Cynthia’s sudden use of a scroll to teleport looked very much like she was fleeing in panic because she was no match for Edeli, even disregarding the mission Olivia had given her to protect the Tree of Life.

The Elf warriors left guarding the Forbidden Land were utterly bewildered by this. At the same time, they felt tense about having to face Edeli alone now that Cynthia was gone. It was only after seeing Edeli leave in pursuit of Cynthia that they breathed a sigh of relief.

After Cynthia and Edeli departed one after another, the area outside the Forbidden Land slowly returned to calm. The Wolf Race elders, who had been observing everything from behind a concealment barrier, exchanged glances. The elder standing next to Joanna was the first to speak, asking, “Are we still not making a move?”

Who knew how long they would have to wait for Olivia to be defeated? Besides, after Olivia fell, there was no guarantee the Vampires wouldn’t suddenly go back on their word and refuse to give them the Tree of Life.

After all, the Vampires were known for their eccentric and fickle nature.

Now was the perfect opportunity. The elders didn’t understand what Joanna was still waiting for.

From what they knew of Joanna, she was not a timid person. Why was she so hesitant this time, unable to make a decision?

Joanna was not oblivious to the elders’ questioning gazes. She frowned and remained silent for a moment before saying in a low voice, “Let’s go. We’re entering the Forbidden Land.”

Cynthia had abandoned the Tree of Life entrusted to her by Olivia and fled. This didn’t seem like Cynthia’s character.

But what could a member of the God Race with a broken staff do to resist the attack of a Second Generation Vampire? Joanna couldn’t imagine it. In her eyes, Cynthia was already a dead person the moment she chose to step out of the Forbidden Land’s barrier.

She shouldn’t have been so wary of this God Race member, even if her strength was indeed shocking.

The barrier of the Forbidden Land only repelled Vampires, who were suffused with a dark aura. It only slightly hindered Joanna and the others, letting them in after detecting no danger.

The Elf warriors inside the barrier saw this group of people, whose figures and faces were all concealed by magic, appear out of nowhere. They instantly grew vigilant and shouted, “Who are you?”

Following the question, a volley of arrows flew toward Joanna and her group.

Before the arrows could reach them, they were burned to ash by an invisible force. Joanna turned her head and gave a meaningful look to an elder beside her. The elder nodded and took half of their people to deal with the Elf warriors.

“That must be the Tree of Life,” an elder behind Joanna said, her expression somewhat excited as she saw the Tree of Life in the center of the Forbidden Land. She sized it up for a long while and remarked, “It looks to be in pretty good condition. It’s not as serious as Olivia made it out to be.”

Every year, the Elf Race would give the Wolf Race some Elf Fruits for reproduction, but as time went on, the quantity decreased annually. This year, they had only received a pitiful few.

It wasn’t easy for the Wolf Race to reproduce. With the help of Elf Fruits, the success rate increased significantly. However, the Elf Fruits were also the foundation of the Elves’ own reproduction, so it was understandable that they wouldn’t be willing to give too many to the Wolf Race.

“The Tree of Life is very fragile. Be careful,” Joanna said, walking to the edge of the stream. She reached out to touch the branches and leaves of the Tree of Life, her eyes deep. “After you dig it up, go directly to Thacker Plain. I will handle things with the clan leader.”

She knew that Olivia was searching for the Temple of Light for the sake of the Tree of Life. And, as it “happened,” she knew the location of the Temple of Light.

She didn’t need this Tree of Life to fully mature. All she needed was… enough Elf Fruits.

Years of planning were about to succeed, and even Joanna couldn’t help but show a trace of joy on her face. She bent down and reached her hand into the stream, her sharp nails attempting to dig into the soil. But suddenly, something changed. A domineering power sent Joanna and the elders beside her flying.

Joanna stabilized herself in mid-air and turned to stare in the direction of the Tree of Life, her expression changing slightly. A dense power of nature erupted from the stream, and a slender branch, surrounded by this power, slowly floated to the surface of the water.

