Chapter 25.1

As soon as he moved his head, the blade pressed more firmly against his neck. Kevin could feel the skin beneath his throat being cut, and a trickle of blood oozed out.

Although he claimed that he was "basically immortal," the pain was still excruciating, no less severe than it would be for anyone else.

Kevin hissed in pain, and before his vision had fully cleared, he heard the sound of water splashing and then abruptly stopping. Ben and Nick had also climbed down the mountain.

"Fass—dammit!" Nick was probably a little dizzy from the water, and as he opened his mouth to confirm Kevin's location, he too felt the blade pressed against his throat.

One after another, the sound of stifled sobs could be heard, each one cut off halfway and swallowed back down.

There was a strange whispering sound, like someone whispering in a foreign language.

The water droplets on Kevin's eyelashes finally dried, and his vision cleared. The monsters that had fallen from the top of the mountain before were now in his field of vision again.

The monster that was pressing the blade against his neck, regardless of his eyes being open, brought its hideous face close to Kevin's neck and took two deep breaths, as if trying to smell something.

From this angle, the monster's face was even more terrifying. Its overly protruding eyeballs were covered with a gray-white film, obscuring the black irises. Only the small pupils in the center of the eyeballs remained visible. The skin on the face was like the rest of the body, resembling old tree bark. In some places, there were even bristly buds.

Overall, the monster resembled an old dryad walking.

Perhaps due to its thick skin, the old dryad's face was expressionless, appearing silent and fierce.

In addition to the few dryads holding the crowd down with knives, there were also a few who seemed to be the leaders standing aside. They were pointing and gesturing at the elite squad that was restrained, discussing something.

Among the top members of the legion, there were always a few who possessed rare skills, such as ventriloquism.

Nick's lips remained unmoved as he spoke in a very low ventriloquism voice, "Can anyone translate what these psychopaths are saying...?"

Kevin also responded to him in ventriloquism, speaking softly and quickly, "I believe that someone has already broken into here before us. The range of activity for these creatures is far from this entrance, and they will not easily approach here during the day. This is because they do not like places with sunlight."

Nick: "...Tell me, is there anything else you don't know?"

Kevin: "Thanks for the compliment."

Another officer student who knew ventriloquism said to Kevin, "Please, can we chat at another time? Are they discussing how to kill us?"

The leader of the old dryads heard the movement, stopped his words, turned his head and cast a gloomy glance to this side with his white eyes.

Nick and the others shut up immediately, staring at their noses and mouths.

The leader stretched out his thin fingers that were forked like branches, and shook the two middle fingers together, as if using this gesture to give some kind of order.

Before Kevin and the others could react, the dryads who were holding their knives against them raised their elbows with lightning speed, and slammed them hard on everyone's heads.

Everyone rolled their eyes and fainted.

At that moment, Kevin actually had the ability to break free from the blade to block it, but his neck would inevitably be injured, and the blood spurting here could not be stopped in a short while, and it would be troublesome to heal.

In the end, Kevin did not take any action. After bearing the blow from the dryad, he let the flow take its course and passed out.

This was because he actually understood the conversation between the tree spirit leaders. They did not intend to kill the elite team immediately, but planned to bring them back to the place where they lived.

And there, it was almost at the "gateway" of the real Tomb of God Phae.

For an extremely lazy person like Kevin, even being knocked out would not be a problem if he could hitch a ride.

The recovery speed of Kevin's sanity was within his estimation. When he fully woke up, the dryads had just moved the group of them to the settlement.

Kevin controlled his breathing, trying to look like everyone else who was not awake. The dryads did not realize that there was a traitor among the "holding the corpse," and dragged and dragged the entire elite team into a not-so-spacious place.

Kevin opened his eyes after the sound of the dryads' "chirping" conversation faded away. He found himself in a cave-like structure, the top of which was composed of intertwined thick vines, opposite-growing branches and leaves, and some thorny thorn branches.

Several palm-sized sacs hung on the walls of the cave. The sacks were almost transparent and so thin that they could be broken if poked, like casings peeled off from the intestines of animals. Inside the sacs, handfuls of fluorescent bugs bulged around, which had been cultivated into natural lights. The light from a few of these sacs was quite bright.

Using this light, Kevin scanned his surroundings. In one corner of the cave, there were piles of berries. On two of the walls, clusters of flowers with stamens hung. And in another corner, there were the corpses of various unknown creatures.

The bodies had been dismembered, with the flesh and blood separated. The skins were piled up in one place, and the meat was torn into strips, dangling in the air. The skulls had been turned upside down, and all of them were filled with something, obviously used as containers.

This was not surprising, as this was clearly the storage house of the old dryads. Or, in a sense, their kitchen.