WTYTIAAN Chapter 239

## Chapter 239

The night was like thick ink, spreading across the entire sky. The moon quietly hid behind the clouds, with only a few dim stars hanging on the horizon, like faulty magic lamps, flickering and emitting weak light, making the night even darker and more somber.

The surroundings were shrouded in darkness, with hidden dangers lurking within the dilapidated ruins. Only the campfire in the camp burned brightly, illuminating the distinct faces of the people.

It must be said that the Fei Yan squad, entirely composed of female soldiers, was extremely eye-catching. Every member had an extraordinary appearance, with the most outstanding being Captain Fiora and the pure white priestess, Evelyn.

The short-haired woman sitting next to the captain was the first to break the silence. She adjusted the shawl draped over her shoulders and glanced subtly at the camp ten meters away, where another campfire was burning. Lowering her voice, she asked, “Captain, are you sure those people aren’t following us?”

Fiora nodded, poking the burning campfire with a stick, listening to the crackling sound of the flames. “I’ve worked with Arthur from their squad a few times before. He’s a scholar who likes to study ruins. He’s posted several tasks related to ruin exploration in this area. He’s not very scheming, and he even showed me the map of the destination they’re going to this time. It’s definitely not…”

She vaguely uttered the name of the final destination, keeping her voice low, as if to prevent eavesdroppers.

Yan Yunqing, who was secretly listening on top of them, sighed silently, they really were cautious.

After Fiora finished speaking, the camp was quiet for a moment. Yali frowned, “The main thing is that their appearance is too coincidental, and didn’t Evelyn say that the man following them is very strong? If they’re just going to research those ruins, there’s no need to bring a powerhouse of that level, right?”

“That’s not necessarily true.” Fiora shook her head. “Their destination is also very deep. Unlike the ruins Arthur went to before, the area they’re going to this time has a very low exploration rate. Few mercenaries are willing to go there. I have some impression of that place.”

As she spoke, she glanced at her teammates and said softly, “It’s said to be a frozen city, full of dangers. Most treasure-hunting squads are buried inside. If Arthur’s destination this time is there, it’s normal to ask a powerhouse to accompany them.”

The white priestess Evelyn slowly raised her head upon hearing this, her gaze drifting across the air, lingering for a few seconds on the spot where Yan Yunqing was hiding. Her teammates felt strange and asked, “What’s wrong? Did you sense something?”

Evelyn paused and slowly shook her head, her voice light and airy, “Nothing.”

Evelyn looked at Fiora, repeating the name she had just mentioned, “A frozen city?”

Fiora explained: “That’s how the only mercenary who escaped from that city described it. He said that time in that place seemed to be frozen, as if it had been stuck a thousand years ago or something. I didn’t get the specifics, I just remember the general idea.”

Evelyn said “Oh,” and nodded slowly again: “That’s a dangerous place.”

“So that man is really strong? How strong is he?” Ella, who had a bow on her back, asked curiously, “Evelyn, can you sense that man’s level? I can’t detect it at all. Can you, Captain?”

Fiora said she couldn’t. “I’ve tried, but the detection skill doesn’t work. However, I did find out the levels of the other members of that squad. Their levels are okay.”

“Even the captain can’t detect it, so he wouldn’t be over level eighty, would he?”

Fiora had the highest level in the entire squad, having reached level seventy-six. Generally, the detection skill would only be completely ineffective if the level difference was more than five levels. Since even Fiora couldn’t sense it, the man’s strength was obviously only higher, not lower, unless he had some special shielding item.

The entire squad’s gaze unconsciously fell on the white priestess Evelyn. Evelyn was different from them. Her identity was semi-public within the squad.

Evelyn was a natural light element affinity user. She was discovered by the Light Church from a young age and taken back to the Church for education. She broke through level sixty early on and was a very talented mage. She was also a Church member sent by the Light Church to temporarily reside in Freedom City.

She had a unique detection skill that was secretly passed down within the Light Church and not revealed to outsiders. It allowed her to detect levels beyond her own, which was why Evelyn was able to remind her teammates in one meeting that there was a powerhouse in the other team.

This led to Fiora’s action of probing the destination of Arthur’s group.

Evelyn heard this, raised her head, and seemed to be pondering. After a long time, she slowly said, “Level… very high, probably level ninety.”

Everyone gasped, and Yan Yunqing, who was hiding above them, was even more surprised. He pulled up Evelyn’s panel again and confirmed that her level was only sixty-seven, and couldn’t help but click his tongue.

The little level sixty-seven priest could actually detect his level?

Although Evelyn spoke vaguely, only saying level ninety, without specifically stating his level, Yan Yunqing still felt surprised.