“Is… is that the branch of the Goddess of the Forest?” an elder who had fallen beside Joanna muttered, staring at the branch in disbelief. “Didn’t Olivia take it with her?”

Impossible. They had personally witnessed Olivia wielding the branch to channel divine power. Besides, how could she channel divine power to fight Talia without it?

But this… could it be that the Goddess of the Forest left behind more than one branch?

A random teleportation scroll with an unspecified destination was considered a defective product, but at this moment, such a defect gave Cynthia a great deal of room to maneuver.

The wound on her palm was still bleeding, a deliberate choice by Cynthia. The blood dripped onto the grass, looking like scattered crimson petals.

The Elf Territory was filled with the flames of war everywhere; there were few peaceful places. Cynthia was randomly teleported into a forest where the trees had withered due to the corrosion of the Power of Darkness. As far as the eye could see, there was only scorched earth, and the intense sounds of battle could be heard. She leaned against a tree trunk, clutching the Light Crystal in her hand, and quickly scanned her surroundings before softly chanting a spell.

A dazzling golden light exploded in the air. Cynthia lowered her eyes and waited quietly for a moment. A cloud of gray mist appeared in the sky to the southeast, as if in response to the golden light.

Cynthia glanced up at it, then took out another scroll and unfurled it, her figure disappearing once more.

Not long after she vanished, Edeli appeared where she had just been standing. The faint scent of blood lingered in the air. His face was grim as he suppressed his anger and continued to track Cynthia’s new location.

The speed that the Vampires had always been proud of did not give Edeli an advantage this time. Cynthia always managed to unfurl a scroll and teleport to another location just as he was about to find her, testing his patience again and again.

He didn’t know how long he had been chasing, long enough that even the ever-arrogant Edeli began to feel like he was being played with. It was only then that he finally saw the figure of the silver-haired God Race member he hated so much he could grind his teeth.

The silver-haired God Race member seemed surprised that he had found her so quickly, the scroll in her hand not yet unfurled. Seeing the stunned expression on her face, Edeli let out a savage laugh. He raised his right hand, and the Power of Darkness rapidly converged, forming a pitch-black beast that lunged fiercely at Cynthia with an aura that threatened to tear her to shreds. At the same time, Edeli shot forward like a bolt of lightning, attacking alongside the beast.

He was getting tired of this. The fun of toying with his prey was gone. All he wanted now was to kill this God Race member to vent his anger.

Perhaps frightened by the beast formed from the Power of Darkness, Cynthia remained motionless, staring straight at the beast and Edeli as they closed in on her in an instant.

Just as the beast’s sharp claws were about to descend on Cynthia’s head, Edeli’s rapidly moving figure suddenly froze. The Power of Darkness within his body vanished without warning, and the beast before him slowly dissipated as it lost its source of control.

Edeli stared blankly at his hands. This feeling of the Power of Darkness suddenly going out of control was somewhat familiar, but it had been so long that it took him a moment to recall it.

This was the Sacrificial Array they had obtained from that person… the array most favored by the God of Darkness.

Cynthia watched the beast dissipate before her eyes, a slow curve forming on her lips. She took a few steps back, revealing the array’s core that she had been standing on. The Beast God’s godhead in the core emitted a faint black light. After she moved away, no longer suppressed by the Power of Light, the Beast God’s divine power erupted violently. Black chains shot out directly toward Edeli, pinning him to the ground.

Chelsea, who had been watching nervously from the shadows, let out a long sigh of relief. When the beast had charged at Cynthia, she had even closed her eyes.

“Did we succeed?” a witch standing beside Chelsea asked cautiously, looking at Edeli trapped in the array.

Before Chelsea could answer, Cynthia’s gentle voice came from behind them. “You succeeded. When it comes to researching arrays, the witches are indeed more thorough.”

The reason witches were considered “weak” was because they lacked such powerful arrays.

In the hands of the Sethite wizards and in the hands of the Morgan Witches, the Sacrificial Array of the God of Darkness had completely different levels of power.

