Sail Shadows in the Sea of ​​Fog

Chapter 184 The Princess Hiding in the Cloak
Before the piercing screams had stopped, Cheng Lang and the others, having heard the commotion, got up one after another and ran to the balcony as fast as they could.

With just a glance, Shenba swung his large scythe, severing the rope hanging overhead at its base. The people still hanging on the rope screamed and tumbled to the ground.

"Yun Lan!"

Cheng Lang simply shouted once, then lashed out with his whip, which wrapped around the railing of the upstairs balcony. Yun Lan immediately caused long thorns to grow on the outer wall to serve as footholds.

At the same time, Yun Ji also dashed out of the room and ran up the stairs to surround the enemies in the upstairs room.

Yafso was not idle either. Although she was hiding at the very back of the room, she had already opened her scissors to their maximum extent, transforming them into a hunting bow. Together with the undead Xiaobao, she fired arrows at the birdmen fleeing outside.

In the chaos, the enemy upstairs swung his huge machete and slashed it hard at the whip that Cheng Lang had thrown.

However, with a piercing crash, although the fishpond railing was successfully broken, the whip was completely unharmed, while the machete developed a slightly noticeable nick.

The broken balcony railing prevented Cheng Lang from falling; he had already grabbed a long, upward-growing thorn, and he was also stepping on a long thorn under his feet.

"Snapped!"

As Cheng Lang vigorously lashed the whip, the people standing on the upstairs balcony either didn't even have time to scream before being poisoned, or had their ribs broken by the anchor hook that suddenly grew larger at the end of the whip.

Just as Cheng Lang used the whip to run upstairs, the enemy in the room hurriedly raised his flintlock pistol and pulled the trigger at Cheng Lang.

Amidst the crackling gunfire and billowing smoke, the pursuers finally breathed a slight sigh of relief; after all, they had managed to kill one of them.

Instead, before the smoke had even cleared, a venomous snake suddenly sprang out from the billowing smoke and, before they could react, coiled around their necks as if circling a stake.

"Oh!"

Almost simultaneously, the door was kicked open by Yun Ji, who rushed in, gripping two daggers in reverse.

"Are you injured?" Yun Ji asked, having already left the room.

"The belts he made for us are of very high quality," Cheng Lang replied loudly.

Upon hearing this, Yun Ji raised her hand and fired several hidden arrows at Cheng Lang, then kicked open the door to the next room with a loud bang.

Cheng Lang didn't dodge the hidden arrows at all, letting them graz his shoulders and neck as they flew behind him, hitting the enemy who was climbing over from the balcony next door to help.

The battle came and went quickly. As another birdman was pinned to the trunk of a tree by an arrow shot by the undead Xiaobao, the threat was completely eliminated.

"Who sent you? Why did you ambush us?"

Cheng Lang immediately began asking questions as Yun Ji walked in from the balcony behind him.

After waiting only two seconds and seeing that no one answered him, Cheng Lang immediately swung his whip, and the tip of the whip, which was wrapped around the anchor hook, lightly grazed the neck of one of the enemies in the middle, sucking his blood dry at a speed visible to the naked eye.

I'll ask again.

"We are mercenaries hired by Viscount Shenfei, led by his chief guard, to attack the Elven Duchy."

One of them answered hastily before even hearing the question, "Our mission is to disguise ourselves as hunters and prevent news of the attack on Ganquan Village and Yuhui Town from reaching us."

"How did you find us?"

As Yun Ji questioned them, she had already pressed the sharp dagger in her hand against the crotch of one of the prisoners—she had also found inspiration from Yun Lan's recent new tricks.

“We have a hunter companion who can fly falcons!” one of them said quickly.

"We also have a few eagle-foot hybrid sailors who can do short flights!"

Another prisoner said, “We spotted you when you tried to force your way through our checkpoints, but you were too fast and we didn’t have enough manpower, so we only made our move tonight.”

"What do you plan to do to us?" Yun Ji asked.

"Silence them!"

One of them, while bending over and trying to pull his groin back, replied, "Our mission requires us to silence you and, incidentally, borrow your identities."

"That's a great idea!"

Yun Ji looked at Cheng Lang and asked, "What do we do?"

