The Wizard's Secret Journey

Chapter 257 Gray Wind (4.2k)

As dusk settled, the last rays of light slowly sank below the horizon.

Lynn floated calmly in mid-air.

Darkness swept in like a tidal wave, enveloping the entire Ashwood Ruins. This already faded world was reduced to a black and white silhouette, like a skeleton drained of life. In the night, only the outlines of the broken walls and ruins could be seen. Some lay horizontally on the earth, like sleeping giants, while others jutted out at the dark sky, like arms raised in anger.

But regardless of the type, they all appear particularly eerie and distorted in the darkness of the night.

Lynn breathed a sigh of relief and silently entered stealth mode, waiting for the Silver Ring reinforcements to arrive.

Just two minutes later, Lynn didn't receive any Silver Ring reinforcements, but instead received a Silver Ring 'deserter'.

When Lynn spotted the fleeing wizard, she was a kilometer away. Judging from the direction she was heading, she must have escaped from the neighboring house where the distress flare had been activated.

The wizard was a beautiful woman dressed in the robes of the Silver Ring Academy. Judging from the badge on her chest, she was a first-tier intermediate wizard.

Although she was fleeing, she didn't look disheveled, only somewhat anxious.

Behind the witch followed a gigantic, grotesque monster, its body resembling a humanoid shape and composed of a reddish-brown substance that looked like both flesh and rotten mud.

It looks like a skinned and somewhat rotten corpse.

boom!
A silver-white orb with a long tail suddenly appeared out of thin air and shot towards the blood-red rotten monster.

The latter was blasted dozens of meters away, his face and body completely disfigured and a mess, but he recovered completely in the next moment and continued to chase the Silver Ring Academy witch.

Lynn could clearly see the witch frown deeply, obviously extremely annoyed.

This rotten monster didn't possess the powerful displacement ability that the otherworldly creature Lynn's team had encountered before.

Therefore, strictly speaking, this rotten monster posed no fatal threat to a mid-level first-tier wizard.

Even if you can't beat them, you can still dodge or run away.

Since they couldn't even kill a single mid-level first-tier wizard, they certainly couldn't possibly defeat a standard cleaning squad of four first-tier wizards.

Therefore, in theory, the squad that this Silver Ring Academy witch belonged to should not have fallen apart like Lynn's squad.

But the fact that this Silver Ring Academy witch is now on the run alone clearly demonstrates that her squad has fallen apart, just like Lynn's squad.

'If this crimson rotting monster doesn't have anything special about it, then it most likely means that their team has encountered more than one enormous rotting monster or giant alien spirit.' Lynn silently speculated, continuing to observe the enormous crimson rotting monster behind the witch.

Although he has now obtained the Puppet Rune and is no longer interested in the Rotten Monster, he is still quite interested in the enormous Rotten Monster.

After all, Lynn had witnessed the formation of the massive rotten monster earlier and knew that it was formed by the fusion of multiple ordinary rotten monsters, just like the giant alien spirit.

The core of the ordinary Rotten Monster lies in the Puppet Rune. It can be said that the Rotten Monster only exists because of the Puppet Rune. Therefore, Lynn was very curious about how the ordinary Rotten Monster, or rather the ordinary Puppet Rune, was fused together to become the huge Rotten Monster.

Although Lynn had studied a massive rotten monster core, the research time available for a single rotten monster core was limited, and in that short time, Lynn did not gain much.

'No rush. While the number of massive rotten monsters in the Gray Forest Ruins isn't large, it's not small either. Let's make sure this blood-red rotten monster poses no further danger first.'

Lynn further enhanced his concealment, silently watching the Silver Ring Academy witch fly swiftly past him from below.

However, a small incident occurred when the Crimson Rot Monster approached Lynn.

As the crimson, rotting monster passed beneath Lynn, it suddenly stopped and raised its head.

This gesture clearly indicates that Lynn has been identified.

Lynn was slightly startled and quickly moved away!
As Lynn rapidly ascended, the Crimson Rotten Monster quickly abandoned its pursuit and instead continued chasing the Silver Ring Academy witch from before.

The Corrupted Monster seems to have its own logic in choosing its targets. It doesn't just judge by distance, but also by other factors. For example, it prioritized chasing Vivian, who was previously attacked and injured by the Corrupted Monster. And now, the Silver Ring Witch who attacked the Corrupted Monster is also being prioritized for killing by the Corrupted Monster.

Seeing this, Lynn breathed a slight sigh of relief, but the surprise in his heart lingered for a long time.

