Demon Hunter: School of the Wolf.

Chapter 649 The Cave of Ten Thousand Demons, the new stronghold of the Wolf School.
"You had another nightmare."

This is a statement, not a question.

Erin raised his hand to touch his forehead and found it covered in cold sweat. The back of the blanket and the front of his chest were also soaked.

The air was filled with the strong scent of juniper, bitter with a pungent tartness.

Tilt your head.

Vera stood at the head of the bed, bending over and busily scraping the thick, green medicine evenly onto the gauze with a silver dagger.

The juniper and its pungent bitterness emanate from it.

"Don't you really want to talk to me?" She had her back to Erin, her voice soft and gentle. "I've also learned some dream interpretation from Ianna, so at least I can help you with that."

If Mary heard Vera's voice, she would be so surprised that her mouth would drop open.

He thought to himself, then remained silent.

That dream was raw and bloody; it didn't need interpretation.

Erin remained silent, and Vera followed suit.

This scenario has happened many times in the past few days. After Mary revealed that she was having nightmares, every time she woke up from a nightmare, she would see Vera most of the time.

Regardless of day or night.

They seemed to have developed a tacit understanding after their conversation on the old road.

Today, as usual, Vera didn't press the matter after being rejected. She carefully turned Erin to his side and changed his dressing.

“Yes, you’re recovering very well,” Vera smiled gently. “Congratulations, Erin. Just one more dressing change and you’ll be fully recovered.”

Erin clenched his fist, feeling his strength gradually returning, and couldn't help but smile. He looked at Vera and asked:
"Now can you tell me what's going on outside? Has Hen Gedimidis woken up?"

"Leaving aside Vesemir, Dante, and Geron Molu, you also instructed Francesca and Marie not to say much in front of me, and I haven't even seen them more than a few times these past few days..."

The day after he awoke, he tried to inquire about the outside situation and what had happened to the Warlock Brotherhood, to the point that even Tissaya de Veris's own Aretusa sorceresses were not enough, and she had to call upon the magical source Vigfortz.

After all, theoretically speaking, having just rescued Hen Gedimidis from Ban Ade, and before Hen Gedimidis had regained his dominance in the Brotherhood of Sorcerers and his influence in the Northern Continent, he should have kept himself hidden from the Brotherhood of Sorcerers, rather than appearing openly in the Brotherhood of Sorcerers.

Although Erin had silenced all of Sunny and his group who had seen them in the dungeon, Vigforts should still be a member of Ban Ade, and the fact that he and Lydia van Bradwater had both disappeared was impossible to hide.

Ottolan could have easily discovered his odd behavior with a little investigation; whether there was evidence or not was irrelevant at that point.

Hiding for a period of time can create the illusion of being dead, making it less likely to be noticed.

It can help Tissaya de Veris manage the Warlock Brotherhood...

Isn't this just revealing your hand directly?
Neither Tissaya de Veres nor Vigolfotz were fools; they shouldn't have been unaware of this, unless... something changed, a big change he couldn't have foreseen.

“That was to prevent you from getting too agitated and affecting your recovery,” Vera paused in her work of tidying up the old gauze and dressings, thought for a moment, then stopped and nodded. “But now it really is time…”

"Henry Gedimidis hasn't woken up yet, but he should be soon. But more importantly..."

She paused, observing Erin's eyes, and said seriously, "Erin, Ben Ade, has disappeared."

Ban Ad... disappeared... Erin paused, then asked, puzzled, "What do you mean by disappeared?"

“It means exactly what it says,” Vera said, putting away the bandages and dressings. “Originally, Ban Ade, whether it was the new city or the place where Ban Ade Academy was located, was just an empty wilderness. The huge city and all the people in it have disappeared.”

“Erin, you should have been the last person to leave Ben Ade, didn’t you know that?”

The entire city is gone… For a moment, Erin couldn’t believe Vera’s words. She looked into her eyes for a few seconds, making sure she wasn’t joking, before shaking her head.

“When I left Ban Ade, I was already seriously injured and unconscious, how could this be…”

He paused, suddenly thinking of Vincent and Colin.

They said they rescued him by accident in the Amel Mountains, two thousand kilometers away from Ban Ad.

When he woke up, he wondered why the black dragon, who should have been in bad shape after facing the Wild Hunt King's self-destruction, would send him to the Amel Mountains instead of Kaer Morhen, which was nearby.

