I don't want to conquer witches anymore.

"They're childhood sweethearts, a match made in heaven, what right do you, a scumbag, have to object?"

"I don't care, I'm against it!"

"Forget it, Duke," Joseph said with a smile. "Let's go find the other four players first. You can object to my relationship with Joan later."

After a long while, Duke finally calmed down and turned to look at Amber: "What's your brother's professional rank? How good is he at the game? What kind of personality does he have?"

“Bane is a hero-level Forest Ranger, so his gaming skills should be pretty good too. I’ve heard him brag before about being on the top leaderboard in the floating city.” Amber answered all her questions about her older brother without holding anything back. “Overall, he’s a calm person, but he’s too controlling of his family.”

"Does he/she suffer from paranoia?"

Amber hesitated for a moment: "A little?"

“Everyone has some degree of calmness and rationality, it’s alright. As long as Bane lives up to his name, he might see the truth here before we find them.” Duke shook his head. “Let’s go find Natasha and the others first. I’m afraid they might start fighting… in every sense of the word.”

Others: "?"

He didn't explain, but instead took out the pocket watch and lucky dagger Eve had given him from his pocket.

He first checked the time; it was still dark in the wilderness, and it was 3:30 in the afternoon.

Then, Duke casually tossed the Lucky Dagger into the air and activated the Lucky Strike ability.

The dagger spun in the air, but instead of piercing the ground, it fell to the ground with the tip pointing in a certain direction.

Duke picked up the lucky dagger in his hand and pointed it in that direction: "We're going that way."

He never hesitated to use the skill of a lucky strike. Although this kind of causal-level luck might have a greater effect in the final battle, the prerequisite for the final battle is to successfully reach the moment of the final battle.

What should I do if I suddenly die while performing skills at the provincial level?

We need to find everyone first.

……

Where is this place?

Cecil looked around in surprise.

She maintained a highly professional fighting stance, condensing several orbs of holy light that rested at her and Bane's feet, forming a simple defensive line. If any enemy appeared nearby, these orbs would automatically unleash an attack, locking onto the enemy and firing a high-concentration barrage of holy light.

Bain frowned and said coldly, "This is Saint Ipgil."

But he quickly shook his head and pointed to the towering trees in the distance that resembled a mountain range.

“But that’s not our sacred tree of life. Our mother tree doesn’t grow like this, and I can’t feel any vitality from it—it’s as if it’s been dead for a long time.”

Cecil had never been to the capital of the Elven Kingdom, nor had she ever seen the Tree of Life, which the Elven race regarded as their mother tree. She had only heard that it was a towering tree. She followed Bain to look at the fake Tree of Life. As a former paladin who controlled the Holy Light, she also sensed the lack of life force that Bain had described, and it was even more exaggerated. She sensed negative energy emanating from this tree.

“This is a dead tree… Strange, are there undead trees?” Cecil asked, somewhat surprised, then asked curiously, “Why did you create a fake tree when you built such a realistic Saint Ipgil?”

Bain remained silent for a moment, seemingly considering the perilous nature of the Crown-level game, before finally speaking:

"Perhaps it's because I feel the Tree of Life is dying."

Chapter Sixty-Four: The Traitor? 1/10

"Haven't you found it yet?"

Duke frowned.

He and Amber set off from their spawn point to find their companions, and it only took them three or four minutes to find Joseph and Amber. However, after using the Lucky Dagger to confirm the direction, they searched for a whole hour but still couldn't find Natasha and Kagetsu.

"Is the direction really right?"

Even Amber began to have doubts. With her teleportation speed, the distance she could travel in an hour was incredible. They had searched in this direction for a whole hour and still hadn't found them... Those two probably really weren't in this direction!

"That shouldn't be the case, I used a lucky break." Duke scratched his head, glanced at the pocket watch he was still holding in his hand, calculated the time that had passed, and looked around. "Besides, there really is nothing in this world."

Vast, empty wastelands stretched endlessly before Amber led everyone on spatial jumps, each time revealing the exact same scene, making Duke wonder if they had actually moved at all.

