The Doctors Plague

Nalan, Liena, and Xia enjoyed the bunch of fruits to their heart's content, not even bothering to offer Yunxi one.

Few minutes later , Yunxi opened her eyes. Her ink eyes appeared deeper than they initially appeared.

" Are you done? Can we talk now ?" Liena asked as she stood up and walked towards Yunxi.

" Yes…" Yunxi replied, as Liena sat beside her.

The two watched Nalan and Xia cuddled to sleep.

" When do you think it will start?" Yunxi asked.

" Midnight…? I don't really know, because I can't pinpoint which creature is behind it. "

Yunxi looked up at her face with a slight smirk, " You really don't know? This creature is from your race, isn't it? And this village we are seeing is your illusion, right?"

" Right. Everything you said is right. But this creature is from my race and it also isn't. Impressive, right?" Liena returned the smirk with a teasing smile.

Yunxi looked at her smiling face for a minute before looking away.

" Right, Impressive. You are quite enjoying this, aren't you? "

" Master…"

" The situation is dire. This isn't the time for jokes. By my estimation, we have at most three hours to decide whether we want to live or not. "

" I understand. " Liena replied in a serious tone. The smile on her face disappeared immediately without a trace of it ever being there before.

" Tell me. " Yunxi brought out a small notebook and a pen.

". The people here aren't humans. Since we are from the same race, I was able to detect two different auras. And the creature owning it is much stronger than I am. " Yunxi jotted down something in the notebook.

" Aura…? One can't have more than one Aura, can they ? Then that means we have more than one enemy. " The pen made a soft ' click' sound, as Yunxi made taps on the notebook with it.

" Not necessarily. One can have more than one aura if they swallow the aura of others. Although I haven't seen one with it, my mind keeps telling me it's real."

Yunxi looked up , and sighed. " Your mind..? Ah! Then we are placing our life on your mind. Don't let us down. " With that said, Yunxi closed her eyes, and evened her breath.

Liena watched how fast Yunxi fell asleep in the blink of an eye.

" I won't."

…

The creaking sound of a door being opened resounded in the hut. The dark sky became visible from the opened door.

Three shadows moved towards the sleeping area of the trio. A shadow hand made a grabbing motion towards the sleeping Nalan. Just as the hand was about to touch her a purplish-pink rope-like thing curled around the hand , tightly stopping it from extending forward.

As soon as it made contact with the shadow hand, it retreated and went towards the other two as fast as lightning, hitting them in the face.

The whipping noise awakened Nalan from her sleep. She opened her eyes to see a close-up face. As a normal human instinct, her reaction was to shout, which she did.

But just as she was opening her mouth, a pale beautiful hand covered it, blocking the sound from coming out.

Nalan's eyes darted from the hand of the person up to the face. It was Yunxi.

Nalan quickly shut her mouth, and the initial fear she had disappeared. Yunxi took back her hand after noticing her calm state.

Yunxi stood up, and moved away from her to examine the paralyzed shadows who turned out to be some of the people they saw in the day.

" What's happening? They …they don't have legs?" Nalan stammered, as she stared at the people with wide eyes.

She stood up , and walked up to Liena. " They …aren't humans?"

Liena sighed and pulled Nalan closer. "You can see their true form now, so you understand why a village shouldn't exist just outside the death zone, right?"

Nalan looked at the men without legs standing like statues on the ground. "We are still in the death zone."

" Good job, girl! You finally hit it right." Liena placed her arm on her shoulders pulling her close to her body as she complimented her with a wide smile.

" Stop that, and focus. Liena, can you see through their memories?"

Liena chuckled, and made her way to Yunxi.

" You think too highly of me, Master. How can I look into their memories? Succubus can just mess with dreams."

Yunxi looked up at Liena with raised eyebrows. " Are you just a succubus?"

Liena kept mute, and just stared at Yunxi. She had an inkling that Yunxi wasn't simple.

" Anyway…our enemies are way stronger than us. We lack strength, but we can make it up with intellect. To beat your enemies, you have to know them. " Yunxi said as she groped around the three people.

Ding!

[ Extraction complete! +25 strength, Lifetime memory! Three soul crystal!]

A notification resounded after she had rummaged through their bodies. After meditating for hours, her system had miraculously upgraded. And she could now extract memories. A surge of memory suddenly poured into her head.

Ding!

[ Hidden Quest unlocked! This village is ridden with Doctors Plague. Find out the cause .

Difficulty: Very Hard

Time limit: 5 hours

Rewards: ????, ????, ?????, ????]

" Hidden Quest …unlocked?" Nalan stammered.

" Doctors Plague…what is that?" Liena looked at Yunxi's dazed eyes and asked.

" They…disappeared !" Nalan said, immediately after Yunxi had extracted them.

Liena removed her arm immediately, and became alert.

" This is bad. The situation is more serious than we think. " She looked up to see Yunxi in pain.

Yunxi held her forehead, as Liena broke the news. Liena quickly left Nalan's side and went over to Yunxi.

" Are you alright? What's the situation?" Liena asked worriedly.

" There's more to this. These people without legs are dead. It's only their souls that are left. What we are seeing is the image the creature behind it wants us to see. The warm welcome of the villagers…it's a deceit. At night their true forms emerge. "

" Yes…I have figured that out already. There's more." Liena probed further.

" Yes. We aren't the only visitors here. There are more, which are likely dead." Yunxi wiped the perspiration on her forehead and sighed.

" Ah…?! Yunxi.." Nalan called out in fear. She was tightly holding on to Xia with her trembling hands.

Liena turned around to see the terrible state she was in.

" Don't panic ,baby girl. As long as we are here nothing is going to happen to you. " Liena comforted her with a smile.

" You will die if you allow your fear to consume you. I wouldn't put my life in the way to save you. " Yunxi quickly refuted Liena's words. This was reality!

Hearing Yunxi's stern words seems to have impacted Nalan, because her hands stopped trembling.

" Good. These people came here for us, and they are supposed to return. If they don't come on time, they would suspect. So…Liena, can you disguise us as them?" Yunxi asked.

Liena's lips lifted into a smile and she nodded. Purple Mana engulfed the three of them, and they transformed into the men who entered earlier.

Xia jumped onto Yunxi's shoulders and entered invisible mode.

" Ready?" Yunxi asked.

" Wait. There's one more thing." Liena floated across the room, and grabbed Yunxi's hand.

Just as soon as she held it, the hand slipped out of her grasp. Yunxi took a step back, and looked at her with vigilance in her eyes. " What did you do ?"

" You need my scent on you. We are demonic creatures afterall."

She just changed their appearance, but they were still humans. The creatures out there could easily pick their scent, and they would be discovered.

Earlier she had placed her arms around Nalan.

" Let's go." Yunxi relaxed as she heard her explanation. She stepped out of the hut into the village, with the two behind her .

' Hm! Her hands are soft yet strong ~'

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A/N : Make it rain with power stones, chapter comments, paragraph comments, and reviews to get more chapters. This does fuel my strength, so I won't passionately write this without support. Show some love, and I would return the sentiment. Thanks.🤗

Hope to see moving reviews, votes, and comments. It would do well to lift my spirits up . And maybe I might feel so happy that I would add two more chapters as a ' THANK YOU' to everyone who supported me. 😉