Having lived for over forty years, he immediately guessed what could carry away an entire lake in an instant.
That thought led him to another: Sand City must have been facing a water crisis. Otherwise, they would never have sent these fellows out on such a dangerous mission, carrying a precious Wood Elemental Artifact as a storage vessel just to move a lake.
Although Elemental Artifacts were crafted by only a tiny number of Elementalists, their use was not restricted to Elementalists. Anyone from an eighty-year-old man to a toddler who could walk could use one. That was precisely why he concluded that the four were not Elementalists, merely somewhat capable soldiers. Otherwise, they would not have held back during their earlier confrontation; they would have attacked outright.
Since they dared venture out, they must have come prepared. Who knew whether they carried other Elemental Artifacts?
He ran toward where the carriage had stood and found the compartment they had abandoned.
Everything inside remained as before. The cargo was worth over five hundred Livre altogether. The discovery struck him like a bolt from the blue, confirming his suspicions.
He crouched down, tested the firmness of the edges of the hoofprints with his fingers, then sniffed carefully. A hint of excitement entered his voice. "They left about an hour ago. There's still time!"
He sprinted all the way back to camp, headed straight for O'Connor's tent, and flung aside the flap without even announcing himself.
"Leader! Leader! Important enemy intelligence!" His excitement almost spilled out of his voice.
O'Connor, who had been dozing on a small bed of branches, immediately sat up. His drowsiness vanished as he demanded, "What's all this shouting? What enemy intelligence?"
He panted heavily. "Those four fellows just now-they were from Sand City!"
O'Connor's eyes flickered. "How did you find out?"
"I went back to check and found... found that the whole of Hidden Lake was gone."
"What?!" He sprang off the bed and stepped forward, pressing his forehead against the other man's, trembling faintly. "What did you say?"
"The lake vanished into thin air. They abandoned the carriage. They-they're carrying a Wood Elemental Artifact!"
"Damn it!" O'Connor cursed and hurried out of the tent, immediately mobilizing his men to pursue and kill those four bastards.
Stationed here to scout and raise the alarm, they naturally had horses. The dense forest terrain had prevented them from using them, but on the broad, level road, those horses were their wings.
At dawn, as the sun rose and golden light spread across the land, over a dozen silhouettes raced westward like the wind.
Riding at the head of the group, O'Connor wore a grim expression. Well, well, you four bastards actually dared make a fool of me! Once I catch you, I'll skin you alive. Especially that Fulin Taiyou man-I'll smash your teeth one by one, then cut your tongue a hundred times! Though he had always treated military orders as absolute, he had now thrown Idiveer's instructions to the back of his mind. Report only, do not attack? Fuck that!
The veteran riding beside him had fallen silent. Before they set off, he had repeatedly warned O'Connor that the enemy posed an unknown threat. The safest course was to inform the main force, request reinforcements, and only then give chase.
O'Connor had roared in response, "Reinforcements? To hell with reinforcements! What haven't I seen before? Even if we report it, by the time help arrives, those bastards will probably have had a good night's sleep in their beds in Sand City! If you're afraid of dying, get lost and go report it!"
He shut his mouth and stayed close beside O'Connor.
Meanwhile, Zeng Mu and the others were racing along the level road. Having abandoned the carriage, they rode two to a horse. Ma Linya sat behind him, while Kanni held the reins with an indifferent expression. Inwardly, however, he could not ignore Cobert's arms wrapped tightly around his waist. He could only endure it in silence and hope they reached Sand City soon.
Strangely enough, whether traveling on foot or in a carriage, the return journey always seemed a little shorter than the outward one. Time seemed to pass much faster too, allowing people to briefly forget the tedium of the journey and focus entirely on the destination just ahead. Besides, they were moving much faster now than before.
"Achoo!" Cobert sneezed on horseback. Rubbing his nose, he thought, Is that brat cursing me again?
He turned to glance at the pair on the other horse. The suspicion in his eyes gave way to pleasure, yet the corners of his mouth involuntarily rose and fell in an oddly discordant expression. It was a bitter smile, as though a secret buried deep in his heart had been touched, bringing back some treasured scene.
Sometimes, quietly admiring a beautiful painting surpassed owning every brilliant pigment.
The morning breeze carried the warmth of the rising sun. Cool and soothing against their faces, it swept away every trace of restlessness and unease.
As Ma Linya savored those sensations, she also caught a distinctive scent. It was neither the sweat of the blood-sweating steed galloping hard beneath her nor the herbs that always accompanied her, but a familiar scent belonging to a human male.
No one was perfect, and everyone was different; their scents were no exception. This was also a scent she had never encountered before, much clearer now than it had been in the stone house. The horse's back seemed enchanted, magnifying without limit the faint scent she had overlooked back then. Her heart quickened slightly, and her chest and shoulders grew weak. She had to close her eyes and tighten her grip on the support she held in both hands.
