Advent of the Archmage
chapter-435

The Level-10 Crystal Golem could only serve as a warm-up for the enemy, and at the end of the fight, they were still unable to find out what the enemy hidden within the black shadow looked like.

Link looked at his mission status and noted that it was still incomplete.

Back where the Crystal Golem fell, Link saw that the enemy did not attempt to investigate where the person controlling the golem was hidden. Instead, it withdrew back into the shadow which expanded once again to a diameter of over 150 feet.

"It doesn't seem to be able to move," Gaimin suddenly noticed.

Link also realized that. "Seems so."

From the moment they first found the enemy, it seemed like the enemy had not moved from its original position. It just hovered where it was. Furthermore, judging from how it had to lure prey in by calling for help, it provided further evidence that the creature could not move freely.

However, for some reason, Link still felt that something was fishy.

"Help! Help me, please! I can't hold on any longer! Ahh!"

The pitiful cry came again from the black shadow. Without witnessing the scene from earlier, anyone would inevitably feel a sense of pity.

Gaimin found it odd. "Is it stupid? Is there any point for it to continue calling for help? Does it actually think that we will be tricked?"

Link kept silent. He frowned as he watched the black shadow intently, trying to understand the reason behind his suspicion.

In the game, he had seen many Legendary-level Void Beasts. None of these beasts were content to stay put after making their way into Firuman. All of them would run wild as they pleased.

Furthermore, being able to cross through the void, their greatest obstacle would have been crossed. What else could possibly constraint them?

"Quick, save me! It hurts!" The cry sounded out again. Within the pain, there was also a trace of anxiety and worry.

Link suddenly had an idea. He stood up and said to Gaimin, "Come, let's go around it and see if we can get any leads."

Gaimin nodded.

"We'll split up and go around it. Remember to stay at least half a mile away from the creature," Link instructed.

"Okay," Gaimin replied.

And so, Link and Gaimin split up to the left and right, searching for any more signs that could tell them more about the shadow.

"Clear Sign." Link used the Clear Sign spell as a tracking skill. The sound of the breeze and the smell of plants disappeared, and the scent of blood, Mana, and other faint energies and scents that didn't belong became more obvious to Link.

He walked really slowly, as though he were taking a stroll. Along the way, he sniffed the air intently. "There's a scent of alcohol in the air, that's Gaimin's… there's another faint scent of blood coming from the East. It's strange."

Link followed the scent of blood and walked around, slowly entering into the dark south part of the forest.

After about 1500 feet, the scent of blood immediately became thicker. Link squinted and stared forward. After walking for another minute, Link found a corpse beneath a tree.

The corpse was strange. It looked human but had a head of silver hair. When Link lifted open his eyelids, he found that the pupils were completely clouded over, but it could be seen that when he was alive, they were also silver. This reminded Link of Wavier.

Wavier possessed the bloodline of the ancient Neanderthals, so his hair and eyes were silver. However, there were many significant differences between Wavier and the corpse here.

Besides being slightly more handsome, Wavier was not that much different from the normal human. The corpse here, however, was extremely pale, to the extent that its blood vessels could be seen beneath its skin. Furthermore, its features were extremely ambiguous. Although it was a male, based on its face, it had no difference from a female.

This person, with a bit of makeup, could easily pass as a girl, Link thought. Finally, he began to investigate the wounds on the corpse.

The lethal wound was found directly over the heart. It was six inches wide and had gone through the heart. Blood covered the ground and stained the soil under the corpse red.

From the blood stains, this corpse has probably been here for two days. The wound was probably caused by the tentacle from the creature. Before the creature managed to absorb this person's energy, something interfered with it.

Link stood up and began looking around the corpse.

After a while, he found a blade shard 15 feet away from the corpse. Link reached out to touch the blade, but the instant his hand made contact with the blade, he pulled it back.

The blade looked normal, but it was extremely cold. Link's hand was frozen numb the moment he touched the blade.

Link quickly released some Dragon Power to dispel the feeling of numbness. Since he could not touch it directly, he would just use the Magician's hand.

The blade shard floated up and hovered in front of Link.

