Chapter 2428 (1/2)

2428 Sleeping Place

Night Wind obeyed the command and deployed his substance chains to clear the rubble behind the screen. The three of them hauled their junkie Duke along with them, moving around the screen and proceeding forward.

Blood came from every orifice of the Duke’s body. He wasn’t dead yet, but his prospects weren’t looking good. That was especially true of his eyes; they had turned entirely red, and even the whites of his eyes had been consumed by the new color.

Night Wind focused his attention on clearing the road ahead. After he cleared the path for some distance in front of them, he suddenly stopped. He looked at Miss Mirror and said, “Miss Mirror, should we change the direction of our travel?”

“Why?” Miss Mirror asked Night Wind.

Han Sen was curious about this, too. He had no clue why Night Wind had made this suggestion.

Night Wind sighed and said, “The third picture predicts that we will reach a tree. But comparing the height of the figures to the height of the tree in the picture, it suggests that the tree is very large. It would be a hundred meters tall, at least. Moving a tree like that out of our path could be difficult.”

Han Sen understood Night Wind’s rationale now. The fourth picture seemed to indicate that they’d encounter a tree, and that tree couldn’t be moved. If they changed course ahead of time to avoid the tree, though, the prediction would be incorrect. If they avoided the tree successfully, that would suggest that it really had been someone messing with them.

“Let’s switch directions, then.” Miss Mirror nodded.

With Miss Mirror’s approval, Night Wind changed direction and resumed digging.

If someone was trying to trick them, it would be easy for that person to guess their course since they were digging in the direction that the power was drawing them. The source of that power was their destination, after all. The mysterious trickster might have seen them, known where they would go, and then carved the pictures accordingly.

If someone was rattled by those pictures, they would probably find some sense of security in following the road they had already intended to travel. And if they encountered that tree, they would be terrified. The trickster’s plans would come together rather neatly in that case.

Night Wind made this suggestion to keep that from happening. If the trickster tried to move the tree to intercept them, he was bound to leave behind some evidence of what he had done. The trickster’s plan would fail.

Night Wind moved quickly, digging at a very fast pace. After ten minutes, they had followed Night Wind down a trench that was a few hundred meters long.

But Night Wind suddenly came to a standstill. The rigidity in his back made it obvious that he had frozen midstep, not just stopped for a breather. He stood there, staring ahead as if he had seen a ghost. He didn’t even lower his raised arms.

“What happened?” Han Sen followed Night Wind’s gaze. He saw that Night Wind had cleared half of the rocks, and a small object was now peeking out of the rubble.

When Han Sen saw what it was, his face paled as well. A twig was rising from the rocks, and several green leaves had sprouted from it. It looked like it belonged to a willow tree.

“How?” Han Sen asked uncomfortably. He peered more closely at the twigs and leaves, and they looked like the ones in the picture.

Night Wind silently used his dark substance chains to remove all the nearby rocks. More twigs appeared as the rubble was tossed away. A few minutes later, a mass of twigs and branches was showing—the whole tree had been unearthed.

It was exactly the same as it appeared in the picture. It was a hundred meters tall, and it looked like a willow tree. The flexible branches hung low, and the tree was covered with countless green leaves.