Chapter 256 — An Old Acquaintance

"Understood." The mage nodded and silently intoned a brief incantation. Then a faintly glowing mage's eye emerged from the air beside him—barely visible in the daytime.

The mage steered the magic eye slowly toward the excavation site. As his field of view swept past the watchtowers, he could not help his curiosity: the soldiers atop the towers were holding strange-looking metal tubes up to their eyes, scanning in every direction. What were those things?

No reaction from any magical source—probably nothing to worry about.

The mage guiding the eye set the watchtower soldiers aside and focused on steering the mage's eye slowly around the base of the towers. But at that very moment, a strange clicking sound suddenly came from nearby, startling him and breaking his spell mid-channel.

Yet even before that clicking began, Sogilim had already sensed the auras suddenly surfacing on every side. In an instant he realized that he and his people had been exposed. He abandoned stealth and leaped straight up, his short bow already in hand, three arrows wreathed in pale green whirlwinds somehow already nocked on the string. With no aiming at all, he raised his hand and loosed three shots in succession toward the direction of the strongest aura he sensed, shouting a warning at the same time: "Prepare for battle!"

Close behind came three sharp clangs from the distance—the sound of magic-laden arrows being parried aside. Sogilim and the Typhon warriors, who had just reacted, raised their heads and saw a tall, fully armed man standing on a boulder in the distance, a black longsword in his hand, his gaze keen and steady. Behind him and all around, soldier after soldier rose to their feet and quickly formed an encircling net.

Gao Yang looked from afar at the golden-haired elf standing among the Typhon soldiers, a little surprised and a little amused: "I actually guessed right. Sogilim, what are you doing in a place like this?"

Compared with Gao Yang's relative composure, Sogilim was closer to stunned at the sight of him. He stared wide-eyed at that familiar figure, and the cold, detached image he had maintained for so long nearly cracked: "You are—"

"Elves are supposed to have good memories," Gao Yang spread his hands. "Forgotten your old superior?"

"Are you really that Gao Yang Cecil?" The high elf ranger's expression quickly steadied, his eyes turning exceptionally grave and sharp. He did not lower his short bow; instead he nocked another arrow on the string. "So you really did rise from the dead?"

He asked the question, but showed not the slightest intention of lowering his weapon. More than that, the Typhon warriors around him readied themselves for battle one after another—though they had heard that their commander and that Ansu lord in the distance were old acquaintances, and realized that the Ansu lord was likely none other than the legendary hero of seven hundred years ago, and though both facts left them astonished, the instincts of long training and their loyalty to the Empire made them tighten their grips on swords and staves almost by reflex.