Guild Boss's Ambition

Xiaoban didn't answer, but suddenly gathered all his strength and rushed into the thorn bush.

After a few rustling sounds, Xiaoban disappeared, and no more sound was made.

Witnessing this scene, the three of us couldn't help but look at each other.

Meng Er frowned and asked, "If it goes in, what should we do?"

Ebi pinched one of the thorny vines with his hand.

He showed us his hands, which were dripping with blood, sneered, and said, "This is an advanced illusion that targets multiple senses such as vision, pain, and hearing. You should have seen that my hands are injured by the thorns, but if you observe these wounds through the magician's eyes, you can find that they are actually intact."

"Ebi, are you saying... someone is guiding and restricting our search path?" I asked.

"That's for sure, but the question is what is the other party's intention?" Ebi stared at the thorn bush and fell into deep thought.

Meng'er used his battle axe to chop at the impenetrable thorny vines and said optimistically, "No matter what the other party's intentions are, we have already found the first clue of the whole thing. Now that we have the clue, we can only follow it all the way and eventually we will find Gu Shan and the culprit who set up these illusions."

Hearing this, Hai Lao nodded and said, "Then let's not waste time. Let's go through this illusion array together. Because we don't know how many roadblocks like this there are ahead, so I won't cast the Stoneskin Technique to reduce the pain for you."

As soon as he finished speaking, Hai Lao took the lead and bravely walked into the thorn bush.

When he disappeared from our sight, the thorns he passed through were left with terrible bloodstains.

After noticing my hesitation, Meng'er patted my back and said softly, "Sister Annie, don't be afraid. These things are just illusions. No matter how painful it is, as long as you grit your teeth and keep moving forward, you will definitely reach the other side of the thorn bush. Well, time is running out, and I don't know what the situation is like over there with Hai Lao and the others. Sister Annie, you go first, and I'll cover you."

"OK, all right."

I nodded and reached out my hand to the bloody thorns.

I suddenly felt a sharp pain at my fingertips.

pain……

It hurts so much...

Forcing a person to walk alive through such a thorn bush is simply a disguised form of torture.

But compared to the fear in my heart, this is child's play.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and completely immersed myself in the thorn bush.

Immediately, I felt the sensation of my flesh being pulled by the hooks all over my body.

At first, I didn't put any effort forward, so I didn't feel much. But when I took a step, those horrible hooks started to tear large and small wounds on my body. I felt myself bleeding and I smelled the unique rusty smell of blood. In just a moment, I was cut to pieces in the process of moving forward.

However, this pain was only a temporary illusion.

Once I had completely passed through the thorn bush, all the pain in my body disappeared.

"It's nice to see you again, Annie." Hai Lao, who had already reached this end, said to me with a smile.

"To be honest, it was a really bad experience." I said with a wry smile.

"But what's past is past." Hai Lao shrugged and looked behind me.

Behind me, there was no thorn bush anymore, but instead an open space covered only with a thin layer of fallen leaves.

At this time, Meng'er was walking in the open space with gnashing teeth. Obviously, she was enduring the pain that I had just endured. She walked neither fast nor slow, removing the non-existent thorns with her hands while moving forward. The amazing thing is that even though I knew the hardships involved, I had no doubt that Meng'er would succeed in getting here.

"This level of pain is too light for her and cannot be considered a test," said Hai Lao.

"Really? I feel like I've died again." I smiled bitterly.

"No, she is a warrior and has received training to resist blows," said Hai Lao.

During the conversation, Meng'er also successfully overcame this obstacle. As soon as she opened her eyes, she said with a normal expression, "Very good, Xiaoban is not separated from everyone. Let's continue to look for Gushan without further delay! By the way, why did the hallucinations disappear as soon as we passed this thorn bush? What's the principle behind this?"

The learned old man explained, "This is a magic spell of the formation type. Since it is magic, it needs a source of magic power. Judging from the fact that the official search team returned empty-handed, the opponent should be using illusion to control the path of the entire forest. In this case, unless he has epic magic power, it is impossible for him to have full control."

"Okay, I understand." Meng'er nodded and looked at the stitched dog: "Little Spot, continue to lead the way."

Hearing Meng'er's order, Xiaoban, who had been waiting obediently at this end since early morning, started running again. Although he was only the size of a young Shiba Inu, he ran incredibly fast. There was no doubt that his owner Bai Ye must have done a lot of things to him. In addition to being a pet, he was probably also a powerful guard that Bai Ye deliberately arranged for Xiaolan.

because……

Xiao Lan is the most precious treasure of the necromancer.

