Chapter 322 — Intelligence
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
Gao Yang's first reaction to Solin's words was sheer astonishment. "Cut down by cultists? You crossed the Typhon border once, weren't spotted by the Typhon guards, and instead got cut down by cultists?"
"A great many things happened..." Solin let out a faint sigh. "Seven hundred years wandering the continent, and still there are things beyond all expectation..."
"Sit down first, have some water and rest," Gao Cen said, urging Solin to sit and recover at once while frowning at the dried dark-red bloodstains on the other man's clothes. The high-ranking ranger had somehow acquired a black cloak and dark brown coat of the sort wandering adventurers commonly wore—neither showed any sign of tearing, yet bloodstains could be seen where it had seeped through and dried, which meant the man's wounds had likely gone unhealed for a very long time. "Amber, go fetch Pi Yun and have him bring the ointment for treating poison. Don't go out the window—"
Once the half-elf lady had pushed open the window and gone streaking off southwest in a black flash of light, Gao Yang drew his gaze back from outside and fixed it on Solin's eyes. "With your strength, how could you be hurt to this degree? What sort of cultists did you run into?"
"The Society of All-Ending," Solin said with a bitter smile, naming an organization both familiar and headache-inducing to Gao Yang. "I was set up... On my way to the monitoring station at the Great Wall, I met a silver elf druid calling herself Berna. She was a cultist in disguise..."
The high-ranking ranger spent a few minutes recounting to Gao Yang how the cultist attack had unfolded, and when he finished, he could not help frowning as he added: "To be honest, I'm uneasy. The Society of All-Ending, that degenerate druid order, has always been active—but their destruction and activities have been confined mainly to the human kingdoms and some of the mountain kingdoms in the west of the continent. They have never reached out to the silver elves before... This time, a Wanmingji cultist of at least high-tier peak managed to slip into an elven monitoring station. I'm very much afraid they are plotting something against the Silver Empire—or even against the Great Wall itself..."
Gao Cen spoke up: "Have you reported the situation to your homeland?"
"Of course," Solin nodded. "After driving them off, I returned to the monitoring station and reported it up the chain. The elven court has been informed and says it will begin an investigation at once. But you know as well as I how cunning those cultists are... their true purpose is always hidden beneath layer upon layer of diversionary action, and I'm afraid in the end we won't understand what those addle-brained fools are actually after until they've already done their damage... Originally I meant to rest and recover at the monitoring station, but I feared the Embershadow cultists might follow up with further action against Ansel, so I hurried back first, to let you know all this."
Here Solin's face suddenly showed a flicker of hesitation, and Gao Yang caught it at once: "You've discovered something else?"
"I don't know whether it was my imagination," Solin shook his head. "While fighting that Xuanying cultist, I had a constant feeling of being targeted—she seemed to understand my fighting style and habits very well... If I hadn't been carrying some equipment that took her by surprise, I doubt I could have come back in one piece."
Gao Yang's eyebrows shot up at once: "Could it be someone you know?"
"I'm not certain," Solin shook his head. "She was wearing a different body and face at the time—some degenerate divine art akin to flesh fusion or devouring, no doubt, which left me no way at all to sense her true aura. And many degenerate druids are devoted to reshaping their own flesh with flesh magic; even if a 'familiar face' were standing right before me, I could never recognize them now..."