170 Chapter 170: Toward the Mountains of Madness (1/2)
”Thanks for letting us stay in your house.”
It was the next morning, and both Dad and I bowed gratefully to the elderly lady who had so graciously hosted us in her house.
”No, it's nothing. It's actually beneficial for me to have a couple of young men help me out around my house.” The elderly lady, Shinra, chuckled. ”There's no inn in this village, and I will feel bad if we force you both to camp outside even though we have perfectly inhabitable houses in this area. I had spare rooms anyway, and it's been a while since things were so lively.”
Her husband, Guo Hao, nodded as he hobbled off the porch with a smile. ”We're going to miss the help you two gave us.”
”Nah, you let us stay for free and even treated us to dinner. It's the least we could do.” Dad waved their gratitude away. He had tried to pay them, but being nice people, the elderly couple had refused. ”I still feel bad imposing on you.”
”Don't worry about it. You didn't impose on us at all. It just gets so lonely because no one comes to this village anymore. It's been so long since we have visitors…we really enjoyed it.” Shinra beamed brilliantly. ”Make sure to drop by again when you return.”
”Sure!”
After the farewell, we proceeded toward the mountains, as Shinra informed us yesterday. Before we did, Dad stopped by Thaksin's ruined field to conduct several investigations. I didn't know what to look for, so I just stood around and summoned Corvus to scout ahead a hundred meters (more, if you include the fact that each Corvus could see anything within a range of about a kilometer or two clearly). The mountains were too far and secluded to spot anything, and honestly, Shinra's information was a big help. The area was so vast that we didn't know where to start searching.
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The mountain was a good start.
”Seems like a few AV-100s and at least three six-tonners.” Dad straightened up after observing the wheel tracks. ”Meaning they probably have to take a solid road, or abandon their vehicles partway.”
”Mrs. Shinra said something about them taking the northern road.”
There were several roads leading to the mountains, and so many mountains, that having a specific road to follow was a great help. Shinra had pointed out the specific road that the vehicle convoy had taken, and that narrowed which mountain the enemy had headed toward.
”Combined with the traces of monster experiments conducted within the forest…” Dad mused.
The reason why we trekked through the forest instead of simply flying straight to the village on my Constellation spirit was because we were trying to find clues as to what the Dark Church was doing in the forest. Their experiments on monsters and how far they had progressed regarding their goals (to control monsters or manipulate Emergence events) were worrying. The reason why we had dropped down there was to check out reports of an Emergence event being artificially triggered in the forest.
We found nothing so far, no traces of any artificial Emergence event. Weirdly enough, it seemed that the Dark Church was moving away from that. Dad told me that the protective enchantments that formed a barrier around the city interfered with the technology, making it impossible to trigger an Emergence event within a barrier. If they wanted to use it, they had to trigger the Emergence event outside the city, away from the barrier.
Just like how Lin Zhan Long and his cronies foolishly did.
”Did you know?” Dad had told me the other day. ”Even though you nuked three thousand monsters at first, the reason why the Dark Church was still able to set so many thousands of monsters on Jing Tian City a week later, was because they fell back on their second plan – to trigger an Emergence event outside the city, and then direct the outpouring monsters into an underground network of caves and tunnels?”
”But doesn't the machine only work for a few seconds? A minute at most? I don't see how they could have gotten thousands of monsters to emerge…”
”Idiot. They didn't need to summon thousands of monsters from the Emergence event. They only needed to summon one, and it will call the rest.”
Realization dawned on me when I understood what Dad meant.
”The Silver Wing Wolf King…”
”Correct. Once they summoned that bastard with an Emergence event, all they needed to do was run to one side while that rank A monster howled and called forth countless wolf-type monsters to its territory. As you probably already know, the lower-ranked wolf-type monsters will recognize the Silver Wing Wolf King as their Alpha…their King. And…you can guess the rest.”
Once he had assembled his pack by calling them from all over the Middle Continent, the Silver Wing Wolf King launched his attack on the city. Most likely the Dark Church had been able to mentally influence and subtly direct its hostile attention toward the city, though we didn't know what kind of technology they used.
Most probably it had something to do with the technology the Dark Church used to draw the Hellfire Drake to the mountains just outside Jing Tian City.
”I wouldn't be surprised if they are triggering Emergence events in the mountains,” Dad suddenly spoke up, drawing me back to the present. I blinked, tearing my eyes away from something one of my Corvus was keenly observing, and turning back to him.
”That would be bad. Another rank A monster?”
”Or rank B. but since it's out here in the wilderness, I think we'll be fine. I'll just as you to nuke all of them into oblivion.”
”I could just nuke the entire mountain range with Draco's Thuban,” I pointed out as I gestured vaguely toward the mountains. Dad grimaced.