Although very faint, it is indeed still alive.
He scanned the woman from head to toe with his Transparent World, confirming that she had no Touki or magical energy fluctuations and was just an ordinary commoner.
You mean...?
Luo Ge turned his head to look at Little Red, who was nodding her little head vigorously. "When you were hunting monsters in the forest, did you encounter this woman who fell from the sky?"
Little Red nodded vigorously.
"And then you caught her?"
Little Red nodded vigorously again, and proudly puffed out her chest.
"... Outrageous."
Luo Ge paused for two seconds, then exclaimed sincerely, "How can a person fall from the sky?"
But there's no other way right now; we can only wait for the woman to wake up before asking her.
Luo Ge picked her up from the shallows and settled her in a dry cave by the waterfall. He then built a fire to dry her soaked clothes.
Little Red obediently curled up at the entrance of the cave, occasionally pricking up her ears alertly to listen for any sounds around her.
After about an hour, the woman finally woke up.
She stared blankly for a long time, then seemed to suddenly remember something terrifying.
He suddenly curled up into a ball, his lips trembling, his hands flailing wildly in front of him, and he let out a muffled scream.
"Calm down, calm down!"
Luo Ge pressed down on her shoulders, trying to keep his voice calm, "You're safe now. Nobody wants to hurt you."
"Tell me first, what's your name? Where are you from?"
The woman trembled for a long time before gradually calming down after Luo Ge repeatedly comforted her.
She stared at Luo Ge for a long time with her still terrified eyes, and answered in a trembling voice, "I... I'm Marianne, a villager from Buena Village... I was working in the fields when suddenly a white light shot down from the sky, and then... everything went black, and when I woke up I was here..."
Luo Ge's pupils suddenly contracted.
"... Wait, what did you say? You said you're from Buena Village?"
Marianne nodded vigorously, tears welling up in her eyes again.
Luo Ge's expression changed for a moment, but he didn't show it and continued to ask a few more questions.
Marianne recounted her experiences while harvesting wheat in the field in a rambling, disjointed manner, but her description remained fragmented—white light, weightlessness, and then nothing more.
She herself didn't know why she was in this forest, nor did she understand how she had crossed the thousands of miles from the south to the north of the Central Continent.
Luo Ge's bad premonition grew stronger.
Just then, Little Red flapped its wings and flew back, pulling at Luo Ge's clothes in its beak.
Luo Ge ran after it.
This time, Little Red found even more people in the dense forest.
Some were hanging unconscious from tree branches, some nearly drowned in the stream, and others had already died after falling into a pile of rocks.
Luo Ge checked each victim one by one, pulling out those who were still alive to treat them and collecting the bodies of the deceased.
When it got dark, he sat by the campfire and gathered those who could still speak together to question them one by one.
The result made him frown even more deeply.
These people included men, women, and children, but without exception, they all shared a common characteristic: they all came from the Fittoa Territory.
In layman's terms, it means one's fellow townsman.
The first middle-aged woman he had encountered was Marianne, who was a former neighbor in the Buena Village. She was a single widow raising her child alone.
As for why Luo Ge knew her...
This was all thanks to Paul's charm, especially his popularity with the women in these villages. Women would often come to visit him, and even Zenith would frequently express her dissatisfaction with this.
After Luo Ge's thorough questioning...
They were all swept away by a beam of white light that fell from the sky without warning, and then appeared near the Sword Sanctum, thousands of miles away.
Luo Ge looked up at the southern night sky.
Suddenly I understood: the black sphere that had disappeared earlier hadn't vanished; it had simply exploded.
He took a deep breath and settled the still-shaken refugees down.
He rushed back to the Sword Sanctum overnight, without alerting anyone, and went to see the Sword God Gal alone.
Gal was sitting behind his large wooden desk, weighing the Demon Sword Whistle, in his hand.
Hearing Luo Ge's footsteps, he didn't even look up. "What brings you here in the middle of the night?"
Luo Ge recounted his experiences from that afternoon in detail.
