Chapter 118: Hide and Seek

Chapter 118: Hide and Seek "Roar roar roar!" Purple Vortex happily collected ’trash.’ Just now, it had stumbled across a severed hand that looked pretty decent. This tickled it pink. It quickly absorbed it, and its right hand immediately changed appearance. White and slender—Purple Vortex was mighty pleased. "Roar roar roar!" Full of beans, it continued searching inch by inch, dead set on not missing a single spot... In this area, in the shadow of a certain white poplar tree, a pair of eyes watched everything happening in the field with pure terror. "The masked person!" "Skeletons!!" "Monsters!!!" Tammy held her breath, her heart filled with dread. Not long ago, Delya and Kitz had thrown everything they had at trapping the sand lizard commander and many sand lizards. But Tammy hadn’t stuck to the original plan to attack together. Instead, she’d seized the chance to fire up a spirit technique and hide in the shadows. This directly led to the ticked-off sand lizard commander and numerous sand lizards breaking free from their restraints as the sand lizard pack swarmed forward. She just watched helplessly as the bone-tired Delya and Kitz got ripped to shreds. After tearing apart the two enemies, the sand lizard pack figured she had skedaddled outside. As she’d expected, they began clearing out one by one... Only after all the sand lizards left did Tammy breathe a sigh of relief, grateful to have made it through. Just as she was about to come out, a black shadow dropped from the sky, scaring her into hiding again right away. When she got a good look, her pupils shrank. It was actually the masked person they’d run into in White Poplar City days ago! He could actually fly! "Damn it! This guy has been tailing us all along!" Coming so quickly, Tammy realized after thinking it over that this masked person had been shadowing them the whole way. For all these days, she and the others hadn’t caught on—a chill ran through her heart. The ancient aura radiating from the masked person’s wings made Tammy’s nerves even more on edge. She prepared to quietly move and slip away while the masked person was busy. Suddenly, terrifying skeletal monsters were summoned by the masked person. Tammy immediately didn’t dare budge. Especially the weird black monster nearby made her skin crawl. That monster’s torso had exposed black-red flesh that writhed constantly. Blood-flesh vortexes seemed bottomlessly deep, as if they could swallow human souls whole. Bloody pulsing organs were clear as day to Tammy’s eyes. Though she’d seen plenty of dark mist monsters and even killed quite a few ugly creatures cooked up by the Black Poison cult, none had given her this spine-chilling feeling. Even more horrifying, after this monster absorbed a severed hand from one of the dead underlings, its right hand actually became the same appearance as that severed hand. Though much larger in size, Tammy recognized it right away—this was her capable ’subordinate’s’ right hand! Even though that subordinate had been specially sent by the Golden Sand Society president to keep tabs on her. "The hand is... could it be that the organs on the monster... the skin..." Suddenly, Tammy thought of a certain possibility. Her scalp went ice-cold, her hair stood on end. She bit her lips hard, not daring to make the slightest peep. ... Outside, Carlos always felt like someone was secretly watching him. He’d thought it was his imagination until the Shield Guards finished cleaning the battlefield. "Hmm? Only white quality spirit gear?" The three Golden Sand Society members were clearly of similar standing. By all rights, if two had blue quality spirit gear, the third should probably have blue quality gear too. Three pieces of blue quality spirit gear would make more sense. But now there were only two. "Either one person really didn’t have the cash to buy blue quality spirit gear, or... that person isn’t dead." If they weren’t dead, their spirit gear naturally wouldn’t be left behind. Carlos immediately took to the air to get a bird’s-eye view. The sand lizard pack was spreading outward in rings with no signs of battle. Recalling how the three Golden Sand Society members had fought tooth and nail before, Carlos was deep in thought. "If they had means to escape, they should have hightailed it long ago." "So if someone really survived, the most likely possibility is they used some unknown means to secretly hide." Carlos looked down at the white poplar forest below. "Hidden away... that’s going to be a pain in the neck." The Shield Guards had already combed through the battlefield once without finding signs of survivors. Even so, Carlos stayed cool as a cucumber. He unhurriedly took out a disc. "Uto~" The large eyeball on the disc blinked as if just waking up. This was the special alchemical life form he’d snagged from the Rock Sand City squad earlier: Gauwo’s Eye! Since getting it, this was Carlos’s first time calling it out. "Sense whether there are any humans hiding in the white poplar forest below." Gauwo’s Eye had amazing perception abilities. Detecting whether anyone was hiding would naturally be a piece of cake. "..." But Uto didn’t budge. The large eyeball blinked and very humanly gave him a look: "Uto~~~" (You know what I need~~~) "..." Carlos’s mouth twitched. He’d almost forgotten this guy wasn’t like his bunch of skeletons that worked for peanuts without food or rest. Though it was an alchemical creation, it was also a life form. It had its own wants and needs. "What does this thing eat anyway?" Carlos searched his memory. Players who’d gotten their hands on Gauwo’s Eye before had posted related information. [Gauwo’s Eye Feeding Recipe: Requires secret gold crystals, mithril crystals, refined gold, refined silver... Combined with blue water ore liquid, black flame magma... Plus additional...] Good grief, all precious minerals. Carlos immediately felt having this guy work wasn’t worth a hill of beans. "Wait, what was that white crystal the little girl fed it? Why can’t I find it in the recipe?" Carlos recalled that he’d never actually laid eyes on that white crystal before. "It’s probably special Uto feed whipped up by an alchemical master. Not being in the player feeding recipe would be normal." Soon Carlos saw the end of the recipe: [...If none of the above are available, ordinary gold and silver can substitute... though Gauwo’s Eye won’t like it.] "Ordinary silver works too—that’s not half bad." If it doesn’t like it, tough luck. As long as it gets the job done! Carlos took out a silver coin and placed it on the disc. Uto approached the silver coin and stared with wide eyes, seemingly unable to believe it. After double-checking it was really a silver coin, it instantly let out a delighted cry: "Uto!" The silver coin melted and merged into the disc. The large eyeball closed comfortably. After digesting it, it savored the taste. How many years since it was unsealed—it had finally tasted silver again! Then it excitedly jumped up and down, repeatedly calling out: "Uto! Uto!" The large eyeball eagerly wanted to point out the hidden person below to show off. "...This is ’not liking it’???" How did it seem like Gauwo’s Eye absolutely loved the taste of silver coins? Carlos began to doubt whether the Gauwo’s Eye feeding recipe was worth the paper it was written on.