From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 386: The Out-of-Control Jackal
Just as Ivy and Kalak were discussing the heart replacement surgery plan, Xie Nian was staring at the werewolf's corpse on the ground in a daze.

"You all right, soldier?"

Since the Hellfire Engine can still be used for the time being, Kalak decides to find a heart for himself in his next adventure.

When she couldn't wait to raise the giant axe and prepare to embark on a new journey, she noticed something strange on Xie Nian's face.

"You look a little sad? These gnolls are the evil descendants of Yeenoghu, the gnoll god. Their god lives on the 422nd layer of the abyss and is a demon lord who only knows killing and destruction. Our killing is to eradicate the scourge for this world. Don't have sympathy for them!" Kalak wanted to pat Xie Nian's shoulder, but then he remembered that not everyone could withstand the heat radiating from his body, so he just scratched his head in the end.

"Sympathy? No..." Xie Nian pursed her lips. She didn't know where the melancholy in her heart came from. "I just... thought of the puppy... Although the memory in my mind is incomplete, I think I must have raised a furry puppy..."

"Furry little animals are really cute...ah - I want to find a living heart quickly!" Kalak shook his head.

"No sane person would think a gnoll is like a puppy. But considering the mind flayer tadpoles drilling in and out of your brain, perhaps this symptom is mild. But you have to be careful, if I find any signs of transformation in you, I will definitely chop off your head." Shadow Heart threatened.

"Can't I choose a more beautiful way to die?" Xie Nian curled his lips, "Such as a glass of poisonous red wine? Speaking of which, there was a doctor in the Druid Forest who wanted to kill me with poison - after knowing that there were bugs in my brain. And she also gave me this - a small bottle of pterosaur toxin."

"Compared to the toxin you put on the dagger, this bottle of pterosaur toxin is nothing." Gale recalled the scene where he lost his hand and died from the poison of evil thoughts. He couldn't help but shudder. "In comparison, I am more curious about why the jackals would fight with Zariel's lackeys."

"That's not surprising," Kalak said. "Zariel was once an angel. She was sent down from Mount Heaven because of Yeenoghu's jackals. Even when she became a great devil, she often fought with Yeenoghu on the bloody frontier of Avernus. That's the only way devils and demons resolve disputes. I've seen it happen once or twice. I'd say each of them has every reason to hinder the other's actions. And these jackals just happen to relieve our pressure."

"Even if Yeenoghu is the god of gnolls, a demon lord from the abyss, it is impossible for him to send so many gnolls here from his abyss realm out of thin air." Gale tried to identify the traces of the gnolls. "I know that there are often reports of gnolls attacking caravans in the territory of Elturgard..."

Elturgard is a theocracy, and its capital is Eltoril, which fell into Avernus not long ago. But the land under Ivy's feet now belongs to the Lords' Alliance in legal terms, but the members of the Lords' Alliance are independent city-states with weak connections to each other, and they mainly rely on trade to survive, so they have weak control over the territories outside the city, and building a collection office on the road is already the limit.

The collection office standing behind Ivy and the others also looked abandoned for some time. Therefore, from a practical point of view, the land under their feet was truly a no-man's land.

"No," Ivy, who knows everything, has checked the traces left by the gnolls on the ground and came to his own conclusion. "These gnolls came from the west, and judging from the amount of supplies they carry, they should have a base nearby. Otherwise, even with the gnolls' style of eating whatever they can rob, it is impossible for them to maintain such a large fighting force."

"Then let's go in the direction they came from, and take a look at the situation of the promotion path." Xie Nian quickly decided on the next move and took the lead in crossing the bridge covered with blood and corpses.

Even if it was a smooth cobblestone road, it would be impossible to keep it clean after being destroyed by the gnolls, not to mention that this road leading to Baldur's Gate was often frequented by merchants.

Therefore, not long after leaving the bloody collection office, the adventure team saw another massacre scene.

"It looks like a caravan was attacked..."

