Free Web NovelTwilight had not yet fully dispersed, and the Cragged Hills in the northern Wheat Wave Territory were already shrouded in a faint, ethereal mist.
The fractured hills on the surface looked as if a giant beast had once bitten off a piece of the earth, leaving behind cruel and twisted scars.
Louis Calvin looked up, the vegetation on the hillsides had completely withered, and a rust-like dampness seeped from the soil, with a low, hollow echo occasionally coming from deep underground.
Louis Calvin gazed at a rock cave, his brow slightly furrowed: "This is it, there's a slight magic fluctuation."
"Magic fluctuation?" Lambert frowned.
"Perhaps, but not certain." Louis Calvin raised his hand, signaling caution.
Although he said so, he actually already knew what was inside—Shadow Moss and Soul-Devouring Lizard Beast.
"The terrain is narrow, we can only send twenty people in. Any more—it'd be hard to even turn around." Lambert lowered his voice.
His gaze was sharp, fixed on the dark, sloping entrance, his combat instincts already subtly activated.
"Good." Louis Calvin nodded, "You pick the people, the elite of the elite. The rest will stay outside, and seal the cave entrance if necessary."
"Yes."
Soon, over twenty high-ranking Red Tide Knights, clad in light armor, lined up, each equipped with special devices in addition to their standard weapons.
Before departing, Louis Calvin gave his final order: "Everyone is to wear a 'Mask-type Frostleaf Vine Purifier,' and activate the slow-release mist pouch three minutes after entering."
Upon hearing this, everyone took out the transparent masks, encased in silver frames, from their backpacks.
These were experimental equipment developed by the Red Tide Research Workshop, originally designed to resist the mental attacks of the Mother Nest.
They contained a light blue, viscous liquid refined from Frostleaf Vine, capable of rapidly releasing a fine mist curtain when subjected to mental interference, isolating pollutants like spores and hallucinogenic gases.
"Remember, if you experience dizziness, tinnitus, or memory displacement, immediately increase the mist; no delays are allowed," Louis Calvin commanded.
"Yes!"
"Check for airtightness." Lambert habitually surveyed the group, ensuring everyone was fully equipped, before leading the way into the dark depths.
Louis Calvin and five personal guards followed closely, while the others entered the depths of the underground chamber in pairs. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com
Just a few steps into the underground chamber, everyone felt an indescribable sense of oppression.
It wasn't a drop in temperature, nor thin air, but a faint, almost imperceptible gaze.
It was as if someone was hiding behind the cave walls, watching them.
And the further they descended, the colder the temperature became, and the wind grew damp.
Strange phosphorescent patterns began to appear on the rock walls, like magical touch marks formed by years of absorbing magic.
The air was filled with an indescribable scent: metallic rust, damp decay, and a faint, sweet smell like blood.
"This place—something's not right," Weil murmured.
They cautiously descended the slope, stepping on slippery rocks and broken bone fragments, belonging to who knew what creatures.
Finally, about a dozen meters underground, the passage opened up, and the sight before them startled everyone.
It was a circular underground hall, over twenty meters wide, with a collapsed dome, yet its walls still bore incomplete carvings and sacrificial patterns.
Among the broken stone pillars, several desiccated corpses leaned, some clad in tattered ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ gray robes, others still clutching rusted, crumbling blades.
Even more chilling was the black-purple moss covering the walls and corpses.
The Shadow Moss slowly writhed, its surface glowing with a faint phosphorescence, spreading like a tide.
The temperature in the air plummeted, and a fine layer of white frost even appeared on the outer layer of the Frostleaf Purifier.
"This... is not a natural cave," Louis Calvin slowly spoke, his eyes sharp.
"It's a tomb. A very—ritualistic ancient tomb."
Louis Calvin stepped forward, knelt beside a corpse, and gently brushed aside the adhering moss, revealing an incomplete inscription on the sternum—a snowflake-shaped cross pattern with a horizontal crack carved in the center.
"It's the ancient emblem of the Snowsworn," Louis Calvin speculated, "It should be the ancient tomb of a Snow Country priest and his accompanying guards from several centuries ago, only Shadow Moss has grown over time."
A young Red Tide Knight beside him exclaimed in surprise, "Didn't all of that get destroyed thirty years ago?"
"Perhaps not all of it, for instance, this place has never appeared on any map or in any historical records."
And just as they were filled with doubt, the Shadow Moss at their feet silently, subtly writhed.
At first, they merely clung to the walls, the corpses, and the rock crevices, inconspicuous.
But now, drawn by some subtle air current fluctuations, those purple glows slowly moved closer to the crowd, like a damp carpet slowly stretching.
There was no sound, no smell, but if someone were to remove their mask at this moment, they would immediately perceive a bone-chilling aura of fear, originating from the death memories of others, slowly emanating from the moss.
Those were sensory attacks composed of the fear of the sacrificers, the despair of the soldiers, and the wails of the cursed.
However, these Red Tide Knights, wearing their Frostleaf Purifiers, had long since silently isolated the fear spores outside their masks.
