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

"It seems that this Wood thinks that his Wheat Harvesting Society should be the leader of this organization," murmured Angelita. "Of course, the nobles in the court also think so."

"It's a pity this guy is so conceited," Daisy curled her lips and moved closer to the fabric with the glowing matte. "If he would draw the others, it would save us a lot of work."

"The less these guys know, the better," Vondar disagreed with Daisy. "Don't go looking for them. You'll only get into trouble."

"In other words, once you find them, try to eliminate them all. Don't give them the opportunity to cause trouble again." Leslough raised his foot and lifted up the moldy bed. "Look for any secret doors. These rats love them."

The bedside cabinet on the floor couldn't be left out, nor could the most conspicuous cloth on the wall. However, this building (if it could be called that) was only a single layer of wood on all sides, leaving almost no place to hide anything. Instead, Black Claw, after forcing his way in, quickly attracted everyone to a long-extinguished fire with his high-pitched strange cries.

The remaining charcoal ashes were quickly swept away, and a hard piece of iron appeared under the embers. Around the metal, regular gaps separating it from the surrounding land revealed its unusualness.

"Black Claw, you are really great!" Leslaufer was overjoyed. After patting the Deinonychus's head, he swung the hilt of his sword and smashed it down!

The metal was hollow, and while it might have been chained or bolted, unless it was half a meter thick, it would have been impossible for it to withstand the mercenaries' brutal blows. With a resounding sound, Raslaufer swung his greatsword across, using the anchor claws on the sword to pry up the deformed metal plate.

"Your weapon... is really versatile, huh?" Daisy unconsciously looked down while holding the matte. "There's a ladder. It doesn't look too deep. Who's going down first?"

"Sir, I--" Even Barry himself didn't know why he said this. Maybe if he didn't say this, he wouldn't feel safe keeping the money.

This kind of thing was naturally not his responsibility. With the help of the illumination of the light magic, Leslaufer confirmed the distance from here to below, held the sword in one hand, supported the edge with the other hand and jumped down. There was a loud bang, and the mercenary knelt on one knee and then slowly stood up.

"Superhero-style appearance, Old Lei!" Daisy, who then obediently climbed down the ladder, couldn't help but jokingly said, "But won't we be discovered if we do this?"

"He was the first to strike. It would be strange if he didn't notice us." Leslaufer snorted and walked straight forward.

This underground place was like two different worlds from the shabby wooden house above. The surrounding walls had been carefully polished and repaired. Even when Leslaufer continued to walk deeper, he saw a long blanket at the end of the road, leading to a small door also made of metal.

There didn't seem to be anything special here, so Leslaufer planned to move forward. However, a red claw suddenly dug into the gap in the Broken Halberd's armor.

"Wait!" A ball of flame appeared in the hands of the Cinder Crown. "Something's wrong here. Very wrong."

"Sister Jin, are you worried there's some kind of trap hidden down there?" Edward walked past the two of them, bent down, and tried to lift the blanket in front of him. "Let me get this thing out of the way—whoa!"

The moment Edward touched the rough cloth, the blanket on the ground suddenly came alive like a poisonous snake that had been hidden for a long time, "swallowing" Edward's whole body and quickly began to tighten!

"Damn it, this is a suffocating blanket!" Daisy was also startled, but she quickly recognized the identity of this living blanket. "It's a constructed creature just like those two scarecrows. Don't do anything yet, pull him out first!"

The suffocating blanket had now outlined the outline of a struggling human figure. If attacked rashly, Edward inside would definitely be hurt.

"Let me do it!" Vondal suddenly moved. When the stuffy blanket's first reaction was to welcome Edward forward, he didn't know that it was exactly what Vondal wanted.

But the dwarf waved his shield and squeezed the blanket and Edward against the wall next to him. Before the almost non-intelligent construct could react, a hand axe had already cut it along a crack in the blanket. Although the crack was only a few centimeters long, in the eyes of several spellcasters, the faint aura emitted from the magical creature quickly weakened.

More than a minute later, the nearly suffocated Dragonborn finally struggled to be dragged out of the motionless blanket by Reslaufer, and lay on the ground gasping for breath.

"I will never touch anything again!" Those few short minutes had almost made him say goodbye to this world completely! If he had known earlier, he would have rotted in his own coffin!

"Oh, let's see what we've got!" Suddenly, a mocking voice emanated from the surrounding walls. "Intruders, a bunch of desperate thieves? How desperate are you to want something from me?"

"Sounds like some kind of message." Daisy raised her hand to prevent others from overreacting.

