"Pudding... where the hell are you!"
Jiang Yuan's heart was filled with grief and anger. He silently blamed himself for failing to protect his beloved. Unable to contain himself, he punched the ground and roared at the sky!
"Ah! I know how to contact the boss."
The team's Chuangshi Xiaoyun suddenly had a flash of inspiration and looked at Jiang Yuan as she spoke.
"What's the good idea? Tell me quickly!"
Hearing Chuangshi Xiaoyun say this, Jiang Yuan grabbed her wrist, his face full of excitement as he asked.
"Hey, hey, hey, let go of me, that hurts!"
Chuangshi Xiaoyun cried out in pain. Jiang Yuan quickly released her wrist, apologizing repeatedly.
"We can't reach the boss in the game, so we can find her offline! Wait for me, I'll log off and make a call!"
Chuangshi Xiaoyun said to Jiang Yuan, and her avatar in the team gradually turned gray, showing as offline.
Before long, Chuangshi Xiaoyun's avatar lit up again. She returned to the game and told Jiang Yuan what she had learned from Cangshu Buding.
According to Cangshu Buding herself, after Jiang Yuan led a small squad to provide support, they waited where they were.
At first, nothing happened. They even received an order from Jiang Yuan to send their coordinates!
But just after Cangshu Buding sent the coordinates, a sandstorm suddenly kicked up ahead. Within a few seconds, Cangshu Buding and the other four players from Squad 2 were engulfed by the sudden sandstorm.
What followed was a dizzying sensation. In Cangshu Buding's words, it was "a real experience of high-altitude flight." In the center of the sandstorm, they couldn't even open their eyes. When their vision gradually cleared, they found themselves in a pitch-black place, so dark they couldn't see their own hands.
"The boss told me that from the system prompt, she learned she's in a sealed state. She can't use any skills or move freely, but she can log off. So she immediately logged off and sent you a message, but waited a long time without getting a reply."
Chuangshi Xiaoyun, now back online, looked at Jiang Yuan as she finished the last sentence.
"Alright, I understand. Thank you, Xiaoyun."
After hearing Chuangshi Xiaoyun's description and learning that his beloved was temporarily safe, Jiang Yuan breathed a huge sigh of relief.
"Since we've confirmed they're okay for now, we should hurry up and find the bitter thorns to detoxify the injured. It's been so long, I wonder how they're doing."
Jiang Yuan's face regained its usual smile. Most of his earlier worry and tension faded away as he rallied his spirits and spoke to the four teammates in his squad.
Following his memory, Jiang Yuan led the team northward. Earlier, Squads 9 and 10, which had been tasked with searching the north, had reported finding traces of bitter thorns.
After walking north for over ten minutes, Jiang Yuan finally spotted clusters of bitter thorns poking just a small section out of the yellow sand.
These bitter thorns resembled rose stems, covered in barbs. When Jiang Yuan grabbed one, it snapped back with a whoosh, dealing 200 damage to him!
Enduring the sharp pain, Jiang Yuan pulled up two bitter thorns, and a system prompt immediately sounded in his ears.
"Ding! Congratulations on completing the main quest 'Find the Antidote.' A new main quest 'Crush the Medicine' has been triggered. Do you accept?"
After accepting the new quest, a stone mortar gifted by the system appeared in Jiang Yuan's inventory. It was used to crush the bitter thorns into juice for application on the injured players' desert ant bites.
Following the quest prompts, Jiang Yuan crushed both bitter thorns into juice, filling half the mortar. He then led his squad back to where Ding Ye and Wen Ding Cang Sheng had been resting. But when they arrived, the Tianbo Mansion members led by Wen Ding Cang Sheng were gone. Only Ding Ye and Chuangshi Yong Ge, the two injured Chuangshi members, remained, along with four Chuangshi guild members watching over them.
"Old Ding, where are the Tianbo Mansion people?"
Jiang Yuan approached Ding Ye and asked.
"The Emperor State and Ten Thousand Mile Alliance have already entered the Tianshan range. They reportedly found a mythical-level monster. Wen Ding Cang Sheng was afraid they'd get there first, so he took the Tianbo Mansion people and rushed over."
Ding Ye, holding the lump on his forehead, spoke weakly to Jiang Yuan.
"Come on, forget about them for now. Let me apply the medicine!"
Jiang Yuan held the stone mortar filled with bitter thorn juice in one hand and supported Ding Ye with the other. He dipped his finger into the milky, viscous liquid in the mortar and smeared it over the swollen pustules on Ding Ye's body.
Strangely enough, after applying the bitter thorn juice, the large pustules on Ding Ye and Chuangshi Yong Ge visibly shrank. In no time, both of them had fully recovered.
"Wow, this medicine is amazing!"
Ding Ye stretched his body, finding that all the pain had vanished, and he couldn't help but praise it.
"Yuanzi, still no news about the boss?"
Ding Ye suddenly remembered how Jiang Yuan had frantically issued orders in the team channel to find Cangshu Buding earlier and quickly asked.
"They're trapped in some unknown place, and we have no leads yet. But Xiaoyun contacted her offline and found out they're safe for now."
Jiang Yuan said quickly, then added them all to his team.
"Let's go. We need to move out and rendezvous with Wen Ding Cang Sheng."
Jiang Yuan said to everyone in the team, summoned a Dragon Beard Tiger, and mounted it.
Except for Cangshu Buding's missing Squad 2, all remaining members of Cold River City were assembled. Led by Jiang Yuan, they followed the direction Ding Ye had pointed out and sped off on horseback.
After riding for who knows how long, patches of green began to appear in the once barren desert. As the green grew denser and more abundant, Jiang Yuan and the others finally left the desert and entered the Tianshan range.
Before them now stood two towering peaks, with a narrow gap between them about ten meters wide. The rock faces on the cliffs were dark and rusty, like two giant iron doors blocking their path.
Blocked alongside Jiang Yuan and his group were the Tianbo Mansion members led by Wen Ding Cang Sheng, because in the gap ahead stood members of the Emperor State and Ten Thousand Mile Alliance.
Jiang Yuan looked ahead and saw that the leader was Yi Dao Po Wan Fa, whom he hadn't seen in a long time. His title had now changed to Vice President of the Aoshi Guild. The previous Aoshi Xiao Kuang was nowhere to be seen.
"Jiang Yuan, you're here!"
Wen Ding Cang Sheng turned around and, seeing Jiang Yuan leading the Cold River City team not far behind, his face lit up with joy as he ran over to Jiang Yuan.
"Brother Cangsheng, why are the Emperor State and Ten Thousand Mile Alliance blocking the way here?"
Jiang Yuan asked, and Wen Ding Cang Sheng quickly explained: "The Emperor State and Ten Thousand Mile Alliance found a mythical-level boss inside. Aoshi Long Huang and his people are fighting it. To prevent our two guilds from swooping in, Aoshi Long Huang sent them to guard this spot and gave us a warning."
"Oh? What warning?"
Jiang Yuan raised an eyebrow and looked at Wen Ding Cang Sheng.
Before Wen Ding Cang Sheng could answer, Yi Dao Po Wan Fa, now promoted to Vice President of the Aoshi Guild, walked over. His cold gaze fixed on Jiang Yuan as he said, word by word: "Trespassers die!"