Chapter 681 A Storm Approaches, the Hidden Path

Bloodcast Keep, the upper level of the gatehouse.

Inside a simply furnished study.

Swint, the garrison captain who had once been the second-in-command of this border fortress and who had temporarily taken over after the castellan's disappearance, sat at a desk piled high with official documents and various letters, handling his duties.

Although he couldn't compare to Baron Blackcliff, who had been missing for quite some time, his abilities were actually quite good.

His years of experience as the garrison captain gave Swint considerable skill in handling military defense, logistical planning, and even diplomatic intelligence.

So much so that even though Baron Blackcliff had been missing for so long, the entirety of Bloodcast Keep continued to operate normally without any major issues.

However, with the kingdom's borders growing increasingly chaotic recently, various trivial matters had gradually become burdensome and difficult to manage.

Duties that he could have easily finished in a single morning now kept him so busy he couldn't even eat lunch. Occasionally, when he encountered a special incident that required coordinating with multiple departments, he would look up to find the horizon already dyed red by the setting sun.

Holding several scrolls of documents, an exhausted-looking adjutant squeezed through the door.

"Urgent report from the northern outpost," he reported. "Two frenzied adult owlbears attacked our soldiers stationed there. They need backup from Bloodcast Keep."

Setting down his quill, Swint rubbed his aching temples and leaned back against the soft, blanket-draped chair.

"Owlbears? What are our casualties?" he asked without looking back.

"Three soldiers died on the spot, and five are severely wounded. The remaining men have retreated to the temporary stronghold on the edge of the Rime Forest."

"Can the garrison spare any men? About three squads should do."

The adjutant looked troubled and shook his head.

"I'm afraid that will be difficult," he said. "The number of outsiders in the keep has been increasing lately. In the Outer Camp alone, there have been over a dozen violent incidents just this week. We need a considerable number of guards just to maintain basic order."

"Furthermore, the recently discovered Gnoll tribe to the west, along with that chimera deep in the eastern hills, have also drawn away a significant portion of our forces. If we—"

Swint sighed and waved a hand, cutting off the adjutant's explanation of their troop deployments.

"Send it to the Military Merit Office," Swint said. "Assign it to the adventurers. Have them kill those two owlbears and bring my soldiers back safely."

"This is already the fourth time a watchtower has been attacked this month, Lord Swint. Should we perhaps shrink our monitoring perimeter?" the adjutant suggested.

However, instead of the affirmative answer he expected, he received a fierce glare from the acting castellan.

"And then what? Have a repeat of the Molten-Spine Dragon Lizard incident, where monsters practically reached the keep without us noticing a thing?"

His suggestion sternly rejected, the adjutant lowered his head and fell silent.

Swint rose from his seat and slowly walked over to the side of the room, standing before the wall where a map of the kingdom's eastern border hung.

With a deep frown, his eyes swept over the dense annotations on the map, analyzing Bloodcast Keep's current situation.

It could only be described as far from optimistic.

Their manpower was already limited, and the increasingly frequent appearances of frenzied monsters had tied down far too much of Bloodcast Keep's military strength. Even maintaining order within the fortress area had become somewhat of a struggle.

It was only because Bloodcast Keep had built up substantial reserves over the years, and had practically copied the points exchange system used by the Adventurers' Association, that they had managed to hold out until now with the help of those dangerous, chaotic adventurers.

However—

Standing with his back to the light, Swint's heart was shrouded in shadow, much like his face.

As the current de facto ruler of Bloodcast Keep, he reviewed all matters, big and small, inside and outside the castle.

It was precisely because of this that he could tangibly and clearly feel the soaring frequency of these frenzied monsters appearing recently.

And like some sort of chain reaction, even the sightings of those green-skinned goblins had suddenly spiked.

It gave off an inexplicable sense of crisis, as if a storm was approaching.

Even though the Inner Keep had made considerable preparations and a large number of newly recruited soldiers had already begun their training, he still felt a lack of confidence in his heart.

Suddenly, as if remembering something, Swint shifted his gaze to the southwest side of Bloodcast Keep on the map. There, an inconspicuous valley was marked, with a few brief words noted beside it—"Suspected Underdark exit."

