Chapter 697

【 “MONSTER” 】

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Accompanied by a thunderous explosion, the monster’s head was blasted apart into fragments.

A wave of scorching air, thick with a foul, bloody stench, rushed straight toward him, causing Cypher to cough uncontrollably.

However, compared with the nauseating stench, his attention was completely drawn to the scene on the other side.

The monster that had been baring its fangs and claws at him moments ago had now lost its entire upper body.

It collapsed onto the ground, its body twitching violently as greenish dark blood spread across the floor.

After a short while, it finally stopped moving.

Cypher opened his mouth slightly in disbelief.

So… so strong!

To kill a Silver-rank monster in a single strike would require, at the very least, the strength of a higher tier Silver-rank expert.

This was based on Cypher’s experience while carrying out tasks and cooperating with high ranking NPCs.

What made him even more cautious was the fact that, until the monster was struck, he had not sensed any other presence at all.

As a hunter-class player whose senses were far sharper than those of most other class, and who had both the skills [Detection] and [Mist Transformation] active, this could only mean that the attacker possessed extraordinarily powerful concealment abilities.

Cypher tightened his grip on the short blade in his hand and looked toward the direction in which the arrow had come from.

There on a nearby hillside stood a thin, gaunt figure.

The figure was clad in tattered armor and slowly lowered the longbow in his hands.

When Cypher finally got a clearer look at the other party’s appearance, his sense of caution rose even further.

“…What kind of monster is this?”

His heart skipped a beat.

This humanoid monster’s appearance was grotesque. The hair on its head was sparse, both ears had long since rotted away, and its face was covered in pustules and fleshy tumors.

Bulging masses of flesh squeezed its eyes into narrow slits, within which a pair of cloudy pupils could barely be seen.

Its gaze shifted from the corpse of the monster to Cypher, and it opened its mouth slightly.

Saliva continued to drip from its cracked lips, revealing crooked yellow teeth.

Its appearance was even uglier than the most hideous monsters Cypher had ever seen, reminding him of the orcs from an old film on Earth, The Lord of the Rings.

It did not look like a typical orc, though…

Cypher mused.

The orcs of the Seigües looked far more acceptable. At least those green skinned brutes would not give him nightmares at night. The creature before him, however, was another matter entirely. It could easily frighten a child to tears.

Sensing that he had been locked onto by a hostile presence, Cypher immediately tensed.

“At least high tier Silver-rank mob…”

His gaze sharpened.

As Cypher cautiously observed the humanoid monster, more than ten additional silhouettes appeared on the hillside.

They were also dressed similarly to the humanoid monster, with everyone wearing ragged armor, their appearances resembling horribly mutated humans exposed to nuclear radiation.

Although their looks were ferocious, each of their auras was more powerful than the last.

To Cypher’s horror, he realized that the humanoid monster who had shot down the giant insect actually had the weakest aura among them.

More than ten auras locked onto Cypher at once as all these humanoid monsters raised their longbows in unison, aiming their arrows directly at him.

Only then did Cypher notice that the arrows in their hands were in fact long, slender bone feathers.

“Phan… Phantom Demon…”

The humanoid monster at the front stared at Cypher and spoke in a hoarse voice.

Phantom Demon?

Cypher froze.

At the sound of that term, an image immediately surfaced in his mind, that of a cunning great demon that was capable of transforming into other creatures. Such demons frequently appeared in the Labyrinth Dungeon and were regarded by raiding players as the most troublesome type of enemy to encounter.

The thought passed in an instant as he realized something else.

These monsters could talk!

And since they were able to speak, it meant communication might be possible.

Suppressing the tension in his heart, Cypher raised both hands and said, “W-Wait! I am not a demon.”

Only after speaking did he suddenly remember that, after returning from Maple Moon to the Elven Forest, he had set his default language to Elvish. So there was a strong possibility that these monsters could not understand a single word he had just said.

As for why he could understand what they were saying, it was because the names of demons across the continent were transliterated from the demon language into the tongues of various races, making them largely similar despite regional differences.

Of course, with automatic translation enabled, everything he heard had already been converted into Chinese from the very beginning.

Just as Cypher was about to change the language settings of his partially malfunctioning system from Elvish to the common language, one of the humanoid monster spoke again.

“…Elvish?”

Within the hoarse voice was a trace of surprise.

“Elvish?”

Hearing this, Cypher instinctively halted his movements, his fingers freezing in midair as the realization slowly sank in.

When conversing with NPCs, the original text of their dialogue would be also displayed at the bottom of his field of vision. Out of the corner of his eye, Cypher noticed that the words spoken by the other party were also rendered in Elvish.

—Wait.

Could they also be…. elves?

