“Is something wrong?”
As Xia De continued forward, enveloped by the cold mist on the lake, he suddenly asked in his mind.
“Yes, the previous two times, they had already thrown you a rope.”
At this moment, Xia De could already see the vague outlines of Lake Heart Island in the mist, but the Witches had not thrown him the rope to pull him onto the Island. The Red Butterfly swarm, which had dyed the white mist red, continued forward, and Xia De did not even see the light of the camp bonfire:
“Did I come to the Island from the wrong direction this time?”
But the Father of Infinite Trees always made him appear in the same spot every time, and this time should be no exception.
The Butterflies transformed back into Xia De on the Lake. Before the twinkling red glows disappeared, Xia De squinted at the edge of the Island not far away. He could vaguely see the scenery at the edge of Lake Heart Island, the extinguished bonfire, and the camp enclosed by a simple fence, along with tents and living supplies.
When he finally broke through the mist on the Lake and landed on the Island, Xia De finally confirmed that there were no Witches in the camp; they were all gone.
The camp did not look like it had been abandoned for a long time. It had not completely merged with the scenery of Lake Heart Island, and there were quite obvious traces of human life. When Xia De reached his hand into the charcoal of the bonfire, his stiff, frozen hand could even feel warmth. However, this bonfire itself was not a normal flame, so it was impossible to determine when Violet His Majesty and her party left based on the temperature.
“Six maids, the Witch Emperor, and a prospective graduate of Success Higher Medical College, none of them are here?”
This Island was not entirely safe. The first time Xia De came, he and eight Witches encountered a large creature that fell from the sky. The second time, he heard that the Witches had encountered rapidly growing plants. Therefore, Xia De was not particularly surprised to find them absent now; he only hoped that these ladies were all safe and sound.
He warmed himself for a while using the residual heat of the bonfire, then searched the camp, trying to find if the Witches had left any clues before leaving. Just as Xia De expected, Violet His Majesty had indeed anticipated his possible return at any time, so she left him a note, pressed down by a gold brick inside the tent.
As for why Violet His Majesty had a gold brick in her luggage when she traveled, that was beyond Xia De’s comprehension.
“Try not to leave the camp. We will return.”
It did not specify what danger they encountered, nor did it state where they went. Xia De had seen their handwriting in the Witch’s papers, so he could confirm that this was indeed written by Violet His Majesty. The letters were very scrawled, and the party of eight must have left in a hurry.
Combined with the fact that they did not take too many living supplies when checking outside, it seemed that their evacuation from the camp was a very sudden accident.
“But I don’t have time to wait; half an hour will be over in a blink of an eye.”
Xia De put away the note, bent down, exited the tent, and then looked out at the misty Island. Last time he came, there were some hard thorny bushes on the Island, but this time nothing seemed to have changed, at least nothing around the camp.
“Let’s go find them.”
Pondering in his mind, he drew the Moonlight Greatsword from the air with his right hand, its holy silver blade glowing with a hazy luster in the mist. After another glance at the deserted camp, Xia De leaped over the simple fence.
“Be careful!”
As he landed, he plunged his sword into the ground beneath his feet:
“Heaton Seal!”
A dazzling golden spherical shield bloomed in the mist. A silent, invisible attack touched the shield, creating a ripple on it.
“Silver Moon!”
The moment the shield disappeared, a silver blade of light slashed forward to the left. The Silver Moon Slash clearly hit something in the air, and then “she” prompted Xia De that the enemy had disappeared. All along, Xia De had not been able to see what exactly attacked him.
“An invisible enemy?”
He passed through the thin mist, quickly walking to where the “Silver Moon Slash” had hit the enemy just now. He kicked the ground a few times but touched nothing, then bent down again to try and touch it with his hand, but still felt nothing.
“How strange. Is the enemy a monster that cannot be seen or heard, leaves no trace when attacking, and leaves no corpse after death? So, am I really not fighting an illusion?”
Xia De thought silently in his heart, but “her” perception would not be wrong. The enemy indeed had a physical form, but it could not be perceived by any means other than the sixth sense. Although this characteristic would make combat very troublesome, the attack power and defense of this monster were not strong. As long as the opponent’s position was determined, it could basically be killed in one blow.
“The Lost Lake area suppresses perception. I just came here from a normal environment, so this suppression has little effect on me, but Violet His Majesty and her party have been living here for quite some time.”
The soil on Lake Heart Island of Lost Lake was very soft. The Witches left very clear footprints on the ground when they left in a hurry. Xia De then followed these footprints into the misty Island, but the footprints were not continuous, sometimes disappearing abruptly for a distance. Fortunately, the traces of the thorny bushes they broke through were very obvious, so Xia De did not have to worry about getting lost in the mist or “misting” due to prolonged exposure to the mist.
The real danger was those invisible enemies. Their numbers were not many, and Xia De only encountered them four times during his subsequent journey.
The process of counterattacking after encountering an enemy was also very simple: first, “she” sensed the attack faster than Xia De; then, Xia De plunged his sword into the ground to use the “Heaton Seal”; finally, he used Silver Moon to attack the enemy in the interval after the attack. That was the complete counterattack process.
Even in the last encounter with an attack, due to the timing of the golden spherical shield of the “Heaton Seal” shattering, it was precisely the moment the invisible attack touched the shield. The activation of the Miracle’s special effect caused the shattered shield to spray golden light traces around, and the bursting flowing light directly killed the invisible enemy.
The opponent’s defense was even weaker than Xia De expected.
He moved forward very quickly, and by the seventh minute of Xia De’s arrival at Lost Lake, he saw shadowy figures ahead. Following the footprints, he continued forward, and upon approaching, he indeed found Miss Teresa and five maids other than the head maid.