Pointing at the spot, he asked the adjutant beside him, "What's the situation here? Have we sent anyone to confirm it?"

The adjutant took two steps closer, peered carefully at the map, and replied.

"The mission was already issued by the Military Merit Office earlier," the adjutant replied. "The adventurer assigned to it is Xia Nan."

At first, Swint didn't react, wondering why the other party would inexplicably mention this name. He froze for a few seconds before suddenly realizing that the "Xia Nan" his adjutant spoke of was the very same person he had met in the Inner Keep.

Swint nodded.

However, his attention had already drifted away from the map to elsewhere.

Shifting his feet, the garrison captain turned around and looked out the window.

Slightly higher up on the side, an open-air courtyard could faintly be seen.

Even though his line of sight was completely blocked by the outer walls, Swint felt as if he could see through the dark red brickwork unique to Bloodcast Keep, catching sight of that burly figure wreathed in chilling winds within the courtyard.

"Uncle Ake, how are you? What exactly happened!?"

Zanfrey, the young noble from the family that wielded the Shield of the Silver Lake, looked with a complicated expression at Ake's right leg, which had been severed from the ankle down. The concern in his eyes was completely genuine.

One side had shattered his own foot without a second thought to break free from his restraints, all for the safety of his young master; the other had willingly given up the chance to leave the Underdark just to search for his guard's whereabouts.

Perhaps on the surface, the two were merely the most common pairing in a noble household—a "guard" and a "young master."

But in reality, after spending so many years together, Ake and Zanfrey had long since become family.

In fact, although he had never dared to mention it to outsiders, in Zanfrey's eyes, compared to his strict, unsmiling father whose gaze held only disappointment and indifference, it was Uncle Ake—who had accompanied him as he grew up—who better fit the image of a "father" in his heart.

"It's nothing. It won't affect me," Ake said.

"It's just a flesh wound."

Never having expected to run into Zanfrey like this, the relief and joy on Ake's face were fully apparent. Even though his relaxed state made the agonizing pain flaring from the stump of his right foot all the sharper, he forced his expression to remain stoic, comforting Zanfrey as if nothing were wrong.

Right now, thanks to the hidden path the gnome Rogue Ronda had discovered amid the ruins, the group of seven people and one wolf had successfully escaped the pincer attack of the dire corbies and goblins.

Moreover, based on the faint sounds echoing from behind them, the goblins—who were corrupted and disrupted by the fungal threads—seemed to have engaged in a fierce battle with the dire corbies.

Given the intelligence of these monsters, regardless of who won or lost, they would likely forget all about the adventurers they had been chasing once the battle was over.

It was safe to say that Xia Nan and the others were temporarily out of danger.

"Yexi? Benny? You guys are still alive!?"

The gnome Rogue looked at his two missing teammates ahead with a face full of pleasant surprise. He controlled his facial muscles exceptionally well, revealing not the slightest trace of acting.

"I actually went looking for you two earlier, but I only found the ground littered with dire corby corpses. I didn't expect—"

Having worked together for so many years, Yexi knew this gnome's personality very well.

She figured he might have indeed looked for them, but she doubted it was out of any desire to bring them along to safety.

Looking him up and down a few times, Yexi asked with a face full of suspicion, "Why are you here? The exit to the Underdark isn't in this direction, is it?"

Seeing that his deliberately omitted explanation had been seen through, Ronda looked a bit embarrassed. However, since Xia Nan and the others were also present, he decided against telling any more lies. He just gave a stiff grin and said, "Both entrances have been completely blocked by falling rocks. We can't get out."

"I figured I'd come to this serpentfolk tribe to try my luck," he added.

Hearing this, the Half-Drow instantly shot him an "I knew it" look.

She didn't reprimand him much, merely rolling her eyes at him in exasperation.

Meanwhile, the human Warrior beside her, Benny, suddenly spoke up.

"Ronda, where's the captain? Isn't he with you?" he asked.

The gnome Rogue simply shook his head.

"I don't know," Ronda replied. "He and I were clearing out those goblins at the time. Everything was fine one second, but in the blink of an eye, the captain just vanished."

"Vanished? How is that possible!?" Yexi's crystal-clear eyes, refracting the ambient light in the dim environment, instantly widened.

