Why can't humans do it too?

It's not the right time yet.

"After saying so much, why don't you come and take my blood and soul yourself?" With her chin held high, Xin Ke said disdainfully, "To yearn for something but not have the courage to do so, to only timidly hover on the edge, is that exactly what everyone thinks? Rats hiding in the shadows can only play some low-class tricks."

She still has the strength to fight.

Even if all that can be used is the power of triple magic, and only one strike is left, it should be enough to deal with a vampire that is still in its infancy, so it absolutely cannot miss.

Xin Ke gripped her arm, which was covered in magical inscriptions, warily, and then—disappeared?

"When did you start to think I hadn't come?"

The golden-haired vampire who had been floating in the air had disappeared at some point, and that disgusting voice suddenly rang out beside Sull and Xinke.

Suer thrust the dagger straight at him!

Chapter Ninety-Seven: Beware of Goblin Seeds

puff~

The sound was so light it was like puncturing a sack of flour, without any real feeling. The dagger that Suer thrust out felt no resistance in the air. The vampire, which had somehow appeared beside the two, seemed to be made of grayish-white mist. It changed from the spot where Suer had stabbed it, and then deformed and dissipated with a gust of wind.

"Hmm? Can you still move?" A hand landed on Suer's shoulder, and the vampire silently floated behind Suer again, as if the two were close friends, their arms around each other's shoulders. "You're just a monkey that even elves can't control, yet you can break free from the shackles of instinct? I'm starting to have high hopes for you~"

As they spoke, the blond vampire even pressed his cheek close to Sul's and took a deep breath there—thump!

Unable to dodge, Suer clenched his fist and swung it hard where the vampire's head should have been, but once again he hit a cloud of air, and the grayish-white mist dissipated around him.

"Hey? You actually dare to make a move? You've completely blinded all your senses, aren't you afraid of accidentally killing this elf next to you?" The blond vampire said with dissatisfaction as it spun around, even floating upside down in the air.

He wanted to see something more interesting, the panic, fear, helplessness, and confusion of the prey.

Despite still being underage and having a childlike voice, every time Suer heard him speak, he felt as if cold scales were encircling his body and slippery snake tongues were brushing against his face—a sensation so intense that it would give Nona nightmares in the dead of night.

They weren't fooled. This vampire had made his purpose very clear: to obtain Xin Ke's blood and soul to grow stronger. Under such circumstances, how could he possibly let Su Er kill Xin Ke?

Sul sneered inwardly, secretly despising the intelligence of this vampire.

Moreover, unlike the scenario envisioned by this vampire who was clearly enjoying the fruits of victory, he was completely unaware that Sul and Xinke were being pursued by goblins, and that creating such an illusion would undoubtedly require sending elves out—Sul was waiting for a turning point.

Those murderous goblins might just become their saviors.

'Go ahead and be arrogant, acting recklessly now that you have the upper hand, ha...'

Lowering his eyelids, Suer steadied his breathing and heartbeat. After dealing with these extraordinary races countless times, he had gradually learned how to cope.

"Hmm? Can't you speak? You were chatting in the Forest Elf language just now, why are you so silent now?" Sul's bored reaction did not satisfy the vampire's desire to show off at all. He was still making a lot of noise, flying around in front of the two of them from time to time—testing the waters.

Just like a real little child, he has no patience whatsoever.

Xin Ke had remained silent since the beginning, refraining from making any pointless sarcastic remarks. However, judging from the way Xin Ke kept glancing in the direction the two had come from, Su Er knew that the two of them were undoubtedly thinking the same thing.

The longer Xin Ke stayed in this place, the stronger the smell of blood seeping from her wounds became. That alluring aroma was constantly tormenting this impatient young vampire. The instinct to absorb suitable blood and become stronger was burning away what little willpower he had left.

Currently, the only thing that keeps this idea in his mind is the sense of threat that Xin Ke exudes, and the magic of the forest elves.

In this tense situation, Suer kept counting in his mind until he suddenly heard some strange buzzing sounds.

He was very familiar with it; he could hear that sound coming from overhead all day long in that desert.

Suddenly raising their heads, Xin Ke did the same as Su Er. She was also familiar with this sound, but neither of them saw anything. The illusion created by the vampires still enveloped them.

The voice also raised its head, and the blond vampire stared in astonishment at the enormous object flying towards them in the sky. He could see the outside sky without any obstruction—it was a goblin airship!

No, that's not all! A massive elf materialized within the largest cannon of the airship, flashing with blue and white lightning. That deadly threat pierced the nerves of the golden-haired vampire, who suddenly screamed and vanished into thin air.

boom!!!