On the road soaked with blood, there were corpses scattered all over the ground, and four overturned carriages. All the goods in the carriages were scattered out, including wooden planks used as building materials, various vegetables, cheese, sausages and spirits.

There were several bloated hyenas lying in the stable, sleeping peacefully among all kinds of debris and internal organs, looking quite content and relaxed.

"Mystra's eyelashes... Although I've heard that gnolls will eat everything edible, but to do it immediately after the battle and eat it so cleanly... I didn't expect it to be like this..." Gale's face looked grim. Such a hellish scene could not be seen in the high tower of Waterdeep.

"The hyenas' stomachs contain not only food, but also gestating werewolf embryos..." Xie Nian's face flushed involuntarily. She drew out her dagger and approached the hyenas who had not noticed yet with tiptoeing.

Knife up and down.

The hyena's bloated belly was cut open by a sharp knife, and the ugly jackal embryo wrapped in the afterbirth and the smelly internal organs slid out of the hyena's body. It didn't even realize that it had undergone a caesarean section.

The shining ball of light flew out of Shadow Heart's hand and exploded on another hyena not far from Xie Nian. Its wailing not only woke up the other hyenas from their sleep, but also interrupted Xie Nian who was about to reach out and touch the young hyena.

"Kill them..." Xie Nian held her breath, trying not to let the sweet smell around her enter her nostrils. The evil thoughts that surged from the bottom of her heart were about to control her again...

The hyena, whose movements were slow due to pregnancy and overeating, was certainly no match for the team members.

"The speed at which the flesh and blood deformed in the hyena's womb was beyond imagination." Ivy squatted in front of the corpse, carefully sensing the mysterious power that had just passed away, "It's like some kind of flesh and blood curse."

"This is Yeenoghu's curse!" Kalak said with certainty, "As his offspring, the gnolls will use the wombs of all dying creatures to increase their population, even the hyenas they keep as pets. I heard that even other kinds of demons can do the same."

"It's hard to imagine projecting one's power from the lower planes here..." Ivy stood up and looked at the blood trail leading to the other side. "These gnolls split up here. Some went to the collection office, and the other part chased the survivors of the caravan to the jungle..."

"There's another letter here," Laizer waved the letter paper he found on the caravan member's body, "It mentioned a valuable item in a box. It looks like those caravan members won't survive. We should find that box. We may be able to use the items inside."

"Is this how the Githyanki burn, kill and loot in the Astral Plane?" Shadowheart stood far away. She didn't want the blood on the ground to stain her boots.

"We generally call it waste utilization, Kainyak (Githyanki: Son of the Curse)." Without much explanation, Laizer handed the letter to Evil Thought who was still in a daze.

"...What? Oh, let's go and take a look..." Xie Nian was in a trance for a moment, and couldn't help but say. "Well, the movements of these jackals are very strange..." Ivy nodded in agreement, "Those jackals who went to the collection office don't seem to have any leaders who can give orders. They fight completely based on their bloodthirsty desires... In that case, dividing the troops becomes a very questionable approach..."

Most of the bloodstains extending into the woods were left by gnolls, whose hair could easily absorb the blood on the ground and leave an obvious trail.

This is even more strange, because the gnolls heading to the collection office did not leave bloody footprints along the way, which means that the gnolls split their forces before attacking the caravan.

If the attack on the caravan was a spur-of-the-moment decision of the jackals, then the team chasing after Zariel's lackeys should have been led by the leader; if the caravan lying on the ground was the target of the jackals, then the behavior of splitting up the team to chase after Zariel's lackeys would be even more unreasonable.

Ivy was more inclined to believe that there was an internal conflict within this group of gnolls, which was why some of them slaughtered the caravan while others chased after Zariel's lackeys.

"Come on! You beasts!"

Accompanied by the sounds of shouting and projectiles exploding, the adventure team quickly followed the footprints and found the survivors of the caravan.

They were surrounded by gnolls in a cave and could only stop the gnolls from advancing by constantly creating fire terrain.

