Chapter 117 What is Going On?

The group had barely settled down when a chorus of shouts and yells suddenly echoed through the Twisted Woods, growing louder and closer. It sounded like a large contingent of soldiers marching through the forest. At the same time, firelight, like scattered fireflies, began to gather from all directions in the dark woods. The commotion caused Lily to instinctively draw her Frostfire Blades, and the others immediately became vigilant.

Accompanying the rapid beat of horses' hooves, the first to burst out of the dense trees was a group of knights. They rode tall warhorses and wore gleaming, standard-issue armor of the Church Knight Order. Over their armor, they wore holy surcoats emblazoned with the Radiant Church's emblem. Each knight wielded a longsword, wreathed in magical light, as if about to charge into battle. Behind them, groups of soldiers who were clearly mages rode close behind.

More and more soldiers on horseback emerged from the woods. Later groups were clearly members of the Royal Knight Order. They galloped onto the lakeshore clearing, shouting battle cries, only to be dumbfounded: all that was there were black boulders scattered everywhere and a small group of strangers of unknown origin. Their "prey" was gone.

"Whoa—whoa—"

With shouts and cries, the knights reined in their horses. Several officers trotted forward to stop before Hao Ren and the others. Without dismounting, they gripped their longswords warily. "Who are you?! Why are you loitering around the Holy Lake?"

Hao Ren was a bit stunned. He didn't know what was going on, but he instinctively recited the spiel he had long memorized. "We are traveling mages from the Northern Empire… registered as mercenaries in Holletta. We took a mission to find the Sacred Pearl here a while ago."

He wasn't sure what the origin of these knights was, so he only mentioned that he was a mercenary group searching for the Sacred Pearl, but he didn't mention that the Sacred Pearl had already been found. But the middle-aged knight captain on the other side became even more vigilant after hearing this explanation. "The Pearl? The search operation ended half a month ago! You…"

Just as Hao Ren realized that the situation had changed and began to think about how to deal with it, the bearded ascetic suddenly walked up from behind. "Are you Holy Knights of the Church? Which diocese are you from? We are ascetics accepting the mission of the Goddess."

The four ascetics were wearing tattered gray robes and usually had a low presence. You wouldn't notice them if they didn't speak. Earlier, the knight captain thought that these four gray-robed people were just ordinary down-on-their-luck mercenaries. Only when he heard the other party speak did he take a look. He finally recognized that the gray robes were the symbol of the Church's ascetics. The bearded man also took out a shiny metal piece from his arms and waved it in front of the knight captain. The latter carefully identified it before dismounting. "Ascetics?! How did you gentlemen come to be here? We haven't heard that the higher-ups sent ascetics down here…"

It seemed that the knight captain was very cautious. Even after seeing the "proof of identity," he was not directly fooled. After all, ascetics were very special figures in the Radiant Church. They were not conventional troops but special elites who could only be directly commanded by the Pope and the Goddess's oracle. It was really hard to believe that a small group of ascetics would appear in this place. The bearded man carefully looked at the insignia on the church officer and then removed his hood. "You are the high knight of the Gelton Diocese. You should have seen the four of us at the 'Reception Ceremony' several months ago."

The Reception Ceremony was the meet-and-greet held a few months ago when the Sacred Pearl first arrived in the Bainz Diocese. The knight captain suddenly looked up and down at the bearded man and the other three beside him. After a moment, he revealed a shocked expression. "You… you are the Sacred Pearl's… four masters! How could you be here?"

Becca then jumped out boldly, patting her chest hard, pretending to be a leader. "Need you ask! The Sacred Pearl was found by our mercenary group! By the way, we also found the four masters—but I don't know how much extra reward we can get in addition to the Pearl's set of manor houses for finding the four masters…"

Hao Ren quickly pulled the mercenary girl, who couldn't keep her mouth shut, back. Becca was good at everything, but she would get excited as soon as the topic of getting rich was brought up. Listen to what she was saying; people who knew would know that she was bringing the masters back, but those who didn't know would think that she had kidnapped them…

The bearded man turned to look at Becca, his expression wooden. "We are certainly not as valuable as the Pearl, but we should be able to exchange for a few good horses."