Under Louis Calvin's protection, they had unknowingly avoided the initial erosion of a mental contamination.
"This..." Louis Calvin stood by the Shadow Moss, slowly knelt down, his gaze fixed on the dark purple moss body.
"Now it's not the tomb of a Snow Country priest." He smiled, "Now, it's a valuable asset of Red Tide!"
Louis Calvin's voice was not loud, yet it echoed clearly in the hollow underground chamber, carrying a sense of excitement and pleasure.
Only then did everyone realize something was amiss with this thing, and they all looked towards their lord.
"Wait, wait—Lord, are you saying—this purple moss, is—"
"Shadow Moss," Louis Calvin said with a hint of excitement, "An extremely rare magical plant. It can strengthen will, improve the efficiency of battle qi condensation, stimulate bottleneck breakthroughs—it's also an auxiliary resource many high-level battle qi practitioners dream of."
"Furthermore, it can even be used to create special fumigants, sensory weapons, or mental interference devices."
A silence fell over the surroundings.
Until Lambert, uncharacteristically, let out a "...Huh?"
Weil exclaimed, "Did I just—step on something valuable?"
"It's all over the place," Louis Calvin spread his hands, "You still have time to take off your boots now."
A commotion broke out among the crowd; even Lambert, a seasoned veteran, couldn't help but grin and mutter, "This place isn't just eerie, it's a damn treasure trove?"
"This stuff can help people break through bottlenecks? Is that real or fake?"
"I've been stuck at the elite initial stage for four years—I wish I'd known, I would've brought a bag!"
"Did you guys smell it? The air just feels different! I feel like my throat is clearer, and even the battle qi clump that hadn't dispersed last month feels slightly warm!"
"Dude, calm down—"
The atmosphere at this moment had shifted from shock to excitement, exhilaration, and even fanaticism.
Every one of them understood that a magical plant of this caliber, in other noble territories, would never reach the lower-level military personnel; at most, it would be refined into finished products for sale or for the exclusive use of the family's direct lineage.
But they were Red Tide Knights, direct subordinates of Louis Calvin.
They knew that Louis Calvin had always been the kind of great lord who “eats the meat himself, but ensures his knights get the soup,” which is why these knights were so loyal to Louis Calvin, willing to live and die for him.
And now, thinking that this moss would sooner or later become fumigants for their training, auxiliary medicines for breaking through bottlenecks, and supplementary materials for strengthening battle qi perception, they couldn't suppress their excitement.
Among the crowd, several Red Tide Knights even began frantically scanning the ground beneath their feet.
And just as everyone's emotions were soaring, almost unable to suppress their laughter and chatter...
The Shadow Moss suddenly contracted, like a damp net being violently pulled from within by some force.
The next second, several dark figures burst out from the rock crevices without any warning, no roars, just a slight tremor in the air and a disruption of light, enough to instinctively alarm people.
"Enemy attack!!" Lambert was the first to thrust his shield forward, his crimson battle qi instantly surging, light patterns spreading across the shield like fiery Pattern.
And in that instant, everyone heard a sound, not with their ears, but a sudden mental noise vibrating in their minds, like dozens of dead people whispering and gnawing at their thoughts simultaneously.
"Listen—!"
"My—my head hurts so much—!"
Several of the nearest Red Tide Knights stiffened, their pupils constricted slightly, their weapons almost slipping from their hands, a fleeting moment of confusion and disorientation flashing across their faces.
Continuous mental vibration had begun.
"What the—"
And just as they were about to lose control, a pale blue mist sprayed from the purifier at their waists, instantly enveloping their masks like an icy fog!
That was the “Calming Agent Mist Form” refined from Frostleaf Vine, an emergency suppression solution specifically designed for pollution sources like Shadow Moss and mental spores.
Accompanied by the familiar bitter-cool medicinal scent, the disoriented Red Tide Knights instantly regained their senses.
"Damn it—I almost saw an illusion of my dad freezing to death just now." "Ha, are you a rookie?" The old Red Tide Knight beside him laughed as he helped him up, "Compared to the Mother Nest's mental contamination, this isn't even enough to get stuck in your teeth."
"Indeed, compared to the Mother Nest, this is just child's play."
Amidst their banter, the few Red Tide Knights at the front who had been running quickly stabilized their footing and re-assumed their battle qi stances.
After all, these people were all elites who had survived the "Mother Nest War"!
Having fought for days against insect corpses capable of contaminating dreams and controlling the dead, they were already accustomed to this kind of mental harassment.
A few lizard beasts? Don't make them laugh.
"Red battle qi formation, advance in a circle!" Lambert commanded again.
Instantly, the entire team's battle qi surged forward, and a triangular assault formation quickly took shape in the narrow underground chamber.
Under the feet of over twenty people, battle qi spread like crimson flames, and a high-pressure battle qi fluctuation erupted with the Red Tide Knights as its core!
"Clang—!" Swords were drawn, crimson light piercing the ceiling.
And while these Soul-Devouring Lizard Beasts excelled in mental attacks and had astonishing stealth abilities, in terms of close-quarters combat, "These deformed geckos can't even kick my horse's butt."