Because he was indeed over level ninety now, currently at level ninety-five.

To detect his approximate level information despite being so many levels lower, this Evelyn was a bit interesting.

Yan Yunqing studied Evelyn’s panel, but didn’t find anything special. However, there was a shielded state in the status bar that Yan Yunqing couldn’t view.

[■■]

“Is it really level ninety? Aren’t powerhouses of this level usually recruited by the two major empires? Even if they’re not recruited by the two major empires, they should be absorbed by other forces, right?”

Everyone fell silent again, probably feeling a bit jealous of the young and promising youth.

“Do you guys think the information we got this time is really accurate?” Someone asked in a low voice, “I feel like it’s a bit unreliable. How long has the Goddess of Life been dead? If she left anything behind, wouldn’t those believers have found and looted it long ago? Would it still be our turn?”

“We’ve been out for so long, and we can’t even find the direction of the so-called Royal City ruins. Won’t we be wasting our time?”

Before Captain Fiora could speak, Evelyn took the lead this time.

“No.”

Evelyn looked seriously at the girl who questioned her. Although she spoke slowly, her enunciation was clear, and her pronunciation was accurate. If there were broadcasters in this other world, Evelyn would be the legendary good seed for a broadcaster.

“There are indeed records in the Church that after the Goddess of Life fell, her scepter and crown were taken away by the Demon King, and there are gems inlaid on the scepter and crown of the Goddess of Life, which contain the infinite authority belonging to the Goddess of Life.” Evelyn said, “According to the records on the notes, the gems inlaid on the scepter and crown are consistent with the rumored Life Source Stone.”

Life Source Stone?

Yan Yunqing became interested and listened attentively to Evelyn’s voice.

The scepter and crown of the fallen Goddess of Life… Yan Yunqing tried hard to think about it. It seemed that he did see those things when he killed the God of Light, but the fall of the Goddess of Life was not done by the Demon King, but by the God of Darkness, Hoder.

Those things should have been collected by Hoder, and then Hoder was killed by the God of War, and the things were transferred to the God of War, and finally taken down by the God of Light.

In short, those trophies were taken from the God of Light’s treasure vault after the Demon King defeated the God of Light.

He didn’t remember whether the Goddess of Life had left behind a scepter and a crown. Even if there were, the stats shouldn’t be high, or the attributes would be average, or he couldn’t equip them at all, so he threw them into the Demon King’s treasure vault.

If you ask Yan Yunqing why he was so sure, it was of course because he put all the good things in his backpack. All the weapons and equipment with heaven-defying stats were placed in his backpack. The things that were not in his backpack now were either more tasteless to him or simply useless things that he would throw into the warehouse.

So the records in this Church’s notes were definitely rumors, right?

Or simply wild history…

However, mentioning this…

Yan Yunqing frowned. Combining what they were talking about, Yan Yunqing guessed that their destination might be closely related to him.

Or simply like him – of course, not referring to the task issued by Arthur, the city they were going to, but another – the former Royal City of the Eternal Empire.

If they were looking for a Life Source Stone that was very likely to be taken away by the Demon King, then there was no doubt about where they were going. It was only the warehouse in the Royal Palace of the Eternal Empire’s Royal City.

And the place Yan Yunqing was going to was also the Royal City, but he was going to find Theodore, while these people were preparing to steal his treasure vault.

Yan Yunqing: …

He was diligently punishing evil and promoting good, how could someone still be planning to sneak into his treasure vault?

Wasn’t that a bit too much?

And wasn’t this a bit too coincidental? He was just about to go find Theodore, and on the way, he encountered a group of people with the same destination as him, and the most crucial thing was that there was a person who was suspected to be from the Light Church.

Yan Yunqing felt that there was something wrong with this.

After listening to the eavesdropping for a while, confirming that the purpose of this group was indeed for that “Life Source Stone” thing, and the destination was also very clear, Yan Yunqing quietly left.

He was going to check when the rumors that led this squad to the Eternal Imperial City started to emerge.

Yan Yunqing returned to his camp with a heavy heart. Those few official players had not yet logged in. Only [Demon Prison Cruiser] stayed in place to watch the fire and keep watch.

He skillfully opened the system, logged into the game forum, and searched for the keyword “Life Source Stone”.

Now that there were more and more internal beta players, there were also more and more posts in the forum. Yan Yunqing also spent some time searching for keywords. Finally, after the forum went around in circles for a while, the posts containing the word “Life Source Stone” popped up one by one.

There were not many posts, only thirteen in total. The earliest post could be traced back to half a year ago, that is, when “Return” had just opened, and players had only been online for a month.

The poster happened to be a player in the Newbie Village of Freedom City.