'I never expected the Rotten Monster to possess such strong reconnaissance abilities.'

His previous goal was to hunt the Rotten Monster, so he never tried to hide in front of it. Even when facing the Rotten Monster before, he always chose to run away rather than hide. In fact, when facing any dangerous target, wizards would always choose to run away rather than hide.

After all, if escaping doesn't work, you can try to hide, but if hiding doesn't work, you've probably already lost the best opportunity to escape.

Getting back to the point, that's why Lynn only now realized how abnormally powerful the Rotting Monsters' investigative abilities were!
It's important to know that the Concealment spell Lynn is currently using is the advanced Phase Shadow spell of the first level. Concealment is already among the top spells of the first level, and its effect is even stronger in the current dark environment!

However, the Corrupted Monster saw through Lynn's concealment from a hundred meters away. Such a reconnaissance ability is in no way inferior to Lynn's perfect level of secondary true vision!

boom!
The witch who flew away once again battled the rotten monster.

Or to be more precise, the Silver Ring Witch once again used witchcraft to interfere with the Corrupted Monster's pursuit.

The Crimson Rotten Monster was already slower than the Witch, and now, under her relentless attacks, it had fallen far behind. If nothing unexpected happened, it probably wouldn't be able to catch up anymore.

But accidents are a normal part of life.

A barely perceptible roar came from behind.

The witch suddenly slowed down in the next second, then darted to the side, narrowly avoiding a new blood-red rotten monster attacking from below!
Fortunately, the witch reacted quickly; otherwise, even a delay of just a second or two would have left her surrounded by two rotten monsters!

'This is really bad luck,' Lynn thought to himself, but a new guess inevitably surfaced in his mind: 'Is it possible that this newly appeared rotten monster was specifically summoned by the Crimson Rotten Monster to help stop the witch?'

If this conjecture is true, then it seems that the Corrupted Monster, in addition to having extremely strong self-healing abilities, no fatal weaknesses, and powerful reconnaissance capabilities, also possesses the ability to communicate.

'No, this could just be a pre-programmed contingency plan.' Lynn shook his head slightly, but his anticipation for the specific effects of the puppet rune grew stronger.

'Unfortunately, there are no conditions here to further study the puppet runes...'

Lynn cleared his mind and looked into the distance again. The Silver Ring Academy witch had successfully shaken off the Blood Red Rotten Monster's pursuit and disappeared.

The Crimson Rot Monster, having lost its target, is now returning in the direction it came from, and will soon pass beneath Lynn.

Lynn took a deep breath and focused his mind.

He was unwilling to let the blood-red rotting monster go, and even wanted to deal with another enormous rotting monster not far away. The first-tier mid-level Silver Ring Academy witch, in terms of strength, was definitely not weak among witches of the same tier; both of her attacks were at the high-level of the first ring, clearly indicating she was an elite witch from Silver Ring Academy.

But when faced with a gigantic, rotting monster, she had no choice but to flee. To confront it head-on would surely mean certain death.

The Rotten Monster has no fatal weaknesses and possesses an almost superhuman regenerative ability, making a direct confrontation a war of attrition. A mere mid-level first-tier witch would be no match for the Rotten Monster's weariness.

Based on Lynn's experience, even if the witch exhausted all her magic and mental energy, she could at most severely injure the enormous, blood-red rotten monster, and would not be able to completely destroy it.

But Lynn was different; he was not afraid to face a huge, rotten monster head-on.

After all, he was far stronger than an ordinary first-tier high-level wizard, let alone a first-tier mid-level wizard.

The profound Black Moon Meditation technique endowed Lynn with exceptionally vast mental and magical power, far surpassing that of an ordinary first-tier high-level wizard. Even without using any other means, Lynn could easily emerge victorious by directly confronting the enormous rotten monster.

Not to mention that Lynn also possesses a high-level Tier 1 physical body. Although its attack power is not as good as that of witchcraft, its endurance is several times greater. As long as he is willing to spend the time, he can easily and completely eliminate the huge rotten monster.

Furthermore, Lynn had developed his own set of procedures for dealing with Rotten Monsters through his past hunts. This made him even less afraid of the massive Rotten Monsters.

Once the crimson rotten monster entered the range, Lynn effortlessly took out a crude witch array plate, tossed it, and accurately hit the rotten monster.

Perhaps because of their exceptionally strong self-healing ability, the first reaction of the Rot Monsters when faced with an attack is not to dodge, but to take the hit head-on and then retaliate.