But humans’ throwing objects will eventually run out, and the gnolls guarding the cave entrance only need to wait patiently to enjoy the delicious food.

"Look!" Xie Nian asked the team members to squat down to hide their figures. "The gnoll standing next to the stone should be the commander of this team!"

"The treasure in their box must be very important if it can make the werewolf commander give up hunting down Zariel's lackeys." Kalak moved his body carefully, trying not to let the flames on his body ignite the trees.

"What is it doing? Drawing with blood? I didn't expect this gnoll warlord to have artistic talent?" Asdeln said, "It's even more surprising than the drow mixing with the goblins."

"No matter what it's doing, it won't change the final outcome... Let me stab it before they notice!"

Xie Yian was holding a dagger and sneaked to the side of the werewolf commander like a drifting smoke. Just as she was about to stab the dagger into the back of the tall werewolf, Xie Yian, who loved bloodthirsty killing, suddenly stopped.

The drooling werewolf warlord turned around and looked evil face to face.

The next second, a scarlet brand appeared near the left eye of the Werewolf Overlord. It was a symbolized palm with five fingers turned into blades and a skull in the palm. An inverted triangle surrounded the lower half of the symbol, which looked weird and bloody.

The werewolf commander who was staring at the evil thoughts suddenly raised his head and let out a roar. Then he turned around and waved his flail, charging at the other werewolves blocking the cave entrance.

Following the leader's orders, the jackals surrounded the food and never imagined that their own commander would launch a surprise attack from behind.

The powerful swing caused a jackal's skull to cave in immediately, and the other jackals also fell into a state of panic.

Although I don't understand what Xie Nian did, it is not something that ordinary people can do to incite the enemy leader to rebel.

The gnolls standing on the high ground were killed by the chaos arrows thrown by Ivy, and the other gnolls on the ground who were trembling with fear were soon turned into dead souls under the blades of giant swords and axes.

Just like commanding an obedient puppy, Xie Nian just waved his hand at the corpse on the ground, and the werewolf commander immediately crawled on the ground and began to feast on the corpse of his own kind.

"Uh... it's hard to describe..." Will looked at the jackal eating crazily and couldn't help asking, "How did you do it? Jackals are all abandoned children of the devil, but you are training them like an obedient puppy."

"Because of the Mind Flayer Tadpole." Xie Nian rubbed her temple. Using the psychic power of the Mind Flayer Tadpole made her feel mentally exhausted. "Not only is there one in our brain, but there is also one in the brain of the werewolf... By the way, Ivy, the experiment you want is ready. After Flind has eaten and drunk enough, we will tie it back to the camp and wait for you to perform a craniotomy on it."

“Even the gnolls have mind flayer tadpoles in their brains?” Shadowheart asked in disbelief. “It’s the same as what the druids said. This is indeed a plague... But it’s different from us. I can’t figure out how these gnolls were infected... As far as I know, mind flayers always give priority to those with higher intelligence, whether as temporary containers for their own kind or as food... But gnolls? I’m not sure they can talk.”

Just as the team members were enjoying the scene of the Gnoll Overlord eating, two humans in leather armor walked out of the cave.

"Thankfully, you are the first friendly faces I have met since leaving Elturgard..." the capable, older-looking man said, "Have you seen my companions?"

"There are only corpses over there, and perhaps a few people have been eaten by the jackals." Xie Nian scratched his nails with a dagger, "I saw that big box, what are you transporting?"

"Cargo to Baldur's Gate, earn some shiny trinkets and a lot of Talwars."

Taring, that is the common currency of the underground organization Zhentarim. The man named Rugen not only did not answer Xie Nian's question, but also made subtle threats and hints.

"The Zhentarim will not transport ordinary goods. Various weapons and contraband are your main concerns." Xie Nian was completely unaware of Rugen's threat and just commented on himself.

"A smart girl like you shouldn't ask too many questions. We have a base nearby, you know what I mean." Rugen reached for the package behind him, and the flask that formed a flame on the ground was taken out from here.

(End of this chapter)