The hidden magic orcs are the children of Xia, as are other living beings...
Since the items at the highway inn were stolen by the Apocalypse Orcs, the village chiefs of Xia's various habitats have realized that the number of enemies around them has increased significantly. They have decisively abandoned the messenger birds as a means of transmitting messages to prevent the messages from being intercepted by the enemy.
The messengers took over the duties of the carrier birds, traveling between the three habitats and responsible for delivering all messages.
Jiang Yunlan hadn't forgotten the message from the captured Apocalypse Beastmen. She planned to use the messengers' missions to lure them out and capture the Beastmen, including Yuan Bingsheng, who wanted to seize the elves.
Besides the Apocalypse Tribe, the Xia Tribe is another orc tribe that now possesses a magic array that conceals the power of nature.
Jiang Yunlan picked up a brush and drew the array she had memorized on the blank paper, infusing it with the power of nature as she drew.
As she wrote the last magic rune on the paper, she put down her brush and exclaimed, "Shui Liujing and the others are truly amazing. In less than a season, they completely understood the array behind Bai Su and developed a concealment magic array that elves can use."
After a brief remark, she smiled and asked Freya in her pocket to help her try out the concealment magic circle she had drawn.
Freya spent the most time with her and was the elf who favored her the most among all the elves. She would grant her request without hesitation as soon as she heard her call.
The translucent ice crystal remained on the paper. Freya looked at it from left to right, and asked in great confusion, "I don't feel anything when I'm on it. Does this thing really work?"
The elf that assisted Shui Liujing and the others in completing the magic circle was a different elf. It had never seen this magic circle before and was not very familiar with it.
Upon hearing its question, Agni, who was watching, immediately offered high praise, almost as if he had grown hands to clap like an orc to show his agreement. "Wow! This array is so interesting, it's very useful. I can't sense your presence at all right now. If you hadn't made a sound, I would have thought you had suddenly disappeared."
“It’s truly unbelievable. Your aura has vanished, and I can’t sense your presence even with my elemental perception. It’s as if you’re just an ordinary crystal standing before me.” Jiang Yunlan echoed, sighing inwardly.
The Apocalypse Tribe used a similar method to deceive Sylph and the others, preventing the captured elves from sending messages to alert their kind.
"Lan, Lan! I want to go inside the formation to play too!"
Agni's lively voice dispelled the sadness that had gathered in Jiang Yunlan's heart. She smiled and said "okay" repeatedly, then reached out and placed Agni into the formation.
The two elves found concealing their presence amusing and asked to repeatedly enter and exit the concealment magic circle. Jiang Yunlan played with them for a while before entrusting them to 022's care, then turned to deal with some paperwork.
After she finished reading the document, she turned to look at the three little ones. They had already finished their fun and were studying the magic circle for unsealing Bai Su around her.
Jiang Yunlan didn't specifically ask about their progress, and led them away from the central building as usual. Unsealing the Palia fragments within Bai Su's body was no easy task, and Shui Liujing and the others hadn't made much progress either, only managing to eliminate a few methods for 022 and the others.
A few days later, the messenger team went out.
Sveta and the elves who had come to Forest Lake hid inside a concealment magic circle. Maple Red carried Sveta on her back. The guardian, who had never shown himself to the Apocalypse Orcs, also had Orc-specific concealment magic runes drawn on his body.
The messenger team was out on their fifth day.
"Lan! We've figured out the unsealing magic circle!" Agni cheered, perching on 022 and shouting to the squirrel-like beastman at the table. It was a fire spirit, able to sense the changes in the fire power within Bai Su's body.
The thought that the fragments of Palia could finally be freed from Bai Su made Bai Su seem much more pleasing to the eye.
“Let’s go to the tribal square to cast a magic circle. We elves all love being close to nature; it’s too stuffy inside. The square is conveniently located near the streets of Senhu Lake, where there will be many Summer Beastmen. We can let Palia meet them. I like Summer, and I’m sure Palia will like Summer too.” It said happily, urging Jiang Yunlan to get up quickly and take them there.
Hearing its energetic voice, Jiang Yunlan hesitated before responding. She picked up 022 in one arm and the elves in the other, and led Bai Su, Hei Tu, and the other orcs out the door.
However, Palia has already vanished, and only a part of Palia remains within Hyakusou's body. After the unsealing spell is cast, the real Palia will not appear; it cannot see the scenery Agni wants it to see.
Will Agni be sad?
Watching Agni draw the unsealing spell with 022's help, Jiang Yunlan forcibly suppressed her worries about Agni and looked away to watch the unsealing spell being activated.
The light representing the fire element broke free from Bai Su's body, as if waking from a dream, stretching its body in place before drifting away.
The flickering fire elemental light came to Jiang Yunlan and her group.
Some fire elementals brushed past Jiang Yunlan's cheek, some lightly touched 022's body, and some hovered around the two elves, circling once before merging into Agni's body and bypassing Freya to go outside. It was as if they had said goodbye to a friend and were heading off to play somewhere else.
Jiang Yunlan looked in the direction the fire elements had drifted away. The fire elements scattered in the air and gradually merged into the many natural elements in mid-air. She couldn't immediately distinguish which of the fire elements were the ones that had just drifted out of Bai Su's body, nor could she tell which fire elements were the original Palia.
“Welcome back to nature’s embrace, Palia!” Agni shouted.
A hearty laugh, devoid of any gloom, reached her ears. Jiang Yunlan turned to Agni, who was laughing heartily, and joined in the laughter.