"...But no matter what, I have to congratulate you. You have defeated my foot rug! Now you can go away and take it out to exchange for money. Don't be ungrateful, otherwise I won't mind making an extra scarecrow."

"If each of you gets one body, then you'll have a lot of work ahead of you!" Jinmian shouted unhappily at the missing figure, and swung his hand to blast three scorching rays towards the small door in front of him.

The door was not made of special materials, and it melted through almost instantly under such high temperatures, and fell to the ground with a loud bang.

"You won't listen, huh? That's a shame," the voice resembling Wood's rang out again. "Guards, kill the intruder!"

The chaotic sound of metal clashing suddenly rang out from the depths of the long corridor!

Chapter 224: Breaking with the Same Move

"I never dreamed I'd encounter living armor here!"

Reslaufer was blocking the door alone, and with two consecutive quick slashes of the sword in his hand, he split the helmet of the plate armor in the front. When the latter tried to counterattack with the sword in his hand, Reslaufer had already taken a defensive position again, not giving the opponent any flaws or opportunities.

This is another way to use the greatsword besides charging and striking: no single sword style exists in isolation; it possesses both offensive and defensive postures, and between different sword styles, one attacking stance can smoothly transition into another's defensive stance. When encountering an enemy in such a narrow space, and one who is not easily defeated, proper defense is also part of the offense.

Especially when what Reslaufer was facing was an animated object without flesh, nothing under the armor, and didn't even need to breathe.

"Even if we kill a hundred of these, it's meaningless!" The mercenary disliked this kind of battle, but at this moment, he could only defend the entrance and exit between the two corridors as best he could. Fortunately, this time, he didn't need to use up all the armor himself. The entire team behind him consisted of more than half spellcasters!

"Roar!"

A roar that was completely inconsistent with the user's age sounded from behind Reslaufer. The mercenary made room in time, and a breath of hot air instantly ignited half of the passage, followed by another violent and unrestrained wave of lightning.

Most of those animated armors were made of heavy metal, and they had almost no ability to fight back against such elemental attacks. Many of them were destroyed in an instant. Although there were still more animated armors to be replenished, a few more such breaths should be enough to quickly end this battle where not a drop of blood could be shed.

"I now understand what you meant, Reslaufer!" Cindercrown cleared his throat and continued to summon flaming arrows to fill the spell gap left after his breath. "We must admit that we do need a guard!"

After all, Dragonborn were not true dragons, so using their breath was a greater burden for them, and they couldn't use it repeatedly in a short period of time like a real dragon's breath. And for these Dragonborn spellcasters, being taken advantage of and attacked was a very fatal thing.

A long sword held by an animated armor suddenly flew up, its user had been shattered into pieces on the ground, but it seemed to be still being wielded by an invisible and intangible warrior, who took advantage of the gap when the mercenary just passed it and slashed at Poison Wing.

However, such a sneak attack had no chance of success under the watchful eyes of more than twenty people. Several magic missiles flew into the air with the bard's shout, smashing the flying sword into a pool of fragments in an instant.

"Why not try these constructs? I've heard of one called 'Shield Guardian,' which many mages like to use!" Daisy turned to look at the Dragonborn. "They're definitely much stronger than the Ancients."

"That's great," Frostbone squeezed his blue vertical pupils, "Miss Daisy, do you know how to make them?"

"Uh... Look! There shouldn't be many animated armors ahead. Let's keep going!"

If only she knew—but it would be no use, she was so poor now!

Reslaufer, standing in front, had already dealt with the remaining armor. He plunged his greatsword into the hollow helmet of a suit and, with a powerful twist, removed it. The unconscious construct tried to resist, but the next second, the greatsword sliced it diagonally into two unequal pieces, and it quickly turned into debris on the ground due to the loss of its magic power.

"Old Lei is right. There's no point in killing as many of these things as we can," Feng Daer said, helplessly picking up a handful of fragments from the ground and throwing them down. "The spiritual energy of these metals has been exhausted. Even if we recast them, it will be futile."

It's okay to craft ordinary metal items, but if you want to enchant them slightly, it requires more effort - it's not worth it.

"That Wood isn't waiting for us back there, waiting to jump out when we're exhausted or something," Daisy said, unceremoniously carrying the matqin on her shoulders. "But this guy only sent two scarecrows to assassinate Philip? He could have formed an army!"

"And then he was killed by the priests of Dionysus?" Vondar shrugged. "It's outrageous enough that this guy hid under their noses. If an entire army of constructs can parade in the open, those priests must be the most blind and stupid people in the world."