One lizard beast, before it could even pounce, was horizontally slashed across its back scales by a Red Tide Knight's longsword; battle qi burned into its body, instantly bursting forth a crimson blood mist.
It wailed and fell to the ground, but did not die, merely twitching and rolling on the ground.
"Stop." Louis Calvin raised his hand to halt them, "Don't kill them, these monsters are useful."
"Control them, use the potion!"
"Understood!"
As soon as he spoke, a Red Tide Knight immediately pulled out a tube of special potion from his backpack, which was a concentrated Frostleaf Vine extract, and directly injected it into the scale Seam of the lizard beast's back neck.
A light blue liquid seeped into its muscles and nerves.
In an instant, the lizard beast's body paused, then it limply collapsed, slumping to the ground with its head askew as if drunk, its tail still gently wagging twice.
"It—it looks just like a drunkard," the Red Tide Knight clicked his tongue.
"This is 'micro-state,'" Louis Calvin chuckled, "Delayed neural response, sealed mental perception, complete loss of aggression. We'll take it back and raise it for research purposes."
Thus, a battle in the underground chamber that could have been brutal was perfectly concluded by these well-trained Red Tide Knights, through control rather than slaughter.
"Apologies, Lord." Weil held a charred lizard beast corpse, "This one—I accidentally smashed its head."
"No matter." Louis Calvin's gaze remained unchanged, and he smiled, "Just dissect it and examine its magic crystal structure. Leave the rest."
Soon, the battle results were tallied: they encountered sixty-six Soul-Devouring Lizard Beasts, killed one, and successfully controlled the remaining sixty-five.
The sixty-five controlled Soul-Devouring Lizard Beasts lay sprawled among the Shadow Moss clumps like a group of drunk vagrants, some licking rocks, others simply curling up to nap.
Each one would, in the future, become experimental material, psychological weapons, or pawns in covert warfare within Red Tide's special forces.
And the phosphorescent Shadow Moss covering the ground gently contracted as if breathing, gradually stabilizing under the pale blue spray and battle qi suppression.
Weil stood beside Louis Calvin, watching all of this, his voice filled with eagerness: "Lord, shouldn't we send people to transport all this moss and these lizard beasts back to the Red Tide Main Fortress? Silco will surely be overjoyed."
"Transport them back?" Louis Calvin did not immediately respond, but instead lowered his gaze in thought, his fingertips lightly tapping the hilt of his sword at his waist.
"Of course, we'll take samples." Louis Calvin nodded slightly, "But not all of it."
He did not rush to order the transport, but instead silently surveyed the structure, humidity, rock wall patterns, and moss distribution of the underground chamber.
In his magical vision, this Shadow Moss was not chaotic, but grew regularly around a certain “undisturbed old plane trace” in the rock core, as if it were a self-sustaining ecological circuit.
The central temperature was stable, magic density was high, the soil was soft, and the walls even naturally produced a certain low-level “magic resonance.”
Plus, those lizard beasts seemed naturally adapted to this environment.
Geothermal heat, phosphorescence, lizard beasts, and Shadow Moss spores formed a strange yet stable symbiotic system.
"This is a natural Shadow Moss breeding pool," Louis Calvin whispered, his words calm but containing hidden delight.
"If we forcibly transplant it, not only would it consume vast resources to replicate this environment, but we would also have to bear the risk of breeding failure, moss wilting, and lizard beast mutation—it's better to just transform it on the spot."
Lambert, standing beside him, was stunned: "You mean—leave it here?"
"Mm."
Louis Calvin raised his hand and pointed to a flat area in the middle of the underground chamber, "Let's convert this into an underground fumigation training room, a low-temperature battle qi perception trial area, a Shadow Moss cultivation station, and a lizard beast control and breeding room."
"This will be the spiritual forge of the Red Tide Knights in the future, and perhaps bottleneck breakthroughs can be completed directly underground here."
The more Lambert listened, the more preposterous it sounded, and finally, he could only smile wryly: "Lord, you're planning to turn an ancient tomb into a Red Tide Knight training camp."
Louis Calvin smiled slightly: "It's about turning it into a resource for Red Tide's combat power. Of course, further arrangements will be made after experimentation."
With that, he turned to the Red Tide Knights and began issuing orders: "Ten Red Tide Knights will guard this place, and the cave entrance will be designated as a restricted area. Once we return, I want a complete geomorphic map.
Collect twelve samples from the Shadow Moss growth fringe, to be used for fumigation liquid experiments, condensing agent production, and battle qi perception injection formulation.
Control five lizard beasts for the return journey, selecting those with intact bodies and active mental responses for the experimental group.
Order people to contact the Red Tide Territory Alchemy Institute, Potion Chamber, and Cultivation Institute to dispatch a group of researchers and construction artisans to the site.
This underground chamber will henceforth be named—'Shadow Valley.'"
Having said that, he led the Red Tide Knights and departed.
And underground, the Shadow Moss, as if acknowledging its master's recognition, flashed with phosphorescence and subtly lowered itself, gently writhing on the rock wall as if in submission.
