novelraw Chapter 242 : Chapter 242
Chapter 242 : Chapter 242
Volume 4, Chapter 30 — “The Sandstorm That Blocks the Road”:
Meeting Yimi, each saw in the other a distinct glint in their eyes.
Compared with the Beastmen’s lands, the werewolves’ domain was indeed more fertile: forests, rivers, even the occasional rabbit threading through the trees.
Yet strangely, no other animals. Beyond small creatures like rabbits, no second species wandered the forest.
“Ouch!” Wenfu, walking in the rear, tripped over something and fell backward. Luckily, Felicia pulled her up just before she hit the ground.
“Meow!” She was hauled back at the last possible moment. Terrified, she squeaked out.
“It hurts… meow…” Wenfu rubbed her ankle, pulled down her white short socks. The tender skin around her ankle was reddened and swollen—a conspicuous bruise against her pale skin.
Her vertical pupils brimmed with tears—her tear ducts evidently quite active. The tears would not stop.
“It’s all swollen. Did you bump something sharp or hard?” Felicia bent down, holding Wenfu’s ankle, brushing aside grass. Her hand touched something rough.
“A bone?!” Felicia turned up the object. It was part of some horned animal’s skull.
“A reindeer skull,” Astrid identified instantly. “These are common in the Elven Forest.”
“From its shape and imprint remnants, this reindeer died when still in its prime. It was unnatural death,” Teresa added.
“Eh? You can tell age just from a skull?” Wenfu tilted her head, uneasy. Though she knew it was a reindeer’s bone, she had a natural fear of dead remains.
Felicia rummaged further and pulled out a complete skeleton of a reindeer from the clump of grass.
“It hurts, meow meow meow!”
“Don’t move, don’t move—it might hurt more if you do,” Teresa said, producing her external‑wound alchemical salve and a grass stem to apply it to Wenfu’s injury. Wenfu mewed in pain with every stroke.
Wenfu, being soft and delicate, bruised easily against rough surfaces.
“This reindeer’s right leg bone shows clear damage—almost severed,” Felicia observed. “Such damage likely came from stepping into a trap. A sharp snare clipped the leg bone.”
“A snare trap? Who would set those?” Wenfu asked—then fell silent.
Someone local, obviously.
“Do werewolves make and use such tools?” Felicia mused. She admitted she had underestimated the wolves’ intelligence. They clearly live by hunting, pure carnivores.
“The animals in this forest are so few. Maybe the werewolves have overhunted?” Astrid allowed.
“Possible. Or they’ve hunted so long the native fauna relocated elsewhere.”
It’s unlikely they devoured every animal until only rabbits remain.
After applying salve and wrapping the wound with a sprout of Verdant Fragrance, Teresa asked:
“How’s it now? Better?”
“Cold… icy, meow.” Wenfu flexed her ankle. The pain was overlaid by a minty cool numbness.
“That’s enough.” Teresa tied a butterfly‑pattern bandage around the ankle.
Now able to walk, Wenfu was helped up by Felicia, and the group resumed through the forest.
“Danger!” A glint of metal flashed from under the grass where Felicia lifted Wenfu just in time.
“Mm?!” Wenfu, tilting her head, already had her foot on a boxed object, but was pulled free.
“Crack!” A snare sprang open. A sleek metal trap opened in midair, narrowly missing Wenfu’s face.
Wenfu grew pale.
“It’s a werewolf’s snare,” Felicia said gravely. “Activate Field (domain)—there are traps everywhere in this forest.”
Wenfu swallowed. If that snare had caught her, even a limb fracture might have been trivial compared to hemorrhage.
She reluctantly opened her Divine Field. Tail raised, she moved with extreme caution—step by step, watching for traps under her paws or legs.
This forest was eerily silent. With probing perception, Teresa confirmed the life signs were few—apart from plants, almost nothing moved.
Appending a sprout from her wrist onto her palm, she coaxed it to root into the ground. Her spirit threads spread, seeking the boundary of the forest.
Meanwhile the forest floor was littered with white bones—various creatures in tangled heaps, unsorted, as though in a mass grave.
She fired four arrows from her bow (Floral Whisper), striking four hidden traps in undergrowth.
“Still so many traps left,” Felicia muttered, leaning on her sword. “This forest has hardly any game left—and yet so many traps. Don’t the wolves worry about ensnaring their own?”
“I suspect they don’t,” Teresa murmured. She knelt and placed her hand on a skeleton—a former werewolf corpse—it lay upright but lifeless.
