"Come over here," Teddy called out, standing beside two soldiers, and gestured to Richard.
Richard approached, puzzled, and noticed something was off. The two soldiers had pale faces and were trembling incessantly, as if they had been frightened.
One should know these were Wu Long’s subordinates; they might have seemed harmless as young cubs in the presence of him, Teddy, and a few other Wizards, but in reality, they were as ferocious as wild beasts. Each had blood on their hands from at least a dozen people, ruthless killers who wouldn’t flinch at murder.
Could such people be easily frightened?
"What happened?" Richard frowned and asked aloud.
Teddy glanced at the soldiers and said, "Go on, tell us."
"Yes," one soldier tried to calm himself and began to speak, his voice quite horrifying, "Master Wizard, the two of us heard a Ghost scream just now."
"A Ghost scream?" Richard raised an eyebrow.
The soldier spoke earnestly, "Master Wizard, it’s true, we really did hear a Ghost scream. It must be the malevolent Spirit from the legends of Screaming Forest."
"Malevolent Spirit? Legends?" Richard’s lips pressed into a thin line.
He, of course, was aware of the legends of Screaming Forest.
According to legend, Screaming Forest had been an ordinary forest so nondescript it hadn’t even had a name. But at some point, a beautiful woman was violated and her body dumped in the forest, then mysteriously disappeared. Since then, screams would occasionally emanate from deep within the woods.
It was said the screams were from the departed woman’s Spirit, expressing her anger, and thus the woods were renamed Screaming Forest.
Strangely enough, after the name change, bizarre incidents began to occur frequently within the forest. It started with a large, abnormal number of animals dying, followed by people feeling oppressed upon entering the forest, experiencing prolonged nightmares and relentless misfortune if they stayed too long.
Gradually, the more terrifying the tales became, the more Screaming Forest was perceived as a malignant place, with hardly anyone daring to approach. Only soldiers, bolstered by their numbers and foreign origins, dismissive of the rumors, dared dig nearby.
But still, truly hearing an inexplicable scream had frightened them out of fear of the unknown.
"Legends, huh," Richard muttered to himself, looking at the soldiers, and queried, "You said you two heard the Spirit’s scream. My first question for you: are you sure it was a woman’s voice, just like in the legend?"
"Well..." the soldier hesitated, "Master Wizard, I didn’t hear it very clearly; I just heard a very sharp, very frightening voice, somewhat like a woman’s, but...it might not necessarily have been a woman’s."
"Alright, I’ll ask you a second question: the scream you heard, where exactly did it come from, deep in the forest?"
"Uh, no," the soldier shook his head, then glanced down at the ground, "It came from beneath the soil; that’s why we were too scared to continue digging."
"From beneath the soil," Richard narrowed his eyes, pondering the soldier’s position for a moment before his gaze sharply shifted. He waved to the many soldiers in the distance and commanded loudly, "All of you, come here and focus on digging this spot, dig deep!"
"Swish, swish, swish!"
Scores of soldiers began to vigorously dig at the suspicious site of the scream with their shovels, sending dust flying. In a moment, they had excavated a large pit nearly ten meters in diameter and over a meter deep.
"Plop!" As a tall soldier shoveled down, a hole as thick as an arm appeared.
"Hmm? What’s this?" The tall soldier was stunned, not yet reacting, when suddenly, a green-patterned snake with a triangular head emerged from the hole, opened its mouth wide, and bit towards his leg.
The tall soldier’s head was still in a daze, but his combat-trained reflexes took control, prompting him to act. His shovel stabbed fiercely, hitting the green snake squarely, chopping it into two pieces.
"Cut, just a snake," the tall soldier, finally coming to his senses, scoffed as he glanced at the snake’s body before tossing it aside, ready to continue digging.
Then a "hiss" sounded again as a second snake emerged from the hole.
The Soldier didn’t hesitate at all. He swung his shovel again, cleanly severing the snake’s body into two separate parts.
"I didn’t expect there to be two snakes, both coming to their death together..." the Soldier chuckled, but his words trailed off midway.
From the burrow, a third snake emerged.
The Soldier forcefully swung his shovel, decapitating the third snake. He no longer joked around, his expression turning somewhat strange as he frowned toward the opening.
Under the tall Soldier’s watchful eye, a fourth snake crawled out and aggressively bit at his calf.
The shovel slammed down hard on the snake, decapitating it completely—so thoroughly that it couldn’t possibly be more dead. Yet the tall Soldier swallowed nervously, murmuring under his breath, "Please... no more..."
Before he could finish, a fifth snake emerged from the hole.
The shovel cruelly came down again, killing the emerging snake without any surprise, but the color had drained from the tall Soldier’s face.
A sixth snake came out,
followed by a seventh, an eighth, a ninth...
The burrow, as thick as an arm, seemed to conceal countless snakes. One by one, they burrowed out as the tall Soldier, one after another, decapitated them with his shovel. And then one after another, they kept coming—a seemingly endless cycle.
After a long moment, all the digging Soldiers stopped and their eyes fell on the tall Soldier, who continually swung his shovel to decapitate more snakes.
At this point, at the bottom of the one-meter-deep pit, half-cut snake carcasses had piled up enormously. Some that weren’t quite dead writhed slowly, creating a scene eerily disturbing to behold.
The "culprit" that caused all this, the tall Soldier, was on the verge of collapsing. Despite mechanically continuing his chopping, sweat soaked through his clothing and his body trembled increasingly violently, nearly unable to steady his shovel.
At that moment, accompanied by a "hissing" sound, another snake emerged, completely black, flicking its tongue, darting like an arrow toward his calf.
The tall Soldier, extremely tense, swung his shovel down once more, followed by a "swish."
The tall Soldier’s eyes bulged as he saw the Black Snake about to bite him. Already on the brink of collapse, he now completely broke down, throwing his shovel aside and turning to run.
However, the Black Snake, as if it had locked onto him, pursued relentlessly, speeding up continuously.
Panicking, the tall Soldier didn’t get far before he fell to the ground with a "bang," and the Black Snake quickly slithered up on him, biting toward his face.
The tall Soldier’s eyes widened in horror, despair overtaking him, when suddenly, a sound of slicing through the air rang out.
A thin slice of Ice Slices flew in, striking the Black Snake accurately and sending it flying to the ground beside them. The Ice Slices then shattered, releasing a burst of cold air, turning the Black Snake into a large block of ice.