[I seem to have encountered a hidden task. Is there a boss to teach me how to open the hidden task? How can I not find the task pre-task? ]

0L: I heard some rumors in Freedom City, saying what life source stone, this must be a hidden task, right? But I can’t find the task pre-task? Is there a boss to teach me how to open it?

There were not many replies to this post, only a few dozen follow-ups, half of which were replies from the poster, and the other half were meaningless water stickers.

The poster did not say very much at the beginning, probably because he was worried that too detailed descriptions would cause other players to go online to task resources. As a result, no one paid attention to him for several hours after posting. He described some donkey’s heads that did not match the horse’s mouth.

Yan Yunqing combined the complete information based on these few short posts: This rumor did not start circulating shortly after he decided to come to Freedom City, but half a year ago, not long after the people from Heaven came.

So it has nothing to do with his decision to come and find Theodore.

Just a coincidence?

Yan Yunqing still had doubts in his heart, but he temporarily put this matter down.

Suddenly, Yan Yunqing raised his eyes and focused his gaze on his surroundings. After looking around, he felt an uncomfortable smell that had spread around them at some point.

What is it?

Just as the idea popped into his head, his brain had already fed back the answer to him more quickly.

Demon.

There were demons nearby, even a lot of them.

Yan Yunqing took out the weapon he used for self-defense and held it across his chest. He stood up vigilantly and looked around. He came to the campfire in his camp and lowered his voice to [Demon Prison Cruiser]: “There are demons appearing. Find a way to call your teammates back.”

[Demon Prison Cruiser] frowned when he heard this. He glanced at Yan Yunqing and nodded, “I need five minutes.”

[Yingyi]’s team only had him left in the game now. If he needed to call people back, he had to log off first. However, the configuration for their officials to enter the game was not just a game helmet, but a simple game pod. Opening the game pod and calling people back to log in again would conservatively take five minutes.

As he spoke, he simply quit the game. If this had been the case before, he would definitely not have been so swift, because he only had one chance to go online every day before, but now there was no limit to the number of times.

[Demon Prison Cruiser] fell to the ground. Yan Yunqing opened the tent where Arthur was and found Arthur sleeping in a sprawl. He picked up the other person’s clothes with one hand, carried the greatsword with the other, and shook this person casually, “Wake up.”

Arthur dazedly opened his eyes. When he saw that it was Yan Yunqing carrying him, he blankly opened his mouth, “Oh, oh, it’s you… Did I take your place? I’m sorry, I’m too sleepy.”

Yan Yunqing clicked his tongue and gave him a shot on the forehead, “There are demons, wake up quickly, we are surrounded, don’t fall asleep and be swallowed by the demons in one bite.”

Arthur was a magician, a fragrant little cake in the eyes of the demons. A confused magician who did not struggle at all was a big piece of fat meat on the demons’ mouths.

Arthur was stunned. He was carried out of the tent by Yan Yunqing before he reacted, “You, you mean—!”

Before he could finish speaking, a chilling shriek suddenly came from the quiet night. The sound was sharp and long, as if it came from the endless abyss, instantly breaking the tranquility of the ruins.

Fiora, in the not-so-distant camp, changed her face abruptly, stood up abruptly, took out her greatsword, and shouted loudly, “Be alert, there’s a situation!”

Almost at the same time, several strange demons scurried out of the ruins, with wolf heads and lizard bodies. They exuded a strange dark green mist around them, their eyes flashing with blood-red light. Dense and sharp fangs were exposed, and saliva was constantly dripping down the long tongue.

The leading demon was huge, more than a person tall. Its limbs were extremely thick, and the surrounding mist was even more intense. It raised its head and roared deafeningly. The sharp scream just now was made by it.

The demons surrounded them two teams. [Fire’s Loneliness], who was called online and arrived late, screamed, “Damn, Venom?!”

Yan Yunqing, who was originally alert, paused and looked at [Fire’s Loneliness] helplessly.

Don’t say it, really don’t say it.

It really does look a bit like Venom…

Yan Yunqing’s thoughts couldn’t help but strayed with [Fire’s Loneliness].

[Yingyi] said coldly: “Pay attention, don’t be distracted during the battle.”

[Yingyi] was probably reminding [Fire’s Loneliness], and Yan Yunqing, who was also distracted, felt a little guilty and looked at the sky.

Arthur swallowed and rummaged for a long time before he found his magic wand. He hid behind [Fire’s Loneliness] and poked his back, asking: “This is a Desert Magic Lizard, what is the venom you are talking about? Is it the Desert Magic Lizard’s nickname? I don’t seem to have heard of it?”

