A Trap Laid in Plain Sight

"I think we should wait until Priest Ant and Knight Commander Lurs return before making the final arrangements," the young Knight suggested.

Ant and Lurs were the two strongest leaders in the Coalition. Together, their strength was enough to rival what the Wizards called "Level 1 Formal Wizards."

For this investigation into that strange region, they had led more than a hundred of their most elite warriors.

"No!" the previous Knight Commander refused decisively. "The front line is constantly retreating now. Those Wizard Apprentices have been carried away by victory and are beginning to gather of their own accord. This is the best time for us to launch the final assault! If we miss it and let them scatter again or grow wary, our plan will be much harder to succeed!"

"That's right. Abandoning the gains before our eyes for an unknown enemy would be a loss outweighing the gain."

"Ant and Lurs are strong enough. They will certainly handle that region's problem and come support us afterward."

Under the other leaders' insistence, although the young Knight felt intense unease churning within him, he could only helplessly abandon the idea.

He chose to trust in Ant and Lurs's strength, to trust in their myth of emerging victorious from every battle.

He believed that the two leaders, together with a hundred elite Knights, were enough to wipe out any enemy.

Meanwhile, on the wilderness that the Native leaders had marked as an "unknown region."

Benjamin stood on the ground, his boots treading over layer upon layer of ash and unrecognizable remains.

The air was thick with a pungent burnt stench and lingering gunpowder smoke. As far as the eye could see, everything was charred black, as though the earth had been washed clean by flames.

This horrifying sight had been caused by him alone.

"This is really absurd." Benjamin frowned as he looked at the ashes beneath his feet.

He had merely been searching for materials as usual when such a huge group of Natives suddenly appeared and attacked him. There had been so many of them that they seemed intent on drowning him completely.

But that meant nothing to him. Benjamin directly unleashed saturated firepower, thoroughly "plowing" through both the people and the entire area.

The Rune Artifact displayed terrifying destructive power amid the violent elemental environment. In just a few minutes, this place had turned into a living hell.

He used Analysis Art to inspect the energy fluctuations around him and quickly locked onto a faint life signature that had not yet fully dissipated.

As he approached, Benjamin discovered a Native clad in full heavy armor. Both the armor's design and material were far superior to those he had encountered before. This seemed to be a leader-level figure.

However, this leader now had only half a body left—half of it cut vertically.

After carefully using Alchemy and Analysis Art to confirm there was no danger, he crouched down and opened the other party's broken, scorched visor.

Behind the visor was half a face marked by a huge scar, its eyes filled with unwillingness and fury.

The man seemed to want to say something. His mouth moved with difficulty a few times.

A hoarse voice squeezed out from a throat that may or may not still have existed, carrying a heavy stench of blood.

Benjamin tilted his head and tried hard to sense the other party's mental fluctuations, attempting to understand.

Unfortunately, the structure of this Native language and its method of spiritual transmission were completely different from any system he knew. He could not understand it at all.

He could only watch helplessly as the final light in the other party's eyes dimmed and he finally died.

"Muttering away like that, it probably wasn't anything nice." Benjamin curled his lip. Being cursed for no reason made him feel rather wronged.

"Could there be some large gathering point nearby? So they took me for an invader and I crossed their warning line?" He thought blankly for a moment. "That really is unfair. I didn't have any bad intentions... though I really am an invader in this plane."

Shaking his head, he tossed the doubt to the back of his mind.

Spreading out Alchemy and Analysis Art, Benjamin suddenly raised a finger and fired several fireballs in rapid succession toward a distant direction.

Boom...

The rumble of distant explosions reached him. When Benjamin walked over, he found several charred bodies with terror still on their faces.

It looked as though they had also been members of the Native group, hiding at the very rear all along.

Unfortunately, Benjamin had still discovered their traces.

Come to think of it, this barren wilderness, with scarcely any signs of life, had instead compensated for Benjamin's weakness in reconnaissance-type Wizardry.

Alchemy could detect fluctuations in matter and souls, while Analysis Art could capture subtle changes in energy. Combined, as long as any living being's fluctuations that did not belong to the environment appeared on this wilderness, Benjamin could instantly sense them, with no way to conceal themselves.

At the other end of the Gray Rock Plane, within a temporary Wizard Apprentice camp.

The exhausted Apprentices sat gathered together, sharing the intelligence and potions they had just obtained.

Though these people were not in good condition, the camp's atmosphere had become somewhat invigorated because of news that had just arrived.

"Have you heard? The news is here!" one Apprentice lowered his voice, excitement flashing in his eyes. "The location of the Indigenous Coalition's leaders has been discovered!"

"What? The leaders?!"

"Really? Where?!"

"They say it's in a hidden valley deep within the plane. The intelligence was sent back at the risk of a reconnaissance-type Wizard's life. It seems they thought no one could discover their headquarters."

The news spread like wildfire. The Apprentices looked at one another, all kinds of light flickering in their eyes.

This intelligence had been obtained far too easily—so easily that nearly every Apprentice saw through it at a glance. This was very likely a trap.

However, following Horn's, Augusta's, and the other geniuses' astonishing performances on the battlefield, the Wizard Apprentices' attitude toward the Natives had changed once again.

They had seen with their own eyes how the geniuses easily broke through the Natives' encirclements, how they crushed those seemingly powerful Knights and Shamans.

All these examples, along with the steadily advancing front line, made the Apprentices increasingly excited. Subconsciously, they regarded the Natives' threat as smaller and smaller.

Even after recognizing it as a trap, they did not take it seriously.

"So what if it's a trap? With Miss Augusta and Young Master Horn's strength, they can force their way through even the strongest trap!"

"That's right! These natives' traps are only useful against ordinary Apprentices like us. Those geniuses can rival Formal Wizards!"

"The key is that since these Natives were set up by the Academy as a trial, killing their leaders will surely earn an enormous number of points!"

The greed brought by merit, blind worship of the geniuses, and a misjudgment of the enemy's strength—countless factors intertwined, leading the Apprentices to make their decision.

"Go! We're going to that valley!"

"Even if it's dangerous, we can still get a share of the spoils by following behind Miss Augusta and Young Master Horn!"

In their scramble for benefits, Apprentices gathered in an endless stream, contacting one another and forming ever larger groups.