Cypher looked once more at the dozen humanoid monsters before him, his expression filled with astonishment.

Although Elvish was one of the three major languages in the world of Seigües, the only beings who truly used it as a spoken language were elves and certain races that carried elven bloodlines.

Doubt immediately crept into Cypher’s mind as he reconsidered the true identities of these creatures.

As this thought occurred to him, he glanced again at the sides of the monsters’ faces, and sure enough, now that he paid closer attention, on several of those whose decay was less severe, he saw pointed ears identical to those of elves.

Could they truly be elves?

Cypher’s heart jolted.

At that moment, he suddenly recalled the elves of Mirovia who had mysteriously disappeared.

A bold speculation formed in his mind.

Yet, when he looked at their hideous appearances, he found it difficult to associate them with the beautiful images of the elves.

Especially at close range, the intense killing intent radiating from each of them was even more overwhelming than that of the most deranged players Cypher had ever encountered. It was impossible to imagine how much slaughter they must have experienced to accumulate such a spine-chilling aura.

What’s more, having pointed ears was not exclusive to the elvenkind.

Orcs, beastmen, halflings, goblins, gnomes, and even kobolds, many demi-human races also possessed pointed ears to varying degrees, though the shapes and angles differed subtly between species.

As Cypher’s thoughts wandered, an aged and heavy voice suddenly sounded among the group of humanoid monsters.

“Dorei, lower your bow. I do not smell the stench of demons on him. He is not a demon.”

It was still spoken in Elvish.

At these words, the humanoid monsters lowered their bows and slowly parted, opening a path as a much older-looking humanoid monster, leaning on a staff, entered Cypher’s field of view.

Like the others, he was equally hideous, with his face covered in fleshy tumors. However, instead of ragged armor, he wore a tattered gray black robe.

His dry, yellowing white hair hung down his back, and amid the wrinkled tumors on his face, a pair of cloudy emerald green eyes could faintly be seen.

Supporting himself with the staff, he gazed at Cypher with a profound, penetrating look.

Simply standing there, he exerted an unprecedented pressure on Cypher, reminding him of the feeling he once had when facing Big Sister Zero.

This individual is extremely strong! Most likely a high ranking expert!

That thought rose within Cypher’s mind.

The elder’s gaze slowly traveled up and down Cypher’s body. He cast a meaningful glance at the ornate armor he wore, then paused on the bat wings behind him and the bulging veins that appeared at the corners of his eyes after transforming into a blood elf.

In a low voice, the elder asked,

“Which clan are you from?”

…Which clan?

Cypher was momentarily taken aback.

He was about to answer when his heart stirred, and he withdrew the response he had prepared.

Putting on a confused expression, he instead replied, “I… I do not know. I only remember feeling dizzy for a moment, and then I appeared here.”

After hearing this, the humanoid monsters exchanged glances.

The elder then looked toward the weakest among them, the one who had shot down the giant insect earlier.

“Dorei.”

The monster called Dorei cast a cold glance at Cypher and said, “What he said… is the truth.”

Hmm? Could thry also have the skill to detect lies?

Cypher’s heart tightened, followed by relief that he had not fabricated a lie, but instead used an ambiguous answer that could not be clearly judged as true or false.

The elder humanoid nodded.

He cast a glance at the sky, noting that the frequency of lightning was steadily decreasing, then shifted his gaze to the bewildered Cypher and said,

“The Black Tide… is coming soon. Come with us.”

As he spoke, he waved his hand toward the others.

“Deal with the body. Be quick.”

At his command, more than ten humanoid monsters nodded in unison and moved toward the fallen, half-destroyed insectoid corpse. They knelt before it, traced a crooked symbol across their chests, closed their eyes, and began to silently pray.

Watching their actions, Cypher frowned slightly.

The symbol they drew seemed oddly familiar, tugging at the edges of a memory he could not fully place.

The humanoid monsters appeared fierce and intimidating, yet as they prayed, Cypher noticed an unexpected calmness and sincerity on their faces. The contrast between their fearsome appearance and their actions held his attention for a moment, until something else drew his focus: the mini-map in his field of vision flickered briefly.

Oh? Has the network finally connected?

A surge of hope and joy ran through him.

However, when he tried to check it, he found that the mini-map was still malfunctioning.

Ehh…? Did I just imagine it?

Cypher felt a twinge of disappointment.

By then, the humanoid monsters had finished their prayers. They opened their eyes, drew their rusted daggers, cut the sinew and flesh from the insectoid monster, and packed it into the bags they carried.

Some of them pried open the giant insect’s shell and collected its black green blood, before pouring it into tattered water sacs.

