Thousands of living dead wandered around aimlessly in the wilderness on the path back, but they never wandered far, as if they were waiting for someone’s orders.

There were two strange fellows under a tree scheming something.

“White night, what is going on? Darkness wasn’t weak and had a large number of living dead, how could he be killed so easily?”

A man wearing white robes sternly asked as another lowered himself and nervously responded.

“Apostle, I-I haven’t finished investigating yet, all I know for now is that Claire led a rescue team and reunited with Caesar at Yellowstone and worked together to kill Darkness.”

“Who made the final move?”

“Um… not sure yet. The situation was chaotic, but I know that Darkness threw out a black core to try and capture Caesar’s soul, but it didn’t succeed.”

“Useless!”

He never expected someone he highly regarded to not only messed up but exposed secrets and even got finished off by a bunch of useless investigators, how humiliating!

But speaking of which, why did Darkness go after them like that?

The apostle more or less had some knowledge on what had happened, that Caesar rashly rushed into the plague zone and found their secret black core, which Darkness was unprepared for. He was afraid the apostle would punish him, so he could only secretly gather a living dead army to try and trap Caesar and retrieve the black core.

What happened after was what the apostle had just heard.

The only good news was that Darkness didn’t leave his corpse behind and bought them some time.

“So where’s the lost core? Is it still with Claire?”

“No, I heard Snow took it.”

“Hm? That brat? What did she take it for?”

“I don’t know… Claire said that she officially handed the black core over to Snow and Snow would continue studying it.”

“She’ll study it? Why?”

Snow was a Saintess, not a magical scholar, not to mention black magic, so why would she be interested in it? Even if they were going to study it, they should find professionals, why would she do it herself?

What was more confusing was that Claire handed over the black core to the Saintess from the Holy Light Church, which didn’t match what he knew of the Leopard Queen.

Claire didn’t trust the people from the Holy Light Church, so there was no reason to hand something so important over to Snow.

“Strange…”

It was natural he couldn’t understand since he didn’t know that Snow was an expert in black magic, so she was naturally interested in the black core. And the person who handed it over to Snow wasn’t Claire, but Lin Xiao!

When they left, Lin Xiao successfully persuaded Claire to use her name and officially announce where the black core was going, the goal was to confuse the people from the enlightened society.

And just as he anticipated, the beloved apostle was truly confused.

“Lord Apostle, what should we do next?”

“…”

He thought about it for a while and silently looked at the numerous living dead in front of him.

“Why don’t we awaken the familiar demon and kill all of them!”

“No! It’s not ready yet and it’s too risky to awaken it early. Our plans have already been disrupted, we can’t take any more risks!”

“But… we can’t just let them go back right!? If Saintess Snow really manages to bring the core back and successfully decipher it, then all our efforts will also go to waste!”

“Hmph, don’t worry, it’s won’t be that easy! No matter how capable that brat is, she can’t do anything with just the black core.”

As the apostle said that, he smiled. White night also suddenly remembered something and revealed a similar smile.

“Though having said that, we can’t let them know too much… where are they now?”

“Claire’s investigation team just left Yellowstone, Snow is much faster than them and is already on route, they probably split up on purpose.”

“Don’t want to get others involved huh… did she already know about me so she purposely took the black core to draw me out?”

“So you’re saying that brat is intentionally going against us.”

“No, it might not just be her…”

Snow taking the black core and separating with Claire could be all within their plans to use the core as bait to draw him out!

If that was the case, then it wouldn’t be so simple…

Snow didn’t seem like a calculative girl, so everything she did must have been ordered.

So, who was the one supporting her?

Was it that immortal old pope? Or was it someone else?

“Right, I-I suddenly remembered something.”

“Speak.”

“Darkness once told me to pay attention to someone.”

“Who?”

“Lin Xiao.”

“… Him? Haha. I’ve already told Darkness before that Lin Xiao is just a magic academy student that came here for his break, he’s not even worth mentioning! If you want to pay attention to someone, watch Claire and that Yao Zi… White night, I recommend that you watch yourself and don’t repeat the same mistakes as Darkness!”

“Yes! I misspoke…”

“Okay. I have arrangements for the black core, now you should take over Darkness’s work and continue to cultivate the familiar demon, and remember to not let any more information leak! Otherwise… you understand.”

“Yes! I understand.”

“Snow, Snow, do you really want to force me to show myself?”

The apostle looked up again and sighed.

“Even so, I’m afraid you’re not qualified for that right now… you have to be at least able to return alive first.”

The road back was neither long nor short, at her current speed, she should be able to make it in two to three days.

But the question was whether she returned as an energetic brat or an ice-cold corpse.