Chapter 73: The Game of Chess

Chapter 73: Chapter 73: The Game of Chess

Ailinda casually tossed the bow down onto the pile of white bones at her feet, slowly brushing the dust off her sleeves. "Alright, come on out."

As soon as the words fell, from the dark, hidden corners, five Beastmen of various shapes slowly stepped out.

A burly Bear Beastman with bulging muscles spoke in a gruff voice: "Boss, is it really okay to just let those brats go act as sacrifices like that? I saw the uniforms on them; they seem to be from St. Aetherwing Magic Academy. What if they are kids from powerful families..."

Ailinda coldly shot a razor-sharp glare at him: "What? Or do you want to go be the sacrifice in their place yourself?"

Rhodes immediately broke out in a sweat, waving his hands frantically: "No, no, no, I didn’t mean that at all!"

A Fox Beastman standing nearby narrowed his cunning eyes, smiling slyly: "I didn’t expect everything to go so smoothly. These humans are truly ridiculously stupid."

The Snake Beastman cast a glance toward the Crow Beastman, who was completely enveloped in a black cloak, his entire body almost blending into the darkness, and hissed in a gloomy voice: "Los, you guarantee there won’t be any mishaps this time, right?"

The youth called Los nodded slightly, letting out a dry "yeah."

The Fox Beastman smirked sarcastically: "The last few times we almost lost our lives and didn’t even see the shadow of a ruin. If this time is a waste of effort again, Los, you can just hang yourself and die with those humans to save us the trouble."

From beneath the brim of his hood, Los’s pitch-black, murky pupils were glued to the central stone door. The corners of his mouth curled into an eerie smile, his voice ringing out like metal scraping against glass: "...Rest assured, this prophecy cost me a fifth of my lifespan. I guarantee absolute accuracy."

The bird tribe girl standing nearby clicked her tongue: "Sacrificing your lifespan just for a ruin whose shape hasn’t even been seen, you truly are crazy."

"You have to pay a price to get a reward..." Los forced out a twisted smile: "When the ruin is opened, just remember to yield a little more of the treasure share to me."

"Don’t worry, you won’t be shorted." The Fox Beastman softened his tone a bit: "Ruins in the wasteland are limited, and most of the best ones have already been occupied by major factions. If the blood marrow condensed after the Nightmare Demon evolves can truly point out the location of a hidden ruin, then you are the greatest contributor to our branch. Not to mention how handsomely the organization will reward us, just entering the ruin alone, are you afraid of lacking good stuff?"

The Snake Beastman flicked his tongue in agreement: "That’s right, even if it’s just an F-rank ruin, its value is enough for us to live comfortably for the rest of our lives."

"..."

Ailinda didn’t bother joining their pointless chatter, simply crossing her arms over her chest, closing her eyes to rest her mind, and coldly waiting for time to pass. Before long, half an hour had passed since that group of humans went into the stone door.

Ailinda snapped her eyes open, walking straight toward the central stone door: "Let’s follow and see. The flesh and blood of those brats are definitely enough for the Nightmare Demon to complete its evolution process."

"Understood."

The five Beastmen immediately dropped their joking demeanor, taking steps to follow closely behind her.

--

At the same time, deep inside the stone cave.

Once certain they had escaped the watching eyes from outside, Leon immediately stopped in his tracks, turning his head and saying bluntly: "The relationship between the Human race and Beastmen is inherently irreconcilable. For you to just trust that bitch like that, what exactly are you calculating?"

"Of course I don’t trust her."

Jeremy calmly waved his hand, casting a soundproof magic layer that entirely encompassed the five of them. He stopped, turning around to face the team: "Didn’t you guys smell it? Emanating from that Beastman bitch was an extremely distinct, rotting stench of death."

Seeing a few of them still looking confused, Jeremy explained straight to the point: "I suspect she and her accomplices are members of a cult."

Cults did not discriminate by race. Although its origins sprang from the Human race, over hundreds of years, it had turned into a massive garbage dump taking in the most rotten, insane elements of every race. Among them, at least a third were fanatics, committing heinous crimes, specializing in using lives for sacrifices.