They were not illusions. The six people stood in a circle among the thorny bushes, each looking in one direction. The Witches first saw the glowing Moonlight Greatsword in Xia De’s hand, and then they saw Xia De’s figure walking through the mist.
To avoid suspicion, Xia De even waved the gold brick in his hand:
“It’s me!”
He tried to keep his voice down, to avoid startling any other presences on the Island. But the mist itself absorbed sound. At this moment, the Witches could only see Xia De opening his mouth. Fortunately, they recognized the object in Xia De’s hand.
Xia De also could not hear the Witches’ voices, but from their expressions, it was clear they were very nervous. Miss Teresa was making a warning gesture to him. Along the way, Xia De’s direct perception of the invisible monsters had also rapidly increased. At this moment, without “her” reminding him, Xia De noticed that there were at least 6 invisible monsters patrolling nearby.
“Although I can’t see them directly, why don’t they use area attacks like The Witch’s Light to counterattack?”
Xia De was very curious about Miss Teresa and her party’s actions, but there was no time to think too much at this moment. Perhaps because he had actively made a sound, those invisible monsters gathered towards him.
“She” quickly informed Xia De of the positions of all enemies, and combined with Xia De’s own direct perception, the positions of the six monsters immediately became clear in his mind.
Those enemies, whose specific forms were unknown, attacked using some kind of materialized “flesh arrows”. Although the Witches could not know the position of every monster like Xia De, they at least knew that the attack had begun.
Miss Teresa knew the power of the invisible attack. Disregarding the plan they had just formulated, she anxiously wanted to speak a warning, but at this moment, the Moonlight Greatsword had already been plunged into the ground, and a golden shield bloomed in the white mist.
Silent attacks created ripples on the shield. Xia De, inside the golden shield, ended his spellcasting and canceled the casting of the Heaton Seal with his left hand at the same time the sixth attack hit the shield. The bursting golden flowing light, accompanied by a slight sound of glass shattering, directly annihilated all enemies.
The Witches were not quite sure what the situation was, while Xia De breathed a sigh of relief, holding his sword and walking over:
“Long time no see, Miss Teresa. The enemies have been eliminated. Where are Violet His Majesty and the head maid? What did you encounter?”
“The Children of the Invisible are all gone?”
The Tenth-tier Witch asked carefully, then added:
“Be careful, come over quickly. They cannot be perceived by normal human senses, and only when their position is determined can an attack be effective, otherwise, even if it happens to hit, it cannot eliminate them.”
“Can you only counterattack if you perceive them?”
Now Xia De knew why the Witches didn’t use area attacks.
“All six of them are gone,”
Xia De nodded with certainty. Miss Teresa and the young maids around her, dressed in black and white maid dresses and black leather boots, exchanged glances, then asked somewhat awkwardly:
“Um, weren’t there only five?”
Although each of the six people was of a higher tier than Xia De, when dealing with enemies that required high perception to combat, they collectively could not compare to Xia De.
The attacks of the monsters called “Children of the Invisible” would cause the flesh of the injured person to rot into a paste, which could be described as something like playdough melting at extremely high temperatures. Although Miss Teresa and the six people were not directly hit by those attacks, the youngest maid in the team accidentally scraped her arm.
After confirming that the surroundings were safe, the girls gathered together, wanting to help her heal. At this moment, a palm-sized area of the upper part of her arm had turned into a wobbling “flesh jelly.”
That appearance was very terrifying, and no treatment method could reverse this injury. To prevent the injury from spreading, the “flesh jelly” was quickly and completely dug out of the arm with a silver knife. The girl, who had drunk painkiller potion, lay on her companion’s lap, her forehead covered in cold sweat. Fortunately, after digging out the infected part, the spreading injury immediately stopped.
That piece of flesh was directly burned, while the maids cast spells to try and stop the bleeding as quickly as possible. Their consumption at Lost Lake was already very high, so Xia De voluntarily helped.
Water treated with gluttony’s Feast was poured onto the terrifying wound. The gluttony Ling Rune, having been strengthened by Xia De’s two Devour of the Blood Feast Lord’s divinity, was more powerful than most of his Ling Runes. The liquid, emitting an aura of extreme blasphemy, almost immediately took effect upon contact with the wound.
The missing flesh did not grow back immediately, but a layer of pink flesh membrane had already enveloped the wound. Miss Teresa, seeing how effective Xia De’s Miracle was, immediately took out a pink bottled potion she carried with her and also poured it onto the wound.
Sizzle~ After a puff of white smoke, the young girl, only nineteen years old this year, almost tore her companion’s silk stockings from the intense pain.
Fortunately, after the white smoke disappeared, her arm had returned to normal. Only the skin color at the site of the previous wound was a bit pinker than the skin in other areas.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing Xia De staring at the maids’ stockings, Miss Teresa smiled and said:
“These are made from ice silkworm silk, and only the most skilled female workers can make such clothing. They are very expensive, but very pretty, very elastic, and very breathable. Only someone like Violet His Majesty—I mean, someone so generous—would be willing to give each maid a pair. Haven’t you seen them before?”
The Outsider had seen fine stockings made with knitting machines in this world; they were products of the steam revolution and mechanization, much loved by ladies. Both Leia, as a princess, and Dorothy, a commoner Writer, had similar clothing. However, their elasticity was very poor, requiring garters and elastic bands to prevent them from falling down, which in the Outsider’s opinion, was not particularly excellent.
But what the maids were wearing at this moment was clothing very similar to the fabric from his hometown, something Xia De had seen for the first time in this world. It seemed that the technological level of the sixth epoch 1853 could not compare to that of Fifth Epoch 5177.
