Chapter 85 Land Of Fear (1/2)

”Introduce yourself.”

Rhode ignored the strange stares from everyone and gestured to Celia to introduce herself. She held her sword in her right hand and made a knight's bow.

”I am Celia, Master's subordinate.”

After that, the girl raised her head and kept silent as if her duty was complete.

But everyone was still shocked by her short self-introduction.

Master's subordinate.

While the girl didn't explicitly reveal who the Master was, everyone knew just by looking at her behavior. Their gaze slowly turned towards Rhode.

Angels were noble creatures who were far above them in status — who would've thought that one would actually call a human 'Master?'

Who is this young man?

”Mr. Rhode, erm...”

Lize hadn't figured out what was going on. On the other hand, Marlene frowned and stared at Celia. She could vividly remember Rhode summoning her at the underground ruins, and now she appeared again.

As she thought of this, she looked at Rhode with a complicated expression. On the other hand, Rhode seemed to have figured out what she was thinking, so he nodded to her in response. Even though he didn't say anything, Marlene understood what he meant.

”We will move out now. Our pace will be almost equivalent prior to our journey here.”

When Rhode thought of this order, he had already planned to not entertain any questions.

Soon he began to issue commands and assign each individual their respective tasks.

”As we now have Celia, rest assured that her power is sufficient to protect all of you. Anne, your role is to work together with Celia. The fighting style of angels differs quite a bit to humans, so I hope you can quickly adapt to Celia's attack patterns. If you are unable to do so, please do let me know, do you understand?”

”Yes, Anne understands!”

Anne, as always, raised her hand to show that she had clearly understood. Still, she stared curiously at Celia. Apparently, she was fairly intrigued with this young woman with wings.

”Since everyone is ready now, let's make a move.”

When Rhode clapped his hands, everyone quickly got to their feet and assembled into formation before marching off into the depths of the forest.

”Lad, you're growing more and more mysterious each second.”

Sereck's lips curled upwards as he whispered to Rhode.

”If I could, I'd rather be inconspicuous.”

Rhode replied calmly at Sereck's attempt to test him and turned around to the front. When Sereck saw that, he went silent smiled wryly to himself. Eventually, he took out his weapon and followed behind Rhode.

-

”———!”

Sharp screams tore apart the stillness of the forest. Countless white shadows phased through the trees; their eyes were pitch black and burning with hatred. They stretched out their long, slender arms, trying to grasp at the living entities before them. From a distance, they could sniff the foul stench of humans, and the way they clawed at these people appeared incredibly desperate as though they had lost something precious.

Then, a brilliant light flashed.

The angel blocked the evil spirits, and after sampling the bane of their existence right before them, they quickly retreated in fear. Celia's beautiful face showed no emotion as she grasped her sword which was engraved in ancient Holy symbols. She waved her sword mercilessly and sliced the evil spirits into half, completely erasing their already meager existence.

Rhode could tell that there were a lot of people staring at Celia. It was no surprise though since he appeared to have just casually gone for a stroll and brought back an angel with him. It would be even stranger if no one paid any attention to her.

Even though Celia was the center of attention right now, she didn't seem to be affected by it at all. She just plainly followed her orders given by Rhode.

Sereck stopped looking at her.

As a Swordmaster, he had seen his fair share in life. This woman was definitely a real angel and not some illusion that was projected by the undead. Although there were rumors about high-level undead disguising themselves as angels, they could not replicate the Holy Aura surrounding Celia.

The calm and comfortable aura that soothed the mind was proof that Celia was an angel. However, what Sereck found most interesting was the swordsmanship that she used. Judging from her consecutive attacks, he noticed that the swordsmanship she used was the same as that young man.

It seems like there's some sort of relationship between them.

A moment later, Old Walker suddenly stopped and called out to Rhode, ”Boy, hold up.”

Old Walker bent his body and pressed his hand on the ground. After a while, he stood up and faced Rhode.

”There's a human trail here. About seven to eight people traveling to the north. And judging from the freshness of these traces... I would say approximately no more than three days.”

When everyone heard Old Walker's analysis, they were thrilled. Finding human tracks in this dense forest was like looking for a needle in a haystack. If not because of his experience as a Ranger, most likely they would've traveled around in circles for days.

Contrary to the others, Rhode wasn't excited at all. After hearing Old Walker's report, his expression immediately turned dark.

”Are you sure it's north?”