"Am I hoist by my own petard? This is the first time anyone has described our racial talent, the Skin Changing Technique, that way."
"But you're not exactly arrogant, either. Kid, you really are impressive. Your acting was excellent. But you forgot one important thing: the difference between your strength and mine."
As he dodged, Baron Moro had already noticed a major problem with Yveta's swordsmanship.
At first, he'd tried to guess what style Yveta's swordsmanship belonged to.
Since Yveta had said he was from Arthas, he'd compared Yveta's swordsmanship with the famous styles of Arthas he remembered.
He'd thought Yveta's chaotic swordsmanship belonged to some unusual school. He'd even suspected it was an assassin's style.
Although most assassins came from the Little Brotherhood of Faith, there were also smaller, lesser-known groups of assassins.
Besides, across the sea to the south, in the desert, there was another famous group of assassins—the Assassins' Secret Cult.
Unable to figure it out, the battle-hardened Child of the Forest had grown more and more frightened as they fought, so he'd simply kept dodging.
But before long, he realized from Yveta's repeated movements that the kid didn't have any swordsmanship at all.
Since he didn't know any swordsmanship, of course Baron Moro couldn't guess what school it belonged to.
Yveta's ability to adapt on the fly earlier had frightened him, and he'd overestimated the kid.
Angry at realizing he'd been fooled again, the Child of the Forest thrust the Knight Sword in his hand straight toward Yveta's left eye. "Your swordsmanship is awful. Even the best plan needs strength to back it up!"
Just then, Yveta gripped the bracelet with his left hand and turned it twice. A flash of black light passed over it.
He began reciting an incantation.
That was right. He'd never planned to defeat Baron Moro with his swordsmanship, which was hardly worth mentioning.
But sometimes, a person's weakness could also become an advantage.
No one could be good at everything or excel at every skill.
And a truly capable person would usually learn to make use of their weaknesses, turning them into strengths.
Yveta had known all along just how bad his swordsmanship was.
But it didn't matter.
He wanted Baron Moro to realize that he couldn't use a sword.
Then his opponent would let down his guard, because Yveta had never intended to win with swordsmanship. He still had one last spell to use.
The Triple Ring's Damage Curse!
A blade-like streak of black light appeared on Baron Moro's chest, slicing through his skin and clothes and revealing his true body.
The baron looked down a moment too late. "You're a wizard!"
"And so young!"
The next moment, he was sent flying by the blade-like black light, crashing through a wall.
When he stood up again, the human skin draped over him had been torn to pieces.
Emerald-green blood flowed from his body. Anyone could tell that it wasn't the color of human blood.
A person whose skin looked like tree bark rose to his feet. Baron Moro's face, still faintly recognizable, hung limply from his shoulder, while the head on his neck bore the completely unfamiliar face of a Treant Person.
All the human knights present cried out in alarm.
"An alien! That's not the baron! Where's our baron?"
"The castle has been infiltrated! So this is what Lord Branton was really trying to do by assassinating the baron! Stay alert! Prepare to fight!"
Someone stood up too quickly and knocked over a table. The wine jug on it fell and shattered on the floor.
The wine spilled across the ground. Once it touched the floor, the liquid, which had looked fairly clear, quickly turned into a gray-black, viscous substance.
The knights cried out in alarm.
"There was something wrong with the wine they tried to make us drink! Did anyone drink it?"
"I...I..."
"I didn't drink any..."
Only then did everyone realize that they'd been poisoned without even noticing.
At that moment, many of them discovered something terrifying.
After drinking the first cup of tainted wine, they couldn't help drinking a second, then a third, as though they were addicted.
Unless they couldn't see the wine, they couldn't stop themselves from drinking it.
And when they fought that urge, it felt as though ants were biting their entire bodies. It was unbearable.
Everyone had been drinking and making merry, so they hadn't noticed anything wrong.
Now that they'd stopped drinking, they realized something was amiss—but it was too late.
The Treant Person Leader clutched the wound on his chest and glanced regretfully at the tattered human skin of Baron Moro. He tore it off and threw it to the ground. "I thought I could use it for a long time."
"The plan failed. How am I supposed to explain this to the Ancient Forest Souls? We've been exposed!"
"Our tracks must not be discovered!"
"We have no choice but to kill everyone here!"
Now that their leader had been exposed, the guards in the hall dropped their act as well and began attacking the humans around them.
The entire hall fell into chaos in an instant.
As one knight chopped off a Treant Person's head, he also kicked a pile of kindling out of the hall's fireplace. Sparks scattered through the air like stars.
Before long, the rugs on the floor and the tables and chairs in the sitting room were all ablaze.
As the human knights fought, they slashed their opponents' skin and discovered that the creatures disguised as human guards were actually humanoid monsters with bark-like skin.
The entire hall became a stage for a spectacle of fire and swords, witchcraft and aliens.
At that moment, Yveta suddenly remembered the prophecy the Forest Duke had made earlier. Hadn't she said that—
The era of peace was over, and now they were entering the age of swords and fire?
The Treant Person Leader walked up to Yveta. He clutched his chest with his right hand and picked up a Knight Sword that someone had dropped in the flames.
He pointed the sword at Yveta. "Human, damn you. Why do humans get to take all the good things for themselves?"
"A kid your age, at an absolute disadvantage in both strength and status, still managed to ruin our plan."
"Thousands of years ago, humans often produced people like you. Thousands of years later, are we doomed to repeat the same history?"
"Are we Children of the Forest destined to fail?"
"Why are humans the right path of evolution, while we're the ones you consider to have taken the wrong path?"
Elsewhere, a maid fighting Old Witch and the others suddenly tore off her human skin, revealing bark-like skin beneath.
She was furious. "Ji, you must take full responsibility for this failure!"
She pulled out some white powder, bent down, and used it to draw a triangle on the ground in less than half a second. Then she suddenly bit her own wrist, letting her blood drip onto the triangle.
The center of the triangle immediately seemed to sink inward. A hollow appeared in what had been a flat surface.
The emerald blood that fell into the hollow began to evaporate, turning into a plume of green smoke that rose into the sky.
The woman raised her head and sang a religious hymn in some inhuman language.
The hymn sounded extremely strange, like tanks rolling forward. Each word seemed disconnected from the next—stiff, primitive, crude, yet possessing a savage, primal beauty.
The melody was also deeply unsettling, making anyone who heard it feel uncomfortable.
Old Witch's expression changed. "Stop her, quickly!"
"She's an official priest of the Ancient Tree, a Second-Rank professional. The usual profession of the Children of the Forest is priest."
"She's performing a sacrifice to the Ancient Tree."
"Don't let her complete the Ancient Spirit Ritual."
Before you continue