Your Majesty's money, why don't you engrave my name on it?

"Give me that thing!" Leslaufer used his shoulders and elbows to knock a giant deer to the ground, and then shouted at Bella.

"You'd better give up—" The druid rolled on the ground after falling, narrowly avoiding the bear's paw. "This thing can't withstand your tossing and turning!"

Even she didn't dare to use it. If it fell into Leslaufer's hands, wouldn't he actively smash it and use the broken tip to stab people? Just like a wine bottle in a tavern!

However, the only one with any strength left on the battlefield was Reslaufer. Angarita's swordplay had completely lost its rhythm. While she might be keeping the enemy at bay for now, her strength had its limits. Across from her, the paladin and the mage were locked in a close fight.

"Stand still!"

The bracelet in Eaton's hand was now reduced to its bare string, but he completely ignored the pain. Compared to losing a magic item crafted with years of embezzled public funds, being struck by the mountain-like sword was clearly more dangerous. Taking advantage of the moment when the paladin was immobilized, he hurled a barrage of magic missiles, leaving several wounds on Patrick's body.

Idiots, all of them are a bunch of idiots!

Eaton stumbled, nearly tripping over a druid's corpse. He'd brought so many people with him! He'd spent so much money training them! And now he had to deal with the terrifying paladin all by himself!

Even the nobles of Magpalez wouldn't want to mess with this bunch of ruthless characters who casually swore to possess immense power! And what about him? He had to make a quick decision.

The mage's eyes rolled as a cunning idea emerged. When Patrick broke free in mere seconds and charged at him again, Eaton flung his bracelet. The last two camphorwood beads on it exploded with a bang, and a thick, insoluble darkness instantly enveloped a spherical area nearly ten meters in diameter.

Chapter 150 Tree Man in the Moonlight

"Where have you been, Mage?" Everything became chaotic under the sudden magical darkness. Eton could still hear the Paladin's calm voice, but it sounded like the whisper of a demon to him.

He must leave as soon as possible, escape from here, but before that——

Bella and Daisy stood back to back. Although the bard had lit a light spell and the druid had cast a fire spell, these attempts were completely useless. The darkness was like a rough hand, easily extinguishing any light source within it.

And this big hand suddenly turned into substance and stretched out from the darkness when Bella held the Tears of Eldas more and more nervously and her muscles and nerves were stretched to the limit.

"Don't you dare--" Bella's sharp scream pierced the darkness, but the second half of the sound stopped abruptly. Daisy behind her immediately turned around and swung the matte in her hand like a war hammer.

The sound of the zither hitting the object immediately turned into deafening thunder, and even the darkness around it trembled and disappeared. However, the poet was still half a beat slow. When Leslaufer chopped off the bear paw of the druid who had turned into a brown bear, Bella, who had just recovered from dizziness, looked ahead in shock and anger.

There was only a ball of silver mist that was quickly dissipating, and the Tear of Eldath in the druid's hand was nowhere to be seen.

"Are you okay?" The mercenary rushed to Angrita and helped the exhausted Angrita kill the druid who attacked her.

"I'm fine, Tears of Eldath—"

Suddenly relaxed, Angrita used her sword to support herself against collapse. She took two deep breaths, her nearly drained energy finding some relief. Feeling much better now, the young woman, no longer concerned about herself, pointed her warhammer outside with her other hand. "Over there! I saw that druid named Khalid running out the door!"

The door of the temple was wide open, and several druids whose wild forms were insects rather than beasts were approaching here rapidly, trying to block the way of the crowd. Behind them, a middle-aged man in a robe and a druid only left two backs to the crowd - they were about to climb over the unresponsive bush wall.

In the hands of the wizard Eaton, a long object was emitting a blue-green light under the moonlight - the Tears of Eldath. The wizard stole it, or rather, robbed it, under the cover of darkness!

Such a "feat" made their fleeing figures look less embarrassing, but the corresponding price was the increasingly surging anger in everyone's heart.

"Get out of here!" Leslaufer's furious roar shook the entire building. In an instant, the black flame giant sword was in front of the abandoned returnees. "Or die!"

In his over ten years as a mercenary, he'd always been the one robbing others. When had he ever been robbed?! Based on this alone, those two ignorant bastards deserved death!

However, the mercenaries' swords did not really kill the bugs and stain the temple with blood, and these returnees were not willing to retreat on their own initiative - before Reslaufer's sword came upon them, several soft rays of light enveloped these druids, and countless red threads emerged from the air, entangled every joint of theirs.

As if obeying some kind of order, although the returnees kept trying to struggle, they finally moved aside as quickly as possible, allowing Reslaufer and his other companions to rush out of the temple together.