Almost the instant the vampire disappeared, Suer forcefully pushed Xinke to the outside of the stone pillar, and then jumped down himself. The huge white pillar of light seemed to reappear in the world, completely erasing half of the stone pillar where the two of them had just been, and also creating a bottomless black hole in the stone wall of the strait.

Grass!

The rapidly descending wind pressure caused Suer to temporarily lose his hearing. He cursed the goblin race in his mind. Through his squinted eyes, Suer saw the airship in the air still adjusting its angle, wanting to fire again!

He wondered why the goblins were searching so slowly and couldn't catch up with him and Xinke. He initially thought it was because they were hiding well, but it turned out they had gone back and sailed back in their airships after losing soldiers.

They have no intention of getting close; they want to flatten this area from the furthest point!

These crazy gophers!

Without time to think, Suer tried his best to adjust his posture in mid-air, striving to land in the water in the sharpest possible way to minimize the damage.

Xin Ke was right next to him, unaware that they might have been separated along the way, and also unaware that Xin Ke, with multiple injuries, might not be able to withstand the water damage upon entering the water, and that the wind pressure had prevented Su Er from opening his eyes.

Pfft!

Pfft!

Two sounds of water hitting the surface rang out in quick succession, almost like explosions. Suer's figure was like a penguin entering the water, and he plunged into the water to a depth of more than ten meters before finally coming to a stop.

Suer felt dizzy and lightheaded, and white bubbles kept coming out of her nostrils and mouth—she had to stop it immediately!

Unable to form coherent words, Suer was simply instinctively forcing herself to hold her breath, hold her breath, and hold her breath some more!

Floating upwards, my eyeballs were squeezed by the water pressure, causing excruciating pain.

The mark left by the God of War was far deeper than Suer had imagined. Except for the part near the water's surface, which was still barely visible due to the outside light, it became increasingly dark as it went down, like a bottomless cave from which no one knew what terrifying creature might crawl out.

Chapter Ninety-Eight: Falling into the Water

Even light will be swallowed up.

The initial dizziness from hitting the water's surface and the pressure upon entering the water caused Suer to instinctively lose some of the air stored in his lungs, making it impossible for him to stay underwater for long. He frantically swam upwards, his arms outstretched, and he could already see Xin Ke.

Using the light filtering through the water, Suer could clearly see something seeping out from Xinke's bandaged wounds, scattering in the water as she moved. Her limbs twitched strangely, and Xinke looked extremely distressed.

The entire strait seemed to have collapsed on a massive scale, with constant rumbling sounds and huge rocks falling into the depths of the cracks.

In the unique stillness of the underwater world, even the deafening roars became quiet thanks to the isolation provided by the seawater. Suer finally swam to Xinke's side and pushed her upwards from below. It was much easier than on land, but what made it even more difficult for him was the cold.

Without the sun's rays, the seawater on this planet is much colder than that on Earth. Especially since the two of them fell into such deep water without any prior training to acclimatize to the temperature, Suer and Xinke suddenly jumped in. With each swing of their arms and legs, Suer felt his body heat being clearly taken away.

Don't cramp, don't cramp, don't cramp...

His limbs were stiff as a corpse.

He kept praying in his heart, and at the same time praying that he could return to land before he was completely frozen. In this mechanical movement, Suer suddenly saw Xinke stop paddling upwards in coordination with him - she was patting his shoulder and gesturing for him to look back.

From the deep, dark crevice at the bottom, something was spreading outwards, like shadowy figures swaying and scattered like seaweed, worms that brought death. If this were on land, Su'er would probably have screamed in fright, but here they could only gurgle and bubble.

His previously cold and stiff limbs regained their vitality, and Suer suddenly felt warm. He frantically moved his arms, glancing back every now and then—it was too slow. Compared to the rising, lightless black shadow, Suer and Xinke were rising at the speed of two snails.

There was no time to lose. Su Er gritted his teeth, took out his dagger from his side, and then made a light cut on his bare arm.

Stay down there, stay down there, stay down there… This thought kept echoing in his mind, hoping that it could be conveyed to the terrifying creature coming from below. Sull watched his blood, which looked like black threads, slowly dissipate in the dark water, and then he continued to swim upwards.

The lack of oxygen caused his face to gradually turn an abnormal bluish-purple.

We're getting closer, almost there.

"Plop!" Suddenly raising his head from the water's surface, Suer gasped for the long-awaited fresh air, then forcefully lifted Xinke in his hand, allowing the forest elf to regain its favor with the air.

However, the joy of regaining oxygen could not offset Su's terrible mood at the moment.

"……Grass."

