The mont Saul made his move, he completely restrained the two infighting companions. Both Mark and Kongsha turned to look at him.
Mark’s face was visibly uneasy, while a gleam of curiosity sparkled in Kongsha’s eyes.
Kongsha blinked at Saul, her smile widening.
Saul only glanced at her briefly before looking away.
There was sothing he had wanted to ask earlier, but the internal scuffle had interrupted him.
“Apprentices in here can still disappear? Can you confirm if they’re dead?”
“No.” Kongsha finally put away her lighthearted expression. “So disappear after dying, others vanish without warning. But they all show strange behavior before disappearing. Take Leon, for example—he said he saw an exit, and then actually wanted Kasilo to burn him alive.”
Mark moistened his dry lips. “I think he just wanted release.”
Kongsha nodded in agreent. “Kasilo, of course, refused. Then Leon ran off. I was worried he’d attract elves, so I chased after him, but after just a couple steps, he vanished behind a big tree. Heh, as if he really had found an exit.”
The two people who had been restrained seed to be regaining their senses. Especially Monroe, who let out a low whimper toward Saul.
Saul signaled Little Algae to untie him, and sure enough, once Monroe was free, he didn’t attack again.
On the other side, Kasilo also stopped struggling. Seeing this, Saul untied her as well.
If they caused more trouble, he’d just tie them up again.
Next ti, who knew what shape he’d tie them into?
Leaving the two alone, Saul asked Kongsha, “Since he disappeared, is it possible he really found the exit?”
“If everyone who disappeared had found the exit, soone would’ve reported back in the past half year.” Kongsha clearly had no hope in that idea.
Saul glanced at the mushrooms and other food Herman was holding. “So you’ve just been eating this stuff?”
“No choice,” Kongsha smirked. “All the corpses vanished.”
A chill crept through Saul’s heart. He didn’t pursue the deeper implications of Kongsha’s words and instead asked, “Where exactly did Leon disappear? I want to go check for clues.”
Kongsha shot him a sideways glance. Saul t her gaze without flinching.
Monroe muttered, “It’s no use. We’ve searched every spot where people disappeared. Not a single clue.”
“Let Saul take a look. Otherwise, why did we specifically invite him here?” Mark cut in, dousing Monroe’s pessimism. He thought Saul should definitely check it out.
After all, the guy’s ntal aptitude was genuinely exceptional.
Kongsha chuckled softly, her eyes narrowing. She turned and pointed behind her.
“Over there. Go back into the forest and walk another 300 ters or so. But the tree Leon vanished behind wasn’t special. I don’t rember exactly which one.”
“Got it.” Saul nodded, then instructed his team. “Morden, you and Herman stay here and sort out the food. Search the rest of this house too. An, and Agu co with .”
Under the various gazes—so blank, so worried, so complicated—Saul led An and Agu into the forest behind the adow.
Once they entered the woods, An perked up a bit. She even strolled alongside Saul with her hands behind her back, tilting her head and wearing an exaggerated, stiff smile.
“Master, weren’t you all eager to find so beautiful girls when we ca in? How co you don’t even say hi to the pretty one before walking off?”
She was teasing Saul, but this ti, he didn’t look at her with his usual helplessness.
He marched ahead expressionlessly, but his voice carried back clearly.
“You really think she’s pretty?”
An blinked, confused as to why Saul was asking this out of nowhere.
Saul tilted his head slightly and turned to Agu on his right. “Agu, you’ve t Kongsha before, haven’t you?”
“Yes, Master,” Agu replied quickly. “Kongsha used to frequent the library too.”
Their figures had already vanished deep into the woods. The tall trees behind them blocked the view from the adow.
Saul ca to a stop.
“In your mory,” Saul pointed to the bridge of his own nose, “from here up… did Kongsha have a woman’s face?”
Agu stopped too, staring blankly at Saul’s nose. His expression grew dazed.
But that daze quickly turned into shock. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and along his temples.
Only An still didn’t understand what was going on, but seeing Saul’s and Agu’s expressions, she realized sothing creepy had definitely happened.
Before she could ask, Agu’s voice—slightly trembling—rang out, “Kongsha… Kongsha didn’t have the upper half of her face!”
Saul took a deep breath, then resud walking.
“That’s right. The Kongsha we see now has a very beautiful face. When I first saw her, I thought it suited her perfectly. Only on the second glance did I feel sothing was off.”
Even the two souls felt a chill run down their spines.
When they had seen Kongsha, they’d thought she was the most normal of the four.
But now it turned out—her face had sohow beco complete. And they hadn’t noticed a thing.
Saul murmured, “I’ve encountered sothing similar before. Soone I was eting for the first ti… I instinctively thought he was my brother.”
Kist… is this your doing?
Saul didn’t ntion Kist to them. The one person who truly knew the diary’s secrets—he was wary of him, yet felt an inexplicable trust.
An finally understood what was going on. She rubbed her forehead. “So, was what we saw just now a disguised Kongsha—or… soone else?”
“We can’t be sure yet,” Saul admitted. “But her tone and gestures were consistent with how she used to act.”
“Could it be that even your mory of her mannerisms has been blurred?”
They had already arrived near the area Kongsha had ntioned. Saul began scouting around.
At the sa ti, he said firmly, “No. I was affected at first, but once I recalled Kongsha’s true appearance, all my mories ca back clearly.”
He was confident, not just because the diary hadn’t sounded any warning, but also because of his ditation thod.
To this day, he still didn’t know who had slipped the Erosion Diagram into his ditation book, but the technique felt tailor-made for him.
And since the Erosion Diagram dealt with the blurring and alteration of consciousness, it had helped him unmask Kist’s disguise before… and now quickly detect Kongsha’s anomaly.
“So what do we do next?” Agu asked.
Whether they fought or acted, they would follow Saul’s lead completely.
“Don’t act rashly yet. We still don’t understand what’s happening to her… or to the others.”
Halfway through the sentence, Saul suddenly turned his head toward An’s back.
An noticed his movent and instantly realized sothing was behind her.
Just as she prepared to duck, Saul grabbed her shoulder and pulled her aside, both of them shifting three or four ters away.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Sothing struck the ground with dull, heavy thumps.
“Agu, did you see that?” Saul kept his eyes fixed on the direction behind An.
“Yes!” Agu didn’t bother with politeness now. “A bunch of people just appeared out of nowhere!”
As Saul turned his head to speak to An, he had caught sight—out of the corner of his eye—of nurous pale figures standing among the tall trees.
These figures had also appeared behind Mark earlier.
But this ti, though their heads were still bowed and their faces obscured, each of them held a bow and arrow.
An had reacted quickly. The mont she noticed Saul’s gaze shift, she realized enemies might be behind her and tried to crouch to avoid them.
But she hadn’t expected that the enemy wasn’t just one—
It was an entire group.
They fired at her. A rain of arrows curved through the air, streaking like lightning toward her back.
But as soon as the trio retreated beyond a safe range, all those pale figures vanished.
Only the sound of arrows thudding into the earth remained.
When Saul looked back at the ground, he saw nothing unusual—no arrows stuck in the soil, no grass blades shredded.
That sound… might’ve been nothing but an illusion.
“An illusion?” Saul helped straighten An, lost in thought—when suddenly, his gaze froze.
The hem of An’s wizard robe had a long tear.
It had clearly been slashed by sothing.
(End of Chapter)
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