"Knowing he was so arrogant, I never should have sent you, Caesar."
"Sorry for the trouble." Nina looked at Caesar with an apologetic expression.
"It's fine. Even if you hadn't said anything, there was a good chance I would've gone anyway. Meeting young talents and getting to know them—or bringing them into the fold—is a required lesson for those of us from prominent families. This isn't the first time something like this has happened." Caesar smiled breezily.
"Besides, talents who don't understand how people work are few and far between. There's no need to let this ruin our mood."
"Boss, you're just too nice! That's why some people who don't know their place think they can put on airs in front of you." The fat man spoke up on Caesar's behalf.
Thin Monkey, who had been silently wiping down his long blade, suddenly chimed in. "Anyone who makes it to Sunset Forest before turning twenty is a genius. Those idiots who think they're so gifted that they can look down on everyone else—let's hope we don't run into them in Sunset Forest. One slash, and they'll learn their place."
"No need... There's no need to get into a fight because of me." Caesar patted Thin Monkey on the shoulder.
"All I did was get insulted a few times. It's not as if I lost a chunk of flesh."
"Boss is just too gentle!" said the other girl mage.
As the five chatted, a hundred meters ahead of them, several men in green outfits with camouflage painted on their faces watched Xiao Yan and Nina's group approach, their eyes cold.
The moment Xiao Yan entered their attack range, the ambushers drew their longbows to full draw. Just as they were about to loose their arrows—
The middle-aged man leading them suddenly spoke. "Let that one pass. Take out the five behind him!" He stared at Xiao Yan's youthful face, a trace of wariness flashing in his eyes.
"What the hell? That guy definitely glanced this way just now!"
As Xiao Yan passed the thicket, he looked puzzled and muttered, "They didn't even attack. I was hoping to earn a little extra."
Xiao Yan, a Level Seven Mage, had noticed something strange about the thicket from fifty meters away. He had already finished chanting the Level Seven spell Dance of the Fire Snake as he walked, waiting for the bandits to show themselves.
(In the original, Dance of the Fire Snake was an eighth-level spell that summoned seven fire snakes at once. In this book, the seventh-level version has four fewer snakes than the eighth-level spell.)
When the bandits in the thicket didn't make a move, Xiao Yan quietly canceled the spell.
Not long after Xiao Yan had left, Nina and the others reached the thicket. The middle-aged man lying in ambush moved his lips and began chanting a spell.
He drew his longbow to full draw, then loosed an arrow.
The arrow raced across dozens of meters and passed straight through Caesar's body.
"Whoosh!"
Caesar, whom the middle-aged man had chosen as his target, felt every hair on his body stand on end. A sharp pain struck his throat.
"Ugh..." Caesar clutched his throat as blood seeped between his fingers. He made a muffled sound, his eyes wide. The confidence that had filled them was replaced by a desperate desire to live.
His eyes quickly dimmed. His body went limp, and he crashed to the ground, lifeless.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!" After the middle-aged man fired first, the other men in green loosed their arrows too. More than a dozen flashes of steel, carrying murderous intent, pierced through the group.
"Thud! Thud!" Nina and the other girl mage were both struck in vital spots. They fell one after another, lifeless.
Thin Monkey and the fat man, both warriors, survived by virtue of their superior physical control.
"No! Boss, Lily, Nina—ah!" Seeing their companions dead around him, the fat man gripping his spiked club went red-eyed. Thin Dou Qi surfaced around his body, and he charged recklessly into the arrow storm, trying to avenge his companions.
The middle-aged man, watching from the thicket, saw this and his eyes turned cold. He drew his bow again and continued chanting a spell.
"Whoosh!" The fat man roared as he charged halfway forward. Before he could even react, an arrow was already upon him. He hurriedly tried to block it with his spiked club, but he was too late.
"Thud—"
The arrow pierced the fat man's head and sank into a rock a hundred meters away.
Even as he died, the fat man's face was full of disbelief, as if he couldn't understand how he could have died so easily.
"Idiot!" The middle-aged man sneered.
"Whoosh!" Behind the dead fat man, a shadow suddenly darted away.
It was Thin Monkey, the young man known as the fastest runner in Caesar's group of five. Compared to the reckless fat man, Thin Monkey was much more cunning. The moment the arrows came, he had taken cover behind Caesar's armored corpse.
After dodging the first volley, Thin Monkey seized the chance to flee while the fat man charged. In the blink of an eye, he had run a hundred meters.
"Think you can get away? After him!"
The middle-aged man waved his hand. Several figures burst out of the thicket and gave chase in Thin Monkey's direction.
From a slope, Xiao Yan had witnessed the entire ambush.
He hadn't chosen to intervene. After all, the person standing there wasn't Lynn, who had met Nina once before, but Xiao Yan, from the Starfire Kingdom.
They were not only strangers, but also from two hostile empires. Naturally, Xiao Yan wouldn't help them.
He turned and continued on his way. With the speed of a Level Seven Warrior, it wasn't long before Sunset Forest came into view.
It was a vast, boundless forest. Hundreds- and even thousands-of-years-old trees stood everywhere. Weeds blanketed the ground, and thorny undergrowth choked the forest. Now and then, rustling sounds came from beneath the rotting leaves. Each step stirred a soft shhh, shhh.
"Those weeds might look harmless, but who knows what beast is hiding in them? There might be a python beneath the thick layer of leaves on the ground. In a remote, untouched forest like this, the terrain is complex. I have to stay alert at all times." Xiao Yan felt uneasy.
Only after truly entering Sunset Forest could one grasp its vastness. Even Xiao Yan, already a Level Seven Warrior, had to stay on guard. For all he knew, a high-level magical beast might be lurking in the dozen-meter-high weeds all around him.
Holding the Heavy Ruler in one hand, Xiao Yan cautiously surveyed his surroundings and made his way forward.
Along the way, he encountered one or two first- or second-level magical beasts every hundred meters or so. As long as they didn't attack first, he let them go. These low-level beasts were no challenge for Xiao Yan now; he could deal with them using a single instant spell, so they offered no real training.
"Whoosh... Whoosh..." Suddenly, the sound of flowing water came from somewhere ahead.
In the world of magical beasts, rivers were extremely dangerous. They often served as hunting grounds for high-level beasts.
At the sound of water, Xiao Yan's eyes lit up, and he hurried toward it.
"Roar—"
"A tiger's roar! It's a tiger-type magical beast!" Xiao Yan's face lit up with excitement as he recognized the roar.
Most tiger-type magical beasts were Level Seven or Eight, just right for Xiao Yan at his current level.
Before you continue