Chapter 21: Chaos
The corridor ahead was filled with pink poisonous mist, everything beyond was unknown.
"Hiss, hiss..."
Linley's earth-yellow robe covered most of his body, but at this moment, his hands were also covered with a layer of earth-yellow film, and even his neck and face were covered with a layer of earth-yellow film.
This was all Pulse Guard armor.
The only exposed part was a pair of eyes.
It wasn't just Linley. After experiencing the dense volley of God-Slaying Arrows earlier, the Demigods in Linley's team all understood that those dense arrow attacks covered every possible position, and the arrows were so fast that there was simply no time to react.
Thus, they had to defend their entire bodies!
Head, hands, feet, neck... every part of the body had to be protected!
Although the team had a full hundred people, they walked through the corridor in complete silence, not a single sound to be heard. Only occasionally would the annoying scolding voice of Crompton ring out: "Up ahead, move faster!" But this scolding echoed through the corridor, making the entire castle seem even more deathly still.
"Ah!" Dense screams came from afar, accompanied by chaotic shouts and curses.
Linley's group paused in their steps.
"Another squad has been ambushed," Linley and the others realized.
"So this is why the castle master released that pink poisonous mist," Linley thought with sudden understanding. It was precisely because the pink mist was everywhere that Linley and his group dared not release their divine sense. After all, even a slight contamination would affect the soul.
Even if they didn't go mad, their combat power would decrease.
Linley and his group dared not spread their divine sense. The enemy also dared not. But the enemy was very familiar with the castle's structure, or perhaps with various hidden mechanisms and passages. This put Linley and his group at an absolute disadvantage.
"Move faster up front!" another demon shouted from behind. "What's wrong with you all? Scared stiff?"
The people at the front of the group were furious. Being at the very front was already the most dangerous position, and now they were being forced to speed up—wasn't that just pushing them to their deaths? But they dared not resist these demons. After all, the demons who came this time were all at the Highgod level.
"We're turning!"
The group reached a bend, and everyone turned into another corridor.
Inside a dim secret passage, ten Golden-Robed Guards held divine bows.
"It's about time. They've turned the corner!" the Golden-Robed Guard squad leader whispered. "Everyone, get ready to strike!"
"Got it, Captain." The Golden-Robed Guards' eyes gleamed as they held their divine bows, each with five arrows in hand. Firing five arrows at once might affect accuracy a bit, but—
This was blind shooting. Since the corridor was straight, they just needed to shoot directly down it.
"You're really wasteful," the captain said with a faint smile, using only a single arrow himself.
"Whoever gets hit by your arrow, Captain, is as good as dead."
The captain smiled calmly.
In truth, the intelligence from the Demon Castle was somewhat flawed. Indeed, Moonlake Castle had two levels: the Black-Robed Guards and the Golden-Robed Guards. The Black-Robed Guards were all relatively powerful Highgods—that was correct. But the Golden-Robed Guards...
Were not all Demigods.
To be precise, the vast majority were Demigods, but a very few were Highgods. Those who didn't become Black-Robed Guards were assigned as squad leaders of the Golden-Robed Guards.
Within the Golden-Robed Guards, there were only two ranks: ordinary members and squad leaders. Several squad leaders then took orders from the Black-Robed Guards. Ten Black-Robed Guards commanded the entire Golden-Robed Guard force. And the captain of this Golden-Robed squad preparing to ambush Linley's group was a Highgod!
Though only one who became a god by refining a divine spark.
"Once I open the wall, shoot immediately upon my command!"
"Hiss!" Suddenly, the stone wall ahead slid open like lightning, revealing the ten Golden-Robed Guards behind it.
But because of the pink mist, Linley and his group didn't see... that at the end of their path stood ten Golden-Robed Guards.
The Golden-Robed Guard captain stared coldly into the pink mist ahead.
"Shoot!" the captain ordered via divine sense transmission, but since he had opened the wall himself, he was the last to shoot.
"Pfft!" "Pfft!" "Pfft!"
In an instant, like a rainstorm, a full forty-six arrows covered every direction of the corridor. The moment the shooting was done, the stone wall slammed shut again. From the outside, it was impossible to tell that this wall was movable.
Linley and his group were walking cautiously.
They carefully watched ahead, but Linley's pupils suddenly contracted, and his expression changed drastically—
A dense volley of arrows instantly tore through space, mercilessly striking Linley and his companions, or slipping through gaps to hit those behind. The arrows were too fast, and by the time Linley saw them, they were only a few dozen meters away.
A few dozen meters—Linley and the others had no chance to dodge.
"Delia!"
In that brief instant, Linley could only make one move: he stretched out his arms, trying his best to shield Delia, covering her completely behind him.
"Pfft!" "Pfft!"
Even though Linley wasn't at the very front, two arrows still struck him. The arrows shot into him like lightning, but the earth-yellow robe on his surface was essentially countless waves of divine power, instantly neutralizing the terrifying penetrating force.
Bebe was also hit by one arrow.
"Clang!" With a metallic clash, the arrow's tip shattered into pieces and fell to the ground.
"Too weak," Bebe said with a smug smile.
"Everyone's fine." Linley quickly checked and found that Delia and Bebe were unharmed. He breathed a sigh of relief.
But then Linley's expression changed sharply. Within his field of vision, he saw only one terrifying arrow in the distance!
"There's one more!"
