This necromancer is going to seduce the beautiful girls who are already dead.

These tree-people's memories are based on tree rings; any changes in the external environment leave a mark on the rings as they grow older. In this world with magic that can be disturbed by certain actions, the tree-people can even remember every single flap of a nearby flying insect's wings—something Agnes had, of course, told the Abyss beforehand.

quack quack...

Standing beside the cemetery, a massive, thick tree was the first to stir. This ancient tree, a venerable one among trees, possessed the most accurate memory of its environment due to its size. The face that appeared on its bark moved slightly, and a deep, resonant voice rang out.

"Gurgle gurgle... Crackling... Crackling..."

Everyone except Agnes was completely bewildered and couldn't understand what the tree-man was saying.

Agnes, seeing that everyone seemed confused, explained, "It speaks the language of the tree people, because tree people can't speak like us."

“Then I’ll have to trouble you to translate it,” Abyss said to Agnes.

Agnes didn't refuse; she listened attentively to the giant tree's deafeningly slow narration.

After the tree-man spoke a long string of words in a language no one could understand, he finally stopped. Agnes then turned to the others and gave them a simplified translation of what the tree-man had just said.

“I saw it. Fourteen months ago, a semi-transparent person floated across the ground and walked into the tomb, took something, and left.”

"Wow, that's a bit scary." Leona hugged her shoulders upon hearing this description. "Is it a ghost?"

“It’s a person,” Agnes said, shaking her head seriously.

"Forgive my ignorance, but there doesn't seem to be any magic that allows one to freely pass through obstacles and float and move." Edvina frowned as she looked at the Abyss. "So, is the person who stole that item called Ergunda a puppet of the evil god?"

“Yes, that should be it.” Abyss nodded.

"How are we going to track him down?" Sheila asked curiously, seeing that Abyss and Agnes seemed calm and not worried about not being able to find the tomb raider.

“Finding this person is easy,” Abyss smiled. “It’s just the same method as before, used again. Now it’s Agnes’s turn to show her strength.”

Agnes was a woman of absolute action. After Abyss finished speaking, she didn't waste any more words and continued her work. She then asked the tree people, "Where did that person go?"

The tree-people pondered for a while, and then all their branches pointed in one direction at the same time—clearly, this was the direction the tomb raider had gone.

Agnes nodded, then gently waved her hand, and a stream of magic emanated from between her jade fingers, dispelling the magic on the tree people and turning them back into trees after writhing for so long—if they continued to move, it might have some effect on the health of these trees, such as causing their bark to crack.

Then she headed in the direction the tree people had indicated. The others followed her. Abyss also made sure to rebuild Lady Riki's grave and restore the land to its original state.

Just as Sheila was wondering how Agnes planned to improve her ability to ask about the trees along the way, Agnes displayed her special skill.

She chanted a simple incantation—her power allowed her to manipulate most natural magic without chanting—and pointed her finger at some flowers and plants on the ground.

According to the Tree People, the grave robber visited the cemetery more than a year ago, so Agnes imbued some of the perennial plants on the ground with intelligence.

She spoke in a language that no one could understand, but which was very pleasant to the ear, as she expressed her needs to the inconspicuous little flowers and grasses on the ground.

And then the change happened—as Agnes asked in that special language, the grass on the ground suddenly bent down in a specific direction.

It started at Agnes's feet, and then more and more grass lay down, eventually forming a clearly visible path in the grass of the mountain where the cemetery was located, stretching far into the distance.

“Found it.” Agnes turned around and said to Abyss with a blank expression.

Chapter 166 Leona is cheated on

“Follow this road, and you can catch up with that person,” Agnes said casually to the others.

"Is that even possible?" Leona asked in surprise. "Will these grasses guide us along that person's escape route? But he's been gone for so long, won't that be troublesome?"

Sheila and Edvina shared the same question, and they both looked at Agnes.

Agnes shook her head gently and replied, "No, they will tell us the latest whereabouts of that person."

Agnes's magic endows plants with wisdom. A blade of grass, a flower, or a shrub may have limited intelligence, but when these intelligent plants come together, they become a whole in a way that is different from animals. They connect with each other, communicate in a way that only plants can understand, and think efficiently.

