It was Ann who, due to her keen perception of vibrations after soul armament activation, sensed the approaching crisis and managed to pull Keli away just in time.

As for Agu, he could only fend for himself.

“Should you take Miss Keli and retreat from the town first?” Agu took flight awkwardly, but his thigh was still slightly scraped.

As a consciousness body—an enhanced form of soul existence—such a minor injury would naturally heal quickly.

However, Agu discovered a toxin resembling pollution in the wound.

This toxin wasn’t very potent and would hardly affect him, but it was unexpectedly stubborn.

While still dodging branches drilling out from underground, Agu had no way to focus on expelling the toxin.

“Be careful, the branches are poisonous!”

He could only warn Ann to protect Keli first.

Master had entrusted Miss Keli to her. Although she showed no outward reaction, she had inwardly decided not to let Keli get hurt at all.

So Ann immediately transformed into spider form, her eight spider legs like sharp scythes, ready to cut any approaching enemies into pieces.

However, while Ann was fully focused on protecting Keli, she suddenly felt an extremely special magical power coming from behind her.

At the same time, Keli placed one hand on Ann’s back. “Don’t move.”

Looking at the branch about to pierce her, Ann hesitated for just a moment before deciding to follow Keli’s instruction, not attacking or defending.

Just as the sharp, toxin-laced branch was about to pierce through both of them, Keli’s red hair suddenly floated up.

Then an invisible force bypassed Ann and Agu, meeting the branches attacking them.

The branches that were about to penetrate Ann’s body instantly turned black and crumbled to powder.

Not just the branches in front of Ann—with Keli as the center, a blank zone with a thirty-meter diameter was cleared out.

Both Ann and the more distant Agu were shocked by Keli’s area-clearing operation.

Although they had witnessed more powerful attacks before, Keli was only a first-rank senior wizard!

She could already perform area-clearing magic that only second-rank wizards possessed.

And the attack effect was quite domineering!

Most importantly, this was magic they had never seen before, and they couldn’t even immediately identify what attribute of magic it was!

“Can I move now?” Looking at the ground covered with branch fragments that looked like they’d been struck by lightning, Ann asked cautiously.

“Yes!” Keli said with slight pride, withdrawing her hands as her floating hair fell back down. “This move of mine can’t avoid moving targets, so once I say you can’t move, don’t move!”

Agu also gave Keli a complex look but didn’t ask much.

He landed beside Keli and Ann, saying to both of them, “Good. Now quickly leave this place while you can and head further east.”

“No.” Keli stepped forward. “Saul is still waiting for us to activate the outer auxiliary magic formation. Even if you plan to stay behind, it’s too dangerous for one person to guard here alone.”

Agu hesitated for a moment.

From Keli’s recent attack magic, she was indeed suitable for guarding beside the auxiliary formation, but he was worried the enemy might be too powerful and harm Keli.

From Agu’s intuition and his observation of Caugust City, these branch attacks were just the beginning of a disaster.

Suddenly, “rustling” sounds came from around the three of them.

They looked around alertly and actually saw the human-headed caterpillars that had previously disappeared, drilling out from cracks that had opened in the ground.

Most of these caterpillars’ heads belonged to elderly people, with only a few young ones.

They stared wide-eyed at the three of them, having completely lost human rationality, like a pack of wild beasts.

The two human-headed caterpillars in the lead were the same two Keli had seen in the uninhabited town.

“These bugs—they couldn’t be what the residents here turned into, could they?” Ann stamped her feet, looking displeased. “So the master of Caugust City not only didn’t spare the people in the city, but also turned the surrounding ordinary people into monsters. What exactly are they trying to do?”

These human-headed caterpillars crawled toward the three of them in undulating motions, while Keli’s group stood guard in front of the auxiliary formation without retreating.

Just as the enemies were about to crawl into Keli’s thirty-meter attack range, Keli’s red hair floated up again, magical power circulating as she prepared a new round of magic.

But before entering the thirty-meter range, those human-headed caterpillars suddenly raised their heads and spat out strings of silk toward them.

This silk wasn’t aimed at them but was sprayed on the ground around the three of them.

It seemed they wanted to use the silk to trap them in a circle.

The silk was spat faster and faster, and within a few breaths, they had already formed a half-meter-high silk wall.

“Are they trying to trap us here?”

Ann said grimly, “Probably more than that. They seem to be preparing to spin a cocoon to wrap us inside.”

She directly tore off one of her spider legs and threw it like a short spear.

The sharp tip cut through the air with a “whoosh” and stuck to the silk wall.

However, the seemingly fragile silk wall wasn’t pierced through, and Ann’s thrown spider leg didn’t disappear but was directly stuck to it.

Seeing this, Agu directly cast a fireball spell.

However, strangely, the blazing fireball also stuck to the silk wall.

This completely defied common sense.

Because the opponents hadn’t entered the thirty-meter attack range, Keli had been holding her magic ready but unable to release it.

Maintaining the magic in a ready-to-activate state, she was somewhat breathless. “That’s not purely physical silk.”

Agu’s expression was grave. “If we get stuck to it…”

Ann immediately turned to Keli and said, “Miss Keli, we should retreat first.”

“Alright!” Keli immediately nodded.

When it was time to be tough, be tough; when it was time to be cowardly, be cowardly.

Keli wasn’t conflicted at all.

Agu remained in place. “You go first. I’ll wait here for master’s orders.”

No matter what, someone had to be responsible for activating the auxiliary magic formation Saul had set up here.

Ann wanted to exchange tasks with Agu, but he still stood closest to the silk without retreating.

Time didn’t allow for further argument. Ann grabbed Keli’s arm again, preparing to escape before the silk wall closed.

Just as the two were about to fly out of the silk wall’s encirclement, they suddenly discovered a dark green cloud had appeared above those caterpillars.

That green cloud had somehow descended to less than ten meters from the ground, and then water drops began falling from it, like rain.

Only this rainwater was also dark green and carried a stench of rotten fish and shrimp.

When the rainwater dripped onto the human-headed caterpillars below, it immediately corroded large holes in their bodies.

Soon, all the human-headed caterpillars on the ground were corroded into pools of sticky fluid.

They looked as disgusting as vomit.

After these human-headed caterpillars were killed, Keli discovered that the silk walls around them had disappeared in an instant.

Ann’s spider leg appeared in a more distant location, stuck in the ground.

Agu’s fireball spell had also scorched a patch of nearby earth.

Keli took a breath and was immediately choked by the fishy stench, coughing violently.

“Cough cough, it was an illusion. Cough cough, not a simple illusion. If Ann and I had tried to fly out of the silk just now, we probably would have felt like we couldn’t get through and were stuck by the silk.”

Agu nodded as well. “Yes, these bugs cast a wall we couldn’t escape from in our minds.”

“No wonder they could shoot so far and so fast!” Ann gritted her teeth. “Mixing physical and mental attacks—how devious!”

“Are you all alright?”

Seeing the three of them all complaining about the silk, the person who had helped them waited without receiving any words of thanks, and no one even discussed his poison cloud rain.

He had to silently emerge from the shadows, caring for the three of them while mentally cursing them.

Finally, when the rescuer took the initiative to show himself, Agu immediately turned around. “Thank you for saving us just now, sir…”

After just the first sentence, Agu’s voice disappeared.

He looked at the special wizard robe the newcomer wore, and his heart sank.

The wizard who had just helped them… was actually from the Tribunal!

(End of Chapter)

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