As Suer looked up in a daze, a straight, enormous beam of light, like a brush, swept across the landscape from afar. Without any extraneous explosions, all that remained of it were wisps of steam rising from the ground and smooth rock surfaces.

Taking a deep breath, Suer and Xinke once again dived under the water. The beam of light grazed the surface, evaporating a large amount of seawater. The only benefit was that it brought some warmth to Suer and Xinke.

The clump of seaweed underwater remained motionless in that spot, seemingly hesitating and confused.

Above the two, these brutal goblins seemed determined to turn the landscape left by the God of War into history, firing and attacking relentlessly. If they persisted, they could indeed succeed. Even without directly attacking Suer and Xinke, the rocks collapsing due to the attacks would send the two to their doom.

If they can continue their attack.

A slender beam of light fell from the sky, something even a spaceship covering the entire goblin race couldn't do; it simply made a hole in the middle. However, for any sophisticated machine, such damage was fatal enough.

Explosions erupted continuously from within, and goblins were blasted out of the ship. This airship, filled with vengeful killing intent, plummeted straight down. The horrific scene of its final fall was quickly obscured by the stone walls on both sides of the strait, leaving only a loud explosion.

It was unexpected, yet not entirely unexpected. No longer paying attention to the airship that had just been swaggering overhead, Suer swam desperately toward the shore with Xinke.

In this infinitely long war, such accidents are the most common and the most prevalent. Death needs no reason. That slender beam of light falling from the sky could come from a race that hates the goblins, or it could come from a casual strike by a powerful person who is in a bad mood passing by... or it could even come from a fanatical fan who can't stand them destroying the wonders left by the God of War.

It doesn't matter anymore.

To be honest, if the good thing about the goblin vengeance warships was that it freed Sull and Xinke from that vampire, the other good thing was that it cleared a shoreline at the bottom of the strait that was big enough to stand on.

At the very least, if the terrain on both sides were still marked by the God of War, Suer and Xinke would not be able to climb to a dry place at all, and would only become two corpses frozen to death in the sea.

The noise that Suer heard while the two were still underwater was not wrong. A large-scale collapse had indeed occurred on one side of the strait. Many dead trees on the surface above and plants that had grown on the cliffs of the strait over the long years had collapsed and been squeezed together.

"Huh...huh..."

Once ashore, he quickly started doing push-ups. The heat from the exercise warmed his cold body, and Suer felt his blood flowing again, and his limbs were no longer stiff.

"...Are you...whew, alright?"

After his physical condition finally improved, Suer had the energy to ask about Xinke's condition. Apart from the wounds that had started to bleed again, the forest elf was sitting on the ground with its legs bent and hugging itself. Even for a forest elf, the temperature underwater was far too cold.

Chapter Ninety-Nine: Keeping Warm

Like Suer, her lips were blue from the cold. Xin Ke simply nodded without saying a word. The pain and cold from the wounds all over her body intertwined, and even she wanted to fall asleep at this moment.

Unable to do push-ups to warm up her body like Suer, Xinke curled up, waiting for the pain to pass.

As a gust of wind blew across the shore, it seemed that not only warmth was carried away from their wet bodies, but also their souls.

With trembling hands, he bandaged the wound he had cut himself underwater, and swayed as he walked toward the collapsed wreckage—they needed fire to warm themselves, branches, fallen leaves, anything would do.

“…I’ll do it,” Xinke said weakly, watching Suer struggle to drag the flammable materials he could find to the deepest part of the gap cut by the goblin’s light cannon.

Exhausted to the point of being unable to speak, Suer simply lay down on his back on the ground. He didn't know if the strait, which had just suffered a collapse, would collapse again, but it didn't matter anyway. Both he and Xinke had lost the ability to move. Their clothes, soaked with water, were constantly draining his heat and strength. Dying here was no different from dying on the road.

Being right next to this dead corner where the landslide had occurred, the wind from outside couldn't reach this place, and Suer felt a little better. He was sleepy and wanted to sleep, but he didn't dare to fall asleep, afraid that he would never wake up again.

“…Say something…anything is fine,” Suer murmured, trying to keep his eyelids open as they tried to close on their own.

"Hmm? Say something?" Xin Ke paused slightly, mimicking what Su Er had done before, and placed the sharpened wooden branch into the small hole dug in the wooden block below. Her physical strength was much better than Su Er's, and her resistance to the cold was also much stronger. Even though she was still inevitably weak at this moment, her mental state was indeed better than Su Er's.

"Hmm... Mr. Monkey's painstakingly left the information in the cave must have been buried by the attack and the collapse just now, right?"

You'd better not say anything!