"You..." Rufo, who had returned to human form from a giant eagle, looked at the priests outside in surprise. Several of them were obviously casting spells, while more were ready to take over at any time.

The young priest on duty stepped forward and saluted, but quickly stepped aside, making no attempt to block the path of Reslaufer and the others.

"It's a shame to say that although I'm on night duty, I don't know the whole story of this incident. However, you all do look familiar... I don't think you're bad people. Please..."

He rambled on for a long time, and Leslough and the others had no time to talk to him. At this moment, they had already climbed over the wall and were chasing him outside.

"...What a shame," the older priest shrugged. "Although these people came out of the temple, they don't seem to have received any teachings from the goddess. But it doesn't matter. They have their own things to do, and we have our own things to do."

"Suppress these thugs who are desecrating this holy place!" He pointed at the druids who were being suppressed and immobilized by commands and other spells. "Where are the inquisitors? Follow me into the temple. We must know what happened!"

On this side, the followers of Edas discovered that their leader Desipa had passed away. On the other side, Leslaufer and others pursued them relentlessly and forced Eton and Khalid all the way to the platform between the two sections of the waterfall.

"Come on, you bunch of losers, hahahaha!" Seeing Reslaufer and the others approaching, the wizard took out a charred branch from somewhere and waved it at them ostentatiously, "Don't come over here! If you dare to come close, I will fill this entire body of water with lightning! Just go swim below!"

As if afraid that the other party would not believe him, lightning crackled from Eaton's hand holding the branch, as if it could burn the branch that had already been struck by lightning into ashes at any time.

At his feet was a cliff that was tens of meters, or even close to two hundred meters high. Although there was a large lake below that received the water from above, no one really believed that jumping from here would be safe - let alone falling due to paralysis from electric shock.

"Give me back what you stole!" Patrick yelled at him. "What you did is wrong!"

"'Your actions are wrong', ha!" Eaton repeated the paladin's words with disdain, his tone mocking. "You fight like a man, but you speak like a child! Do you think that will change my mind?"

"You'd better follow his advice," Raslaufer suddenly said, and he pretended to step forward. "Look behind you. What have you overlooked because of the tension and the sound of the waterfall?"

"You're treating me like a child," the wizard spat. "Don't try to trick—"

Eaton could swear that he had no intention of believing what Leslaufer said, but some intuition forced him to turn his head and look. Under the moonlight, the trees in the dense forest parted to both sides, and a huge tree man, so big that he could hold him in one hand, stepped out of the forest towards the waterfall.

What scared Khalid, who was beside Eaton, was that on the chest of the tree man, near the heart, a familiar face of a person whom he had once disdained appeared!

Sander!

Chapter 151 Jump down

"Sander!" Khalid was almost frightened to death by this strange sight. "What happened to him?"

"Merging with a tree figure, obviously!" Eton roared into his nephew's ear. "Jump!"

"what?!"

The druid subconsciously glanced down at the lake in the distance, his whole body trembling uncontrollably: "Jump?"

"Are you questioning me?"

Eaton's eyes narrowed dangerously. Except for his nephew, he always thought that he had fooled these returnees. However, now the victim was not dead and blocked his way.

And what about his adopted nephew? Eton hadn't forgotten the way Khalid looked at him when his identity was exposed by that half-elf! What a traitor!

"Jump down! Or I'll leave you here!" The wizard decided to regain his authority with a commanding tone. "Believe me, Khalid, this returnee hates you more than he hates me!"

Khalid glanced at "Sander" in panic. There was not much emotion on the face of the tree man, but the face that originally belonged to Sander was filled with irreconcilable hatred - he should indeed hate him more!

Although the main plotters were the mages around him, the executors were Khalid himself! It was he who had Sander pave the way for him in the Kolin Otto Mountains. It was he who decided not to contact them after learning the location of the temple. It was also he who led the chaotic tree people down the mountain, ensuring their seamless control of the temple!

It is him that Sander should really hate!

"But I can't jump like this!" Khalid's pale face caught Eton's eyes, and the Returner pleaded, "I can't transform again today. I'll fall to my death!"

The wizard sneered and put his elbow around his shoulders: "Don't worry, my good nephew, I won't watch you fall to your death."

"Wind, I am as light as a feather—"

In Eaton's hands, the Tears of Eldath were actively activated for the first time today. With the help of Feather Fall, Eaton and Halidon felt lighter all over like feathers. Then, before Leslaufer and others and the tree man on the other side rushed towards the middle at the same time, Eaton dropped the branch in his hand, took the druid in his arms, took a few steps of run-up, and jumped down together!

