Ransacking

From Julian's perspective, keeping quiet had been the best choice.

Speaking up would only have exposed Bai Xiaowen's disguise as an ordinary man, possibly making the Snakefolk take a keen interest in him. If Bai Xiaowen truly had no strength and only possessed the ability to foresee events, they would take him away and turn him into a Snakefolk or a slave warrior. If he was powerful and had let himself be captured for some other purpose, speaking up would only disrupt his plans.

Either way, Julian had to keep his mouth shut.

That was the logic of it, but when their lives were on the line, most people would grasp at any straw. Few could stay as calm as Captain Julian had.

Bai Xiaowen had been prepared for the alternative. If Captain Julian had spoken up and made the Snakefolk suspicious of him, he would simply have launched his attack early, summoned Cecilia, and faced them in open battle.

Of course, without gathering intelligence beforehand, the outcome would not have been nearly so perfect.

After they demolished the great altar, its base proved hollow as well. Inside swam octopus-shaped creatures: Mind-Eater Demons.

The Mind-Eater Demons here were no longer larvae. They had more than doubled in size, and their many tentacles tangled together. The sight brought to mind a mass of mating snakes and was rather nauseating...

But these Mind-Eater Demons clearly were not doing anything as romantic as mating.

Bai Xiaowen noticed that some of the entangled Mind-Eater Demons were thick-bodied, their purple skin glossy and bright. Others were much thinner, with folds of skin like the belly of someone who had just lost a hundred pounds...

"Could the Mind-Eater Demons in the pool be devouring one another? That would explain why some are plump and others are