“Uh, Venom is…” [Fire’s Loneliness] didn’t know how to explain the characters in film and television works outside the game world to the NPCs in the game world, so he could only vaguely say: “Venom is an alien creature that can attach to the human body and become a monster like this. Oh, but that’s a literary work, you don’t have to write it down…”

[Fire’s Loneliness] looked speechlessly at Arthur, who took out a notebook and a quill pen and didn’t know what he was recording after hearing his simple introduction of Venom.

Arthur thought the theory was very interesting, “Alien creatures, do you mean creatures from the outside world? Your statement is very interesting. Perhaps you can really study it, after all, no one knows what the demons are, right?”

[Bin Fengbao] said strangely: “What are foreign creatures? Do you have alien concepts here?”

It’s not that he underestimated the NPCs in this world, after all, the background of this game world looked like the Blue Star in the 18th and 19th centuries. Is there an alien concept at this time…? He didn’t learn history very well, but he remembered that the Flower Country was still engaged in the divine right of kings at the same time.

Arthur said: “Huh? Extraterrestrial creatures? For example, the place where we live is a realm, and the realm and temples where the gods live are in another realm. Is it difficult to understand that there are extraterrestrial creatures that are things?”

Yan Yunqing glanced at Arthur in surprise. He didn’t expect that this nerd who was obsessed with studying the history of the Eternal Age actually had research in science.

They only spoke for ten seconds, and the demons that surrounded them were a little closer. [Wangwang Squad] had no choice but to interrupt their conversation: “Okay, okay, let’s solve these demons first, isn’t it too disrespectful to these demons to chat in front of the demons?”

Yan Yunqing’s gaze swept over, and the levels of those demons were not low, the lowest was level fifty-four, and the level of the leading “Venom” was as high as level sixty-eight.

Each level was higher than the players present. This was a unilateral massacre for the [Yingyi] team.

However, the Fei Yan next door had a chance to fight, but Yan Yunqing could see that several people in the other team were originally injured. Faced with so many “Venom” replicas, they obviously couldn’t last long.

The demons also seemed to realize that the group next to them was more threatening than their group of rookies, so they tentatively approached the Fei Yan team a little bit.

Seeing this, Yali took out the double knives from her waist without hesitation. Her fiery red curly hair fluttered in the wind, and she roared loudly, “You’ve come at the right time.”

After saying that, she rushed towards the demon group like a red lightning bolt.

Ella also quickly untied the bow from her back, drew an arrow with one hand, pulled the bowstring into a full moon, aimed, and shot!

The arrow leaving the string carried a fierce aura and cooperated with the rushed Yali, cutting through the night sky and accurately hitting the front row of demons.

At the same moment, the other members of the Fei Yan team also took action one after another. They were mercenaries who had fought their way out with tacit cooperation. They had all walked out of the sea of corpses and blood. Their cooperation was better than [Yingyi] team.

Seeing this, [Yingyi] and others escorted the important mission NPCs in the middle, and also rushed towards the demons together with the Fei Yan team.

They were all players. Even if the level gap was too large, they didn’t worry about death. After all, players wouldn’t really die in the game. However, there was a resurrection CD after death. However, the resurrection CD was reduced from two days to one day, which was what they would worry about. But now they were surrounded by demons. Wouldn’t they just wait to be trapped to death by the demons if they didn’t take the initiative to attack?

As long as they made sure that one team member was alive and that the mission NPCs did not die, they could maintain the status of the mission in progress. If they accidentally died, they just had to wait for the resurrection CD to pass, and then go online again to find the main force.

So when faced with battle, players were the craziest.

Yan Yunqing was carrying the greatsword, but he did not act easily. He observed the leading demon fighting with the other people, and his eyes fell on the priestess who was also protected in the center of the other team.

The other party waved the magic wand without any panic, chanting spells in her mouth. The front end of the magic wand emitted a yingying white light, which was a characteristic of light magic. Then the light ball fell on the demon, and there was a sizzling sound like grilled meat.

The demon that came into contact with the magic showed a charred mark on its body, and the strange mist around it was also consumed a lot.

As expected of the light magic that is the most restrained against demons.

This magic was very pure, and you didn’t need to look to know that this was passed down from the Light Church.

Evelyn was indeed related to the Light Church. With this age and strength, could she be a saint?

However, instead of staying in the Light Church to serve the gods, the saint ran out to be a mercenary. What did she want to do? And so openly?

For that “Life Source Stone”?

Yan Yunqing guessed.

However, the changes in the battlefield made it impossible for him to continue guessing safely. The number of demons was increasing, and the attacks of the two teams were gradually becoming difficult to handle. Evelyn’s light magic consumed a lot of energy and still needed chanting time.