Pillar of Yita

Seeing the two men fall,

Fang Hong emotionlessly rotated the cylinder, pulled back the hammer for the third time, and with a blank face aimed at the opponent’s chest, who was still dazed.

But at that moment, the vice chairman of the Rain Listener Guild finally reacted and shouted, ”Spare his life, he is useful to us.”

Fang Hong hesitated slightly, slightly shifted the muzzle, and shot the two-handed swordsman beneath Zhang Leng, causing his head to burst open.

Then he raised his gun and looked at the opponent.

”Brother Ade, you’re so cool!” Tianlan’s eyes were full of little stars, a look of worship that almost made him unable to continue walking.

”Cool, right?” Fang Hong turned his head back, very proud of himself.

Miss Maid looked at him with a skeptical expression and shook her head: ”Vain.”

However, Hilveld laughed especially heartily. She closed the radiator fins and then raised her gun, aiming at the remaining people.

At that moment, Atira was retrieving her spear from a body of an enemy, whose strength was comparable to hers. However, with the surprise attack and the recently upgraded spear of the Elf Miss, he had lost his life after a brief encounter.

At this point, the remaining people had already lost their will to fight.

Especially when they saw the vice chairman walk over and lift up the half-dead combat wizard from the ground, they looked at each other somewhat uncertainly.

Wanting to fight seemed futile; wanting to flee, they dared not for the moment. These people were somewhat caught in a dilemma.

But the middle-aged man shook his head at these people. With tens of thousands in a large guild, he really wouldn’t recognize every single one of them.

However, these people had once been part of the guild, yet followed Zhang Leng in committing such acts, filling him with disappointment.

”You can go,” he said coldly, ”I have no time to deal with you right now. Withdraw from the guild, drop your weapons, and then you can leave.”

The people looked at each other and, after a moment’s hesitation, dropped their weapons and scattered.

The brief intense fight seemed to temporarily impair everyone’s judgment about the situation further away—

And as calm returned, explosions of sparks in the forest seemed to come from a distance again, reaching the eyes of those present.

But in the darkness, it was still unclear who the enemy was, and even less clear from which direction the attack had come.

The camp was in chaos, and the anxious vice chairman of the Rain Listener glanced in that direction but then turned his attention back to those present.

”Miss Atira...” he began, his feelings complicated, a mix of relief, surprise, and a bit of shame.

”This is our captain, Mr. Grant,” Atira replied, pushing Fang Hong forward.

This was the first time Fang Hong learned the ID of this vice chairman of the Rain Listener.

The man looked at him with a bit of surprise, but his expression also showed realization, as naturally, he had heard rumors within the Rain Listener.

However, Fang Hong was not concerned about that at the moment; the last thing he wanted to get involved in was the troubles between the grand guilds, especially with potential military involvement.

He shook his head and said, ”We don’t want to meddle in your guild’s internal affairs. What happened earlier was out of necessity, as you saw, and it was this guy who insisted on dragging us in.”

The man’s face showed an awkward smile: ”I understand, but you can’t leave.”

Fang Hong was slightly startled: ”Why?”

”Those people are after us, but they won’t spare you either. Right now, we must unite to break through the encirclement,” Grant said sincerely.

Fang Hong frowned and involuntarily looked at Miss Atira.

But it was at this moment that a blue light flew from the darkness. As it approached, Fang Hong recognized it as a light shield; behind it was actually a Clockwork Fairy.

Fang Hong certainly recognized this Clockwork Fairy because it was his creation; he had helped Luo Yu make this custom type, using the ideas from the Annihilator Shining Shield.

After seeing him, the Clockwork Fairy stopped, retracted its light shield, and gracefully landed in his hand. This indicated that its master had found them, and Fang Hong instinctively looked in the direction from which it had come.

In a moment, Luo Yu and Parker appeared there.

Luo Yu had a solemn expression on his face. Seeing him like this and recalling the vice chairman’s earlier words, Fang Hong felt a pang in his heart.

Sure enough, the trainee of the Tabopolis Oak Knights approached solemnly and said, ”Ade, a large group of Night Lizard People has appeared in the north. Two Rain Listener leveling teams have just retreated from there, and Mr. Reed noticed that there seemed to be a battle here, so he sent us to check on you first. He is having Mr. Greyrock come over.”

Night Lizard People.

Fang Hong thought he should have anticipated this turn of events. He remained silent for a moment, having already figured out the gist of the situation, while everyone’s gaze was fixed on him, waiting for him to make a decision.

He turned to the vice chairman of the Rain Listener—Grant: ”Mr. Grant, you can explain now; who exactly are those people you mentioned?”

Grant sighed in relief. He hadn’t really valued Fang Hong for his combat abilities, though the combat prowess of this group had greatly exceeded his expectations.

What he truly valued was Fang Hong’s ability in Alchemy. He knew that a demanding pursuit battle lay ahead, and in such circumstances, nothing was more important than a professional magic-guided craftsman.

And he could see that this young man was among the most brilliant battlefield Alchemists—a mercenary craftsman.

”To be honest, he had never seen a real mercenary craftsman. There really weren’t many of such craftsmen in the first world. It was said that only in the second world were there quite a few of these professional life profession practitioners active.”