She suddenly understood why Agni was happy. For the nature spirits, returning to nature's embrace after death was a cause for celebration. They wouldn't have to be exploited by the Apocalypse Beastmen after their demise. If the nature spirits knew this, they would surely be happy too.
"If only this magic circle could be used to deal with the Apocalypse Orcs who have plundered the power of nature." Black Earth looked at Hundred Su, who had completely lost the power of fire, with eyes full of regret.
The Apocalypse Orcs aren't stupid; they won't just stand there waiting for the unsealing magic circle to activate. This tactic can't be used on the battlefield to weaken them, since they'll feel the natural elements within their bodies surging when the magic circle activates.
Hearing the regret in her voice, Jiang Yunlan smiled and said, "It's no pity. It's useful enough. With it, we won't have to worry about the Apocalypse Beastmen escaping by using their abilities when we capture them in the future."
Hearing Lan's answer, Kurotsuchi suddenly realized how useful this magic was. Hati and the others had complained to her about how difficult it was to subdue the Wood-Power Apocalypse Beastmen they had captured; if they had this magic back then, things would have been much easier.
She figured the messenger team that had recently gone out must have needed this formation, especially after capturing the Apocalypse Orcs. She wondered if they had encountered any Apocalypse Orcs yet.
The messenger team, having left the Forest Lake habitat, ran into Lian Qiyu and the other orcs who had been observing them for two days.
Their feigned strength was neither particularly strong nor weak, and even Lian Qiyu and the other orcs failed to see through their disguise, stepping right into the trap. Therefore, during the exchange of blows, Lian Qiyu discovered that two more elves had suddenly appeared in the messenger team, which originally consisted of only two wind elves, and one of them was an exceptionally powerful wood elf.
Lian Qiyu was stunned for a second and almost had his body pierced by the attack swung by the wind spirit.
He spun around to dodge the wind's attack, raising his hand to unleash a thick layer of ice to protect himself, barely managing to withstand the wind spirit's assault. Objects swept up by the wind crashed onto the ice and fell into the snow.
Lian Qiyu quickly activated his senses and discovered that he couldn't defeat the wood elf that had inexplicably appeared in Xia's team. Among his acquaintances, only orcs as powerful as Ling Caiyuque could defeat a wood elf in a one-on-one fight; other orcs could only rely on attrition warfare or other means to defeat this wood elf.
But with three other elves and a Xia beastman around, he made a quick decision and shouted, "Retreat!"
Then he ran away without looking back.
He had only taken a few steps when the ironwood seeds that had fallen to the ground with the wind sprouted and stretched out branches to attack him. He had to slow his escape and focus on dealing with the troublesome ironwood.
"Freeze!" Lian Qiyu roared.
The ironwood branches that attacked him were frozen solid.
“Growth,” Sveta said slowly.
In an instant, the frozen plants suddenly grew, piercing through the ice and rushing towards the fleeing Sand Fox Beastman.
"Ice Shield!" Lian Qiyu unleashed a skill to block Tie Mu's attack.
Layers of ice stacked together to form a curved circle, like a shield with its own arc blocking Ironwood's way.
It took Tiemu some time to break through the defenses, and Lian Qiyu transformed back into his beast form as the ice shield cracked. He leaped aside to dodge Tiemu's attack, then pounced onto the back of one of his direct subordinate orcs, joining forces with his reunited companions to fight off the elves' attacks.
The raging fire weakened the ironwood's attack, the ice wall blocked the attack, the water mist blinded the summer orcs, and the wind wings increased their escape speed.
As the smoke cleared from the battlefield, Lian Qiyu and four other Apocalypse Beastmen successfully escaped. The remaining Apocalypse Beastmen who attacked the messenger team, regardless of whether they possessed the power of nature, were all captured.
Yuan Bingsheng of the Apocalypse Tribe is an orc from the intelligence department who decides whether to participate in operations based on his mood.
She chose to stay at the resting place, but unexpectedly saw Lian Qiyu slinking back. Her eyes widened in surprise. "That's strange. You actually made a mistake. Did you encounter a powerful elf leading the team this time, or a team led by Chief Xia? No, if they were leading the team, you wouldn't have attacked."
She glanced up at the number of orcs who had returned and was even more astonished. Of the twelve members of the expedition who possessed natural powers, only five orcs had managed to escape.
"As expected, the ones we obtained later were not as powerful as the ones we found initially. They were too weak, which also reduced our combat strength." Yuan Bingsheng shook his head in disdain, recalling the intelligence he had seen earlier, and couldn't help but feel regretful.
Very few nature elves have survived from the Age of Calamity to the present day; the vast majority of nature elves were born after the Age of Calamity ended. The elves she plundered were also born after the Age of Calamity, and their power was extremely weak, forcing her to draw upon the power of the elven guardians and the tribe's defectors to become as strong as she is now.
Lian Qiyu rolled her eyes at her, treating her external injuries while explaining their ordeal, her occasional gasps filled with resentment.
"What did you say? Xia also has a concealment magic, and naturally he has also learned to conceal his aura?!" Yuan Bingsheng blurted out these words, and couldn't help but shiver.
The nature spirits have learned to hide, so their tribe will no longer be able to find them.
She narrowed her eyes and bent down to gather her belongings. "This is crucial intelligence. Xia's strength might be greater than I thought. I must go back to see the leader in person. Yan Ganguo, you won't be able to hold them back here without the power of nature. You're coming back with me."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