"Goodbye, fools!" The wizard's disgustingly smug laughter came on the wind, "The Tears of Eldath are mine!"

Above, Leslaufer and Patrick had to stop. No matter how much they wanted to stop it, they now had to face a more difficult problem: the tree man with Sander's face.

"Are you... Sander?" Rufo walked forward, holding his waist, looking up at the tall tree man in surprise. "This is magic that controls tree spirits, but I didn't expect you to be the first person I've encountered who uses this spell."

The face of the tree man was distorted, and there were bursts of sounds of wooden structures rubbing against each other, but when he finally spoke, it was Sander who spoke.

"Then I should be the last one you meet, old man." Sander's face seemed to be in great pain with every word he said. "Remove that damn book from the list of banned books, if you can still return alive."

"Remember to add this: This spell will cause the caster's soul to be devoured by the tree people... because the will of mortals is far from comparable to that of trees... "

The Archdruid nodded in surprise: "Then what are you doing..."

"If I hadn't led these tree people away, would you have come here? Although that wasn't my intention." Sander panted.

"Listen, old man, part of me wants to kill you, but another part of me tells me that I should first take revenge on the traitor and the evil wizard. This tree man seems to be interested in the thing in his hand, so I should listen to the latter."

"I don't care what it is. I won't have the chance to use it anyway. I only have one request: both of their lives must be mine! If you dare to take it from me, I will kill you too. Do you understand?"

Reslaufer raised his sword to his shoulder with disdain, no longer making an attacking gesture, while the paladin solemnly gave him a knight's salute and made a brief but forceful assurance.

"Alright! I'm going!" Sander laughed heartily with satisfaction. The massive tree didn't hinder his agility. He leaped and plummeted straight down without any magic. "Khalid, you beast, prepare to die!"

"Sander..." The Archdruid gritted his teeth and looked at the people behind him. "Everyone, although I don't intend to force you, my old arms and legs really can't afford such an action right now. Can you..."

"I must bring these evildoers to justice!" Patrick immediately stood up. "Master Rufo, that's why I'm here!"

Bella took two steps forward and glanced at the others apologetically: "This could be very dangerous, but the artifact was lost from me, so I must take responsibility. You don't need to take this risk..."

"This isn't really an adventure, it's just what we have to do," the dwarf struck his shield with the back of his battle axe. "But you two, Old Lei and Barty, shouldn't go down. Barty is too tired. She's still a child, and she needs rest more than anything else."

"I don't need a rest!" Angelita waved her hands fiercely. "I want to hunt them down! I'm being chased every day, and now it's my turn to hunt others!"

This statement did not sound like something an imperial princess would say, but Reslaufer had no objection to it: the girl was becoming more and more in tune with his temperament.

"Daisy! Do you want to come?" Angelita finally looked at the bard. Although the bard's exercise intensity was not as high as hers, considering his physical condition, he was probably at the end of his rope. "You can go back to the temple and help."

"I want to go with you!" Daisy hugged Qin. Although she was visibly exhausted, her black eyes were shining like stars in the sky. "I don't want to miss this opportunity. Jumping from a rooftop of a 40- or 50-story building! That's too exciting!"

"But... how should we do this?" the poet asked doubtfully. "I hope this isn't a one-off project, but I haven't learned Feather Fall, and this master is a druid. Doesn't he have it in his spellbook..."

"I'm not sure what you mean by 'list,' brave young lady," the old man replied with a faint smile. He opened his hand, revealing a small feather resting quietly in his calloused palm. "But all spells can be acquired through hard work. Naturally, they're not as rigid and strict as you imagine."

"But magic has its own rules—five at a time. Go, friends! Make the evildoers pay the price they deserve!"

Chapter 152 Retreat

"Clap."

A height of over a hundred meters was indeed terrifying for someone falling, but for Eden and Khalid, who were blessed with magical powers, their landing was not enough to even create a splash on the water. Their boots floated lightly above the water before slowly sinking until they touched the bottom of the forest lake.

"Saved..." Khalid breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't like the feeling of weightlessness. Even in the wilderness form, the druid preferred his claws and hooves to his wings.

"Master Eaton, thank you for not leaving me up there..."

"Don't question me again!" The mage responded to Khalid's apology with anger. The experience of being surrounded by danger was not a pleasant one for most people. He raised his hand, and a harmless ball of water hit Khalid's face. "Perhaps this will sober you up a little - do you understand?!"

