Chapter 2 When Hao Ren Set Out

When Hao Ren set out from Bai City with a silent, strange "follower" to search for the husky spirit's whereabouts, in the southern part of the kingdom, an unusually solemn and oppressive atmosphere was enveloping High Monk Kalaos.

He stood with the head wolf on the towering city walls of Black Crow Fortress, his face clouded.

He had been like this ever since his last visit to the dungeon to see the smoke-dust monster that had inexplicably fallen into a weakened state.

Lily had never seen her dog-headed strategist (speaking of which, wasn't it a bit inappropriate to call a high monk that?) looking so serious, even tense. Even when he led a large group of air crash survivors onto the demonic beast's hot air balloon, and then fell into the Black Forest with a group of demonic beasts, this taciturn uncle had never had such an expression. Judging by his current expression, it was as if the sky was about to fall.

Or rather, it already had.

"What's wrong?" Lily asked curiously, "Was what that smoked meat said yesterday very scary?"

"It's the Nightmare of… never mind, smoked meat is fine too," Kalaos gave up correcting the head wolf's stubborn views. He sighed, "What it said is a secret that only high-ranking clergy and a very few scholars know. To hear this secret from the mouth of a monster… is chilling."

"What secret?" Lily twitched her ears, "Is that Locke Marton about to crawl out? Or is the Warden turning against us?"

These terrifying words were said so casually by the head wolf that even Kalaos's heart couldn't help but jump, but fortunately, he had been in contact with the head wolf for more than a day or two. The high monk was still very adaptable. He took a few deep breaths and quietly looked at the head wolf for a while.

After a long time, he decided to tell the other party some things in a limited way—first, the head wolf was just an "ignorant girl" who had come out of the wilderness, and there was no need to be too reserved about some secrets in front of her; second, the head wolf possessed an incomparably powerful light of order, which made him couldn't help but think of legends such as the Child of Divine Favor. Such a natural darling of order was qualified to hear certain things; finally… anyway, the head wolf had already heard part of it from that Nightmare Shadow, so there was no harm in saying a little more at this time.

"The world knows that the ancient evil giant Locke Marton is dead, and the chaos remaining in the world today is just its echo, but in fact… what remains of it is more than just an echo," the high monk said, his face turning green. "Deep in the Karnos Sea, there is a forgotten abyss. Locke Marton's evil thoughts wander in that abyss, and the ancient Warden guards the entrance to the abyss day and night, preventing the evil giant's spirit from returning to the real world and reorganizing its physical body. Head wolf, that's all I can tell you. Anything more detailed… involves the Holy Domain's highest secrets."

Lily gave an "oh" sound, seemingly not caring much.

"Head wolf?" The high monk looked at Lily curiously, "Don't you… don't you feel this is a terrifying thing? If what that monster said is true, then the trouble in our world will be…"

"It's okay, it's okay," Lily waved her hands, "You know, I feel like I'm about to find the landlord! The landlord is super powerful. He can easily blow up that Locke Marton and his ancestors eight times over—so as long as we can find the landlord, the problem will be solved~~"

The high monk stared blankly at the happy-looking head wolf, feeling that this person probably didn't understand what he was saying at all.

He sighed weakly, feeling that explaining such a complex problem to this head wolf was like being an idiot.

He thought of the "monster" in the dungeon again.

It was shocking that a chaotic monster, which should have been disorderly and evil, would take the initiative to communicate with people and clearly and logically tell such secrets. Kalaos immediately asked the monster what its origin was, but the monster never spoke again, as if it was extremely afraid of mentioning its real name and origin.

All of this gave rise to many guesses in his mind, and none of them were good.

"Uncle, what are you thinking about?" Lily looked curiously at the silent high monk, "Are you hungry?"

"I'm thinking about whether to return to the Holy Domain immediately or continue our mission," Kalaos told the truth. He rarely concealed anything from the head wolf now. "What the monster said makes me very concerned. A disaster that could overturn the world is probably about to happen in the Holy Domain. However, our mission is equally important… This mission is also closely related to the survival of the Holy Domain, and the survival of the Holy Domain is the survival of the world."

"By the way, you haven't said what your mission is," Lily stared straight at Kalaos, "We've been adventuring together for so long, and you've only said that you're some kind of investigation team, which is really unkind. Don't try to fool me with those empty words, okay? I'm not stupid!"