From the black sphere in the sky, to the villagers of Buena Village falling from the sky, to the possibility of widespread disaster near the Fittoa Territory.
Gal put down the Demon Sword Whistle, his eyes darkening. After a long silence, he shook his head. "I've lived this long, and I've never seen anything like this."
"People from an entire territory were suddenly thrown a thousand miles away? I can't explain that either."
Luo Ge nodded. "So I've decided, I'll personally return to the Fittoa Territory."
"You're leaving already?"
Gal raised his eyelids to look at him.
"Um."
Luo Ge's voice was calm, but the determination in his tone was clear. "My family may also be in trouble."
"No matter what, my family is the most important thing in the world to me. Anyway... I want to go home and check on things."
"I see."
"Is this more important to you than becoming the Sword God?"
"Well, being Sword God is just a title in the end, but my family is irreplaceable in my life."
"How does that family compare to the goal of defeating the Dragon God?"
Family is important.
Luo Ge's answer was crisp, direct, and forceful.
"Okay."
"I understand your resolve now, that determination to draw your sword for your family."
"But, by the way..."
"What about all these people you picked up from outside?"
A mocking smile crept across Gal's lips. "Heh, this isn't some refugee camp for orphans and widows."
Luo Ge thought for a moment, about to speak, when Gal waved his hand to interrupt him, "Alright, for your sake, I'll help search the area for any more refugees."
"If they want to go home, I can try to send some men to escort them."
Luo Ge paused for a moment, then bowed deeply and gave a solemn salute. "Then thank you very much, Sword God."
"Snort."
Gal snorted, a hint of displeasure in his voice, "It was one thing for you to call me Sword God before, but now that I've taught you for so long and cleaned up so many messes for you, what should you call me?"
Luo Ge straightened up, looked at Gal's stern face, and a slight smile appeared on his lips.
"Teacher."
A very subtle ripple flickered in Gal's grey eyes.
His stern expression softened slightly, and the corners of his mouth lifted almost imperceptibly before he quickly suppressed it.
He waved his hand, his tone deliberately casual, "Go ahead and don't worry."
"I don't want you to get bogged down in these trivial matters and waste your great talents."
"Finish this quickly and come back soon... Don't forget, we've invested a lot in you, pinning our hopes of defeating the Dragon God on you. Don't die out there so easily."
Luo Ge gripped the hilt of the Elegant Dragon Sword, for the first time failing to conceal the seriousness in his eyes. "Teacher, I will definitely not let you down."
He turned and walked towards the palace gate.
From behind came Gal's cursing voice. "What a brat."
Luo Ge didn't turn around, but merely raised his hand in response before striding out of the doorway between the seats.
A night breeze swept over me, its coolness seeping into my skin through my clothes.
He stood on the stone steps outside the door, looked up at the starry sky, took a deep breath, and walked towards his residence.
Inside the hall, Gal was still sitting behind the wooden table, his gaze fixed through the open door on the receding figure outside.
"Finally decided to come out?"
He said calmly.
Nina slowly emerged from behind the screen beside her, her head bowed and her hands clasped in front of her.
"Lift your head up."
Gal's voice was not loud, but it carried an undeniable weight.
Nina bit her lip and slowly raised her head.
Gal stared into her eyes for a few seconds, then snorted, "That's more like my daughter."
He stood up, walked over to Nina, and patted her head with his rough hand. "I know you're not happy about this, so pull yourself together. What kind of talk is it to be all downcast?"
Nina's nose felt a little sore, but she blinked hard twice to force the soreness back, and nodded vigorously. "Okay, Dad."
Gal didn't say anything more, turned around and left.
Nina stood there watching her father's retreating figure, then suddenly clenched her fists.
She turned around, walked quickly to the palace entrance, her gaze following the other figure that had completely disappeared at the edge of the holy land.
When we meet again.
She will definitely win.
P. S.: I've updated three times today, please give me some free gifts so I can keep updating like crazy.