As we followed Xiaoban, we gradually came to a poplar forest. The bare gray trees formed the most beautiful and ghostly picture in the cold winter in the moonlight, which made people think of the death tree spirits in fairy tales. The malicious tree spirits would stretch out their branches in the dark and pierce the bodies of passers-by to avenge their relatives who were cut down.

Seeing these poplar trees, my hopeful mood couldn't help but become gloomy.

Because my perfume smells exactly like poplar wood.

"If Spotted was drawn here by these poplar trees..."

However, what I worried about did not happen. Even after arriving at the poplar forest, Xiaoban still ran in a clear direction. During the run, we encountered several illusory obstacles like thorn bushes, including rivers, cliffs, caves, mountain walls and all kinds of dangerous terrain that could never appear in a forest park.

Unlike thorn bushes, these dangerous terrains simply want to make us suffer for moving forward, trying to use pain to persuade us to go back. But whether it is me, Hai Lao, Meng'er, or Xiao Ban, we all have a tenacious fighting spirit. Even if we encounter mountains of swords and seas of fire, we all grit our teeth and endure them, and conquer them one by one. Every time we overcome a level, our will becomes more unwavering.

After one adventure after another, the voice in my heart seemed to have become much weaker.

Or……

Even though I still feel the intense urge to vomit, I still have a confident smile on my face.

"Hallucination..."

"I can conquer these illusions..."

"As long as you grit your teeth and keep moving forward, you will definitely reach the other side of the thorn bush..."

"As long as I have the courage, I can reach the other side..."

"The pain of the past will no longer be pain, but just a mirage-like memory..."

"The present moment! The present moment is important! Only by moving forward can you get the happiness you want!"

We ran in the forest, the unrestrained run made our hearts expand and our spirits happy, and the run finally stopped in front of a small isolated poplar tree. Under the particularly tall poplar tree there was a sleeping little girl. She was the target of our trip, the one we were willing to endure countless pains to save.

"Gushan..."

Under the protection of Hai Lao and Meng'er, I excitedly ran over and picked her up. She looked very bad at this moment. Her whole body was dirty and covered with dust. Her elbows and knees were bruised and bleeding. Only one of her two precious beautiful shoes was left, and the other bare foot was covered with heartbreaking blisters.

She must have been trying to find a way out for the past three days.

The reason why Xiaoban was able to track her location was all because of the bottle of perfume in her hand.

Her perfume and mine are the same scent.

There was only about a quarter of the perfume left in the perfume bottle. Perhaps she had been applying perfume on herself for the past three days. For this reason, Xiaoban was unable to track her scent through her clothes at first. Instead, when he smelled the scent of poplar wood perfume, Xiaoban was able to successfully find the girl's location.

"Ebi, look! Someone is bringing food to Gushan!"

At the same time, Meng'er, who was on guard nearby, cried out in surprise: "There are bamboo baskets, bowls, cups, and some food scraps here. Could it be that besides Gu Shan, there are other victims trapped by those illusions just now?"

……

……

86. Escape (Ebi)

(Ebi)

The facts confirmed my hunch.

The silly girl Gushan was really involved in the changes in the forest park.

"There are bamboo baskets, bowls, plates and cups here, as well as some food scraps. Could it be that besides Gu Shan, there are other victims trapped by those illusions just now?"

During the reconnaissance, Meng'er discovered a new situation. I followed her line of sight and saw the food basket on the ground. The doubts accumulated in my heart could not help but burn fiercely. No matter how I thought about it, a twelve-year-old girl like Gushan had no value at all that was worthy of the caster's conspiracy. However, why did the mastermind behind the scenes want to trap the girl in this ghost place?

wrong……

Before Gushan disappeared, there had already been cases of missing persons in this city.

In other words, Gu Shan was just one of the victims.

But there are so many tourists coming and going in the forest park, why does the other party want to capture Gushan?

What are the characteristics of Gu Shan that attracted the murderer to commit the crime?

After pondering for a moment, the questions in my mind still have not been fully answered, and the current situation does not allow us to stay where we are for too long. The illusion array that we have just ventured through may also have a warning function. In other words, although we have successfully broken through the maze and found the ancient mountain, the enemy may not let us easily get out of his territory when we are alone.

