"Denise?"
When everyone saw Grandpa Lu catch that person, they recognized her instantly—the Vice Captain of the Northern Spirit Team, and an exceptionally talented Nature Druid!
Unlike the Blue Spirit Team's purely mental evolution path, the Northern Spirit Team leaned more toward the primal elves. Their race produced many Nature Druids, and Denise was a Nature Druid skilled in healing and communicating with plant spirits. She was the team's top support and often handled rear support during cooperative missions or provided her teammates with side-effect-free healing. She was extremely popular.
Starfire Academy had also cooperated with Northern Spirit Academy on Ancient Land missions, so they were naturally familiar with Denise.
But the Denise Grandpa Lu caught now was completely different from her previous elegant, generous, and beautiful image. She looked like a malnourished girl who had been abused for a long time. The muscles throughout her body had atrophied, the moisture had drained from her face until her entire skin had sunken inward, and her originally beautiful silver pupils had turned slightly yellow. She looked terrifying...
The approaching team members' hearts lurched, and some instinctively stopped moving closer. Grandpa Lu, however, didn't mind. After Denise clung tightly to him, he gently wrapped her in his pair of wings. Red flames lit up across his body, and an incredibly warm aura instantly enveloped the Northern Spirit girl, who seemed to have been frightened out of her wits...
The flames didn't scorch her skin, but they were incredibly warm. Denise's deathly pale face visibly regained its color, and her eyes slowly calmed down, recovering their warmth...
"It's all right. It's all right now..." Grandpa Lu's voice was gentle and mellow, carrying the warmth unique to a phoenix. Even the few teammates who heard it felt a sense of reassurance.
"Little Phoenix?" It