Chapter 207: Bait

Chapter 207: Bait

Colin Iliad glanced at Lovia but did not respond at once. Only after he pulled the two straight swords out of the ground did he nod and say,

“Good.”

The five of them circled the outskirts of Nois City. Several times, they attempted to enter, only to be driven back by the city-state’s “daily life,” which looked ordinary on the surface but in reality produced not a single sound. They did not dare explore recklessly.

Seeing that the lightning high above was growing less and less frequent and that darkness was gradually claiming the world, Colin stared deeply at Nois City for several seconds before saying,

“We’ll establish a small camp first. We’ll continue when it is day.”

By “day,” he meant the period when lightning came more often and the intervals of darkness were very short.

The rest of the exploration team had no objections. They quickly made use of a heap of stones along the riverbed and set up a simple camp.

At the innermost end of the camp, where the overhanging boulders blocked the sky and there was no need to worry about rain, a campfire burned vigorously. All kinds of strange creature remains were piled beside it and thrown in from time to time as firewood. Colin, Lovia, and the others sat around the fire, each eating the dry rations they had carried and the corpses of monsters that had already been proven not to cause too much harm.

As fat sizzled and popped over the flame, Colin Iliad, Chief of the six-member council, looked toward Derrick Berg and said,

“We’ll patrol the camp first. Once they finish eating, we’ll switch with them.”

If it had been before, Derrick would not have had any additional thoughts. But at this moment, the first thing that flashed through his mind was:

The Chief has something to say to me in private…

“All right.” Derrick stuffed the remaining chunk of meat in his hand into his mouth and lifted Thunder God’s Roar from beside him.

That piece of meat had clearly already been cooked, yet it still retained a ghastly green color.

After they reached the dim edge of the camp, Demon Hunter Colin spoke in a low voice, his tone completely unchanged.

“Nois City is stranger and more dangerous than I expected. I wonder what opinion you have regarding the next course of action.”

I don’t know much about this place, and I don’t have much experience either. Why would the Chief ask for my opinion? Derrick was immediately a little stunned, and by instinct, he wanted to raise his left hand and scratch the back of his head.

He soon remembered the several conversations he had had with the Chief back in the City of Silver. He also remembered Mr. Hanged Man’s analyses of the hidden meanings in people’s words. His heart stirred, and understanding suddenly dawned on him.

“The Chief is hinting to me!

“What he means is that Nois City is stranger and more dangerous than expected, and hunting a Shapeshifter will be far more difficult than imagined. He wants to know whether it’s possible to change the objective.

“He hopes I’ll pray to Mr. Fool, receive a divine revelation, and give an ‘opinion’?

“So that’s it… Mr. World really is a man full of wisdom. On the way here, he told me how to hunt a Bizarro Bane and obtain its blood in a simpler way. Uh, in the current situation, that method seems usable!”

As these thoughts flickered through him, Derrick answered sincerely,

“Yes, Your Excellency Chief. I have a few suggestions.”

Colin Iliad silently breathed out in relief and swallowed back the more direct words he had been about to say. He gave a slight nod.

“Speak.”

“Since Nois City has changed, entering it will expose us to great risk. Perhaps we can consider luring the Shapeshifter out instead.” Derrick did not copy The World, Gehrman Sparrow’s method exactly. He modified it somewhat according to the present circumstances.

Demon Hunter Colin did not reject the idea outright. Instead, he asked with great seriousness,

“How should we lure the Shapeshifter out?”

Derrick answered without hesitation,

“I have an item that should be extraordinarily tempting to a Shapeshifter. As long as we place it at the edge of Nois City, or a little farther away, it can draw the Shapeshifter out.”

Colin, his white hair disheveled, showed no surprise at all. He nodded gently.

“What item?”

He had known for some time that Derrick Berg had secretly held a ritual to request a bestowment while taking his turn on night watch during the journey.

Moreover, if Colin had not helped conceal it, Lovia, Rig, and Gunaruen would never have missed it.

Derrick himself did not know how to name or describe the object. He directly took a square, iron-black box from the inner side of his clothes—a container completely unlike the style of the City of Silver—and removed the Spirituality Wall covering its surface.

Then, instead of lowering his head, he turned his face aside and opened the box purely by the feel of his hands.

Inside the box was a palm-sized humanoid object. At a rough glance, one could notice that it was filled with transparent liquid, with bubbles occasionally surfacing and releasing faint black light. If one looked closely, however, one would realize that it was formed by worm-like things coiled together, and the fine details were filled with indescribable patterns that represented all kinds of abstract concepts.

This was the True Soul Body of the Spirit World Plunderer that Klein had obtained earlier!

He believed that to a Bizarro Bane, this Beyonder material would possess incomparable attraction. That was not only due to the law of convergence of Beyonder characteristics, but also because once the Bizarro Bane obtained it, it would become a complete Bizarro Sorcerer, break free of its current restrictions, receive an essential elevation in its level of life, and truly become a demigod.

Therefore, to make the hunt for the Bizarro Bane simpler, clearer, and less time-consuming, Klein had risked losing it and lent the True Soul Body of the Spirit World Plunderer to Little Sun.