“Nail them to the trunk of the house tree,” Cheng Lang said. “We should leave now.”

Upon hearing this, Yun Ji immediately brandished her dagger, cutting open the clothes of the prisoners amidst their screams, and also seizing several cups of Poseidon's blood.

"Nail them to the wall."

Yun Ji called out to the people downstairs, and then pushed one of them down.

Almost at the same time he screamed, Shenba swung his scythe and slammed him against the outer wall of the tree. Around the prisoner, a large number of thorns grew as if outlining the outline, imprisoning him to the tree trunk.

With lightning speed, Yun Ji nailed all the prisoners to the tree trunk as if making specimens. She then picked up Ya Fu Suo, spread her black wings, and flew to a house tree not far away.

"Don't fall."

As Cheng Lang spoke, he swung his whip and wrapped it around the tree, then wrapped it around a branch on the other side.

"I'm a little scared," Shenba stammered as he peered at the ground.

"Get over here right now!" Yun Ji on the other side called out "gently".

Before Shenba, who was still terrified a second ago, could even process what was happening, he had already hung his large scythe on the taut whip and slid across it with his eyes closed.

After this guy, with Yun Ji's help, barely managed to get on the branch of the tree opposite, Yun Lan said to Cheng Lang as if it were the most natural thing in the world, "You wouldn't expect me to go over in such a disheveled and undignified way, would you?"

"of course not"

As Cheng Lang spoke, he swung his whip again, entangled it around a higher branch on the opposite side, and then put his arm around Yun Lan's waist and pulled her into his arms. Just a second before Cheng Lang swung over, the latter, who had been given a small bottle filled with spores by Ya Fu Suo, was thrown into the room and easily smashed by a long thorn that suddenly grew out.

“I guess we should leave Dawn City,” said Yun Ji, who was standing on a tree branch.

The problem is, how do we get out of here?

As Yun Lan straightened her clothes, she asked, "We haven't had time to buy supplies yet, and I suspect the city's defense officer won't let us leave."

“And we didn’t even have time to check if Grandpa Gerta was here,” Yavso said regretfully. “We’ve been eating, drinking and having fun all day.”

"We have no choice but to go to the royal city first."

Cheng Lang finally asked, "Shouldn't the digging beetle be able to dig through the ground here?"

“We’ll be treated as an invading enemy,” Yun Lan joked, “just like now.”

"Then I'm relieved," Cheng Lang said, already cracking his whip and wrapping it around Shenba's waist.

"Boat"

"Let's talk on the ground." Before Cheng Lang could finish speaking, he had already kicked the other person off the tree trunk. Immediately afterward, he also jumped down from the other side, carrying Yun Lan, amidst the oblivious cheers of this expired princess.

"I want to play this too!" Yafso said enviously.

"To satisfy you"

Before Yun Ji could finish speaking, she reached out and pushed the little girl down as well. Then she jumped down herself and, as she caught up with the girl, spread her wings, grabbed the screaming Yafso, and began to circle and glide.

When they reached the ground, flames were already approaching in the distance. The five of them dared not delay and hid in the shadow of a huge house tree. They took out the digging beetle and crawled inside. Then they burrowed underground as quickly as possible and used petrified foam to plug the hole behind them.

"I just seized some items."

Inside the burrowing beetle that kept digging underground, Yun Ji took out a glove and a feather-shaped pendant and handed them to Cheng Lang.

"This is."

"Sea Serpent Combat Suit and Night Raven Messenger Pendant"

Yun Ji shook her gloved hands and the pendant that Cheng Lang had put around her neck. "They're exactly the same as the ones I use. I found these two things on an elf who was nailed to a tree."

"So even the now-defunct street circus was involved?" Cheng Lang guessed, looking at the gloves and pendant.

There are more hypocritical masks than leaves on a tree.

Yun Ji reminded her, "How much have we seized along the way? Isn't this thing supposed to be very rare?"

"It is indeed rare for humans, but for dwarves, this kind of thing is... not to mention dwarves, even Miss Yun Hai could produce quite a few."

Yun Lan reminded them, "And do you remember what Captain Senfa said last time? That mysterious ghost ship organization seems to be constantly collecting Poseidon's blood and armor fragments, and the various duchies are doing the same thing."