“Impossible! Our spatial coordinates are changing, how could there be no movement? There really is nothing in this world!” After Duke directly raised his doubts, Amber firmly denied this possibility, “My spatial abilities are not problematic at all.”

Duke nodded in satisfaction.

Having confidence in her abilities is a good thing in this world, as it means she won't cause the timeline to change because of self-doubt.

“Amber will be fine; I trust her spatial abilities. The same goes for the Lucky Dagger. Without the interference of a legendary being, its lucky strike is generally unaffected by the environment. So perhaps the problem lies with Natasha, Kagetsu, and the others… or perhaps with ourselves?”

At this point, Duke glanced at the system interface, but this unintentional glance made him pause slightly, and he turned back to look at Joseph and Joan.

The former didn't seem to notice anything amiss, but the Dream Witch, after being glanced at like that, immediately exploded like a lit bomb: "What are you looking at?"

Joan's sudden outburst startled everyone present, especially her fiancé Joseph, who sensed something was wrong. He quickly looked at Joan and asked softly, "Joan, what's wrong?"

"I...I'm fine." Joan was panting heavily, clearly not as fine as she claimed. "Joan, I'm a little tired."

After saying that, she took a step forward and leaned against Joseph. He gently pulled his girlfriend into his arms and frowned: "Is there some kind of mental attack hidden here?"

"Don't--"

Before Duke could stop Joseph from saying those words, he felt a sharp pain in his brain and his legs went weak, almost causing him to fall to the ground.

The shockwave attack, directly striking at the soul level, struck everyone present. Duke and Amber, being spellcasters (Duke could barely be considered half), had relatively stable souls. Joan, already in poor condition, coughed up blood and collapsed in Joseph's arms, losing consciousness. Joseph himself was also in bad shape, but to support Joan, he swallowed the blood and stood motionless.

"I'm sorry," he said with an apologetic wry smile, "I forgot."

In this world, you must never utter any uncertain guesses, especially those that point in a negative direction! Because any guess that points in a negative direction will come true.

Joseph had already grasped this point after Duke's prompting, but just now, he was still too concerned to think clearly and couldn't help but say something he shouldn't have.

"Just don't do it again." Duke stood up straight with a dark face, but he couldn't bring himself to blame Joseph. This counterintuitive rule of the world could easily lead to him falling into it, and he himself was no exception. "Carry your little girlfriend on your back, we're leaving."

"Where to go?"

“There’s one more place we haven’t searched—underground!” He paused, looking down at his feet. “Natasha and the others might be underground. Amber, see if there’s any space underground?”

Amber closed her eyes, then quickly opened them. She grabbed Duke's hand with one hand and Joseph's clothes with the other, and together they made a spatial jump. The next instant, they appeared beneath the ground, in a completely new world.

A forest that seemed to stretch endlessly.

"Damn it!" Duke cursed out loud, "Not again?"

Duke had already had enough of this endless forest back in the Cake Castle game. In his opinion, this seemingly different but actually repetitive forest was worse than the barren wilderness where there was nothing before. But Amber let out a soft "hmm," noticing something strange.

“I feel like I’ve seen this place before… I’m sure I’ve been here before,” Amber said with absolute certainty. Then she disappeared for a moment and returned to declare, “This is the forest where Saint Ipgil is located.”

"what?"

Saint Ipugil, as the capital of the Elf Kingdom, was naturally built deep in a forest far from humankind. Amber, as the little princess of the Elf Kingdom, was extremely familiar with this forest. Even without seeing the truly iconic Tree of Life, she was certain that this was Saint Ipugil.

“But why are we in Saint Ipgil?” Amber looked up. As they entered the underground via spatial jump, they could no longer see the ceiling that should have been there—it was instead covered by azure sky and pure white clouds. “What’s the principle behind this?”

"The only guess is that it was created based on your and your brother's memories."

Duke shook his head. In the past hour, apart from the "underground" route, he hadn't come up with any other definite and reliable deductions. The lack of information left him somewhat helpless.