Hao Ren hurriedly smoothed things over. "You are too polite, you are too polite. People like you are worth at least two houses even if you are kidnapped and sold…"

Vivian punched him hard in the back. "Don't talk if you don't know how!"

The knight captain and the other squad leaders around him were still a little confused. The Sacred Pearl, which had been missing for several months, had been found so suddenly. Even the four masters who had been listed as "martyred saints" were standing in front of them safe and sound. This sudden situation made them feel very unreal. But after a moment, these professional soldiers reacted. The knight captain suddenly turned around and shouted to the adjutant behind him, "Send a signal! Call the other teams over! Escort the relic back to town!"

An adjutant immediately fired a flare into the sky. After the firelight exploded in the high altitude, the knight captain suddenly remembered something else. He looked in surprise at the piles of black stones like small mountains on the scene and looked incredulously at the bearded man. "Master, there should have been a group of stone golems here just now… Were they all purified by you gentlemen?"

The bearded man pointed to Hao Ren very frankly. "They were taken care of by him."

The knight captain swallowed hard. He had already been startled when he saw the wreckage of the stone giants on the beach. Seeing just a few mercenaries, he certainly couldn't believe that the one hundred or so stone giants had been killed by these people. At most, he barely believed that the powerful ascetics had taken action to create this miracle. But now, the latter frankly stated that the credit should go to an unremarkable mercenary, which made him feel a little like he was in a fantasy. "He? Alone?"

"They average two per person," Hao Ren chuckled, pointing to the people around him. "I did one hundred and twenty-two."

The knight captain's mouth didn't close for a long time. Finally, he choked out a sentence: "... Are the magicians of the Northern Empire all monsters?!"

Hao Ren folded his arms and showed his expert demeanor. The data terminal vibrated in his pocket, transmitting the sound directly to his head. "Act, keep acting. What did you do besides burning a little heat when you were running around in circles? Becca's DPS is higher than yours, okay!"

The knight captain didn't know the real situation. Anyway, he directly regarded Hao Ren as a monster, but he was just a mid- and low-level officer who acted on orders and wouldn't pursue the details. And Yizaks, seeing that there would be no more misunderstandings, stepped forward and asked, "What exactly is going on here? Were the stone giants driven here by you? Also, we passed by the outpost by the lake earlier. What happened there?"

The knight captain looked at the giant who was two and a half meters tall and subconsciously adjusted his helmet. "You don't know? Where have you been for the past half month?"

"Together with them, not in the Bainz area," Hao Ren pointed to the bearded man. "We just ran directly in through a space teleportation. The specific situation is related to the Pearl. It's confidential and can only be said after seeing the diocese chief. Just explain to us what's going on here."

Raising the "Sacred Pearl" was really useful. The knight captain immediately had no doubts. He sighed. "The stone giants came from the Dragon Spine Mountains… You know that, right? Well, the basic situation is that the number of stone giants suddenly increased half a month ago, once breaking through the defense line of Leiden Town. Moreover, an ancient passage also appeared on the flank of the mountains, allowing many monsters to penetrate into the Twisted Woods all the way to the area around the Holy Lake. We were ordered tonight to encircle and suppress the group of monsters just now. We have been tracking them for two days and two nights, and we only managed to drive them into the encirclement tonight—we didn't expect you to solve them. As for the lakeside outpost, it was lost a few days ago. Now, the outposts around the Holy Lake are attacked almost every day… These are not secrets. You can find out when you go back and ask. There are also many mercenaries helping to guard the outer defense line to prevent the stone giants from running into the inner territory of the kingdom."

"How is the situation in Leiden Town now?" Hao Ren asked casually.

"Marshal Aufra is personally guarding it and has already taken it back. You can rest there," the knight captain said, shrugging his shoulders and smiling. "But I can't guarantee that you can get a good night's sleep: those big guys shake the ground when they run, and the nearby mountains will collapse several times a day."

The bearded man suddenly asked nervously, "What about the Holy Lake?! What exactly do those monsters want to do to the Holy Lake?! Have they damaged the lake water?"

(Asking for monthly tickets!! Asking for tickets on this last day, I don't know if it's too late…)