.

"My lord, please be careful." ×2

The two barbarians stretched out their hands and shouted, but they clearly knew it was too late and had no intention of actually rushing forward.

Lia, who couldn't bear to watch, suddenly looked up when she heard the commotion. She then saw a giant, flaming sword shaped like a knife slice through the neck of the Forest Child, severing the gorilla's head. The scene was so smooth, like a knife cutting tofu, as if the Forest Child had willingly offered its head to Snow for him to chop off.

"Since you were relatively proactive, I'll let you off the hook."

The flaming greatsword in Snow's hand dissipated. He glanced in the direction where the "Child of the Forest" had jumped out earlier, and could sense a faint malice and fear. He then looked away and gestured for Frye and Vernon to come over and clean up the corpses and collect materials.

As for the nests deep in the forest and the hidden cubs, Snow chose to ignore them. He only needed the main material of the Black Emperor pathway sequence 5, and did not need any other useless items.

"Holy Light, damn it!" (Xalatas's use of "Holy Light" was basically a curse)

"You destroyed a wild and untamed soul like that, you despicable bastard!"

Xalatas's curses rang in Snow's ears, blaming him for wasting a decent soul.

"I told you, you'd better keep quiet when the 'Secret Prayer' is around."

Snow showed no emotion, as if he hadn't heard anything, and simply watched as Frye and Vernon skillfully handled the corpses, collected materials, and cleaned up the battlefield.

He knew that Xalatas was just making up an excuse to scold him, and didn't really care about such a spirit. Of course, it was also possible that he was really scolding him, after all, he had just casually destroyed the spirit's structure with a single strike and prevented the Dark Empire's Blade from devouring it.

Considering the contract between him and Saratas, Saratas cannot eat everything; he must also consider whether Snow has the same appetite. If Snow does not agree, Saratas can forget about eating it easily. Just like the old saying in his hometown, if you want to win a woman's heart, you must first win her stomach.

This kind of thing has happened many times before. Behind the seemingly close relationship, each has their own priorities. Saratas knew this too. No matter how much she scolded Snow, he would only think she was being noisy. So she simply shrank back without saying a word and silently kept this debt in her heart.

She wasn't stingy; on the contrary, she was very shrewd. But what she hated most was this: someone had already opened their mouth, but Snow destroyed the soul that was about to be devoured. Every time, it drove her crazy with hatred.