“Amber, take Joseph and go investigate the situation. Find out where the city of St. Ipgil is. I don’t trust you to go alone. Joseph, Miss Joan and I will stay here. Don’t worry, I will take good care of her.”

After the Candy Castle game, Joseph was completely convinced of Duke's abilities and had no doubts about his arrangements. He carefully placed his fiancée, whom he had been holding in his arms, on the ground and let her lie down.

Then he and Amber disappeared from the spot.

"Alright, they're gone."

Duke narrowed his eyes, looked at the Dream Witch lying quietly on the ground, and asked with a cold smile:

"Can you stop pretending to be asleep now?"

Chapter Sixty-Five: I hereby declare myself invincible! (2/10)

"Can you stop pretending to be asleep now?"

Duke squinted at the Dream Witch lying quietly on the ground and silently pulled out his neon revolver.

How did you find out?

Joan opened her eyes and stared at Duke. She was still lying against the big tree, but her originally weak and pale face quickly recovered, and her whole demeanor changed abruptly.

"you guess?"

Duke didn't answer the question; he didn't want to reveal his biggest trump card to the other party: the system!

That's right, it was the system, which had always been rather unreliable, that played an exceptionally crucial role. Without the system, Duke would never have realized that the Dream Witch before him was problematic.

It was quite simple. Duke discovered through the system interface that he had never used the Lucky Dagger at all—he clearly saw that Lucky Strike had not gone on cooldown, which made him realize what had happened.

“I think from the moment I decided to go find Natasha, you interfered with our senses through dreams, putting us in a semi-sleepwalking state. That way, even if we had a chance to find Natasha and the others or Cecil and the others, we would have missed it because of our sleepwalking.” Duke held up a finger. “Not to mention that the lucky break never actually happened; we wouldn’t have found Natasha and the others in that direction anyway, right?”

"You're amazing, Xiao Du." Qiong nodded sincerely. "You're even more amazing than I originally thought."

"But I still don't understand your reasoning. Why would you do this? Are you a spy planted in the floating city by another force? But that doesn't make sense either. If the Crown-level Witch Game is completely leaked, the whole world will face the danger of destruction. No force would be willing to bear such consequences, right?"

Joan pursed her lips, not answering the question. She wrapped her arms around her legs, a murderous glint in her eyes as she stared at Duke: "I'm more curious why you dared to turn against me?"

"What's there to be afraid of?"

"You're just a veteran-level trickster, while I'm a proper elite-level witch. Don't you have any concept of this level difference? Even if you've managed to lure Joan away, you're still no match for me." Joan looked at Duke with wariness in her eyes, but kept analyzing the gap between them: "With that enchanted pistol you have? Or with your half-baked mage skills?"

"You know me very well."

“I don’t understand you, just like I can’t understand why you dare to turn against me. Why are you so sure you’ve escaped the dream?” Joan’s voice trembled slightly, which made Duke, who noticed this, raise an eyebrow in surprise. “When did you get the illusion that I wasn’t in the dream weaving?”

"It doesn't matter. Even dreams are subject to the rules of other dimensions. So what's the difference between a dream and reality?" Duke shrugged. "You don't really think you can beat me in a place where nonsense can change the world, do you?"

"?"

With just three sentences, I can make the Dream Witch self-destruct on the spot.

Duke only said three sentences:

"I only have one bullet left in my pistol. The enchantment on this bullet is 'Evolution.' I mustn't let her dream evolve."

"what?"

Then, he pulled the trigger, and with a gunshot, the neon fired its "evolved" bullet.

Neon's bullets are reloaded in a random order each time, and the user who inputs the magic has no way of knowing the order in which the enchanted bullets are loaded. Scarlet gave the gun to Duke because he possessed the Lucky Dagger, which could determine the bullet order with a lucky shot. However, Duke also realized another use for it:

Once the first six bullets of the Japanese are fired, the last bullet left is already determined, right?

Before entering the Witch Game, Duke had already used up his first six bullets, leaving only one "evolution" bullet.

This is also the bullet with the highest potential in this neon-themed weapon.