The druid, who was already quite old, agreed with a timid nod, as obedient as a sheep. But this warm scene of "uncle and nephew respect" did not last long, because soon, a huge shadow enveloped the two of them from above. Sander, the returner who had merged with the tree man, fell straight towards the water like a small mountain without slowing down.

"Alright, nephew, I'll count to three and dive in!" Glancing at the incoming bombardment, Eaton said quickly, "One, two!"

The first two numbers formed a string, which made Khalid stunned. But the next second, when the word "three" came out of his mouth, Khalid reacted even faster than his uncle and immediately dived underwater!

"You—" Eaton's curse was only half-full as he immediately dove underwater. At the same moment, Sander, with his massive body, slammed in. Khalid's eyes widened as he saw the bottom of the lake shatter with a bang as the treeman's roots came into contact with the clear water. Unable to withstand the violent impact, the lake's bottom shattered!

The originally full lake water suddenly dropped a lot!

"It's now!"

Eaton's voice echoed through his mind without a trace of hesitation, and the mage, following suit, swam towards the cavernous hole at the bottom. Sander roared horribly underwater, but even as his body sank with the water, he couldn't maneuver as easily as on land. He couldn't use a branch to grab the two men before they burrowed into the hole. After a series of curses, the tree man and Sander's gaze simultaneously locked onto the hiding place of Eaton and the other man. Without hesitation, he gave chase!

It was not until this time that Reslaufer, Patrick and Vondar landed on the lake surface which was several meters lower, followed closely by the others.

"I was so scared!" Unsurprisingly, the first words after landing, or after saying "water," belonged to the bard. "I thought those two guys would jump down and drain the water like in the cartoons! And then we'd just crash to the ground!"

"Let's not talk about how he can do what you said like pulling out a cork. Even if that's the case, we have Feather Fall on us." Feng Daer paddled the water with his arms. It was hard to imagine that such a strong dwarf could still stay afloat. "At least there won't be a 'pop' sound!"

"They sank," Patrick emerged from the water and looked at Leslough. "There was a big hole underneath. It seems they escaped from there."

"'In there', do you mean underwater?" Angelita looked at him. "They can't run away. The place where they can leave must also drain the lake water, but the water level hasn't dropped significantly yet..."

"In fact, there's even been a very small recovery," Bella added, motioning everyone to look at the waterfall above. "But it'll take quite a while for it to return to its original size."

"It's best if they can't escape," said Leslaufer, giving up trying to stay buoyant and preparing to sink all the way down. "We can trap them inside."

A heavy suit of armor was obviously not suitable for swimming or diving. The only reason why Reslaufer had not yet removed this troublesome armor was that it was made by a dwarf from the east sea: both fresh water and salt water were no strangers to them, and naturally there were relevant treatments in the creation.

The group who had jumped from over a hundred meters high were clearly not just there for a diving experience, so without further hesitation, they followed the others in their dive. Surprisingly, Patrick was the worst swimmer among the group, while Daisy, despite mumbling something like "no swimsuit" before entering the water, was no less clumsy underwater than the others.

At first, everyone was skeptical. It seemed that Sander, who had transformed into a tree man and crashed into the lake, should not cause such a significant drop in the water level. However, when they dived below and a winding passage with a diameter of five or six meters appeared in front of them, their doubts were quickly dispelled.

The fish and shrimps in the lake wandered around in the newly soaked passage in fear and confusion. This was an environment they had never been to before. While Leslaufer and others were examining the traces on the cave wall under the illumination of the light spell, which were left by the tree people during their pursuit.

Although it was difficult to notice while inside, the passage seemed to be roughly built in a "U" shape. As everyone rose rapidly forward and backward, they finally breathed air again before the air in the paladin's lungs was squeezed dry.

However, it is not as fresh as in the wild.

"Ah, a connecting vessel, how classic," Daisy said, climbing to the shore and holding up her mater, which was enchanted with light, to illuminate the surroundings. "We should be inside the mountain now. It's such a large space, I wonder when we can get out."

As if to confirm her words, a buzzing sound echoed from the distant darkness.

"Oh my god, this is fucking terrible!" After landing, Vondar immediately checked the damp walls on both sides. With his darkvision, he wasn't bothered by the dimness. "This definitely wasn't formed naturally, and it wasn't even recently excavated! Who could have done this?"

"Of course it's those two villains," Patrick answered breathlessly. However, he had only said half of the sentence before he had to reassess his surroundings and what he had said. "Wait, if that's the case..."

"They must have planned this long ago," said Reslaufer, pouring as much lake water as possible from his armor. With the aid of arcane light, he surveyed the moss- and fern-covered ground in front of and behind him. "They even planned their escape route."

Chapter 153 Or We Can Go Together