Not the Act of a Wise Man

Standing atop the hovering Magitech Motorcycle, Ivette looked into the distance. The center of the Ish Mountains was covered in withered vegetation, radiating an aura of death beneath the afterglow of the setting sun. This was likely the Corrupt Forest that nurtured the Overlord.

Because it was sending soldiers to two locations at once, there were not many signs of living creatures visible in the Corrupt Forest. The wind passed through bone-like branches with a mournful whine, turning the entire forest into a massive, ominous graveyard.

After a moment of silence, Ivette looked at the Twin-Blade Demon. "Around the Mother Nest... how many Third Stage Mutants are there?"

"The weakest one is on the front line. Other than the Nest Lord that is currently evolving, there should be four more... I can give you all the information on them," the Twin-Blade Demon said. "If you intend to make a move, I can help hold one of them back when you attack the Mother Nest."

"You're being this kind-hearted?" Rosaline asked suspiciously.

"I told you, once the Overlord appears, we're all finished..." The Twin-Blade Demon curled its lips and gave a low laugh. "At my stage, there will be a Mana Core inside the body... I think your teacher would be quite interested in that."

"Mutants have Mana Cores too?" Ivette looked at it, clearly tempted.

The essence of a Mana Core was solidified energy. It was extremely easy for natural mages to absorb, practically melting the moment it entered the mouth. If she could obtain one, she could directly use it as a mana potion to replenish emergency reserves.

Of course, things like elemental batteries and energy storage panels sounded as though they served similar purposes, but they were actually worlds apart. Those devices stored energy using physical materials as a medium and were specifically designed for magitech machinery. If mages wanted to draw energy from them, it was like squeezing a sponge as hard as stone. They could squeeze for ages and only get a tiny bit out, making them useless in a crisis.

"Of course they do..." The Twin-Blade Demon quietly pulled a little farther away. "I only need the corpses of those stupid dogs. The Mana Cores are yours..."

Ivette fell into thought.

According to the Twin-Blade Demon's information, there were six Third Stage Mutants in the Ish Mountains faction: one was the Nest Lord, one was on the front line fighting Luya City, and the remaining four were all Mother Nest guards... If its information was truthful and nothing went wrong during the operation, then the Twin-Blade Demon and Rosaline would each handle one, while she dealt with the other two Mother Nest guards.

But the Nest Lord within the Mother Nest was also a major threat, and there was no ruling out the possibility that additional guards, unknown even to the Twin-Blade Demon, were hidden in the forest...

"Can we attack in stages? Like taking out some of them first," Rosaline suggested.

"Stupid! Then the insects will return to defend the Mother Nest!" the Twin-Blade Demon rejected, its speech even becoming more fluent. "And the other two Mother Nests, including their Nest Lords, are also run by stupid dogs! You should know it's unrealistic to expect them to be useful. The most important thing is to stop the Overlord's birth while their forces are depleted and they only have four high-level combatants!"

"Teacher, what do you think?" Rosaline turned toward her teacher with puffed cheeks after being insulted. She still did not trust the guy who had slashed at her the moment they met, especially with that unnerving smile of his. He looked like an evil villain.

"Prepare for five days." Ivette lowered her eyes.

"I hope we... have a pleasant cooperation, beautiful... powerful... Miss Mage." The Twin-Blade Demon curled its lips as it spoke in a slightly flattering tone, then immediately flapped its wings and vanished in an instant.

"Can we really trust that guy, Teacher?" Rosaline asked uneasily after the Twin-Blade Demon left.

"No." After a moment of silence, Ivette sighed. "But we cannot gamble, because we cannot leave this island. There is no second option. Even if it is a trap, we have to take a look before we can rest easy."

"That's true..." Rosaline said dejectedly.

Over the next five days, Ivette hurriedly completed her optimization of the "Regeneration Pump."

Now, as a life-saving spell, it not only greatly increased the body's regenerative speed, but the moment a wound suffered contamination and corrosion, it could condense a Phantom Heart of energy near the injury and draw all infected blood into it. The Phantom Heart would forcibly strip away and imprison the Mutation Factors in the blood before slowly pumping the purified blood back into the body. Finally, those filthy factors would be compressed into a thick black slurry and expelled through vomiting or spell-guided removal.

This had to be completed within twenty seconds. Beyond that time, the Mutation Factors would spread at a terrifying speed, and even the Regeneration Pump would not be able to save the victim.