A cult?

Leon shrugged nonchalantly: "Didn’t notice. What corner of this cursed place doesn’t reek of foul blood and pus? Even if she did stink, unless you shoved your face right up to hers, who would notice."

Evelyn and Phoenix standing nearby also nodded, clearly having smelled nothing.

"What about you? You smelled it, right?" Jeremy shifted his eyes to Lucius, who was standing with his arms crossed, leaning against the rock wall. He knew this person’s hearing and sense of smell were a hundred times sharper than an ordinary person’s.

"Yeah." Lucius lowered his eyes, recalling the disgusting smell from earlier, his handsome face clearly showing unconcealed disgust: "Just counting that nauseatingly strong rotting corpse smell alone, in that area just now, besides her, there were roughly four to five others hiding in the dark."

His careless remark made the other four startle slightly.

Jeremy raised an eyebrow: "Just now in front of the cave, were you going to mention this?"

He had noticed Lucius’s murderous gaze sweeping toward the hidden corner. Afraid he would act rashly and alert the enemy, Jeremy had to reach out and grab his wrist, forcing him to leave. But he didn’t expect Lucius’s intuition to be so terrifying as to even pinpoint the number of hiding enemies.

Lucius gave a lazy snort as an answer.

Realizing these two seemed to have anticipated the trap, Evelyn stared at the pitch-black tunnel segment ahead, her gaze chilling: "It seems the end of this road isn’t an escape route, but a door of death they intentionally dug for us."

Leon let out a dark chuckle: "No need to guess. Since they are cult rats, there’s no way they would show mercy and point out a path to survival."

No one could refute this. In a certain aspect, the cruelty of cults was even more nauseating than the Demon race.

Jeremy narrowed his eyes, sinking into thought. The real reason he immediately concluded Ailinda’s identity was because the original owner’s body had once experienced a terrifying memory. When he was young, the original owner had been kidnapped by a cult to be a sacrifice. The foul, fishy stench of death clinging to the skin of those people was etched deep into his subconscious, exactly like the smell radiating from Ailinda’s body.

Although she had intentionally sprayed a strong, cheap perfume to cover it up, that excessive cover-up itself betrayed the abnormality. Jeremy intentionally using the excuse of asking her name to get closer was precisely to verify this, and the result perfectly matched his prediction.

Furthermore, how could a timid, fearful person continuously urge strangers to enter a specific door three or four times? If this entire act was intentionally orchestrated by her, then what was the true motive? A simple racial dispute? Or deep inside this stone door hid some earth-shattering secret, enough for them to take the trouble to put on a play?

Jeremy brushed away the superfluous trains of thought. He took out five high-tier invisibility magic cloaks - loot just exchanged using Demon Soul Crystal merit points, tossing one to each person. "Put these on."

The team fluidly put on the cloaks while simultaneously activating an internal link magic to ensure that even while invisible, they could still see each other, avoiding a "friendly fire" situation.

Leon leaned his back against the rock wall, both hands shoved into his pockets, smirking as he asked: "It seems our Captain already has a countermeasure?"

"Let’s just say that." Jeremy broke into a sly smile: "Since she likes playing the baiting game, then we’ll just entertain her to the very end."

Leon clicked his tongue to remind him: "That bitch Ailinda’s realm is a tier higher than ours. If her accomplices hiding in the dark also have equivalent strength, then facing them head-on five against six, the disadvantage definitely falls on us."

Evelyn smoothed her bowstring, analyzing calmly: "The goal isn’t to kill them all, but to extract the real reason she went through the effort to trick us in here."

Phoenix pulled his hood up to cover half his face: "...So what is the Captain planning to do?"

Lucius didn’t bother to speak up, the corners of his lips curling up slightly. His slender fingers reached out, leisurely twirling a soft lock of Jeremy’s hair to play with.

Jeremy frowned, unceremoniously swatting away that restless hand.

Lucius wasn’t annoyed either, simply retracting his hand quietly, taking in the sharp glint that just flashed through the depths of the other person’s eyes.

He wanted to see what kind of trick this youth was planning to pull.