Pillar of Yita

This was almost enough to make Fang Hong forget his suspicions about him.

He immediately opened the Communication Crystal and sent a message over: ”Cuiye, where are you? I saw the message you sent—was that for real?”

But the reply from the other side made Fang Hong feel as if an unexpected windfall had just dropped onto his head. The Poet’s voice was still as confident as ever, and he told him: ”You’re just in time, I’ve already found those people.”

”Those people… which people?” Fang Hong already had a guess in his heart, but still found it a bit unbelievable: ”You found them?”

”More or less,” Cuiye nodded. ”I found their friends. They told me those people are still in this area, so don’t worry. I’ve already set up a meeting for you. We’ll meet later in the Hall of Trees. Of course, the tab goes on your account—no problem with that, right?”

”Of course, no problem.”

Fang Hong almost wanted to hug this guy and give him a kiss—pah, no, what he really wanted was to award him a one-ton medal. He hadn’t expected this guy to be so reliable; this really helped them get rid of a huge headache.

And it wasn’t just for the Tree People’s generous reward. More importantly, he and the Big Cat People had suspected from the start that those men might be Dark Followers, and the relationship between them and these Dark Followers had long since become completely irreconcilable.

From Dolifen to Fenris, then to Idus and Istania; from the resurrection plot of the Dragon’s Witch, to the secrets of Toragotos and Blind God Dika—he could clearly feel the layers upon layers of schemes those people had laid out across Colin Ishurian.

If they could uncover the enemy’s plan early, it might be a powerful supplement to their investigation of the Dark Followers, maybe even the key to exposing some critical secret.

Just like when they caught the Blind Followers’ slip-up back in Tansnier.

He immediately agreed on a time with Cuiye, then closed the Communication Crystal and announced the news to the others.

However, compared to his excitement, the others were clearly much calmer. After listening, Hilveld blinked and asked: ”Even if the mission over there might have made new progress, how should Lord Captain handle the Crystal’s potential full-scale Attack?”

She added another sentence:

”If the Crystal is going to launch an offensive, it should choose to act before the follow-up reinforcements arrive—in other words, within these one or two days. That timing should overlap exactly with us going to investigate this matter here, right?”

Fang Hong couldn’t help freezing for a moment. In his earlier excitement, he’d actually forgotten about this issue. It really was a problem: even if they met those miners and got useful clues from them, they’d still need time to carry out the follow-up investigation.

And that time would likely coincide with the Crystal’s possible Attack. Even if the Tree People managed to hold off this wave, once the reinforcements from the Guild arrived, given their current situation, it wouldn’t be convenient for them to stay here any longer.

”Then we’ll just have to hurry,” Fang Hong thought for a moment and said, ”I don’t know if you’ve noticed the pattern of the Crystal’s Attacks?”

”That I do know, Brother Ade,” Tianlan immediately started chattering: ”I heard that every probing assault from the Crystal always starts at high noon and ends before nightfall, never an exception?”

”It’s not just hearsay. Even the other Invokers have noticed this,” Gita gently shook her head. ”Not only that, the Adventure Groups and teams staying here have even formulated some tactics specifically to deal with this. They go out after dark to wipe out the remaining Crystalysis Beasts outside to earn some payment. As long as they don’t go deep into the mining area, there’s almost no chance of things going wrong.”

Fang Hong nodded, somewhat satisfied that everyone clearly hadn’t just been idle these days; each of them had been paying attention to gathering intel.

He said, ”We still don’t know why—maybe it has to do with the ebb and flow of the Crystalysis Beasts’ Strength, or maybe there’s something under the ground that limits their performance; or perhaps it’s because of the Heart of Chongshan—maybe at that time, the Heart of Chongshan’s Strength is at its weakest.”

”But regardless of which reason it is, it means the Crystal’s next Attack will probably unfold before the next noon arrives. It could be tomorrow, or the day after, but in any case it’ll be before the Guild’s reinforcements here arrive.”

”So by the principle of preparing for the worst, we’d best get everything done before the end of today?” Reed asked.

Fang Hong nodded again.

”Before nightfall today, we’ll meet those miners and see if we can get some useful information from them. Ideally we’ll wrap everything up before tomorrow at noon. That way, even if the reinforcements arrive, we can still leave at our leisure.”

He glanced at the others: ”What do you think?”

”No objections.” The Big Cat People shrugged.

Everyone else nodded as well.

Next, everyone busied themselves, and Fang Hong sent another message to Cuiye, telling him his speculation about the Crystal’s possible full-scale Attack and asking him to pass this news on to the others.

He wasn’t sure whether, in the midst of this seemingly festive, carefree atmosphere here, anyone had already realized this, but giving their partners a heads-up counted as fulfilling his own responsibility.

Otherwise, if those guys got cocky because of the reinforcements and lost all sense, and then the Crystal’s full-scale offensive ended up knocking their hometown flat, that really would be game over.

On the other side, after receiving the message, Cuiye was clearly a bit surprised. He froze for a second before saying: ”...It really does seem like a possibility. Good thing you reminded me. I heard there are several teams planning to use this chance to go out and farm a wave of kills. Looks like I’ll have to hurry and stop them.”

Fang Hong was speechless for a while, utterly unsure what was going on in those people’s heads.

...