Still, there was finally an emergency treatment method. Rosaline could now fight Mutants in close combat more boldly, without being so fearful of getting injured.

Meanwhile, Rosaline had been studying the new information provided by the Twin-Blade Demon.

According to its description, aside from the Third-Rank Aberration in Luya City, the five Mutants in the Corrupt Forest, including the Nest Lord, were the Nest Lord, the "Tide Worm Queen," and the four great guards: the "Corrosive Beak Demon Vulture," "Night Walker Demon," "Mechanical Tyrant," and "Shepherd Sheep"!

—All names Rosaline had come up with on the spot.

There was no need to say much about the Tide Worm Queen. As the Nest Lord of the Mother Nest, it was the creator of the swarm and the true mastermind behind it. Through some kind of sensing ability, it could turn Tideworms into its eyes and ears. Though it was in a semi-dormant state, it could still maintain control over the swarm through the Mother Nest as a medium.

The Corrosive Beak Demon Vulture was a gigantic mutated vulture with three heads. It could spray corrosive venom and possessed a powerful physique, with a wingspan exceeding thirty meters. It was comparable to a wyvern and highly capable in close combat.

The Night Walker Demon was a bat Mutant. It was somewhat smaller than the Corrosive Beak Demon Vulture, yet still enormous. However, its head had no eyes or other organs, only a huge mouth whose corners could split all the way to its ears.

The Mechanical Tyrant was clearly a Semi-Mechanical Aberration formed from an infected Magitech Soldier. In terms of evolution, the Twin-Blade Demon believed it might only be at the Second Stage and had not even grown a brain. But a Magitech Soldier itself was a small mech from the Origin Civilization era. Even without intelligence, it was still the strongest of the four great guards, perhaps even stronger than the Nest Lord. It had to—and could only—be handled by Ivette.

The Shepherd Sheep looked like a gigantic humanoid seven or eight meters tall, but perhaps because it had a sheep's head, it did not possess intelligence on the Twin-Blade Demon's level. Its body was covered in thick, filthy white fur, and its limbs resembled those of a human. But in battle, its bloated abdomen would suddenly split open, revealing countless agonized, howling humanoid heads connected by tentacles. Those heads were its primary biting weapons.

Of course, all of this information came solely from the Twin-Blade Demon, and it might have been only the tip of the iceberg. Even so, it was immensely oppressive and left no room for carelessness.

On the sixth day, at the ruins of a small town outside the Ish Mountains, the master and disciple arrived at their meeting place. They had just parked their vehicle when the Twin-Blade Demon's head poked out from the window of an abandoned building nearby, its smooth black carapace gleaming under the midsummer sun.

It impatiently asked, "...Have you decided how to divide up the targets?"

"...You scared me! You!" Rosaline had thought some kind of Mutant had crawled out... though it really was a Mutant.

When she saw the Twin-Blade Demon's disdainful expression, Rosaline unhappily said, "The Mechanical Tyrant! Can you handle that one?"

"What tasteless naming. Even more tasteless than 'Twin-Blade Demon,'" the Twin-Blade Demon said. "Of course not. Who could beat that thing? Let your teacher fight it."

Clearly, after several days of communication, this Mutant's human speech had become increasingly fluent.

"What about the Shepherd Sheep?" Rosaline asked again.

"That thing is far too strange. It does not suit me."

"Why don't you want to fight anyone?"

"Fighting opponents whose abilities are unknown is not the act of a wise man. I choose that big vulture. It is not very smart, which will let me use my intellectual advantage to toy with it." The Twin-Blade Demon said, "I assume you do not want your partner to become dead weight because it cannot make use of its own strengths."

"What intellectual advantage? Aren't you just fast?" Rosaline was quite dissatisfied. Among the four great guards, this Third-Rank Aberration was the most cumbersome, and it had been her initial preferred target.

"Just wait. You will soon be shocked by my wisdom."

"I think you just want to slack off and avoid doing any work..."

And so, after some discussion, the Twin-Blade Demon chose the Corrosive Beak Demon Vulture as the target it would restrain, while Rosaline chose the Night Walker Demon.

The remaining Mechanical Tyrant, Shepherd Sheep, Tide Worm Queen inside the Mother Nest, and all possible surprise attacks would be handled by Ivette.

With that decided, the three took out Magic Skateboards suited for solo combat and slowly infiltrated toward the Corrupt Forest.