“This is a werewolf’s skeleton—unnatural death. Bones show gnawing marks that match their fangs. Likely cannibalism.”
“Those wolves don’t spare their own kind?”
“I think that’s why the werewolves and Beastmen are locked—because internal strife among wolves is worse—worse even than with the Beastmen.” Teresa reflected.
Soon they exited the forest. The werewolf domain contained many patches of deep woodlands, one after another.
After passing through several, the piles of white bones grew enormous—various species intermingled in a chaotic ossuary.
Teresa’s hypothesis gained strong confirmation.
“These woods are large but consistent. They lack wild creatures. And each dense wood has enormous bone heaps—even of werewolves.”
“There might be famine already in the werewolf lands,” she said, glancing upward. “The population grew unchecked, hunting exhausted prey. The beasts had no time to repopulate.”
“The werewolf domain has no slave‑rebellion problem—but perhaps their internal collapse is far deeper.”
“Deprived of food, they began consuming their own kind. The bones show it—not just hunting prey, but internal flesh.”
“Their internal competition is bloodier than the Beastmen’s.”
“The wolves attacking Beastmen may not belong to one organized unit. They may act independently—led by instinct to invade, kill, and devour.”
“If they ever penetrate Caleburn, it would be a nightmare.” Felicia pictured the bone heaps in the forest, imagining similar devastation in civilized lands.
Luckily, the demonkind are constrained within Ruglien. With them fragmented, even if they infiltrate into Light lands, they cannot fully devastate.
“But these demons were once Light breeds themselves,” Teresa said, remembering her experience in the imperial forge. Her eyes flickered with complexity.
Resentment gives rise to demonkind. The real victims are always the majority. The instigators often escape blame.
In werewolf territory, the Beastmen map was useless. Without a map, they’d wander aimlessly.
“Astrid?” Teresa called as she paused.
“I wonder… is there also a barrier within the werewolf domain—one that isolates wolves from higher demons?”
“Otherwise there’s no explanation why, deeper in Ruglien, only wolves remain—no other demon races.”
“To reach deeper regions, you must find the barrier. It is the only entrance from behind.”
“Highly possible, but we lack a map. Even if we suspect a barrier, we don’t know where.”
Astrid was silent, thoughtful.
“Maybe what we learned in Beastman lands gives us clues,” Teresa said uncertainly, touching an inconspicuous sapling. She closed her eyelids.
Spirit threads extended in her mind, flowing down leaf veins, merging with forest structure. The boundary lines around the forest began to sharpen in her perception.
Gradually she discerned a vast wasteland adjacent to a neighboring wood.
Having charted a path, Teresa stepped lightly across fallen leaves, moving like a cat. The others followed without question.
In the dense forest they heard only insects and wind in the leaves. They saw no animals. The deeper into the forest they went, the more unnatural the silence.
Then they emerged at the forest’s edge. Felicia shielded her eyes. Beyond the treeline lay barren wilderness. The canopy had given way. A windstorm of sand whipped up.
“Here we are?”
“Beastmen live in wasteland; beyond their boundary is forest. Wolves live within deep forest; beyond them is this desert,” Teresa said calmly. “Sand is the barrier isolating them.”
“You’re sure?” Felicia asked.
“Probably. Nine out of ten.”
“But even if so—how do we cross this sandstorm?” Felicia hesitated.
The sandstorm, if not for the buffer of dense trees, would tear whole wolf villages apart.
The yellow sands churned like a living sea. Beyond hues of ochre, nothing else could be seen. Hard to believe life existed beyond.
“This sandstorm has persisted for hundreds of years,” Teresa said to herself. “It won’t dissipate naturally.”
“So what do we do?” Felicia moved forward, hefted a boulder with her giant sword and hurled it into the sands.
The moment the rock touched the barrier, it was torn to shreds—thousands of holes vaporized it.
“...I’d believe you if you said this is divine power,” Felicia muttered.
The swirling sands were coarse, sharp, whipped by an unrelenting gale—enough to shred flesh on touch.
Even Felicia with a domain wouldn’t be certain of standing in this storm. How about Yimi and Wenfu?
There was only one solution: destroy the sandstorm barrier. Otherwise, no further passage.
Teresa stepped forward, gazing at her palm—contemplating a forbidden power.
To use that? Yes, it seemed the only option.
A flicker of hesitation crossed her chest. Though she lacked full memory, she still heard a vague voice cautioning against overdependence on Sanctified Annihilation (or Holy Erasure). Yet she had no alternative.
The answer lay ahead; she could not force her party to turn back.