REVEREND INSANITY
246

Chapter 246: Exposed

A bloody night passed and the morning sun shone on the ruined camp.

The atmosphere was solemn as everyone cleared the battlefield and packed their belongings, setting out with a heavy heart.

However, the wolf pack attack this time was only the beginning.

A few days later, they were attacked again by a herd of gray wolves.

The scale of the attack this time was even greater than before. But the caravan has taken sufficient precautions and is able to limit their losses to less than the previous time.

They drove away this group of gray wolves. However, they could not breathe anymore, when three days later they were attacked by flaming wolves. The package contained three crazed lightning wolves and nine brave lightning wolves. Fifteen gu masters were killed while fighting them. The battle ended with the corpses of wolves all over the ground, and the injured crazy lightning wolves fled with the rest of the wounded wolves.

There were many gu masters who chased after them for revenge, but could not catch up to them and they did not dare to go deep into the Xiao Yue mountain. They could only stare fixedly at the retreating wolf pack.

The attack this time made the caravan leader and the vice leader aware of the danger they were facing. On that very night, they decided to speed up and leave the Xiao Yue mountain as quickly as possible.

Even so, for the next fifteen days, they were often met with attacks by the wolf herd.

Grey wolves, lightning wolves, snow wolves, two-headed wolves, and even blood-fed wolves. . .

Everyone in the caravan heaved a sigh of relief after they exited the Xiao Yue mountain.

The next few days of the caravan passed peacefully and smoothly, until they entered Bai Hu mountain and were attacked by the beast group again.

This time, it was an old turtle carapace monkey. These white apes are huge with carapace armor on their backs – carapace armor covered with turtle shell patterns. There were not many casualties from this group of ape attacks, but the enormous damage to the item caused many people to feel heartache.

Fang Yuan's items also had a hard time, the dozens of carts of goods he had reduced to less than half.

The spirit of the caravan dropped drastically, these people were merchants trying their hardest to earn money. However, these losses made this trip worthless to them.

“We have traveled without results.”

“I checked my account yesterday, my income is less than two thousand ancient stones!”

“My situation is even worse, I have lost thirty percent of goods.”

“Even if it is worse, can it be worse than the Zhang Clan? They have lost most of their stuff!”

“Sigh, if I had known earlier, I would have snuggled up in the clan; why would I bother taking risks and only get this much!”

  . . .

Caravans move in such an atmosphere. Five days later, they were attacked by a group of white tigers.

There are losses again.

Seven days later, a group of fire tigers ambushed them; flames spread throughout the camp and a large number of items were burned.

Morale has hit an all-time low, many traders have lost all their investments.

Ten days later, when they were about to cheer as they left the border of Bai Hu mountain region, a Biao appeared.

Five tigers and one Biao. A Biao was a tiger that had wings, and was at least the king of a thousand beasts. And since he had the ability to fly, it was even more troublesome.

Several vice caravan leaders lost their lives while fighting this Biao.

Biao tailed the caravan for nearly a hundred miles, constantly bothering them. Eventually the caravan's top brass decided to make a small sacrifice, quickly deciding to hand over nearly a hundred servants.

Most of these servants were injured or paralyzed, they rained curses and wept for their lives, but could do nothing to change their fate.

Finally, Biao was full and left, satisfied.

The caravan could only rest well after leaving Bai Hu mountain far behind. The leaders of each clan did not rely on rewards, gradually raising morale.

The scale of the caravan has now depleted to half its original size.

But after going through this cruel elimination and sharpening, the caravan was now showing signs of an elite group.

“I have been a traveling merchant for many years and this is the most challenging of all.”

“Who knows what possessed this beast, attacked so often!”

“After this trip is over, I will retire and enjoy my life.”

“Whatever happens, the risk of this trade path needs to be reevaluated..”.

“The main reason remains because these huge mountains have no human habitation. Without clans and garrisons to clean up these ferocious beasts, they had grown unattended.”

Some sighed, some were desperate, while some still had hope.

However, the caravan seemed to get unlucky; on the road ahead, they were not only attacked by all kinds of animal groups, but also by many herds of wild gu insects and worms.

The size of the caravan continued to shrink, merchants no longer cared about profit and loss; they began to feel their lives at stake.

They even left behind many items willingly speeding up the speed of their journey.

The setting sun dyed the clouds with a blood red color.

The caravan crossed the mountain forest in silence. Everyone was exhausted and numb, their morale was extremely low.

Many had bandages on their bodies, covering up light and heavy wounds. They moved step by step on the bumpy mountain road.

Yesterday it had rained, causing muddy and slippery mountain trails.

A handcart filled with items stuck in the mud. The ostrich dragging the wagon raised its neck and made a screeching crackling sound before using all its strength to pull the wagon, but to no avail.

Right at this moment, two hands came out from the back of the wagon and lifted it up, pulling the wheel that was stuck out of the mud hole.