"They are indeed, but do you think you can be any better?"

At the end of the corridor, the sound of armor appeared again, but this time there was only one.

Leslaufer stopped immediately, raised his sword in both hands like a bull's horn and stepped forward, looking cautiously at the person who was walking out step by step.

He was a fellow about the same height and strength as the mercenary, truly worthy of the title of "big man." Similar to Reslaufer, he was also fully armed, wearing heavy plate armor, even with his mask down. In his right hand, he also held a two-handed greatsword.

"Wood?"

"Barry, you really disappoint me." The sight behind the mask passed over Leslough and fell on the pale-faced farmer Barry. "I didn't invite you here to be my guest just to let you bring a thief here."

"Are you saying this as a murderer?" Jinman snorted. "Using two construct scarecrows to carry out an assassination is really aboveboard!"

"I have more important things to do. It's just killing a minor noble. Even a second glance is a waste of time," Wood's voice came from behind the visor. It must have come from the same person as the previous "recorded voices." "But why did you help him? Nobles deserve to die, don't you think so?"

Angelita felt eyes focused on her, then quickly looked away.

"Ah, I see. Another noble, huh." Wood strode forward. When he stopped in front of Reslaufer, he actually struck the same pose. "You are her guard, right? There is no point in saying more. You should die here!"

Coincidentally, Reslaufer wasn't about to waste his breath; fighting the armor was already stressful enough. Just as Wood had taken his first step, the mercenary suddenly rushed forward. While his stance remained unchanged, the tip of his sword stabbed straight at Wood's heart!

But what surprised everyone was that the opponent did not dodge or evade in the face of such an attack, and was even unwilling to change his moves. The same move was also aimed at Reslaufer's left chest!

Is this a life-for-life exchange? But why?

Such a strange reaction makes it hard not to try to explore. However, it doesn't matter if you take a look. Several spellcasters saw a strong magical aura on the plate armor - this is also an animated armor!

"Wait a minute, Reslaufer, something's wrong! He's a fake—" Shanli tried to finish her words at her fastest speed, but the life-and-death struggle between the two warriors was just a matter of a moment. When she said the word "fake", the tip of Reslaufer's sword had already pierced through the armor on "Wood's" chest.

However, on the other side, Doppler was unharmed with a sinister grin: the guard of the giant sword blocked the opponent's blade to the outside. As the distance between the two sides closed, when Reslaufer could just hit the target, the opponent's sword tip could only pierce the air further to the left!

The same move can still be broken. This result was revealed the moment Reslaufer made the first move!

The latter was indeed not a real person. Although Reslaufer succeeded in his attack, he could feel that the inside of the armor was just a cavity. However, before "Wood" could rely on this advantage to counterattack, Reslaufer took a step forward to his side and pressed down with the giant sword. Even though it was an empty shell, Reslaufer could only knock it to the ground!

Chapter 225 Starting from a Farmer

"Like to imitate? Keep going!" The blood that he had been expecting turned into a false joy. One can imagine how angry Leslaufer was at this moment. He even gave up suppressing the construct creature whose empty shell was full of fraud and deception, and let it stand up again. It was knocked to the ground by the warrior again within two or three rounds.

The fluctuations of magic flickered violently and chaotically on the armor. This puppet without its own will could fight like a seasoned warrior, but this skill was worthless in front of Leslaufer, and its rigid and inflexible behavior would become its unavoidable weakness.

If this were a living creature, it would have been killed many times over.

However, even a construct could not resist the heavy hand of an enraged Doppler for long.

“Stop! Stop!” Wood’s voice, beginning to panic, came from beneath the armor. “You can’t treat it so roughly! I’ve spent so much energy and resources on this! Let’s talk—”

“Bang—crash!”

The Broken Halberd's ferocious gauntlets pressed the armor into the stone wall to one side. At this moment, the construct had finally reached the limit of its endurance. Reslaufer's resistance was instantly extinguished. The living armor that had been persistently trying to defeat him finally fell to the ground, becoming unusable dregs like its predecessors.

And Wood's voice came to an abrupt end.

"Cough! Cough cough! Hiccup—"

In a secret room quite far away from his old nest, a man with a pale face fell from a loose and soft chair, lying on the ground, making loud choking and vomiting sounds.

His creation was destroyed when it was most connected to him! By a fool with no magic power! And the armor he created had no chance to fight back. How could this be possible?

He was sure that he was one of the most powerful warriors in the lower city of Qingzun City!

"If you hadn't been content with your own little achievements, you wouldn't have ended up like this."

