Chapter 621
, 620 is nearing completion.
Chapter 621, Section 620: Nearing Completion
As Lin Jun was dealing with the lizardman prisoners, the Earl's soldiers who had arrived suddenly became agitated. Some shook their heads violently, as if trying to dispel the fog in their minds; others' eyes briefly regained clarity, revealing a momentary confusion and fear.
This made Lin Jun immediately realize that something had happened on the Yellow Book side, so she rushed back quickly.
In retrospect, the confusion that arose was likely intentional on the part of the Yellow Book.
After all, its mental field is not as convenient as a fungal network, which can directly transmit information.
If they wanted to notify the knight Puji in the distance, they could only create some chaos.
Fortunately, the Yellow Book was indeed adept at manipulating people's minds, and the chaos was well contained to a certain extent, with only the loss of a few insignificant personnel.
To be honest, apart from the moment when the yellow book subtly manipulated the Demon King's emotions to create an opportunity for Puji to launch a sneak attack, Lin Jun had no idea what had happened before.
Whether it was because its life was still in its own hands, or because it assessed that it was more likely to fulfill its desires regarding the soul, in any case, this cunning, broken book had just chosen to stand by its side, at least for the time being…
The tentacles plopped up the yellow book that seemed to be trembling slightly. The movements were not gentle; they rubbed it a few times haphazardly and then casually stuffed it back into the arms of Count Bona, who was slumped on the ground and had not yet woken up.
The Demon King has awakened and begun to move, which is undoubtedly bad news, but Lin Jun doesn't seem to need to worry about it for the time being.
Judging from the Demon King's attitude just now, he clearly did not intend to kill the Yellow Book who had joined the Mushroom Garden, nor did he intend to interfere with his arrangements at the Giant Bone Field.
Therefore, the impact of the Demon King can be put aside for now.
Of course, no precautions can be omitted. The most elite guards must be immediately deployed to the area beneath the Tide Sanctuary, and more powerful traps must be added!
Next time we play on home turf, we will never let that guy put on that arrogant look of being so at ease, as if he had everything under control!
Lin Jun hates it when people pretend to be experts in front of her.
What puzzled Lin Jun was why the Demon King chose to let the Yellow Book go.
If it were just a piece of waste paper with only verbal capabilities, that would be fine.
However, the Yellow Book possesses many functions, such as constructing a spiritual field, guiding emotions, perceiving emotions, storing knowledge, absorbing the soul, and adding basic attributes... Even in Lin Jun's view, it can be considered practical.
If it were Lin Jun herself, faced with a tool that was about to fall into enemy hands and was indeed useful, her first choice would definitely be to destroy it without hesitation and never give it to the enemy.
It can't be that the Demon King is benevolent, reminiscing about the happy times from three hundred years ago and unable to bring himself to do it.
Having ruled out this almost fantastical conjecture, there aren't many possibilities left.
The Yellow Book must have some irreplaceable use for the Demon King.
Unfortunately, even if you ask the Yellow Book itself directly, it can only list a bunch of possibilities and cannot give a definite answer.
Lin Jun could only keep this question to herself for the time being, and explore it again when she had the chance.
However, in either case, using the Yellow Book to blackmail the Demon King might be useful if necessary.
Hmm... I'll write this down as a backup plan.
Another thing is "Ah Huang" and such.
The name sounds like something a farmer in a border village would call his guard dog.
That slime demon king, despite wearing a pretentious suit and striking an ancient and mysterious pose, has such... pathetic taste inside.
That intimidating aura was completely wasted, and even he, the hero destined to defeat it, felt his prestige had been inexplicably lowered.
……
Leaving aside the Demon King's matter, the transfer magic array at the Giant Beast Bone Field went quite smoothly. The blame for the entire Imperial search team's deaths was firmly pinned on the clumsy hands of the "Crossing the Dead."
Although the officer's direct superior, the Marquis of Ravenclaw, seemed to have some doubts and raised some questions even before his injuries had healed, with the pursuit of the cult as the top priority, there was clearly no time for him to play any detective games.
The empire immediately pursued the remnants of the cult.
However, the remaining power of the Hand of the Dead was more cunning and evil than anticipated.
They decisively sacrificed some of their followers as bait, causing them to deliberately leave obvious traces, thus leading the main force of the pursuers to the rugged and difficult southeastern mountainous region.
When the imperial officers hunted down and annihilated the cult, they realized they had been misled and hastily adjusted their deployment. Meanwhile, the most crucial high priests and core followers had already taken advantage of this precious gap to escape the encirclement.
Based on scattered and vague intelligence, they eventually disappeared in the West.
After this battle, the Hand of the Dead was severely weakened, suffering heavy losses in resources and personnel accumulated over many years.
That wasn't the end of it; the empire then launched a severe internal investigation.
Nobles, merchants, and even gangs that had previously had ambiguous relationships with the Hand of the Dead were investigated and purged to varying degrees.
Of course, Lin Jun had no idea how many of these were genuine arrests of cult collaborators, or how many were simply the emperor taking the opportunity to eliminate thorns in his side and further solidify his power within the empire.
In any case, the territories of each duke were affected to varying degrees. Feixi was relatively better off, as they managed to raise the grade of the delicacies they offered as tribute. The emperor only arrested a few people with conclusive evidence.
In any case, the empire was in a state of panic for a time. Even without solid evidence, no one dared to get involved with anything that might be associated with cults at this juncture.
It's unlikely that the Hand of Salvation will simply disappear, but unless the Empire experiences another major upheaval, there's little chance it will have to recover and launch another major offensive.
As for whether they will turn their attention beyond the empire's borders?
Lin Jun, however, was not going to be polite...
……
As time passed and the transfer ceremony was about to be completed, an unexpected yet not entirely surprising figure reappeared in the giant beast bone field.
Marquis de Ravenclaw.
It's clear that while the work of hunting down the cult has come to an end, they want to get back to harping on the matter of the entire search team being wiped out.
"Lord Holy Scripture, this is troublesome!"
"The captain of that search party is a close confidant of the Marquis Ravenclaw, and the Marquis clearly has no intention of letting this go."
"The excavation site can be investigated without fear. Even if they don't find evidence that we targeted the search team, there's still..."
There was also a transfer ceremony.
As mentioned before, a mage skilled in magic circles would easily discover upon actual observation that the ritual differs from what is publicly advertised.
However, the Yellow Book is clearly unperturbed.
[It would have been a bit troublesome if he had arrived any earlier.]
As for now...
[Bona, you can easily stall him for a day, can't you?]
"It should be fine, but what if...?"
[play hard]
"I...I understand!"
(End of this chapter)