Bandit Stronghold

Although she didn't understand why Lin Yu would suddenly ask her for the statue, Li Nian, trusting Lin Yu, handed him the Mermaid statue directly.

"You actually managed to take something from my hands," Li Nian exclaimed. "Wow, sister, once something's in my hands, it rarely leaves."

Lin Yu took the Mermaid statue, and a prompt appeared before his eyes at the same time.

[I have obtained the Item "Siren's Blessing"!]

Lin Yu looked at the blood-red message and replied, "You don't need to transfer ownership to me. I don't know how to use this thing anyway—I just want to 'reset' it for you."

As he spoke, Lin Yu then took out the [Repaired Mist Pocket Watch].

As the clock ticked and mist rose, the dimmed Mermaid statue regained its luster.

Lin Yu returned it to Li Nian and, in his heart, transferred ownership of the [Item] back to Li Nian.

Li Nian looked somewhat surprised when she received the statue, unsure whether it was because Lin Yu had immediately returned it to her or because the [Siren's Blessing] was working again.

Li Nian held it in her palm again, and the ethereal Mermaid song rang out once more. Then, an invisible barrier opened up along with the song, pushing back the surrounding spiders and Spider Silk once more!

"Bang!"

The spider Yaomo, unwilling to give up, once again lay sprawled on the barrier, unable to advance an inch.

"Whoa—we're saved!"

Seeing this, the Seagull exclaimed excitedly, "You guys even have a Refresher Orb!"

Li Nian also looked at the pocket watch in Lin Yu's hand and clicked her tongue in amazement. "Hey, this is really a good thing."

Gao Shan reminded her, "Be careful, Ms. Yao... Remember to check if you still have this [Item] before leaving the [Instance]."

Li Nian looked at Gao Shan: "Hey, hey, hey, how can you talk like that? Why are you stirring up trouble, you 'Order' guys!"

"How could I possibly steal from this pretty lady? I only steal from people I dislike."

As Li Nian spoke, Lin Yu also said seriously, "Thank you for reminding me, I will be careful."

Then, he deliberately adopted a wary posture and put the pocket watch away again.

"I'm so heartbroken," Li Nian echoed Lin Yu, speaking in an exaggerated and resentful tone, "Indeed, prejudice in people's hearts is a mountain."

However, the other three didn't expect that these two knew each other beforehand and were putting on a show together.

Gao Shan said earnestly, "The direction of a tree is determined by the wind, and a person's path is determined by themselves. If you feel uncomfortable being suspected, then steal less of other people's [Item] in the future, 'Master Thief'."

Li Nian looked at Gao Shan and pouted, "You're trying to persuade people to do good now... Why are you suddenly lecturing me, you old man? This is a 'Death game,' not child's play!"

Gao Shan frowned slightly, but seemingly mindful that the group was still cooperating, he did not further argue with Li Nian, a member of the "Freedom Alliance," about these ideological differences.

The Seagull was quite magnanimous. "Oh, there's no need to say such things—besides, we're still relying on their [Item]."

After a brief interlude, both sides continued on their journey.

However, the invisible barrier between the already somewhat suspicious teams became even more pronounced.

Lin Yu, mingling among the group, didn't seem to care about any of this.

After all, as long as these three don't directly turn against Li Nian and start a fight, that's enough.

Having roughly determined the limits of [Siren's Blessing], the group's journey progressed much faster this time.

Gao Shan led the way, with Li Nian protected in the center. If there were too many spiders and Spider Silk blocking the way, or if there were any falling rocks or other obstacles, the Seagull and Snowy Owl would step in to clear the path.

With a clear division of labor, and knowing that the Spider Silk and spiders would become relatively sparse as they went further out, they quickly arrived near their destination!

Lin Yu looked at the continuous, precipitous mountain peaks and the numerous smaller peaks standing near their destination, and spoke up.

"No wonder there are bandit strongholds here. If I were a bandit, I would have chosen this place as my stronghold too."

As he spoke, Gao Shan pointed to a mountain peak ahead and said, "That's the village where we first appeared—there's a fork in the road at the village entrance; one path leads to the main road, and the other leads to a dilapidated Daoist temple."

"That's right, I recognized it when I got here, it really is over there."

"Although I only caught a glimpse of it from afar, that should be the Daoist Daoist temple you mentioned. After Daoist temple, it looked extraordinary, and the surrounding scenery was completely different from the barren mountains around it. We only refrained from exploring the Daoist temple because the letter mentioned the caravan and we were afraid of missing the best time for them to pass through," Snowy Owl said. "I never imagined that a crucial Item was hidden there."

Compared to Little Fire Dragon, Squirtle, and Deadshot, this trio not only surpasses them in strength but also in navigation skills.

Of the entire team, only Seagull was unfamiliar with the way— Gao Shan, on the other hand, was able to lead everyone directly to the correct destination in the mountains, which were then covered by Spider Silk and spiders and where the path was almost invisible.

Along the way, although Captain Shan would stop to check the direction, he never went astray and every route he chose was completely correct.

Lin Yu once suspected that he had used some kind of [Item] to achieve this.

Following the path indicated by the Gao Shan again, the three headed towards the small hill—and soon they arrived near the village.

Compared to the settlement architecture of Chen Family Fortress, the architectural style of this mountain stronghold is significantly wilder.

Although the buildings are also made of stone, almost all the inhabited areas in this mountain village are built against the mountain and extend inwards from natural caves, with just a door and a wall on the outside.

The outer wall was also very irregular, showing signs of multiple repairs.

At the same time, Lin Yu finally understood why these two "Night Watcher" and one "Order" member would rather increase the difficulty of their own journey than cooperate with these bandits.

Because within the walls of this village, between the stones, lay a large number of human bones.

The bones discarded along the wall piled up into small mountains.

These bandits, entrenched in this area, posed a threat and harm to the surrounding villages, mountain dwellers, and passing caravans that was no less than that posed by the Yaomo of the mountains.

However, they have now received their retribution—in front of the crudely made stone gate at the main entrance of the stronghold, three fresh corpses hang at the entrance, with more corpses piled up below.

Judging from the corpse's attire...

These must be the former owners of this mountain stronghold, the bandits who ruled this mountain as their kingdom.