Global Beast Mastery: Only I Can See the Hints - Chapter 687: The Spreading Rumors Within the Fortress

Chapter 687: Chapter 687: The Spreading Rumors Within the Fortress

Under the cover of night, a heavily injured Stellar Empire officer was struggling to crawl forward across the desert. A blade of wind cut through the air, and just like the soldiers around him who had already fallen motionless, the officer closed his eyes.

“This is the ninth operation team composed of mid-level officers sent out by Gold Fortress in the past three days. So many people have already died, yet why haven’t any experts come out yet?”

Charles glanced at the bodies surrounding him before turning his gaze toward the direction of Gold Fortress, muttering to himself.

The winged Savage Gold-Eater Beast beside him stared at its master with clear, focused eyes, tilting its head slightly as if pondering the answer to the question.

Charles looked at the beast and smiled.

“I can’t figure out the answer, do you think you can?”

With that, the brooding mood from the past few days lifted from Charles’ face, and a smile finally appeared.

The winged Savage Gold-Eater Beast was visibly happy to see its master smile.

“We can’t continue with the original plan,” Charles’ expression quickly shifted back to seriousness, and he once again turned his gaze toward Gold Fortress. “The Ancient Academy and the Stellar Empire must be scheming something! They don’t even care about the security outside of Gold Fortress. This is highly unusual. We might have to take the risk and sneak inside the fortress to investigate.”

Under the cover of night, Charles made up his mind.

Although entering Gold Fortress would be highly dangerous, the current situation was already grim.

Over the past three days, he had killed many mid-level officers from the Stellar Empire. Given the scale of the damage he had caused to their forces, and the fact that the crown prince remained unaffected in Gold Fortress, it was clear to Charles that the prince was plotting something.

Having made his decision, Charles quickly signaled for the winged Savage Gold-Eater Beast to hide.

He decided to venture into Gold Fortress alone.

Half an hour later, Charles arrived at the outskirts of Gold Fortress.

From here, he could clearly see the fortress walls and the Stellar Empire soldiers patrolling the area outside.

The number of patrolling soldiers had increased significantly compared to before.

“Looks like you’re definitely scheming, not just sitting idly by.”

He muttered to himself, then quickly scanned the surroundings.

After confirming he hadn’t been spotted, Charles slipped into the shadows.

Even without being in his Dark Demigod state, Mousie could still summon shadows, and Charles used the shadow Mousie summoned to quickly move toward the wall of Gold Fortress.

Upon reaching the base of the wall, he seized an opportunity when the patrolling soldiers above were momentarily distracted and scaled the wall.

The top of the wall was brightly lit.

Without hesitation, Charles dropped down on the other side of the wall.

As soon as he landed, he quickly scanned his surroundings.

“Maybe the truce I made with Harbor is actually really disadvantageous for me. The defense of Gold Fortress is so lax; if it weren’t for the truce, I could have wiped everyone inside the fortress out by now.”

Charles couldn’t help but mutter to himself.

Though he regretted it a bit now, what had happened before couldn’t be changed.

The truce was bound by a very strong contractual constraint.

So, like he had planned, he could only gather intelligence inside the fortress instead of launching an attack.

There were fewer patrolling soldiers inside the fortress now.

This allowed Charles to use the cover of shadows to move back and forth between the civilian areas and less important military barracks.

It didn’t take long for him to gather some important intel.

Many of the people inside the fortress were discussing the terrifying events that had occurred in the surrounding desert over the past three days.

In their conversations, they attributed the deaths of the patrols to monster attacks from the desert.

“The Stellar Empire crown prince is really shameless to try and deceive his subordinates with such a clumsy lie. What’s worse is that his men actually bought into it. Are they all idiots?”

Charles thought to himself.

While monster attacks in the desert could indeed cause serious consequences, these creatures usually attacked humans and Serpents just to hunt.

Once they were full, they would leave the area around the human and Serpent fortresses.

After all, the area around the fortresses wasn’t really suitable for these creatures to live in.