Is it possible that Heilong has already done everything he could to get him to a safe place?

Yes!

No wonder Tissaya de Veres dared to use Wigafferz, and Wigafferz dared to agree.

The entire Ban Ade is gone, as are the people from Ottoland and the Risberg Civil Cooperative. Of course they dared to agree, and Tissaya de Veris must really be short-handed.

With Ban Ad and Ottoran's disappearance, the extraordinary power structure of the Northern Continent was completely reshuffled. Erin couldn't even imagine how busy Tisaya de Veris would be in the next month.

But how did they manage to do that?
The Witcher lowered his head in confusion, lost in thought, as he began to recall.

Vera didn't press him for details; she simply looked at him quietly.

"In the end, the King of the Wild Hunt manipulated Renakins to self-destruct. Eridin wanted to kill me, so there was no reason for him to teleport me thousands of miles away. The Wild Hunt hasn't appeared in this world for many years, and erasing a major city like Ben Ade is also unnecessary. It could only have been an accident."

"Since it was an accident, what caused it? Spatial...teleportation..."

"and many more……"

He suddenly realized that in order to influence the Wild Hunt King Eredin who was possessing Renakins, he had released the final "Exotic Fusion," and the "Exotic Fusion" had indeed successfully influenced Eredin, almost enough to fully charge up the [Witch Hunt] progress and eliminate Renakins and the possessed Eredin.

of course.

Eridin's final self-destruction was certainly influenced by the alien fusion and the [Witcher], forcing him to abandon the idea of ​​capturing him alive and instead choose to perish together with him.

So it was the 'alien fusion' and Eredin's self-destruction that created some kind of reaction, teleporting him and the black dragon to the Amel Mountains, two thousand kilometers away...

But why the Amer Mountains? Is it just a coincidence?
"You've figured it out?" Vera asked. Erin nodded slightly. "It might be an accident."

He didn't elaborate, not because he intentionally kept it from Vera—there were few people in the world more trustworthy than Vera—but because these were all just guesses, and he himself didn't know how to explain them.

Of course, he would elaborate if Vera pressed him for details, but after Vera asked that question, he nodded slightly and didn't say anything more.

Instead, Erin thought for a moment and asked another question:
"A month has passed, and the Warlock Brotherhood still hasn't found Ban Ad?"

Vera's expression suddenly turned somewhat strange: "It should be considered found."

Erin was stunned.

If it's found, it's found; if it's not found, it's not found. What does "should have been found" mean?
“The Brotherhood of Warlocks divined that Ban Ad was in Dordurak,” Vera paused, “and many others also call it the Cavern of Ten Thousand Demons…”

"The Cave of Ten Thousand Demons?" Erin murmured, "It's Alzu..."

“That’s right,” Vera nodded. “The ‘Double Cross of Alzu’ that Alzu destroyed half of Maripo summoned the Demon of Saliva. It is said that after killing Alzu and destroying Maripo, the place where it fled was the Cave of Ten Thousand Demons, formerly known as Dodurac.”

The Cave of Ten Thousand Demons was formerly known as Dordurak. It was located within the territory of Temuria, not far from the Ring of Maynard Rui, at the foot of the Mahakan Mountains. It was once a vibrant and beautiful valley until the conjunction of the celestial spheres changed everything.

At that time, the earth cracked and mountains collapsed, and terrifying monsters appeared, destroying everything beautiful in the valley.

After that, no one dared to set foot in Dordurak except for the Witcher.

They were divided into two types: one type sought fame and fortune by slaughtering the demons in the valley, while the other type sought a glorious death.

However, only the latter achieved their goal.

Speaking of which, Erin had also seen the name Ten Thousand Demon Cave in another place.

It was in May, in Kaer Morhen, when he conveyed the invitation from Duke Elland Mason's Migration School to Soy, who refused on the grounds that "the promises of the short-lived species are not trustworthy." Soy then unfolded an old map and detailed how to select a fortress to build, and the Cavern of Demons was heavily marked on the map.

Erin later asked what that meant.

Soy said that after the Witcher Order fell apart, he considered the Cavern of Ten Thousand Demons when choosing a location for the Wolf School, but after much deliberation, he ultimately gave up on it because it was too dangerous.

During the Witcher Order era, they also launched a great expedition to eliminate the monsters in the Cave of Ten Thousand Demons, but the monsters were inexhaustible and the expedition ended in failure.