Link used his control over spatial magic to form a magnifying glass. Using it, he slowly investigated the blade. On the surface, it seemed to be made of grey steel, but after magnifying it, he found that the blade shard was in fact hollow.

The shard was made up of countless chains of Mana structures. Looking at it carefully, they were all made of ice element spells and precious materials. Link hadn't seen it before, but he was sure that it reached it Level-9 in strength. The techniques used in crafting the blade and Mana structures were unknown—they weren't used anywhere on the continent or among the High Elves.

This corpse has an extremely sturdy physical body despite being an Assassin. The blade probably belongs to him, Link observed.

Link continued inspecting the corpse and found more and more scars. There were probably two people here. One of them was small in stature, less than 88 pounds and was probably female. The other one would be the Assassin. The Assassin was then ambushed from behind by the creature. He managed to block one of the tentacles at the cost of breaking his blade, but the other tentacle hit him from a different direction and pierced through his heart… the girl then escaped.

Subsequently, Link discovered a few strands of hair, which were silky, smooth and long. This hair belonged to the girl that had escaped. Link traced the footsteps to see where she had escaped to.

She ran towards the East, moving about 300 feet per second. Based on the depth of the footprints, she was not using spells but purely her physical strength… as for the tentacle, it pursued her relentlessly…

Link traced the trails on the ground and found that the girl had run in a straight line all the way. As he followed the trail, he found that it entered into a dark area. This put Link on high alert.

Six hundred feet in, Link once again found another shard that was snow white in color, looking like jade.

With his previous experience, Link used the Magician's hand to pick up the shard.

Upon closer inspection, he realized that this shard came from a bracelet. Similar to the blade, it was constructed in a mysterious and unknown manner. Link was unable to determine its function.

This area was now only 1800 feet from the black shadow. In order to avoid alerting it, Link continued onwards very slowly.

Six hundred feet in, he discovered even more clues which painted for him a rather depressing truth.

Two people with Neanderthal blood arrived in this forest, whereupon they met the Void Beast. The Assassin was killed on the spot while the girl managed to avoid the Void Beast for a while. Later on, she was defeated. However, she did not die. Instead, she managed to trap the beast into another space and is constantly shouting for help.

Link didn't know if this truly was the case, but the clues seemed to point towards this possibility.

"Help! Someone, help please!" The cries for help sounded out again. It sounded extremely pained and anxious. It sounded like they would disappear anytime.

Link frowned. What would happen if she couldn't contain the creature?

This Void Beast was of the absorption type, and it didn't seem to have any weak points. From the way it killed the Assassin, it seemed to prefer sneak attacks. This was the hardest kind of enemy to deal with. What should Link do?

As he was pondering, Link continued looking for other clues. Three hundred feet in, he unexpectedly found another corpse!

This corpse belonged to the silver-haired girl that the clues seemed to lead towards. She was collapsed on the ground, and her body was bent in an impossible position. Most of her bones looked fractured, and some were piercing out of her body. That indicated that she was hit by a sudden force just before dying.

This didn't seem like the work of the tentacle creature. Furthermore, her body was not withered like the Assassin's, and this meant the energy inside her wasn't absorbed.

Link inspected the corpse carefully. This girl also seems like an Assassin, not a Magician. How would an Assassin have the ability to restrict the Void Beast? What's going on? The girl is dead, so who is restricting the beast? It can't be her spirit, can it?

Link continued his investigation. Finally, a while later, he discovered new leads. These clues turned over his earlier suspicions—these leads actually pointed to a third person! Based on the characteristics of the trails, this third person was a Yabba as well as a Magician!

Link remembered Gaimin saying that the voice sounded like a Yabba voice. Actually, he had a similar impression when he first heard it.

Well then, where did the Yabba go? Was it her that restrained the Void Beast?

Link circled a few times around the Neanderthal female's corpse, looking to see if he could dig out any more information. However, he couldn't find anything more. Traces of the Yabba were gone; they vanished like water vapor.

He thought that he had gotten some leads earlier, but now, it seemed like he was thrown back into the dark.