"That's the truth of it," Ronda said, appearing entirely sincere, his tone dead serious. "I searched the vicinity afterward, but I didn't find even a single trace."

Knowing that while the gnome might be selfish, he wouldn't be vague or lie about something like this, the Half-Drow's mood—which had briefly lifted upon reuniting with her teammates—instantly plummeted once again at the news of their "Shadow Crow" squad captain's disappearance.

"What about you two? How did you end up in this state? What exactly happened?"

Finally able to catch their breath, both sides quickly exchanged accounts of their respective ordeals.

"So you're saying this serpentfolk settlement is just like the goblins and hook horrors you encountered earlier? It's been completely corrupted and devoured by those bizarre fungal threads?" Yexi asked to confirm.

"That's what I thought, but thinking about it carefully, it's still a bit strange," Ronda said, a confused look on his face.

First of all, they could confirm that the fungal threads devouring the serpentfolk tribe were the exact same type as the fungal colonies on the infected goblins.

The difference, however, was that while the latter clearly suffered from severe mental and psychological issues after infection, they were at least still alive. Their physical bodies had even been enhanced, possessing vitality far beyond the norm.

Yet in this devoured serpentfolk settlement, they hadn't found even a single survivor.

Even the corpses scattered through the ruins seemed too few, looking nothing like what a normal serpentfolk gathering place should.

"Is it possible that these serpentfolk sensed the danger of the fungal threads in advance, so they fled with the majority of their tribe?" Zanfrey guessed from the side.

"Unlikely," Yexi said, shaking her head. "Among the corpses we encountered on our way here, it wasn't just the lowest-level pureblood serpentfolk. We also saw 'Malison' and 'Abomination' tier ones."

"Given the serpentfolk's social hierarchy, it's impossible that they would leave these high-ranking members behind if their main force evacuated in the face of danger."

Moreover, contrary to Ronda's speculation about whether there were any living serpentfolk, Yexi and Benny had actually seen one. That was precisely why they were currently here in such a severely wounded state.

However, it was obvious that after briefly touching upon what they had gone through, both Yexi and Benny seemed to have suffered some sort of psychological shock and didn't want to discuss it any further.

Yexi turned to look at Ronda instead.

"Do you have any spare Healing Potions on you?" she asked.

Trapped in the perilous Underdark, the three who had arduously escaped from their prison were in terrible physical condition. They couldn't exert even a tenth of their usual combat strength, and they urgently needed healing items.

Although he was a selfish person, he wasn't stingy enough to hold back in a situation like this. Hearing the Half-Drow's request, the gnome Rogue pulled out the small Healing Potion he had stored in his belt pouch and handed it over to his teammates.

They each drank half the bottle. As their superficial wounds rapidly healed, their overtaxed stamina was consequently replenished.

Similarly, Ake also received a restorative healing potion from Zanfrey.

However, since it was only of standard quality bought from a shop, it was completely incapable of regenerating severed limbs.

After Ake downed the potion, his somewhat pale face immediately regained its color. Yet, his right foot, immobilized by twisted iron plates, remained just as severed as before.

Regardless of what might be done later, for now, at least, this loyal guard from the Shield of the Silver Lake family had no choice but to press on in his current physical state.

There was nothing Xia Nan could do about it, either.

Even one of his strongest healing trump cards—the special effect from Tears of Spring Breath, a Fourth Circle Spell called Spring Pulse Cleansing Heal that could only be cast once a week—could only restore a massive amount of vitality. It did not have the power to regenerate severed limbs.

"Mr. Xia Nan, thank you for your help."

"If not for you, the young master would probably be—"

Having heard Zanfrey recount what he and Winsor had endured since arriving in the Underdark, and learning that Xia Nan had not only rescued them from dangerous monsters but was even willing to drag these two burdens along to find an exit, Ake's words of gratitude were deeply sincere.

From Xia Nan's perspective, he had already heard similar words of gratitude countless times before.

It didn't matter much to him. After all, he had received tangible returns from them—finding key inspiration for his combat techniques—so bringing the two along wasn't any real loss.

Of course, if they wanted to offer him any further compensation, he wouldn't refuse it either.

Compared to all that, what Xia Nan cared about most right now was their current location—this hidden path leading deep into the ruins.