In general, the Cavern of Demons is the most dangerous place in the entire Witcher world, on par with the Sedna Abyss, where storms and tsunamis frequently occur between the Skellige Isles and the Northern Continent, and the Koraz Desert beneath the Flame Mountains.

A mere valley can be compared to the deep abyss of the ocean and the vast desert; one can imagine how dangerous it must be.

"wrong!"

As Erin pondered this, he suddenly noticed something unusual.

"Besides the fact that there are too many and too strong monsters, the Cave of Ten Thousand Demons is just an ordinary valley. Unless all the Risberg wizards in Ottoran and Ban Ade City died a month ago, someone should have been able to leave using the portal. How come they only managed to get out now by relying on divination?"

“I don’t know the specifics either,” Vera shook her head. “Tissaya de Veris mentioned some things through the telescope a few days ago, only saying that the Cave of Ten Thousand Demons seems to have undergone considerable changes.”

Arlin nodded, then asked curiously, "So what does the Warlock Brotherhood plan to do? Send people in to rescue them? Or are they just giving up?"

“Ban Ard Academy, a large number of male wizards from the Risberg Civil Cooperative, and Ottoran are all in Ban Ard. How could the Brotherhood of Sorcerers possibly abandon them?” Vera shook her head. “Of course, they didn’t immediately send anyone to rescue them either…”

"What are you doing?" Erin asked, puzzled.

“In a meeting…” Vera scoffed. “Tessaya is very proactive about the rescue. As soon as she divined Ban Ad’s location, she immediately issued a proposal, followed by buck-passing at each level.”

"From the lower-level council to the middle-level council to the upper-level council, they were all in meetings, and it took three days to vote on whether to launch the rescue operation."

"Right now, they're discussing the allocation of quotas for the various levels of the rescue team's review committee. After this meeting, there will probably be other meetings..."

"A meeting...that's quite unique..." Erin blinked strangely upon hearing this.

Tissaya de Veres' decisive actions are consistent with her personality.

Rescuing Ban Ad and the warlocks of the Risberg Civil Cooperative will undoubtedly cost Aretusa, the third largest power in the Brotherhood of Warlocks, dearly, and their losses will be substantial.

However, Tissaya de Veris embodies this style—advocating for the interests of Aretusa and the sorceress while maintaining order and stability. And for the sake of order and stability, sacrificing interests is an acceptable and righteous act.

Of course, rescuing Ottoland, the Risberg Civil Cooperative, and Ban Ade the Wizard would be acceptable to Aretusa, and even to Arlin, and would be largely beneficial.

Firstly, rescuing anyone from the Cavern of Ten Thousand Demons is a massive operation, and even if all the meetings are over now, it will probably take a considerable amount of time. By then, Hen Gedimidis will have already awakened and, together with Tissaya de Veris, will have completely taken control of the Brotherhood of Sorcerers.

Secondly, the true enemies of Tissaya de Veres, Erin, and Henry Gedimidis—Senny and the core of the radical faction—are all dead. Ottoland and the Risberg Civil Cooperative are forces that can be suppressed, are quite powerful, and can be utilized.

Leaving aside the future of White Frost, the Ottoland and Risberg Civilian Cooperatives, who have actually seen and dealt with the Wild Hunt and suffered considerable losses, will definitely be the backbone when the Red Cavalry attacks in the future.

Thirdly, Ottoran doesn't know who he is, and Ban Ad is currently in the Demon Cave, so Vigforts' identity can probably be concealed. It's unlikely that it will never be exposed, but by the time it can no longer be concealed in the future, let alone Erin, even the Demon Source Vigforts will probably have grown to the point where he no longer needs to hide it...

“The Brotherhood of Warlocks will definitely send reinforcements eventually,” Erin murmured, “and they will also issue commissions to various schools of witchers…”

"You're not allowed to go!" Vera's expression changed instantly, a stark contrast to her previous motherly demeanor.

What kind of image do I have in Vera's heart...? Erin gave a wry smile and said, "Of course I won't go."

This is a lie.

Such a large-scale commission from the Brotherhood of Warlocks would be impossible for any school of Witcher to refuse if they wanted to remain in the Northern Continent.

Of course, Erin wasn't interested in rescuing Ban Ad.

He was just thinking that this might be an opportunity.

An opportunity to explore the Cavern of Ten Thousand Demons—whether it's suitable as a base for a school of thought...

(End of this chapter)