Millennium Witch

Book 3: Chapter 300: Peering

Honestly, even though they had gone over the exact methods for using alchemical weapons beforehand, once they truly experienced that power in action, Bobo and the other three were all deeply shaken. They even started to wonder if this was just an illusion right before they got chopped to death by the armored demon army.How could this be just an alchemical weapon? It was practically a legendary divine artifact.

If even a casually handed-out weapon was this terrifying, then was Lady Witch even more mysterious and unfathomable than they had imagined?

After their narrow escape, the four of them quickly left the forest clearing where the battle had taken place. Only when they slipped into another hollow, ringed by jagged rocks, did they finally stop, gasping for breath as they rested and thought about what to do next.

Next… were they still going back?

At that thought, all of them felt conflicted.

By this point, with Grus the Nightmare and the armored demon army suddenly showing up, it would be a lie to say they did not want to run.

The problem was that even if they wanted to escape now, the route back was riddled with danger. They might get lost, run into even stronger monsters, or bump into scouts from other armored demon units. The path toward Riftscar City might already be under surveillance, and the other directions around here were not necessarily any safer.

Looked at that way, it might actually be better to return to the main force, see how Lady Witch reacted to all this, and then make a decision.

……

In fact, Bobo and the others did not even need to return. Through the holy sigil embedded inside the tactical knife, Yvette could remotely see what was happening over there.

Then she only had to scatter some spiritual fragments, like faintly glowing dandelion seeds invisible to the naked eye. They drifted out in silence, floating over hills and brushing past dead forests, spreading across several kilometers of land, and she could easily lock on to the locations of both the Riftscar City army and the armored demon army’s encampment.

Of course, she could also use this method to find the gorge where Riftscar City lay hidden in the poisonous miasma, but there was no need.

After all, every time she used spiritual fragments, she was basically pinching pieces off her own spirit body and crumbling them. Even if she could reabsorb them afterward, she would still end up with a bit of a headache.

Very soon, after reabsorbing the fragments, the enemy army’s size surfaced clearly in Yvette’s mind. It was an army in the truest sense of the word. Dense gray encampments sprawled across the flat ground between the mountain hollows like a carpet of fungus. Patrols of soldiers passed back and forth in constant motion. It looked to be tens of thousands strong, and the spectacle was overwhelming.

The instant she saw this scale, Yvette’s brows drew together slightly, a puzzled look flashing across her face.

With a force of this size, plus an eighth-tier demon like Grus, this was no longer something as simple as quelling a disturbance or sending reinforcements. It was practically a strategic expedition.

And what had she actually done so far? She had only killed Pigoru, a boar-headed underling under Wev, lord of Riftscar City. She had not even had any formal contact or direct conflict with Wev himself.

Under these circumstances, the local lord Helarit was actually willing to dispatch such a large-scale reinforcement to such a remote, barren backwater…

Something about it felt off.

Was there some hidden agenda?

With that thought, Yvette glanced at Slippery Jim beside her and said, “You take the others and keep heading toward Riftscar City. Maintain the original route and pace. I’m going to take care of a small matter.”

Slippery Jim was currently in his amorphous slime form, oozing forward while humming to himself. He froze at her words, then said blankly, “Uh, okay…”

Before he could even ask why, Yvette had already turned around and stepped into the mist, disappearing from sight.

……

Since she was deliberately hurrying, Yvette’s travel efficiency was naturally very high.

She was like a roaring gale whipping past. Wherever she went, all the miasma seemed to receive an order and parted to either side, leaving behind a broad, clear path that refused to close for a long time.

Thus, in just a few dozen seconds, she appeared in an open area where bare gray-white rock covered the ground and almost no vegetation grew.

The place had clearly been prepared in advance. A large wind-dispersing magic array was embedded somewhere in the ground. Wind-elemental energy here was unusually active, continuously blowing under magical guidance and forcibly driving away the poisonous miasma, forming a relatively clear, high-visibility pocket of space. That massive army was camped on this man-made patch of clean land.

The camp was enormous. Thousands of gray-brown tents were laid out in a strict grid pattern. A huge black banner stood in the center, embroidered with a blood-red crest that snapped and cracked in the wind.

She walked forward calmly and, as expected, was blocked at the entrance to the camp.

The two guards there had not expected someone to suddenly walk out of the miasma and head straight inside. They hurriedly snapped out of their loafing state, grabbed their spears, and leveled them at the intruder.

Then, seeing that the person was actually a demonkin girl, already extremely rare on the Northern Continent, both guards immediately connected the dots, their expressions turning sharply wary.

“Stop! Wh-who are you?” the slightly older guard barked.

