"The stinking rat is here."
When Chun found Cheng Shi, the forr [Prosperity] Chosen was gnashing her teeth. "He's probably noticed your interest in this trial, so he brought a plague to [Order]'s encampnt."
A plague?
Cheng Shi raised an eyebrow, suddenly realizing that with the [Decay] authority of Faded in his hands, he had almost forgotten to account for threats from [Decay] itself. But those threats remained very real for everyone else.
Lin Xi's primary class was a [Decay] mage: Plague Cardinal. A profession that reigned supre as the king of area-of-effect damage in the Faith Ga.
Choosing this mont to strike the left-flank camp ant Lin Xi was definitely coming after him. As expected, [Oblivion] had no intention of letting him go.
Lin Xi's goal here was no different from kidnapping Keinlaur. It was simply about disrupting the trial's normal progression, forcing Cheng Shi to go "deal with" the source of disruption first, thereby allowing Lin Xi to gain an advantage through pre-arranged preparations for their eventual confrontation.
The Plague Cardinal could spread plague at terrifying speed. If left unchecked, even with the Grand Tribunal's counterasures, the only outcos would be countless knights rotting in place or withdrawing from the encirclent zone.
And if a gap appeared in the encirclent line, it was anyone's guess where history would go from there.
Cheng Shi wasn't concerned about the direction of history itself. What he cared about was whether, when history changed course, the particular Gods he was watching would react the sa way they had in the historical record.
Everything he'd experienced since the trial began told Cheng Shi that this supposedly observer-perspective trial might actually be a true projection of that ancient faith conflict. So to prevent Lin Xi from erasing any more clues, Cheng Shi really did need to find a way to stop all of this.
Besides, no one knew whether this was Lin Xi's way of weakening their side from a distance. Even if Cheng Shi himself was safe from the plague thanks to his Faded authority, the other two mbers of his group weren't. If they fell ill during this plague, the balance of combat power might tilt.
The odds of that were slim, but in the na of caution, it couldn't be ignored.
So regardless, the ti to act had co. Only by dealing with Lin Xi could this trial continue in peace.
But still...
'Sis, what's with that tone of yours?'
'Why does it sound like you're upset that Lin Xi ca looking for
instead of you?'
Cheng Shi gave Chun an odd look. Since she hadn't charged off headlong, it ant she hadn't caught Lin Xi's scent anywhere nearby. In that case, he'd have to gamble on whether Xiao Qi's captured tad beast had left any useful clues.
It went without saying that Lin Xi wouldn't be foolish enough to face this confrontation without an ally. And the only ally he could find was Xiao Qi.
Those two really were "birds of a feather," drawn together by shared stench.
Cheng Shi retrieved the escort knight whose soul had been obliterated from the Molten Coffin and addressed the slightly puzzled Chun:
"I'm guessing my old friend has tead up with the rat you loathe so much. Finding him might lead us to Lin Xi.
This is one of his tad beasts. Can you use it to pick up a trail?
I know Lin Xi issued the challenge, but if we can break free of his rhythm and catch him off guard, our odds improve significantly.
If not, we'll just have to go back and ask the Master."
"Yes!"
Chun's reply was terse and to the point. Although she was an assassin by class, her extended pursuit of Lin Xi had given her an extensive arsenal of tracking thods and tools.
The mont Cheng Shi produced the tad beast's corpse, Chun was already in motion. She pulled out a palm-sized bone compass and gently placed it on the body. A pointer fashioned from a bone shard began spinning wildly across its surface, and before long, it settled on a direction for them.
Chun's eyes lit up. She snatched the compass back and bolted in that direction.
The sight left Cheng Shi dumbfounded. He imdiately used the communication item Sun Miao had given him to summon backup, then hurried after Chun, trailing half a step behind as he ran and asked curiously:
"Is that a [Death] artifact?"
"Correct. An S-rank sacred artifact: the Tragic Death Compass. Despite the word 'tragic' in its na, it doesn't point to the killer, it detects similar death auras. It was a gift from a Scarlet Hunter friend of mine, but she... died at Lin Xi's hands."
"..."
Honestly, Cheng Shi couldn't care less how many additional grudges were tangled up in these two people's vendetta. All he knew was that the na "Tragic Death Compass" could not possibly have been given by that God. It had to be a later corruption of the deity's magnificent naming artistry.
Based on that God's typical style, it should obviously be called the "Bone Fragnt Trail-Seeker's Compass."
Cheng Shi pursed his lips, shook the jumbled thoughts from his head, then furrowed his brow slightly.
"Things are going a little too smoothly. I sll a trap.
My old friend is a Beast Tar. Since he knows I captured one of his beasts, there's no way he wouldn't have scrubbed his own traces.
That bone fragnt... Tragic Death Compass of yours, is it reliable?"
"It's not necessarily precise.
It might lock onto another victim's corpse, or one of his other tad beasts. But we can use it repeatedly as a lead, narrowing the search area to zero in on the target.
Trust , I've done this at least a hundred tis."
At this mont, Chun was brimming with fighting spirit, her earlier seven-year-old deanor nowhere to be seen. If anything, she bore a passing resemblance to Big Cat.
Seeing this, Cheng Shi was montarily lost in thought. 'Did Big Cat really help this [Prosperity] colleague purely out of factional interest and personal goodwill?'
'She didn't just think she'd finally found a kindred spirit who shared her belief that "fighting is exhilarating," did she?'
'Tch. Hard to say.'
The two of them quickly arrived at a dense thicket beneath the Boro Highlands, where they found a dead spotted leopard as expected. But it had been dead for a long ti, at least a full day.
Cheng Shi frowned at the tad beast's corpse but said nothing. He watched in silence as Chun pulled out the compass again, and it pointed them toward a new direction.
They wove through the dense forest for quite a while, and only after linking up with Sun Miao and discovering several more tad beast corpses of different types did they finally stop before the last one: a dead young hawk.
The Tragic Death Compass had gone still. That ant there were no more matching death auras in the vicinity.
When the compass fell silent, Chun showed no impatience. Instead, she produced a whole array of other tracking tools: artifacts of [Decay], [Oblivion], [Truth], [Silence], [mory], and even [Fate]...
More than a Crown of Thorns assassin, at this mont Chun resembled a [Prosperity] hunter. A gourmand.
She was genuinely skilled at tracking, but after multiple attempts she had to concede that Xiao Qi was equally expert at covering his tracks. Beyond the existing traces, no additional clues could be found no matter what.
And upon learning this, Cheng Shi's brow furrowed tightly.
Controllable traces ant either they had walked into a trap designed by Xiao Qi, or Xiao Qi was using this thod to toy with them.
Cheng Shi had checked and double-checked: there was no danger in this forest. So was this yet another deception?
'He's toying with the hunters pursuing him?'
'No, that's not right.'
Cheng Shi shook his head. Sothing told him this might not be so simple. And just as Chun had hit a dead end and Cheng Shi was sinking into deep thought, Sun Miao, who had been silent the entire way, suddenly lifted her electronic beeper and typed:
"Lin Xi is in the battlefield ravine in front of the Boro Highlands battle line."
"?"
...
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