Trapping a Second Generation Vampire with an array was perhaps the greatest counterattack the witches had ever mounted against the Vampires. This feat surpassed even that of her grandmother—Hettie, the most powerful witch in a thousand years.

Chelsea didn’t show much emotion on her face, but inwardly she was extremely excited. They could finally prove themselves, prove the worth of witches. The arrays passed down for millennia were not useless; arrays and witchcraft were not inferior to dark magic.

The Morgan Witches were even more emotional than Chelsea. Abandoning witchcraft and arrays to study dark magic had been a reluctant choice. Seeing the arrays they had practiced since childhood finally display such power filled their hearts with deep emotion.

The wound on her palm had completely healed, but the pain had not yet faded. Cynthia clenched and unclenched her hand a few times, gazing at Edeli, who was firmly pinned by the black chains. She said in a low voice, “This array can probably only drain two-thirds of his Power of Darkness. It will still be difficult to kill him completely.”

Setting aside the Power of Darkness, the bodies of Second Generation Vampires were incredibly formidable. Unless their hearts were crushed, they could never truly die.

“But this array is enough to hold him until the Elf Queen deals with his companions,” Chelsea said, glancing in a certain direction where the fluctuations of power were particularly intense. “…I hope the Elf Race can drive them out.”

Fighting multiple opponents at once… Chelsea was filled with complete admiration for the Elf Queen’s strength. They didn’t possess such power, but by being able to restrain one Second Generation Vampire, they had at least relieved some of the pressure on the Elf Queen.

Cynthia, standing beside her, showed no signs of being disheveled after fighting Edeli for so long, which was also incredible. Chelsea looked at Cynthia for a moment, and seeing her wiping the Light Crystal in her hand, she asked, “Are you going to help the Elf Queen?”

After wiping away the bloodstains, the Light Crystal was clear again. But with her staff broken, she would have to hold the crystal to cast spells, which made Cynthia, who was used to the feel of a staff, frown slightly. “I’m going back to the Forbidden Land.”

“The Forbidden Land?”

Cynthia nodded, her golden eyes glinting with a cold light as she said faintly, “I’m going back to take a look. There might be a ‘surprise’.”

That faint fluctuation of aura was definitely not her imagination. Cynthia was very curious who else, like Avira, enjoyed “watching the show” so much.

In the very center of Yezreet, Helen and her clan members had lost the Vampires’ trail after tracking them this far. However, there were signs that the temple entrance had been opened. After weighing her options, Helen could only have her people stand guard here to prevent the Vampires from targeting the temple. She was still unaware that the Elf Race was under siege.

It wasn’t until Hanni traveled without rest, running to Yezreet at top speed to deliver the news, that Helen learned of the Vampires’ treacherous plot and was instantly enraged.

The fact that the Sitatul Continent could still maintain a sliver of peace was inextricably linked to the existence of the Elf Race. If the Elves were to be wiped out, the Wolf Race’s situation would surely become even more difficult in the future, and whether the Sitatul Continent could ever return to peace would be unknown.

Whether for their friendship with the Elves or for the future of the Sitatul Continent, Helen did not want anything to happen to the Elf Race.

Upon receiving Hanni’s message, Helen made a swift decision and ordered her clan to withdraw and go to the aid of the Elves.

The non-stop journey had left Hanni somewhat exhausted. While the clan members were preparing to leave, she seized the opportunity to lie on the ground and rest. The elders who had followed Helen to Yezreet were all gathered around Helen, discussing something. Hanni watched them, and then something occurred to her. She asked, “Where is my mother?”

She looked around as she spoke but couldn’t see Joanna’s figure anywhere. Before she had left their territory, Joanna had clearly said she would bring her people to find Clan Leader Helen.

Hearing Hanni’s question, Helen turned her head slightly in her direction and shook her head. “Perhaps she was delayed by something.”

What could have delayed her? A flicker of doubt crossed Hanni’s eyes. She thought for a long time but couldn’t imagine what could have delayed someone coming to protect Clan Leader Helen. She could only shake her head and push the question to the back of her mind.