Waves of stench rose from the corpse, nearly making Cypher lose consciousness. As he watched these mysterious beings carefully gathering the monster’s flesh and blood, he could not help but admire their tolerance for such nauseating odor.

Then, an absurd thought suddenly surfaced in his mind.

—Wait.

They are not collecting these things to eat them, are they?

He glanced at the reeking insect corpse, his scalp tingling.

Probably… not.

Cypher swallowed hard, goosebumps rising all over his body.

The humanoid monsters worked quickly. Before long, nothing remained of the giant insect except its shell.

Even that was not left behind as they dismantled it and carried the pieces on their backs.

“Let’s go.”

Seeing that the corpse had been fully dealt with, the elderly humanoid monster leaning on a staff spoke.

After speaking, he set off, walking in a certain direction and the others slowly followed behind him.

Cypher hesitated slightly.

The monster named Dorei stopped and cast a cold glance at him.

Cypher: “…”

He forced a friendly smile and followed after them.

༺⟐༻

Following the group of humanoid monsters, Cypher moved in a direction he himself did not recognize.

They were moving quickly, and their pace grew faster and faster, as if driven by urgency.

Looking around him, the surroundings were eerily silent as if the entire world was dead, and even the lightning streaking across the sky was becoming increasingly sparse.

As such, without those lightning to illuminate the land, the group could only rely on the illumination magic in their hands, while a thin mist gradually began to form around them.

Cypher keenly noticed that their’ expressions were growing more and more tense.

At this moment, he himself felt less nervous.

At worst, death would simply send him back to Chosen City.

On the contrary, these mysterious humanoid monsters only fueled his curiosity. He increasingly felt that he had stumbled upon significant key figures tied to the game’s main storyline, rather than merely having wandered into a glitched map by accident.

Or perhaps all of this was part of a plot element that the developers had prepared for the future?

Otherwise, how could his system be experiencing so many issues right now, with its core functions offline and even the logout feature completely unavailable?

However, there was one thing he was already certain of.

These monsters harbored no killing intent toward him.

And the words spoken earlier by their elderly leader stirred his imagination even further.

Which clan are you from?

Such a question would only be asked by someone from the same race, and he remembered some elven NPCs asking the same thing in the past.

The sealing array beneath the Titan ruins which had led him here, and everything about these beings—their use of the Elvish language, their mastery of magic and archery, their familiar pointed ears—All of this seemed too deliberate to be mere coincidence.

Could it be… that they truly were elves?

But then, how had they become like this?

And where exactly was this place anyway?

Cypher’s mind was filled with lots of questions.

He wanted to speak up and ask, yet the oppressive atmosphere within the group and the eerie silence made it difficult for him to open his mouth.

“Bzz… bzzt…”

Cypher thought he saw the mini-map flicker once again.

Hm?

His heart stirred at the sudden signal and looking toward the upper right corner of his vision, Cypher discovered that the mini-map, which had been disconnected for so long, was slowly coming back to life.

A small light point representing himself appeared on it.

It had connected again?

Joy surged through him.

However, when he eagerly opened the mini-map and the system interface, he found that the system’s connectivity status still showed as disconnected.

It was only that the mini-map itself had regained partial functionality—able to record his movement path and map the terrain he passed through, almost as if it were operating in offline mode.

At that moment, the entire group suddenly slowed its pace.

“We’re almost home.”

Cypher heard the elder with the staff exhale in relief.

The accompanying humanoid monsters also relaxed, their rigid postures softening and expressions visibly easing as if a long-held tension had been released.

Cypher raised his head and looked toward the front of the group. Beyond a stretch of rolling hills, he could faintly see a flickering light in the distance.

It was a soft, pale halo that illuminated a portion of the sky, revealing thick, churning clouds above, dark and heavy yet broken by the gentle glow below.

After a brief respite, the group resumed their march, moving steadily forward.

Soon they rounded the hills, and a wide basin unfolded before Cypher’s eyes.

In an instant, his eyes widened, surprise and awe clearly written across his face.

Before him stood a ruined city, resembling an ancient, lost settlement from a post-apocalyptic movie. Crumbling structures jutted from the ground, their decay apparent, yet the elegance of their design remained intact.

Although the city lay in ruin, its distinctive domed buildings and decorative stone pillars filled Cypher with a sense of familiarity.

This city unmistakably bore… elven architecture!

The entire settlement was nearly the same color as the surrounding land, as if carved from packed earth and stone, and it was encircled by tall, earthen walls that seemed both protective and imposing.

A pale golden barrier enveloped the entire city, radiating a gentle, steady glow. This was the source of the flickering light Cypher had noticed earlier.

Moreover, this light was something he knew all too well.

It was a city’s protective holy barrier.

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