As soon as I calmed down, I reminded her, "Miss, let's not worry about the truth of this matter for now. The most urgent thing is to leave this hellhole as soon as possible. Just tell the Security Department what happened here, and they will naturally take action to deal with it. And judging from the illusions along the way, the mastermind behind the scenes is probably not someone we can fight against."

"But, maybe there are other survivors here?" Meng'er replied.

Seeing Meng'er gradually showing a tendency to be filled with sympathy, I couldn't help but anxiously shouted, "Don't worry! Since Gu Shan is alive and well, the other missing persons shouldn't be in any serious trouble for the time being. On the contrary, if we don't bring the news back as soon as possible, not only the missing persons here, but even we may be trapped in this poplar forest!"

"Okay, I understand. Let's go."

Fortunately, the righteous young lady did not act foolishly this time. After listening to my explanation, she immediately agreed and nodded, then carried the unconscious Gu Shan on her back and headed for the forest path we came from. However, at this time, a scarlet fox appeared silently at the entrance of the path, which looked very strange.

Gah! Roar!

As soon as Bai Ye saw the red fox appear, his stitched dog immediately revealed its true form and turned into a ferocious and tall wolfhound.

Seeing this, Annie asked in surprise: "This...is this Xiaoban?"

I chuckled and replied, "That's right, Xiaoban."

For some reason, Xiaoban, who had transformed into his true form, seemed to be extremely wary of the red fox. Even when seeing the stitched dog with such a huge and ferocious appearance, the red fox still looked elegant and calm. It even yawned lazily towards us and curled up its body in the middle of the road, posing a seemingly defenseless resting posture.

"What should we do?" Meng'er asked, staring at the fox.

"Let's take another route," I said.

In order to avoid unnecessary interaction with the red fox, we took another path leading to the forest exit.

However, at the end of the road, the same red fox appeared in front of us again.

"Do we need to take another route?" Meng'er asked with a smile.

"Get ready to fight."

I whispered a reminder to everyone and then gave Bambi a wink.

Seeing my expression, Xiaoban immediately pounced on the red fox and bit it.

However, not long after the Stitching Dog rushed out, its movements suddenly stopped.

“Not good…”

"This feeling... is murderous intent!"

I saw Xiaoban slowly turning his huge wolf head to our side, and staring at Meng'er fiercely with his blood-red eyes. Then he continued the previous sprint and launched the attack that was originally aimed at the red fox on Meng'er!

In a moment of shock, Meng'er, who was carrying Gushan on his back, remained calm and used his battle axe to promptly block the bloody mouth of the suture dog.

"It's an illusion!" I shouted.

"Then what should we do now?" Meng'er responded while fending off Xiaoban.

"You try to hold on for now, I'll go get rid of that red fox—"

I chanted a rune spell, gathered the power of the earth element, and prepared to cast earth-type rock spikes on the strange fox.

Unfortunately, there was more than one companion who turned against him.

When I was about to finish chanting, Annie behind me shot a precise arrow at my head.

I had no choice but to temporarily change the technique and forcibly misinterpreted the rock spikes into a stone shield to block the fatal arrow.

"Be careful, Ebi! There's a magician behind you trying to sneak attack you!"

No, it was you who attacked me.

Judging from the current situation, Annie should have mistaken the red fox for me, and a similar situation might have happened to Xiaoban. The other party chose them as the targets of the illusion probably because of the strength of each person's mental power. What surprised me was that Meng'er was not affected by the illusion and was still able to stay awake.

However, even if she is awake now, it does not mean that she can stay awake forever.

"We must stabilize the situation as soon as possible!"

With a change of mind, I blocked the arrow and immediately chanted the second spell.

Seeing my action, Annie eagerly shot an arrow at me again, but this time I was fully prepared, so how could an arrow from the poster girl hurt me? I just leaned sideways slightly, and the arrow flew past my side and shot straight to the position where the red fox was sitting.

Gah!

Seeing the arrow flying towards it, the calm red fox couldn't help but jump up ridiculously, looking embarrassed.

Roar

Perhaps the red fox realized its own mistake, so it let out a threatening hiss at me.

I immediately took the opportunity to use the rune I had just recited and cast a shock spell on Annie, knocking her to the ground as she temporarily became the enemy. After eliminating the threat posed by Annie, the only two annoying naughty pets left to deal with were Little Spot and Red Fox, while the mastermind behind the scenes had not yet appeared.