Therefore, these blades of grass, endowed with wisdom by Agnes, can independently determine where the target is, rather than mechanically pointing out the escape route.

“Abyss, I need your necromancy bond,” Agnes said to Abyss at this moment.

Before anyone could ask Agnes what she was going to do next, Abyss had already swiftly and decisively opened the Necromantic Bond to Agnes, and Agnes immediately began to use the magic, quickly affecting Leona, whose magic resistance to Agnes had been temporarily reduced due to the bond.

Sheila, Edvina, and Abyss were also within the range of Agnes's magic, and their bodies underwent rapid changes.

"Huh!? How did I get so thin?" Leona exclaimed in surprise as she looked at her body. "And why am I so green! No, I'm too thin! Why am I only as thick as a finger?!"

"What have I turned into?" Sheila's surprised voice came over—it wasn't actually a voice, but a message emitted based on chemical substances.

"This is... vines?" Edvina realized at this moment, "We've turned into vines now?"

The group of people were no longer in human form, but had transformed into five emerald green vines. They took root in the ground and stood together.

Their senses and ways of communicating have all turned into plants, and the feeling now is quite peculiar.

"As expected of Agnes, her Transfiguration is of this caliber." Abyss's voice of admiration came. "My Transfiguration can only turn people into other animals, but I can't turn people into plants from the inside out."

“It’s easier to become a plant,” Agnes replied simply.

Druids who can shapeshift do use some shapeshifting magic to transform into plants, but they usually transform into trees, not such small vines. Moreover, the plant transformations of ordinary druids are incomplete; although they look like plants, they are essentially still human—the trees they transform into will bleed when injured.

Agnes, on the other hand, went very far; she truly transformed the Abyss and its companions, including herself, into plants possessing intelligence and magical powers.

"I've turned into a vine!" Leona exclaimed in surprise, realizing she was no longer an animal but a plant. "Wow! I'm so thin! I'm so slender!"

“We can go find that person,” Agnes said to everyone without wasting any time.

She took the lead, transforming into a vine with a small gray flower. She plunged into the earth and moved freely, while the grass around her automatically made way for her, creating a very orderly scene.

Abyss also felt the special sensations that come with being a plant. His senses were completely different from before. Now he could clearly perceive the pheromones emanating from the flowers and plants that were guiding him. This information directly affected Abyss's thoughts, allowing him to immediately know where to go.

With a thought, his body, transformed into vines, burrowed into the soil just like Agnes and swam away.

The other three were not to be outdone and followed Abyss. As magical plants, they didn't need to learn how to move.

And so, the five vines began to move swiftly and freely across the land. They were silent, faster than a galloping horse, and knew without a second thought which direction to take next.

Guided by the flowers and plants, the five quickly left the Sheila family's territory, easily crossed a towering mountain range, passed under a lake, and arrived at a desolate wilderness.

When the Abyss and their party stopped, it was already night. The navigation provided by the flowers and plants led them to this point, meaning that the tomb raider who had taken Eganda was right here.

“Let’s survey the surroundings first, no need to turn back into human form,” Abyss said to the others. “That tomb raider should be nearby, we need to think of a way to take him down.”

"This place is so eerie." Leona "looked around" at the scenery and slowly moved on the ground.

The place they were in was an ancient ruin, with some dilapidated building remains still standing. It must have been quite old; the place had clearly been abandoned after the river changed course.

The area was surrounded by dense forest, and the dilapidated ruins were covered with moss. Strange cries of various wild animals could be heard from time to time, making the place quite eerie.

But this kind of place is quite suitable for the puppets of the Lord of Delusions, whose minds have long since collapsed.

The five people began to move slowly on the ground, trying not to make too much noise.

“If someone lives here… he would probably find a place to stay…” Edvina speculated. “Anyway, as far as I know, people who become puppets of evil gods still retain some of their former consciousness.”

“Then, that building is very likely.” Abyss pondered for a moment, then pointed with the tender bud at the top to a relatively intact building ruin in the distance. “Sheila, now I need to ask you for help. Although you are not using human eyes now, this ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood should be bound to your soul.”

"Let me see... Ah, there really is something over there!" Sheila exclaimed immediately after only glancing in that direction.

"What's wrong?" The small silver flowers blooming on Leona's body wiggled.