"Is this what you're going to use it for?" Yun Ji frowned.

"There's one more question."

Cheng Lang asked, "Since we were able to escape from Dawn City by manipulating the burrowing beetles, is it possible that someone might use burrowing beetles to attack Dawn City? No! That's not right!"

"Attack the Elf King's City!" Cheng Lang, Yun Ji, and Yun Lan all thought of another possibility in unison!
"So the attack on Ganquan Village was just a feint!" Yun Ji said. "The Elf King's City is probably in danger!"

"Didn't those proud, pointy-eared creatures anticipate this situation?" Cheng Lang asked.

"Since Poseidon was killed, there have been no major wars between the countries."

Yun Lan said, "Everyone's focus is on competing for the profits from maritime trade."

“So even the Frost Duchy, which possesses the strongest land warriors, is developing its naval fleet,” Yun Ji added.

"Now is not the time to talk about these things."

Cheng Lang urged, "We need to leave here quickly and head to the Elf King's City. Otherwise, once the elves realize the danger posed by the burrowing beetles because of our actions, it might not be so easy for us to enter the city again."

Cheng Lang's worries were not unfounded. Just as the digging beetle broke through the underground root network of the verdant sacred tree and began to dig towards the outside of the city, the defense officers of Dawn City had already arrived at the sealed entrance on the surface that remained when they had manipulated the digging beetle to leave.

"It's a burrowing beetle! Quickly! Notify the royal city!"

The guard officer issued the order loudly with unusual vigilance, and at the same time, his men brought back the naked prisoners who had been nailed to the outer wall of the house tree—they were all dead, banished and impaled on the wall by arrows.

"Seal the city gates! Prohibit everyone from entering or leaving!" the defense officer issued the new order.

"Who are those people? And why do they have burrowing beetles?!"

In a room almost at eye level with Cheng Lang and the others who had stayed there, and also overlooking the house tree where they had left using the digging beetle, a person hiding in a black cloak asked.

“It could be the burrowing beetle that Viscount Shenfei lost,” another person in the same room, dressed in a gray cloak, guessed.

"Possibly?!"

The first person said in an icy tone, "At this point, you still only have a guess about the origin of that digging beetle?"

"This group's appearance is very strange."

Another person countered, "They seemed to have appeared in Funeral Valley as well, and did you notice that undead just now?"

“It’s the one we lost in Funeral Valley,” the man in the black cloak said with certainty.

"That's right"

"What is their background?" the man in the black cloak asked patiently.

"I don't know, it's like it appeared out of nowhere."

"How come you know nothing? How could I possibly cooperate with idiots like you?"

Amidst the merciless curses, mushrooms of all sizes sprouted all over the gray-cloaked man's body.

You'd better wake up.

The gray-cloaked figure warned, "You're just an imposter. If it weren't for us, you'd just be a mermaid egg that would never have had a chance to leave the pleasure boat."

"This is the last time you'll mention this."

With this warning, the mushrooms all over the gray-cloaked man's body disappeared.

"if not?"

The gray-cloaked figure, oblivious to the danger, asked, "Princess Bakla? Oh, no, no, no, Bakla, who can only grow delicious mushrooms, for the princess? Where is your Drunken Gold Rose?"

Instead of humiliating me, you should think about what we should do next.

The imposter Princess Bakla sneered, "Also, if we can't attract all the Azure Cannons to fire at the same time, we won't be able to create an opportunity for those metal bugs in the Elf King's City."

"If we fail, do you think those petite adults will let us bastards off the hook? Grass carp bastards."

"The falcon has been released."

The man in the gray cloak said, "If there's really no other way, we'll have to trouble Poiran and Rika to attack the Elven Duchy at the same time."

“That’s a great idea,” the imposter Princess Bakla scoffed.

"The more people die, the more power the adults can use."

The man in the gray robe spoke with increasingly undisguised madness, "As long as they resurrect Lord Poseidon, this continent will be ours."

"laugh!"

The imposter Bakla let out a mocking laugh, seemingly unimpressed by the situation; she didn't even bother to hide her sarcasm.

(End of this chapter)