Chapter 366: Chapter 333: Sell It to Me

Iron Hill Kingdom, Falling Leaves Forest.

Autumn was already in full swing. Withered, yellow leaves blanketed the entire hillside, RUSTLING underfoot. The thick layer felt like a soft carpet.

Una walked at the very front of the group. She brushed aside a cluster of hanging vines and squeezed sideways between two closely growing tree trunks. Morrek followed behind her, a long blade slung across his back, his footsteps crunching softly on the fallen leaves. The rest of the team members behind them remained vigilant, their gazes sweeping through the surrounding trees.

"Captain," a Catman boy walking in the back suddenly spoke up. "Is that... Spiritual Weapon really in this place?"

Una didn’t even turn her head. "Weren’t you there when we interrogated those guys? They said they found it in this forest. We don’t have any more intel beyond that, so we can only push our luck here."

The Catman boy scratched his cheek and said no more.

After taking the mission from the Meeting Hall, they also received the intel the Clan had interrogated out of the smuggling team. That Spiritual Weapon was obtained by the smuggling team at an underground trading post in the Iron Hill Kingdom. Upon receiving the intel, they rushed to that underground trading post immediately, only to find the place had already been wiped out. Someone had beaten them to it and destroyed the post—and it wasn’t the work of the Silver Moon Race.

Fortunately, they hadn’t given up. Instead, they staked out the area for two days and caught a few sneaky individuals who had returned to check on the situation. After interrogation, they finally pried the source of the Spiritual Weapons from those people’s mouths: the Falling Leaves Forest. However, even those captives didn’t know the exact location within the woods.

"Everyone, be careful," Una reminded them in a deep voice as she continued forward. "According to those guys, the ones who attacked the underground trading post were a group from the Wolf Race. They’re also after the Spiritual Weapons, so we might run into them here."

"Captain," Morrek lowered his voice. "Do you think those Wolf Race guys... could be from the Blood Claw Race?"

Una shook her head. "Hard to say. The Blood Claw Race isn’t the only group of the Wolf Race. Besides, the Blood Claw Race is in the Vorn Plain, which is very far from the Iron Hill Kingdom. Logically, they wouldn’t travel this far. But regardless, we’ll try our best to avoid a direct conflict with them. After all, there are Golden Tier experts among those Wolf Race members."

The team members’ expressions grew more serious, and they nodded in agreement.

Morrek looked around, looking a bit troubled. "This forest is huge. How are we supposed to find it? We can’t just comb through every single mountain. How much Time would that take?"

Una stopped at the top of the slope and jutted her chin downward. "Don’t worry, it shouldn’t take too long."

The group followed her gaze downward.

At the bottom of the slope, along the edge of a winding stream, seven or eight people were walking unhurriedly along the low, gravelly bank. Judging by their attire and formation, they appeared to be an adventurer party. They stopped intermittently, with someone occasionally crouching down to examine the ground as if searching for something.

"Adventurers again," Morrek frowned. "How long has it been since we entered the forest? This is already the fourth group we’ve run into. There are no Magical Creatures here, nor are there any decent ore veins or Magic Plants... Logically, adventurers shouldn’t be poking around here."

"Isn’t it obvious?" Una shrugged. "Most of these adventurers are also after the Spiritual Weapons."

The group exchanged glances, their frowns deepening. Aside from that, there didn’t seem to be any other explanation.

Weapons containing a Spirit Soul boasted significantly better performance than ordinary weapons, looking almost indistinguishable from Magic Equipment. Those adventurers probably didn’t know what a Spirit Soul was, but the mere prospect of finding Magic Equipment was enticing enough for them. After all, not every faction and team was like the Silver Moon Race, where even the Vassal Race Warriors almost all had a piece of Magic Equipment. To the ordinary adventurers out there, Magic Equipment was incredibly precious. An unlucky adventurer party could toil away for years and still not earn enough to buy a decent Magic Weapon.

If a large number of Spiritual Weapons really leaked out of this forest, it would send adventurers from hundreds of miles around flocking here. For Una’s team, this was both good news and bad news. The good news was that the influx of adventurers provided more hands to search the forest. If there was truly something odd about this place, someone would likely find it soon. The downside was that more people meant more variables.

However, they had no choice now but to continue their search.

Una withdrew her gaze, pulled a cyan whistle from the leather pouch at her waist, and blew it. The whistle was short and sharp, like the cry of a bird, echoing far into the expansive forest.

Not long after, a gray shadow swept over the tree canopy and dove rapidly, landing steadily beside her. It was the Radiant Feathered Falcon she kept. It folded its wings, its tiny talons settling on the gravel ground, and tilted its head to look at Una, its sharp beak slightly parted.

Una took a few pieces of beast meat out of her Space Ring and offered them on her open palm. The Radiant Feathered Falcon lowered its head to peck at the meat, swallowing rapidly. It finished in a few bites, rubbed its head against her arm, and took flight once more. It circled twice high in the air, then glided diagonally toward a denser part of the forest.

"Let’s go. We continue the search." Una waved her hand, signaling the team to move forward.