Zeng Mu held the reins as though holding on to something that kept him lucid, preventing him from losing himself. Otherwise, he felt certain he would become a fish, landing on the ground with a gentle flick of his tail, then turning his head slightly to pierce the earth and plunge into that warm, dense red ocean, swimming far away.
"Nameless, do you feel anything wrong?" Kanni's words washed over him like winter well water, jolting him awake.
"What sort of wrong?" Zeng Mu lifted his head slightly and looked toward the distant horizon, then glanced back at the billowing dust behind them. "You think those Vikings are chasing us?"
"Yes. I really do have that feeling," Kanni said with certainty.
Although Zeng Mu was now a genuine Metal Element Elementalist, Kanni would have staked his life on this: when it came to sensing approaching enemies beyond the reach of ordinary perception, Zeng Mu could not compare to a young veteran like him, who had danced on the edge of a blade for decades.
Given their previous experiences, Zeng Mu did not doubt his intuition at all.
Cobert immediately chimed in, "What's there to be afraid of? Even if they saw through our disguise, so what if they're chasing us? Their horses are warhorses, and so are ours. These two are even fine warhorses personally selected by Lord Yetos. To put their quality in terms of breeding, they're the horse equivalent of me among the Fulin Taiyou People. As for those Vikings-
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. They certainly know how to build ships and carts, but the horses raised in their Savage Territory are just like them: thick-skinned, broad-hoofed, and clumsy. It's practically one rock carrying another! Slow and heavy-how could they catch us when we're swift as the wind and arrows?"
"Unless the road runs out..."
"Stop!" Kanni suddenly shouted.
Zeng Mu dropped his elbows, drawing his forearms back as he tilted his head backward. The reins snapped taut with a swish. The bit in the horse's mouth sent its forelegs into the air and its back rising before it came to a halt.
Ma Linya opened her eyes and tilted her head slightly to look ahead.
Across the gray ground lay a stretch of roots over six meters wide, broad as a river. The roots were milky white and as thick as thumbs, tangled together in a complicated mass like dragon claws covering the earth. Layer overlapped layer, coil wound around coil, packed so densely that no gaps or end could be seen. Like a white fissure across the ground before the horses' hooves, they blocked the group's path.
Noticing the changes in their breathing, Zeng Mu narrowed his eyes and murmured, "What is that?"
"Damn it, Living Python Root! What rotten luck!" Cobert's neck reddened as he swore.
Dead Python Root was an exceptionally unusual, rare plant. What made it unusual was that it could survive without stems or leaves. It resembled tree roots, fed on decaying soil and gravel, and could live for up to a hundred years. After sixty years, it had a chance of developing a measure of awareness, transforming from an ordinary plant into a special one endowed with elemental energy.
Even if it produced only a trace of elemental energy, Dead Python Root would become the Living Python Root before them. The two differed in exterior color, and ordinary people could not extract the elements within them. Because of their bizarre appearance, many uninformed commoners considered them an ill omen and uprooted them upon discovery. Thus, Dead Python Root was fairly common, but Living Python Root was truly rare-and today, they had encountered it.
"Watch this." Zeng Mu spread all five fingers. Golden light flashed on his forehead, and as he raised his hand, a black iron shard shaped like a sharp sword shot forward like an arrow, standing upright against the ground. He evidently intended to slice through the Living Python Root in a single stroke.
"It won't work..." Cobert was already shaking his head.
Clang! The iron shard tore through the ground with unstoppable force, leaving a deep furrow, but the instant it touched the black roots, sparks flashed and it was easily knocked away. It sliced through the air before landing far away on a rock, humming from the impact and sending cracks spreading across the stone.
With dull eyes, Cobert looked up at Nameless and explained, "Dead Python Root is as hard as iron. Blades and spears can't pierce it. Living Python Root is twice as hard."
"You damned old man! I'll shut that jinxing mouth of yours!" Kanni twisted his shoulder and caught Cobert's neck in the crook of his elbow. Within mere seconds, Cobert's face flushed red under the pressure. Zeng Mu raised a hand, and a sudden gust swept past, relaxing Kanni's muscles and dissipating all his strength.
"Enough. Stop fooling around and think of a solution. Is there another way? How long would it take to go around these roots?" he asked.
Both men shook their heads, unwilling to speak. Behind him, Ma Linya said, "Nameless, it's no use. Living Python Root isn't fixed in place like Dead Python Root. Sometimes it hides deep underground, and sometimes it emerges. Whenever it does, every last root comes up to the surface and gathers into a huge circle. The whole process only takes a few minutes. We've just walked right inside that circle. Whether we go right, left, or back, we'll encounter the white python roots already blocking the way."
Misfortune was itself a kind of fortune, just like the shadow hidden behind the light.
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