Kalaos opened his mouth, and finally seemed to make up his mind. He nodded slightly.

"We came to Ansu continent nominally to investigate the chaotic changes on this continent and to explain the reasons for the Holy Domain's withdrawal to the Kingdom of Taros, but in fact, we are here to borrow the southern border of Ansu and go to the Barren Wilderness to find 'a ray of light.'"

"A ray of light?" Lily blinked, "Why do you religious people always talk so mysteriously? How can anyone understand you when you talk like that?"

"This is difficult to explain," Kalaos smiled nonchalantly, "Because His Holiness the Pope gave us this mission. We don't know what the true form of that ray of light is, only that its approximate location is in the center of the Barren Wilderness, where there should be a temple called 'Kasuan'. Secular countries should rarely have heard of this temple's name, but it was once one of the most important strongholds set up by the Holy Domain on Ansu continent a long time ago. Our investigation team's destination is there."

Lily gave a long "oh" sound, revealing a thoughtful expression.

At this moment, she saw out of the corner of her eye that the owner of Black Crow Fortress, Duke Ulysses, was walking up the city wall and heading straight towards them.

"Yo, General!" Lily waved to Ulysses, "Taking a walk?"

Duke Ulysses's footsteps obviously faltered, but in the end, he still came to Lily calmly and said casually, "Is the head wolf observing the movements in the forest?"

"I'm catching the wind," Lily said very honestly, "and chatting with Kalaos."

"Oh, cough cough… Catching the wind is good, catching the wind can make people clear-headed," Ulysses, as an old nobleman, was not yet used to talking to such straightforward creatures as the head wolf, so he was often choked by her. So he simply gave up the idea of exchanging pleasantries. "Head wolf, I've come to you because there are some things."

"Oh, tell me."

"My soldiers have recently observed that your army is entering the Black Forest in batches. They have been felling trees there in large numbers, and a large number of sub-races are clearing open spaces and setting up camps on both the east and west sides of the Great Barren… I shouldn't be asking about your legion's movements, but I'm curious, what are they doing?"

Lily replied casually, "Of course they're building a city."

Ulysses was immediately stunned: "Building… building a city?"

"That's right," Lily shook her tail smugly (but the tail was covered by a wolfskin cloak, so it couldn't be seen from the outside), "If we're going to live here for a long time, how can we do without building a city?"

Ulysses felt that he had a bellyful of words that he couldn't say. He had never seen such a thing in his life—a mighty group of demonic beasts suddenly ran to the border of an orderly country to build a city, and the straight-line distance to Black Crow Fortress was almost face-to-face!

As the general of Black Crow Fortress, his first reaction was that this was inappropriate, but he soon realized that he did not have sufficient reason to stop this—

The southern border of Taros ended at Black Crow Fortress. Although before the chaos came, there were Taros strongholds and even villages in the Great Barren outside the fortress, but that was more to provide early warning of the chaos invasion. After the war began, the large area south of Black Crow Fortress had actually been openly abandoned by the kingdom.

That was a no-man's land, and anyone could claim it as their own—as long as they could survive the chaotic tide.

Therefore, even if the demonic beasts built a city there, even if they intended to stick the city wall directly on the face of Black Crow Fortress, they had not encroached on an inch of the kingdom's land. Morally, they had this freedom.

From another perspective, it was now the time of the Chaos War, and the Great Barren was the front line of the war between chaos and order. The Taros people had already tried their best to defend this line of defense, and of course they had no extra strength to recover lost land outside. In this case, the sub-races were actually helping the Taros people to strengthen their defenses and expand the territory of the order forces by building cities in the Barren. Although he was unwilling to admit it, Ulysses also knew that the current Black Crow Fortress was actually able to stand here entirely relying on the protection of the beast tide.

And if the sub-races could establish a powerful enough country in the south of the Great Barren (although it was still too early to think about this), then the southern border of the Kingdom of Taros might even become a peaceful place from then on—it would no longer be connected to chaos.

Of course, the premise was that there should be no war between those demonic beasts and Taros.

Thinking about it again and again, Duke Ulysses finally discovered that, at least from the current stage, the sub-races building cities in the Great Barren was not a bad thing. And with the current war situation, he had no time to consider things that were too far away.

He realized that what he cared about was actually only the fact that "demonic beasts can actually build cities"…

A good group of demonic beasts, recognized as barbaric creatures, how could they build a city just like that…

What is this head wolf thinking?