Their advantage over ordinary adventurer parties was having the Radiant Feathered Falcon act as their eyes in the sky. If any disturbance occurred in the forest, the Radiant Feathered Falcon would immediately alert them and lead them there. With it around, their chances of finding their target were undoubtedly much higher.

The team marched across the undulating terrain of the forest, passing through large patches of ferns and low shrubs. The ground beneath their feet gradually rose. More and more dead vines and moss entangled the bases of the tree trunks, and the air carried a damp, earthy smell.

About half an hour later, the Radiant Feathered Falcon suddenly returned. It swooped over Una and the others, letting out a short, sharp cry.

"It found something!"

Una and the others immediately felt a boost in their Spirits. The Dog-man Maiden pulled out her cyan whistle and blew it a few times. The Radiant Feathered Falcon snapped its wingtips and flew rapidly toward the north.

"Keep up," Una ordered, taking the lead and sprinting after the bird. The rest immediately followed suit.

The group ran for four or five kilometers through the forest before the Radiant Feathered Falcon finally circled slowly above a cliff, advancing no further. Una slowed her pace and pushed aside the last cluster of waist-high ferns. Her field of vision suddenly opened up.

A half-collapsed cliff face came into view. Grayish-white rubble piled up at the bottom of the slope. The edges of the fissure were jagged and uneven, and the exposed gap was pitch-black and bottomless, resembling the maw of a beast waiting for uninvited guests to intrude.

By now, no fewer than three to four hundred people had gathered in the clearing around the rock wall. They were divided into over a dozen teams of varying sizes, each occupying a spot and maintaining a cautious distance from one another. No one spoke loudly, but no one left either. Everyone eyed each other warily, their gazes occasionally drifting toward the fissure.

Una and her team exchanged glances, flashes of joy appearing in their eyes. With so many people gathered here, that cave was clearly no ordinary cave. They might have just found their target.

Their arrival immediately drew the attention of all the adventurer parties present. For a moment, numerous guarded, scrutinizing, and unfriendly gazes were cast their way, making the atmosphere stiflingly tense.

But soon, a flurry of hurried footsteps broke the oppressive mood.

Several figures stumbled out of the cave. They were covered in dust and blood, their leather armor torn in several places. Oozing wounds littered their bodies, leaving them in a thoroughly wretched state. One of them tightly clutched a short sword in his arms. The scabbard was snapped in half, and the exposed blade gleamed with an unusual, heavy luster.

Upon seeing this, the surrounding adventurers almost simultaneously sprang into action, converging on the injured men.

The adventurers who had just emerged from the cave paled. They instinctively took a half-step back and gripped their weapons tightly. "Wh-what are you guys trying to do? Don’t try anything funny!"

"What’s the situation inside?" asked a burly man who looked like the head of a Mercenary Corps.

The others also stared intently at the group. The injured adventurers’ faces shifted between red and white. They had no intention of answering, but under the intimidating glares of the crowd, they relented. Through gritted teeth, they spoke, "Inside... it’s a massive battlefield. There are broken suits of armor and weapons everywhere, and Undead Monsters roaming around."

"Undead?"

Low gasps rippled through the crowd. Many people’s expressions changed drastically. On the Dawn Continent, the Undead were terrifying entities that made people pale at the mere mention of them. However, the Undead were extremely rare. Almost everyone present had only heard rumors about them and had never seen one with their own eyes.

Una, Morrek, and the others exchanged glances, their faces showing shock and suspicion. To think there were Undead behind this cave.

After a brief silence, someone soon voiced a doubt. "How could there be a battlefield behind a cliff face? Judging by the terrain alone, it’s highly unlikely."

"I’m telling the truth!" the adventurer urged. "If you don’t believe me, go in and see for yourselves."

Seeing that he didn’t appear to be lying, the crowd quieted down again for a moment.

Someone muttered in a low voice, "Could it be an Alternate Space?"

This guess made quite a few people change their expressions. An Alternate Space often represented extreme danger. Bizarre environments entirely different from the material world, monsters of unknown strength, lethal traps... all sorts of varied perils awaited. A single misstep, and one would lose their life in there. Upon learning that the space behind the cave was likely an Alternate Space, many adventurers immediately wanted to back out.

Amidst the silence, someone’s gaze shifted, landing on the short sword in the adventurer’s arms. He suddenly spoke up, "Did you also get that short sword in your hands from inside?"

The adventurer instinctively tightened his grip on the weapon, but he still had to bite the bullet and answer, "We killed an Undead, and we got this sword off its body."

"Alright, enough nonsense. Leave the weapon, and you can walk." The speaker was a scar-faced adventurer wearing a leather vest, who stared at the group with ill intent.

The sword-holding adventurer’s expression changed, and he shot back angrily, "Why should we? This is loot we risked our lives to get!"

His companions also glared fiercely at the scar-faced man.

"If you don’t know what’s good for you, then don’t blame us for getting nasty." The scar-faced man’s face instantly darkened. His companions cooperatively drew their weapons and took a half-step forward.

The people from a few other teams nearby had flickering gazes, as if hesitating over whether to intervene and grab a share. Sensing the surrounding malice, the expressions of the adventurers holding the short sword grew increasingly ugly.

Right then, a voice rang out from the back of the crowd. "Sell that sword to me."

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