Yvette halted. Her violet eyes swept over the two of them calmly as she said in an even tone, “I’m the witch you’ve been looking for. Now, go inform your general.”

“You…” The two guards looked at each other and saw the same shock in each other’s eyes. Coming alone, walking straight into an army tens of thousands strong. What kind of arrogance was that, or rather, what kind of confidence?

But since Yvette showed no sign of attacking, they hesitated a few seconds, then still split up, with one of them going inside to report.

The wait was not long. After a little more than a minute, the previously orderly camp seethed like a lake suddenly struck by a boulder.

Under Yvette’s calm gaze, a large group of demons with fierce auras and fine gear emerged from deep within the camp in a steady stream. They surrounded one figure at the center and marched aggressively toward the palisade outside the camp.

The one at the very front was none other than Grus the Nightmare. He was a pure-blooded abyssal demon, nearly three meters tall, with a savage face and natural horns. His whole body was encased in a set of thick, brutal black plate armor, and on his back he carried a massive black greatsword as wide as a door.

Based on measurements from the rune siphon effect, his mana level was above eighty, in line with outside rumors.

Among those accompanying him was also a troll whose strength was not very high, with mana around fifty. That was almost certainly Wev, lord of Riftscar City.

Grus halted a dozen paces from Yvette, looking down at her without a shred of emotion as he said coolly, “You’re the witch?”

“Yes.”

“You came to me of your own accord. Looks like you’re smart enough to know better than to waste my time.”

“I am indeed smart, but probably not in the way you’re thinking.” Yvette tilted her head slightly.

“I know you’re not here to surrender,” Grus said expressionlessly. “But since you saved me the trouble of hunting you down, I should at least give you a bit of a reward, even if it is only letting you suffer a little less.”

He paused, then seemed to recall something and narrowed his eyes. “I’ve heard you’ve mastered a ‘forbidden art’ of magic that can make people disappear in an instant. I hope later you’ll let me see for myself just where the ‘evil’ in it lies…”

Yvette dipped her chin slightly to show she understood. She also knew that on the Western Continent, rather than talking things out, people generally preferred to beat each other up first. Otherwise, anything you did was a waste of breath.

So, the instant Grus finished speaking, under the wary, curious, or cruel gazes of all the demon officers and elite soldiers who had followed him out, including Wev, lord of Riftscar City, Yvette took a single step forward.

What was baffling was that despite the dozen or so paces between them, that one step alone made her appear right in front of the abyssal demon without warning, so fast it caught everyone completely off guard.

Then she kicked out. The motion seemed light and even a little cute, yet it contained a force that defied description.

With a heavy thud, the nearly three-meter-tall abyssal demon, heavy armor and all, had his mana barrier shatter in an instant. His entire body, completely unable to resist, shot backward like a boulder hurled from a catapult.

He did not even have time to raise any guard or try to roll with the blow. He simply slammed straight into the tightly packed ranks, plowing a broad path through the formation and sending bodies flying along his trajectory.

The area fell dead silent.

All the demon officers and elite soldiers who had followed Grus out, including Wev, were left staring, dumbstruck. Only the dozen or so unfortunates who had been directly bowled over by Grus were groaning in pain, becoming the only source of sound in the area.

Honestly, Yvette’s kick was technically a sneak attack, a preemptive strike. The issue was that aside from top-tier powerhouses, how many people could, even with a sneak attack, boot an eighth-tier abyssal demon away like a ball and send him flying that far?

This demonkin girl who looked so slim and delicate, as if a gust of wind could blow her over, actually possessed such utterly unreasonable physical strength. How on earth did she manage that?

On the other side, looking at the enemy ranks now silent under settling dust and undoubtedly scattered with bodies, Yvette lowered her head without expression and glanced at her little leather boots.

She had not used destruction magic this time, mainly because the annihilation rounds did not hit hard enough, while the high-powered destruction spells were still too hard to control. For the moment, she was not quite prepared to bring them out and show them off.

So she had opted instead for force-field magic that could generate shockwaves, a piece of conceptual magic that no one in the Mortal Realm even recognized.

So far, the effect was pretty good, especially paired with her thin arms and legs. The contrast was striking.

With that thought, she suddenly sensed something very faint, like being guided by some unseen hand. The feeling flickered through her for an instant, so quickly it might have been an illusion.

Yvette quickly raised her head, violet eyes narrowing slightly as she looked up at the sky.

It was empty, with no birds and no clouds, only turbulent air currents stirred by the local wind-dispersing arrays and a small patch of lifeless gray-blue heavens.

Other than that, there was nothing.