Of course, Fang Hong himself wasn’t clear about it—so he was even less clear that even mercenary craftsmen didn’t operate in that manner.

He looked around at everyone before answering, ”I don’t know what the Night Lizard People are all about, but the ones who attacked us are definitely from the Blood Oath Alliance.”

”The Blood Oath Alliance?” Fang Hong was stunned for a moment. ”Is that the biggest guild on Fenris Isle?”

Grant nodded.

He quickly added, ”Mr. Ade, I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I had never expected them to make such a brazen move.”

Fang Hong shook his head, knowing that this Blood Oath Alliance was the local guild that Princess Briana had mentioned as being connected with the Jiefulite Red Cloak Team.

Honestly, he wanted nothing to do with these guilds at the moment; he just wanted to focus on boosting his own strength.

But since trouble had already found him, it seemed pointless to think of avoiding it. He was never one to shy away from trouble and besides, there were many ways to enhance strength.

He glanced at the vice-chairman of the Rain Listener Guild, ”You might not have anticipated this, but you must have a contingency plan, right? I believe you wouldn’t have brought three training camps here, along with the elite brigade of the Rain Listeners, without preparation.”

Grant looked at Fang Hong somewhat in surprise, evidently not expecting the young man to calm down so quickly. He nodded.

”Alright, we’re not familiar with this area and I don’t want to know what your exact plan is, just tell us what we should do next, which direction should we break out in?” Fang Hong spoke very quickly, cutting to the chase, knowing that there was no time to delay.

His decisiveness left a deep impression on Grant.

The latter thought for a moment and replied, ”We can head to a valley to the west. It’s the northern end of some ruins. The Green Dragon Meijeli has left a Magic Guided Barrier there.”

”A Magic Guided Barrier?”

”A Peace Barrier, simply put, it’s a Safe Zone.”

Fang Hong knew about those Puzzle Lock Barriers, they were set up in many Holy Sanctuaries. As long as the power of those entering didn’t exceed the creator of the barrier, they couldn’t initiate combat within it.

If that Peace Barrier was indeed set by the Green Dragon Meijeli, he believed no one on the entire Fenris Isle would have power exceeding that of the barrier.

But the people from the Blood Oath Alliance would surely know this, and if they were prepared to strike, they would have heavily fortified the west side.

Frowning, he asked, ”Is there any other route to that valley?”

”There is actually a secret passage to the south, which the Blood Oath Alliance probably doesn’t know about. The only issue is…”

”Only issue?” Fang Hong snapped, ”What time do you think this is? Can you just stop beating around the bush?”

The middle-aged man became embarrassed, realizing he had somewhat lost his composure: ”Past there, it is also part of the Snake People Ruins, there is an ancient passage below, but it’s somewhat dangerous.”

”Somewhat dangerous?” Fang Hong retorted, ”Which is more dangerous compared to the Blood Oath Alliance?”

”It’s hard to compare. Actually, many have been down there. Some didn’t encounter any trouble, but others have disappeared inside. Our guild has sent people to investigate, but to no avail; it seemed empty below. Yet, there are rumors of a Dead Silence Zone down there.”

A Dead Silence Zone again, Fang Hong felt a headache coming on, but still managed to pick out some useful information, ”Your people have gone down, so you’re saying it’s not entirely a Dead Silence Zone?”

”Actually, our people didn’t encounter a Dead Silence Zone.”

”Then we’ll take this route,” Fang Hong decided and stated, ”Next, we split up and act; you go gather everyone first. We need to find a way to open up an entry point.”

”I understand,” Grant looked at everyone with a mixture of sadness and gratitude, ”Thank you, Mr. Ade, and Miss Atira—this matter really wasn’t your concern, I am truly sorry.”

But Fang Hong shook his head.

”Don’t rush to say that, Vice-Chairman sir,” he responded, ”No one wants to be inadvertently dragged into a mess, so you still owe everyone an explanation, but of course, not right now—”

Grant was slightly startled, then nodded.

Taking the unconscious Zhang Leng, he hurried towards the camp.

The remaining people then turned to look at Fang Hong. Elf Miss looked at him particularly softly, the latter giving a light smile, ”Ade, you’ve done well. Compared to that time at the Traveler’s Rest, you have indeed grown a lot.”

”Yes,” Tianlan blinked her eyes, as if still reminiscing about the earlier combat, ”You didn’t see it, but just now Brother Ade was so cool.”

Yet Fang Hong was thinking about how the time at Traveler’s Rest meant nothing, if they had only seen him at Kapuka, that was truly remarkable. But as he thought about it, he also remembered the people from Morning Dawn Star, and felt somewhat sad.

Suddenly, he felt a gaze on him and, looking up, he met eyes with Hilveld.

It was as if he just realized that his rapid growth since Elpaxin had someone pushing it from behind.

For a moment, he remained silent.

And Tianlan was still chattering beside him, ”So what do we do next?”

Fang Hong turned and gently tapped her smooth forehead, ”Of course, we meet up with Mr. Big Cat and then make our break.”

After finishing this sentence, he suddenly got somewhat stuck, wondering why he always ended up having to make a break, wondering if he could ever truly experience this otherworld properly.

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