This was the last arrow!
But also the most terrifying one. It was the arrow of the Golden-Robed Guard captain! The tip of the God-Slaying Arrow flickered with a cold black light, instantly piercing through space, leaving ripples in its wake. It gave Linley no time to react, striking him directly in the chest.
"Pfft!"
The penetrating power of that arrow was terrifying. Even though countless divine power waves frantically dissipated the force, the arrow still managed to pierce through with difficulty.
"Ah!" Linley collapsed weakly onto one knee.
Bebe, who had been collecting corpses nearby, suddenly changed color: "Boss!" Delia, who had just relaxed, was also shocked.
"Hmph, finally dead?" At the back of the group, the bald Crompton had been watching Linley closely. When he saw Linley fall to his knees, a smile crept onto his face. "I didn't kill you. Someone else did, haha..."
He was gleeful inside.
The arrow itself wasn't the real threat; the true danger was the poison on the arrow's tip!
A gray airflow instantly surged into Linley's mind, viciously piercing toward his soul!
"Boom!"
It slammed fiercely into a transparent membrane. This transparent scale membrane was a soul-defense Sovereign artifact. Apart from a broken gap, the rest was as intact as ever. The gray airflow lost over half its energy in just one collision.
The remaining gray airflow, as if intelligent, realized the transparent membrane was not to be trifled with. It scattered into countless gray specks, covering the entire membrane—including the gap. And that gap... was still sealed by a patch of Linley's mental energy.
"What is this thing?" Linley was shocked. He felt that these gray specks had a will of their own!
"Whoosh!"
In an instant, all the gray specks, as if sensing the patch was weaker, frantically attacked it. They expended half their remaining energy to break through the gap and surge into Linley's soul sea.
At that moment—
The mass of gray specks split into three, forming three weaker gray streams that charged toward Linley's divine spark and his two divine clones.
"Attacking all my souls at once!" Linley was startled.
But despite his shock, Linley controlled the mental energy in his soul sea to form a Pulse Guard defense. Waves of mental energy clashed with the gray specks. After a moment, all the gray specks were annihilated, and Linley's mental energy was half-depleted.
"That was truly terrifying."
Linley finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Boss, Boss!"
"Linley! Linley!" Delia and Bebe were calling softly beside him.
Though the description of the soul poison's invasion takes time, it only lasted a second or two. Linley opened his eyes again.
"I'm fine." He gave them a faint smile.
Delia and Bebe both sighed in relief, but Linley's heart was heavy: "That poison... no wonder the attendant at Violet Thorn Castle said the God-Slaying Arrow could usually kill a Demigod. It's so bizarre and terrifying."
To Linley, the poison of the God-Slaying Arrow seemed to have a kind of intelligence.
Though it wasn't capable of true thought, it had an instinct to avoid the strong and target the weak.
"But this poison is strongly attracted to souls," Linley realized. If it had real intelligence, it would have focused all its power on destroying one soul. Instead, it attacked all three of Linley's souls at once!
"Not dead?" At the back of the group, Crompton saw Linley stand up and widened his eyes in shock. Then his expression twisted with malice. "Hmph, you survived once. Let's see how many more times you can endure. Even if you withstand the soul attack of the God-Slaying Arrow, your soul power must be nearly exhausted."
"Move faster!" Crompton roared again.
This time, over a dozen people had died. After two ambushes, only about sixty Demigods remained. Linley and his two companions were now at the very front of the group.
"Boss, we can't keep this up," Bebe said worriedly.
"I know." Linley understood.
Who knew what other tricks the enemy had? If they stayed on the defensive, once their defenses failed, they were done for.
"We're on the third floor!" Linley and the others slowly descended the stairs.
"Everyone, be careful," a Demigod said. "The third floor is bound to be more dangerous than the second!"
In a large, empty room on the third floor of the castle, ten Golden-Robed Guards entered through a secret passage.
"The master has really gone all out this time, even bringing out the Death God Puppets," the Golden-Robed Guards said excitedly.
"But there are only twenty Death God Puppets in total. It's good that our squad got one."
The Golden-Robed Guard captain smiled faintly: "Ari, you'll control the Death God Puppet assigned to us. I don't need it." After all, the captain was already a Highgod-level expert. Though the Death God Puppet was powerful, it was only on par with him.
The third floor was even larger, and the castle's layout was more chaotic. Sometimes, they would walk and walk and not know which path to take. They could only wander aimlessly.
"We can't go on like this," Linley thought as he trudged along. Ahead was always the pink mist, and no one knew what might appear next.
Suddenly—
"Stop!" A loud shout rang out.
"Brothers, run!"
Chaotic sounds came from other parts of the castle. Linley's squad of over sixty people was stunned.
Linley's face lit up with joy.
He immediately released his divine sense, covering the front forty to fifty people: "Brothers, if we keep this up, we're done for. Let's all scatter and run. That way, the castle's people won't be able to catch us all in one net!"
"Brothers, run!" Linley suddenly shouted loudly.
Almost instantly, all the Demigods, as if trained, either dashed into nearby rooms, fled into the distant mist, or bolted into side passages...
In the blink of an eye!
All sixty-plus divine-level experts had vanished!
Crompton and the other two demons were dumbfounded.
"I... who do we chase?" Crompton turned to look at the other two demons.
"Chase my ass!" one demon cursed under his breath.