A voice suddenly rang out in Wood's heart. When he heard this voice, Wood was a little disdainful at first, but he quickly suppressed this blasphemy that should not have existed and buried his head deeply - even though his nose was only three centimeters away from his own vomit with a foul smell.

"...I paid the price for my complacency."

"This is just a lesson, Wood, not even close to the price." Wood couldn't tell what kind of emotion was contained in the voice, as always. Perhaps its owner had abandoned these things many years ago.

"But fortunately, it hasn't become a price to pay yet. You still have a chance to correct your mistakes. However, I guess you can't do it on your own? Perhaps you need a little help."

Wood knew what "little help" was. It took him away from the farmland and the outskirts of the city, allowing him to witness the vastness of the world and the mystery of magic. All of this was inseparable from the voice that appeared in his heart from time to time.

"What can I do for you?" This kind of help is not a free gift.

The voice chuckled. "That depends on how far you can go. Continue with your plan. So far and in the short term, it suits my taste very well—that dragon-blooded warlock suits my taste very well."

"If he wasn't already taken, I'd probably abandon you and choose him, huh?"

Wood was not angry about this. He knew that the "like-minded person" with whom he had only contacted a few times did have greater goals. But even though he was no longer the farmer with his back to the sky, he could only focus on the gains and losses of a city-state.

But the other party has already begun to stir up the entire Western Inassas.

"But there's one thing I don't understand," Wood said, finally deciding he was feeling better. He stood up, holding onto the armrests of his expensive chair and sat back down. "This is going to be a once-in-a-century chaos."

"Without chaos, there can be no new order. How do you think the Nine Hells were established?" The voice seemed to possess an inexplicable indifference towards the mundane world. "Continue your work. As one of the fulcrums of the Western Inassus monetary system, the importance of Qingzun City cannot be underestimated. If you can truly bring down that great wine glass from the sky as you wish, your achievements in my eyes will surpass that Dragon Finger."

"After all, you are 'my person', hehe."

A burning sensation rose from Wood's brain, then quickly dissipated. The former farmer knew that the existence that controlled everything about him had left.

"…It is a great pleasure, my Lord."

……

"and then?"

Daisy tossed a fist-sized, multicolored gemstone, the only loot they had found here. Perhaps it had once been used to remotely control the constructs, but now it was completely useless, just a large, multicolored gemstone.

And this tunnel hidden under the wooden house seems to have become the same as this gem: it looks big, but it is actually useless.

The fellow named Wood vanished after the better animated armor was shattered, and was never heard of again.

"That's all. That guy is a coward," Jinmian stomped the ground in frustration. Her blood was pounding, and it was a miracle she'd been able to contain herself until now. "It's obvious that the so-called leader of the Wheat Harvesting Society is just a hollow shell. The real him wouldn't even feel safe hiding in a tin can."

"What an insecure little fellow," Frostbone grinned mockingly. "But this isn't a good thing for us. He'll probably keep hiding in the shadows and wait for another chance to bite us."

"Then he'll probably have a mouth full of blood." Several members of the Spellscales seemed very optimistic about the situation. "When the outside world didn't know about his existence, we could have stopped his conspiracy, let alone now!"

"That's because his previous target wasn't us," Vondar reminded the Dragonborn, who seemed too young to him. "If he's changed his target, we should still be wary of these inanimate 'living creatures.'"

Those armors were actually nothing special, but when they thought of the magic carpet that would try to suffocate people if they stepped on it, and the weapons that could fly up and hit people, the Dragonborn had to secretly increase their vigilance - those seemingly weak enemies were sometimes the ones that deserved the most vigilance.

But at least here, there is nothing that can threaten them now.

"Let's go. What are you still doing here?" Reslaufer interrupted their conversation and headed for the exit, dragging his greatsword. "That bastard better not mess with me again..."

If they continue to use any constructs to deal with him, he will definitely expel this disgusting Grain-Gathering Society from the city even if he has to turn the entire Qingzun City upside down!

Chapter 226 Good at Learning

Dionysus wasn't known for maintaining order, and his priests were similarly inclined. When everyone finally decided to report the incident to the local church, the "drunkard priests" seemed completely absent-minded, providing them with only perfunctory rituals to allow them to walk on water.

The surface of Lake Rum was neither wide nor narrow, so even a quick run across it would take a while. Fortunately, even if one tried to slow down or stop as much as possible, it usually wouldn't take more than an hour. As for rescuing those whose spells had been ineffective due to excessive delays, that would be a hefty expense.

The priests of Dionysus do not like running around the lake rescuing people from drowning.