Just like the crimson rotten monster at this moment, it completely ignored the array plate that Lynn threw at it and just charged towards Lynn on its own!

Lynn activated the array plate, feeling the magical energy around the crimson rotten monster being pushed back, and began to kite it.

The Crimson Rot Monster probably lacks intelligence and only acts on instinct, so it never paid any attention to the array plates on its body.

Lynn thus successfully reduced the Crimson Rot Monster to its core state in just half an hour.

During this time, Lynn was also worried that another rotten monster not far away would come to support him and join the battle, and he made the corresponding preparations. With his strength, it was not an impossible thing for him to fight two at once.

But even after Lynn had killed the Crimson Rotten Monster, the other Rotten Monster still hadn't arrived.

'It seems my earlier guess was probably wrong; the reason that the rotting monster suddenly stopped the Silver Ring Witch was most likely just a coincidence.'

Lynn examined the core of the rotten monster in his hand for a moment, then returned to the high sky to conduct his research as usual.

Another half hour passed quietly.

A pale, crescent moon had somehow climbed into the dark sky, its icy, silvery light casting a calm glow that made the already pale gray forest ruins appear even more ashen.

laugh--

Lynn slowly raised his head, and the crimson core of the rotten monster in his hand completely vanished into thin air.

"So the core of the massive rotten monster really is just a stack of puppet runes, without using any new black moon runes. It's just that the puppet runes underwent some transformations and were then connected to form the product." Lynn's eyes showed realization, and he let out a soft breath. "However, we still need to further study how the puppet runes were transformed to combine with each other."

"While I could still hunt down the core of another massive rotten monster, the half-hour of research time provided by just one monster wouldn't be enough to truly understand the transformations the puppet runes underwent. Even two, three, or ten wouldn't be sufficient."

Lynn felt a little frustrated, but quickly dispelled it.

After all, he had already mastered the transformation of the Black Moon Rune. As long as he knew the basic structure of the Puppet Rune, he could always figure out how to combine them to transform.

'Although I could research it myself, I can't let such a good opportunity slip by.'

Lynn took a deep breath, looked back at the place where the second enormous rotten monster had attacked the Silver Ring Witch, activated the Traceless Rune, and headed straight there.

Swish!
Before Lynn even landed, the enormous, stone-black monster leaped up and viciously attacked him!

Keep in mind that Lynn is currently two to three hundred meters above the ground. As long as he doesn't drop below 50 meters, he generally won't trigger the Corruption Monster. Previously, when faced with such a height, the Crimson Corruption Monster prioritized pursuing the Silver Ring Academy witch.

But this enormous rotting monster was unusually abnormal, with an unusually strong desire to attack and a much larger range of alert than the average enormous rotting monster!
It was for this reason that Lynn mistakenly believed that the Blood Red Rot Monster had summoned reinforcements on its own initiative.

However, although the dark, rotten monster came with great force, Lynn was well prepared.

As usual, he took out the anti-magic spell array and threw it at the black, rotting monster.

However, something even more surprising happened to Lynn: the pitch-black, rotten monster actually broke the magic-suppressing array on its own initiative, instead of choosing to withstand it head-on!

Lynn was startled and immediately realized that he had encountered an unusual corrupting monster, just like the alien spirit that his team had encountered at the beginning.

That alien spirit was clearly stronger than the ordinary, enormous, rotten monster, and it also possessed the ability to teleport almost instantly, causing them to flee in panic.

'No, we need to think this through more carefully.' Lynn suddenly had the idea of ​​temporarily avoiding the confrontation, so he decisively stopped his descent and flew back into the sky.

The crescent moon hung high overhead, its light brighter than the full moon, illuminating even the surrounding clouds in a silvery-white hue.

Lynn initially paid no attention to the crescent moon, as he was seriously considering how to deal with the dark, rotten monster more reliably.

But soon, specks of dust-like gray spots suddenly appeared in the air, and when you looked up, it looked like a crescent moon casting a dim rain of light.

Lynn's scalp tingled, and he stopped as quickly as possible!

A fragment of the array plate fell at that very moment.

It passed through the gray patch overhead as if it were passing through a sheet of air, encountering almost no resistance, and was incredibly smooth.

Only the numerous smooth holes can prove what just happened.

Lynn felt a chill run down her spine and quickly looked up in another direction.

All he could see were dust-like gray spots.

They gathered together, forming a boundless gray wind that gently blew about 200 meters away from the Gray Forest ruins.

Moreover, it is still declining.

(End of this chapter)