Colin Iliad examined it carefully for several seconds, then withdrew his gaze.

“It should work.

“Close the lid. Don’t add a Spirituality Wall over it again. Carry it just like that and see if it can draw them into the camp.”

“Them?” Derrick asked instinctively.

On Colin’s face, which bore several old scars, a faint smile appeared.

“Did you think there was only one Shapeshifter in Nois City?

“If this item’s level were a little higher, I would even be worried that it might draw out something even more terrifying.”

Derrick felt a rush of shame. He scratched the back of his head, then followed the Chief’s instructions, closing the square iron-black box and stuffing it back into the hidden inner pocket of his clothes.

During the patrol that followed, he remained on high alert, but no Shapeshifter attacked.

After some time, Lovia, Rig, and Gunaruen took over their duty. Derrick returned to the warm campfire and sat down.

At that moment, cawing cries rang out. Seven or eight ravens with black feathers and red eyes flew over and circled in midair.

They brought with them an indescribable feeling of terror. Colin Iliad drew his straight sword and looked up.

Suddenly, his heart stirred, and his gaze swiftly turned toward where Derrick Berg was.

Across the campfire, two brown-haired youths nearly one meter ninety tall, both still carrying traces of childishness on their faces, were staring at each other in a daze. Both looked astonished.

Colin’s eyes narrowed. He immediately shouted,

“Illumination!”

One of the youths first froze, then understood. Pure, warm sunlight burst from his body in streaks.

In a flash, a residual shadow swept past. The straight sword in Colin’s hand cleaved through the false Derrick.

It was a shadow—an indistinct, transparent shadow!

At the same time, one red-eyed raven in the sky suddenly dropped. Its body expanded and transformed into a pitch-black shadow.

On that shadow was a transparent single eye glimmering with a faint ghostly blue. Around that eye were more eyes with the same traits, only several sizes smaller.

A Shapeshifter!

A Shapeshifter that could disguise itself as a raven!

The pitch-black shadow had just descended when Derrick’s head abruptly went numb. His body became difficult to move, as though petrified. He could only watch as the creature lunged toward him.

Pa!

The Shapeshifter crashed into an invisible wall and failed to move another step forward.

At the edge of the campfire, Colin Iliad, after stabbing the straight sword in his hand into the ground, drew the other sword from his back.

The surroundings suddenly brightened, as though the legendary dawn had descended upon this forsaken land. Endless rays of morning light erupted, joining into an illusory sea that surged upward from below and swallowed the pitch-black shadow along with every raven.

At the entrance to the camp, behind Shepherd Lovia, a more-than-five-meter-tall illusory knight wearing silver armor also appeared.

In the knight’s eyes, two clusters of dark red fire burned. In an instant, “he” locked onto a certain location.

“He” suddenly stepped forward and appeared several hundred meters away as though teleporting.

One sharp silver light after another burst out, slicing everything nearby into neat little pieces. That included the various monsters hiding there, and also the Shapeshifter that had relied on some unknown ability to escape Demon Hunter Colin’s fatal blow and transfer itself to that place.

Still, the monster did not die. It shifted its true body again. Yet pure, distinct dawn descended once more and completely drowned a large area.

When the dawn faded, Colin Iliad, wearing his brown coat and holding his two straight swords, appeared there. Calmly, he watched as a point of light slowly gathered above the cracked ground ahead, and as black-red blood—most of it evaporated dry—slowly spread outward.

We succeeded! Derrick rejoiced, and at once used a Spirituality Wall to seal the square iron-black box again.

Demon Hunter Colin immediately planted both swords in the ground, took out three metal bottles that had once held potions, and collected the blood on the ground.

As they waited for the material to form, his expression unchanged, he said to Lovia and the others,

“The materials left behind by the Shapeshifter are useful to me. I would like to exchange for them directly.”

In the City of Silver, the gains from such explorations were generally handled in one of two ways. The first was to bring them back and hand them over to the city-state in exchange for contributions, which would then be distributed according to how much each member had done. The second was that if the item was not especially important and a certain team member wanted it, they could exchange for it on the spot with items or contributions of equivalent value.

“I have no objections,” Rig and Gunaruen said at the same time.

Lovia did not speak, which served as tacit agreement.

After the illusory silver-armored knight returned, she turned her head slightly and looked indifferently at Derrick Berg beside the campfire.

…

East Balam, temporary office of the Red Gloves team.

Soest looked around at all his team members and said,

“Her Excellency Eye of the Goddess has instructed us to investigate the sale of Beyonder materials of the Hunter pathway in this city and the surrounding cities, as well as whether any corresponding Beyonders have gone missing or died.

“She agrees with Daly’s conjecture and suspects, based on the deaths of the Intis spies, that it is an evil spirit of the Hunter pathway.

“Of course, we cannot ignore other abnormalities. That is only one possibility.

“There is one more point. We are only responsible for gathering intelligence. We are not to handle anything else, nor are we to investigate in depth. This is Her Excellency Eye of the Goddess’s order.

“Is that understood?”

“Understood!” Cindy and the others answered.

Soest glanced at Leonard and Daly, withdrew his gaze, and said in a deep voice,

“Move out!”