It was Fang Yuan.

He casually clapped. Items worth thousands of kilos did not seem that heavy in his hands.

However, even though the wagon had slipped out of the mud hole, it somehow stuck and did not move.

After being in the caravan for so long, he had learned many things with his veiled identity, and had already completely fused.

“What is this?” He rubbed the axle, his eyes filled with doubt.

There was some sort of item hidden in the axle of the wheel, and it was continuously ground into a fine gray powder as the wheel was driven.

The fine powder was not too conspicuous when it fell to the ground.

Bai Ning Bing took some of this powder and rubbed it with her fingers; the powder turned into oil.

“Ah, I put this oil powder on the wheel to lubricate it and make the hand cart move more smoothly.” Fang Yuan walked over while taking out a cotton handkerchief from his pocket; he grabbed Bai Ning Bing's hand and cleaned the oil.

After that, he crouched down and fumbled around the wheel – wheel regaining his mobility.

“Come go.” He wiped the oil powder from his hands and patted Bai Ning Bing on the shoulder.

Both keep going.

Bai Ning Bing's footsteps continued to slow down as the doubts in her heart grew stronger and formed a thick fog that could not be removed.

He felt something was wrong.

“When did Fang Yuan get this oil powder? Why do I not know..is it from the beginning, or at Huang Jin mountain or at Xiao Yue mountain? It seemed like he did not care about the caravan; he did not even frown at seeing such a huge loss to the caravan. But why would he care to oil the wagon? Weirdo, weirdo! “

“Wait a minute!”

Suddenly, a quick light seemed to flash through Bai Ning Bing's mind.

At that moment, his entire body shivered and his pupils suddenly shrank to the size of a pin.

A possibility echoed from within his mind.

He stopped in place, his mind filled with shock!

After a long while, the ostrich that had been walking beside him suddenly shrieked and woke him up.

Fang Yuan's figure was already far away now, gradually merging into the crowd in front.

“This person...” Bai Ning Bing lowered her head, covering the cold light that passed through her blue eyes under the straw hat cover.

The sun slowly set in the west and many stars began to appear in the sky.

The caravan stopped near the beach, they decided to camp here for the night.

However, just as they were half done setting up camp, a group of cold jade owls appeared around him.

“Animal group, it's owl!”

“Stop your work, set up a defense formation!”

“These damn animals, I just had dinner..”

The people cursed and ran away, but with the agony and bitter temperament before, they immediately formed three strict lines of defense.

The body of the Cold Jade Owlcat was like a leopard and very fast. However, his face was similar to an owl, his enormous eyes covering almost half of his face and shining with a terrifying green light in the darkness.

The owl king shouted loudly; the group of owls lunged into the camp like a tide.

“Kill!” The gu teachers who were on the frontlines shouted.

For a moment, all sorts of colors shone, flames blazed, rocks and earth flew, lightning roared. . .

Countless owls collapsed, but more waves of owls rushed out.

“Jeez, this is a large-scale group of cold jade owls.” Someone shouted.

“Ahh, save ...” A part of the defensive line could not withstand another attack, and a gu master was pounced upon by three owls, his tragic screams stopped halfway through, flesh and blood splattered in the air.

“Quick, cover that gap.” Two gu masters were sent as reinforcements.

However, it was useless, the distance was constantly increasing, slowly destroying the entire defensive line.

“Retreat, retreat!” In the end, they had no choice but to retreat to the second defensive line.

“Connect carts and carriages, and stack items to high wall!”

After the second defensive line, the third defensive line hurriedly put up a barricade.

Many servants were busy moving things, their bodies wet with sweat. No one can make a mistake right now.

Fang Yuan was moving a large trunk, when Bai Ning Bing suddenly walked over and lifted one side of the trunk.

On the surface, he seemed to be helping Fang Yuan, but he actually approached Fang Yuan and whispered into his ear while gritting his teeth: “You, you pulled this cold jade owl, right?”

Fang Yuan looked surprised: “Why do you say such a thing?”

“Stop pretending. There must be something wrong with that powder, I can't believe a man like you would kindly consider this little detail!” Bai Ning Bing whispered.

“Hahaha, you finally found it.” Fang Yuan did not deny.

Bai Ning Bing could not hold back her teeth, all the attacks the caravans frequently suffered along the way were due to Fang Yuan's ‘contributions’!

Both of them raised the log and moved slowly, the people around them were all busy shouting and moving, their concentration was all on the battlefield. Who had the time to listen to Fang and Bai's whispers?

“Why are you doing this?” After a moment of silence, Bai Ning Bing asked.

“Haha.” Fang Yuan laughed, “Take a guess.”

Suddenly, Bai Ning Bing felt a strong urge to beat Fang Yuan.

In ancient Chinese folklore, it is rumored to resemble a tiger and a leopard.