"There's something moving over there! I saw a huge black thing wriggle through the cracks in the ruins!"

Chapter 167 Yet Another Miser

“Let’s go take a look.” Abyss immediately became alert as well. He hadn’t seen anything unusual just now, so it seemed that this tomb raider was usually invisible.

The five swam towards the place Sheila had just mentioned, which gave Sheila a better view. The enemy's full appearance was revealed to Sheila through the cracks in the ancient ruins' walls.

"My God..." Sheila exclaimed in a sound that only plants could hear.

This enemy's appearance was even more outrageous than any she had seen before—other evil god puppets at least still had a human appearance, at most with some deformities, but this guy was completely beyond Sheila's imagination.

The upper body of this person is that of a female half-human. She is wearing a gorgeous but dirty and tattered top, and her head is adorned with all sorts of jewelry: headdress, forehead ring, earrings, studs, nose studs, lip studs, necklaces, rings, etc., making her look like a walking jewelry stand.

Starting from her waist, she ceased to resemble a human—a mass of black, sticky, mud-like substance coiled around her waist, extending downwards to form a thick strip. This dark mass was constantly writhing, with glittering, gem-like objects churning within it, a nauseating sight.

This evil god puppet looked like a person whose lower body had been swallowed by a giant python. The long strip of black mud attached to her lower body was several meters long and was slowly writhing.

"My jewelry... my jewelry..."

The evil god puppet seemed utterly bewildered; she stood there blankly, with black mud coiled beneath her like a snake's tail.

Her eyes were unfocused, and she wasn't paying attention to anything; she just muttered the same repeated phrase in a daze and lost state.

“She kept repeating the phrase ‘my jewelry’…” Sheila told Abyss what she had seen and heard, “and her lower body had completely turned into a python’s tail made of black mud… and she was covered in jewelry, with lots and lots of gemstones mixed in with the black mud.”

The writhing black mud before her, constantly churning up gems, was utterly disgusting. It emitted a heavy, pungent stench, a mixture of antique dust and the sweaty odor of human hands. If Sheila weren't a plant, she might already be nauseous.

Sheila described the appearance of the evil god puppet in detail, and everyone now knew what this invisible monster looked like.

“So that’s how it is… Then, this evil god puppet’s obsession must be collecting jewels, and the Eganda must be on her person.” Abyss immediately deduced, “It seems we have to find a way to defeat her and get the Eganda that she stole from her.”

“But I didn’t see anything resembling lenses on her,” Sheila said. “Are they really on her?”

"Whether it's here or not, we can only see for ourselves." Abyss wasn't sure if Eganda was here either, but now that they had encountered this evil god's puppet, there was no reason to avoid it.

"Can I help?" Edvina seemed eager to lend a hand. As one of the continent's top assassins, she had been following the Abyss for over a day doing less dangerous tasks, and it was starting to get the urge to help.

Abyss said, "Let's prepare to transform back into human form and fight this puppet—Ms. Edvina, you probably don't have that dagger that can suppress the power of evil gods anymore, do you?"

“Well, I don’t have any of those daggers anymore. I only got two from Sophia,” Edvina sighed.

“Then let’s not think about subduing this guy in one blow for now. Your two companions over there still need to be suppressed with that dagger,” Abis instructed. “So, Ms. Edvina, please keep an eye on Sophia at all times and make sure she doesn’t attack us during our fight. Also, if you need to take anything from that puppet, I will let you know.”

“Okay, leave it to me!” Edvina immediately agreed.

The five acted immediately. They moved together to a place where they wouldn't be immediately noticed by the evil god's puppet, and Agnes removed the shapeshifting spell from them, restoring them to human form.

After the Abyss and its companions returned to human form, the evil god puppet seemed to have noticed something. In Sheila's perception, the evil god puppet was frantically sniffing the surroundings, its mutterings becoming increasingly urgent.

"My jewelry, my jewelry..."

shhhhh-

The puppet that had been standing still in the ruins began to move around, its huge snake tail sweeping across the ground with a sticky, swishing sound.

“She’s here…” Sheila quickly reported to Abyss.

“We need to find her weakness,” Abis said. “I’ll try to create some opportunities, and then we’ll look for it.”

"What opportunity?" Leona asked, puzzled.