After wandering through the civilian area for a while, Charles turned his gaze to the tall spire at the center of the fortress.

That was the heart of the entire fortress and the residence of the Stellar Empire crown prince.

“Should I go explore the spire at the center of the fortress?”

Charles found it hard to make a decision right away.

The risk was just too high.

As he pondered, he once again glanced around the area.

The people around him still hadn’t noticed his presence.

They were still chatting, and, of course, the conversation was still about the desert monsters.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained! If things get too dangerous, I’ll just run!”

Charles gritted his teeth and made up his mind.

Once again, he slipped into the shadows, moving at full speed toward the towering spire.

At the same time, inside the towering spire, the Stellar Empire crown prince was angrily yelling at his subordinates.

“Your men are a bunch of useless fools, and so are you!”

The generals in front of the crown prince kept their heads down, saying nothing.

“Why aren’t any of you speaking? Does no one plan on defending themselves? If you have nothing to say, don’t blame me for punishing you severely!”

When none of the generals responded, the crown prince’s anger grew even more intense.

He decided to threaten them directly.

The atmosphere in the room became thick with tension.

The crown prince waited for a moment, but still, no general spoke up.

He sneered, “In that case, all of you can go into the Furnace. You’re useless to me, but at least you can serve as fuel for the Furnace.”

At his words, the expressions on the generals’ faces turned grim.

The Furnace was a powerful weapon that had been shipped over from the Stellar Empire homeland four days ago.

It was meant for the final battle, but before it could be activated to unleash its full power, it required a sufficient amount of fuel.

The best fuel would naturally be a Beast Master with some real strength.

But Beast Masters were too valuable, so even the crown prince didn’t dare use them as fuel for the Furnace.

The next best option, of course, was the generals.

Some generals, unable to handle the pressure, dropped to their knees and begged for mercy.

The crown prince continued to look coldly at the generals.

At that moment, Harbor’s voice suddenly echoed through the room.

“What good is it to torment them? You should know very well that the one causing trouble outside the fortress is Charles.”

Upon hearing Harbor’s voice, the crown prince shot him a cold glance.

“Yes! I know full well!” the crown prince replied disdainfully. “Who was it that promised me they could defeat Charles?”

Harbor’s tone remained completely unfazed.

He replied calmly, “The truce agreement is still in effect, so I can’t take action against Charles.”

The crown prince was clearly dissatisfied with Harbor’s response. He stood up and pressed, “You can’t even interfere with Charles’ actions? You’re just shirking responsibility.”

The crown prince already had many frustrations with Harbor, and Harbor’s presence here only stoked his anger further.

Harbor didn’t argue with the crown prince’s accusations. He simply said, “I didn’t come here to argue with you. I came to discuss something important.”

“Fine! What could be more important than eliminating Charles right now? I’d like to hear what more important matters you have to talk about!” the crown prince sneered.

Harbor didn’t speak immediately. Instead, he looked at the panicked generals around him.

The crown prince coldly waved his hand. “What are you still doing here? Do you want me to throw all of you into the Furnace? Get out of here, now!”

The generals, relieved, scrambled out of the room.

The last one slammed the door shut behind him.

“Now, can we talk?” The crown prince’s tone was still mocking, as if Harbor was playing games.

Harbor walked up to the crown prince and handed him a map.

The crown prince took the map, furrowing his brow as he studied it.

As he looked over the map, the expression on his face quickly shifted.

What started as annoyance and disdain gradually turned into curiosity and intrigue.

After scanning the map, the crown prince looked up at Harbor with interest and asked, “How did you get this map? Did you go deep into the Serpent’s Eye Lake Oasis underground? Or do you have a high-ranking spy inside the Serpent Empire?”

The map was a complete layout of the underground area beneath Serpent’s Eye Lake Oasis.

It even marked areas where Sandworms gathered.

Such a complete map was absolutely top-secret. The Stellar Empire crown prince had put in a lot of effort before, even failing to get a vague, rough map.

And now, this top-secret, complete map was right in front of him.

Harbor smiled faintly. “It’s a secret.”