Chapter 313 — What He Saw and Heard

Under Gao Jiran's gaze, Daniel did not hold out for long before lowering his head. "...In the face of your mighty power, my loyalty to Typhon and the Ever-Sleepers can be set aside."

"Very good," Gao Yang nodded in satisfaction, then pointed at the Ever-Sleepers' special edition on network security. "Then we will start with this one. This will be your first step toward advancement within the Order of the Long Night. First, you must not spread this knowledge directly. Instead, you must find the fatal flaws in the current psychic network, and tell those discoveries to the believers one tier above you or at your own level. When the Ever-Sleepers gradually become aware of these hidden dangers, you will release the contents of the first chapter as your own research findings. Let us first look at what a distributed network is, and the concept of network resource allocation..."

Daniel lowered his head, assuming the posture of a respectful pupil.

He truly did recall the days of his youth, the years when he had first followed his mentor in learning knowledge...

At the same time, somewhere in the Eastern Province of Ansu, in a certain town.

The snow had stopped, and brilliant stars had emerged in the clear night sky. The starlight shone upon the earth, and the accumulated snow reflected the starlight in turn, so that this town after nightfall did not fall completely into darkness. In the crude alleys cluttered with stone and wooden buildings, a tall, lean figure wrapped in a black hooded cloak was quietly making his way through the streets.

After finding a corner that could shelter him from the cold wind, the figure stopped and took off the cloak's hood.

Beneath the hood was the striking golden hair peculiar to silver elves, and an exceptionally handsome face.

A high elf ranger, Suojilin Frostleaf.

The human town seemed especially quiet deep in the night—at least, the places where the poor gathered were. Suojilin's long elven ears twitched lightly in the air; he could hear the sound of lutes and tambourines still drifting from the distant lord's castle, which meant the nobles' nightlife had only just begun.

The high ranger drew a breath of the fresh yet icy air, then could not help frowning and pressing a hand near his chest.

That strange woman was more formidable than he had imagined. Although ranger was not exactly a profession well suited to frontal combat, he had still not expected that fighting an opponent who seemed to be a druid would leave him at a disadvantage.

If he had not followed the advice of the knight named Byron and brought along some "new-style weapons for the vindication of justice," he felt his current situation would surely be even worse.

As Suojilin soothed the throbbing ache of his wounds and felt his flesh slowly neutralizing those strange toxins bit by bit with the aid of supernatural power, he recalled the battle. He had finally confirmed that the power the woman used was indeed druidic.

Toxins, withered vines, thorns, corrupted treants—all were spells derived from druidism, yet all showed clear signs of corruption and degeneration... The Order of the End of All Things? That should be the most likely explanation.

Why would a high-ranking believer of the Order of the End of All Things infiltrate an elven monitoring station... What was her purpose?

The cold night wind blew through the alleys once more. Suojilin tightened his cloak and temporarily set aside these thoughts. It would be better to wait until he returned to Cecil's domain. Gao Yang and the clever people under him could offer more advice—far better than him blindly guessing here alone.

Unfortunately, his personal identification documents had been destroyed in the previous battle, and upon his return he had discovered that the Eastern Province of Ansu had also entered a higher level of martial law owing to the shifting situation. A single order from Duke Silas Loren of the Eastern Province had made the entire region difficult to travel through. In places where order was poorer, things were somewhat better, but in these medium and large towns under tighter noble rule and swarming with informants, he had to act with caution.

In this chaotic, dark age of noble warlordism, an outlander without identification documents would enjoy no favorable circumstances—especially since he had recently been serving in the Typhon army. Duke Silas Loren and many of the knights and officers under him knew him by sight, and those people did not know he had already defected to Cecil. Once they came face to face, it would be hard to explain...

The winter nights in the northern part of the continent were piercingly cold. Although the constitution of a high-ranking transcendent kept Suojilin from falling ill at such temperatures, he was still quite uncomfortable and could not help seeking somewhere warmer. Because of the Eastern Duke's iron-fisted rule and martial law orders, all taverns and inns were closely watched; non-humans and outlanders whose accents did not sound like the eastern region of Ansu would all be interrogated. Suojilin in peak condition would naturally not worry about such things, but he was now gravely wounded, and suppressing the toxins in his body had already consumed most of his strength. He did not want to draw the attention of those human transcendents at such a critical juncture.

Just as he was searching for a place to shelter from the wind, a flickering firelight suddenly caught Suojilin's eye.

He walked over and saw that at the far end of the shabby alley there was indeed a small heap of bonfire. A few blurry figures were huddled around the fire, and now and then one would stir, poking at the feeble flames and tossing a small piece of charcoal or a dry twig into the pile.

A high-ranking ranger, reduced to sharing a bonfire with beggars...

Suojilin smiled silently, but walked over all the same.

He could have made better choices. Though his body was in a wretched state, he could still have found a way to slip into some barn, or even into some warm citizen's home, to spend the night. But when he saw that bonfire, he could not help drawing near; the leaping flames and the people gathered around the fire for warmth reminded him irresistibly of seven hundred years ago, of the hardest days of the expeditionary army. Back then he had mingled with a group of human soldiers and refugees, and on the coldest nights they had used this same method to huddle together for warmth, encouraging one another through the darkest, coldest stretch of the road.

Since the human nations had been founded and the situation gradually stabilized, he had gone many, many years without such an experience.

The homeless around the fire noticed the stranger's approach and immediately grew tense and wary. But soon they realized it was not soldiers out on patrol—in such cold weather, soldiers were unwilling to venture deep into the slums either. They usually only made one round along the streets before going back to drink.

The person in the black cloak looked more like another homeless soul.

Suojilin, hood pulled back up, walked to the bonfire and spoke in a low voice: "Cold weather."

A tramp wrapped in a tattered cotton coat grumbled: "No room left."

"I still have some liquor," Suojilin casually fished a wineskin from his bosom. "Enough for two or three mouthfuls each."

"...Sit down over there, then."

Suojilin sat down. The wineskin in his hand was swiftly snatched away by the person beside him, who pulled out the stopper, brought his nose to the opening and drew a deep breath, then lifted the skin to his lips—trying hard to restrain himself but failing, and taking a big gulp.

Then he held the liquor in his mouth, as if wanting to savor it slowly, reluctant to swallow, while the wineskin was passed on to the next person.