Chapter 248 - 247: Eight

Chapter 248: Chapter 247: Eight

The sound of drums and music drifted over. Feng Ling and Ye Zheng stopped at the same time, instinctively looking toward the source of the sound and retracting their spiritual power.

Li Qing instantly breathed a sigh of relief, inwardly grateful for the Divine Travel Team’s timely arrival. "There’s something strange about this Divine Travel Team!" he immediately said.

Feng Ling frowned and looked over at him. "What’s strange about it?" she asked.

Li Qing: "..."

’How could he know what was strange? He just wanted to distract the two women; otherwise, when would this ever end!’

"Something’s wrong. The sound is heading right for us," Ye Zheng said, suddenly getting to her feet. In a few quick movements, she scrambled up a nearby three-story building.

Feng Ling curled her lip. With a look of annoyance, she walked to the building’s main entrance, kicked the door open with a BANG, and then headed inside to take the stairs.

Xu Yiming looked up, estimating the building’s height. He figured he could probably jump to the top in a single leap, but seeing Feng Ling’s fuming back ahead of him, he had a strange feeling that now wasn’t the time to be showing off his ability.

’I’ll take the stairs, too.’

Everyone arrived on the rooftop.

The drums and music of the Wandering God were clearer now, definitely heading in their direction. But it wasn’t on the same street as the safe house; it was on the adjacent one.

A row of low-rise buildings separated the two streets.

Feng Ling stood on the rooftop, gazing at the Divine Travel Team, which was faintly visible in the distant fog. After a moment of thought, she said, "The purpose of the Wandering God is to escort a fake Immortal to enjoy the offerings. That means if we head straight in this direction, we’ll find an offering table."

"We can’t let the Maze Master use this to recover its strength," Ye Zheng said coldly. "We have to get there first and destroy the offering table."

Feng Ling shot her a sidelong glance. "Then we’d better be quick. Once the Divine Travel Team gets close, we’ll be affected by the drums and music. It’s easy to be hypnotized."

"What are you waiting for? Let’s go now!" Ye Zheng’s brow furrowed, and she turned to head off. Just then, a Squirrel unexpectedly entered her line of sight. Her entire body went rigid! She froze in place, not daring to move!

A wicked grin spread across Feng Ling’s lips. "Would you like a sedative?" she asked.

Ye Zheng gritted her teeth and shot Feng Ling a vicious glare. Then, she unfurled her fuzzy moth wings, leaped from the rooftop, and glided swiftly to the ground below.

Leaning against the railing, Feng Ling laughed out loud. "She’s pretty tough."

The other three exchanged a silent glance, all feeling that words failed them.

"Let’s go have a look up ahead, and quickly," Feng Ling said. She gripped the railing, vaulted over the side, and used her Teeth and Claws to bite onto an outer window ledge in mid-air, slowing the impact of her descent before landing in a crouch.

She stood up and briskly chased after Ye Zheng with a relaxed expression, her Cat Owl and Cat Spider tailing her—one in the sky, one on the ground.

After walking for no more than three to five minutes, they saw a familiar T-junction.

Feng Ling froze.

She hadn’t expected the T-junction to be so close to the safe house. The last time she tracked the Mouse Monster, she had clearly taken a much longer route.

At the end of the road stood a table, and on it was some meat of indeterminate origin.

Ye Zheng turned back and asked her, "This is the offering table, right?"

Feng Ling furrowed her brow and said nothing.

"Hey, say something," Ye Zheng said impatiently. "If this is the offering table, I’m going to smash it and throw away the offerings!"

Feng Ling glanced at her. "It is an offering table, but it’s not the one I saw."

"What do you mean? Are you saying there’s more than one offering table in the Maze?" Ye Zheng pressed.

Feng Ling mused, "The Maze Master is located in the center of the city. That plaza is a hub, connecting to many streets. It would make sense for there to be more than one offering table."

Just then, Huangfu Miaomiao, Li Qing, and Xu Yiming also arrived. They were all startled to see the offering table just ahead.

"It’s so close to the safe house, and we never even noticed!" Huangfu Miaomiao exclaimed in surprise.

Unwilling to wait any longer, Ye Zheng went up and split the offering table in half with a single strike of her claw!

Deciding the destruction wasn’t thorough enough, she raised her black Tiger Claw and slammed it down twice more. A few chunks of dismembered meat fell to the ground, where they were torn to shreds by sharp, slender legs.

The Cat Spider and Cat Owl seized the opportunity to rush in and eat the meat. To them, this dead mouse meat was a free delicacy.

Feng Ling watched Ye Zheng’s rampage, a thoughtful expression on her face.

She turned her head and asked Huangfu Miaomiao, "You said before that eight safe houses have been activated, right?"

"Mhm!" Huangfu Miaomiao nodded emphatically. "That’s what the system message said: ’Eight Divine Statues have awakened to shelter you from the threat of vile demons.’ Doesn’t that mean eight safe houses?"

"In that case, there might be eight offering tables as well..." Feng Ling mused. "We have to destroy all of them to completely cut off the Maze Master’s source of energy."

She looked up at the others. "What do you all think?"

"Let’s do as you say," Xu Yiming said, puzzled. "But where are we supposed to find the other seven tables?"

Feng Ling pondered for a moment, then bent down, picked up a small stone, and drew a few lines on the ground. "The first Mouse Monster I tagged, the one carrying a corpse, was heading roughly here... The second one I tagged went toward this area."

Everyone crowded around to get a look.

The diagram Feng Ling drew was very abstract, like a cake cut into several triangular slices, with three dots drawn on three of them.

"They all seem to be on the edges of the Maze," Xu Yiming observed.

Huangfu Miaomiao looked up at Feng Ling and asked, "Does that mean we can find them by following this road?"

Feng Ling didn’t answer. She used the small stone to draw a few more lines on the ground. "Look," she said uncertainly, "doesn’t it look like a spider’s web? The Maze Master is in the middle, and the offerings from the Mouse Monsters are on the web."

Li Qing frowned as he looked. "...It’s more like an Eight Trigrams Array, isn’t it?"

’How could she possibly see a spider web in this?’

Hearing this, Feng Ling nodded. "Right, it’s also like an Eight Trigrams Array. If we follow this pattern, the entire Maze is divided into eight equal parts, which would correspond to eight safe houses and eight offering tables."

"That’s so weird," Huangfu Miaomiao muttered. "I always thought a maze would only have one safe house."

Feng Ling thought for a moment before explaining, "My guess is that the number of safe houses is determined by the layout of the routes. Back on Sanqing Mountain, even though the mountain was huge and had forks in the road, there was really only one main path connecting the base, the midpoint, and the summit. So, placing one safe house at the midpoint was convenient for players whether they were going up or down. But this Maze is different. There are way too many streets and alleys, and the central area is occupied by the Maze Master. One safe house clearly wouldn’t be enough."

The drums and music grew closer. The Divine Travel Team would arrive in just a few minutes.

Ye Zheng said anxiously, "What are we still waiting for? We can analyze on the way! Right now, we should be destroying all the offering tables as fast as we can!"

Feng Ling casually tossed the stone she was holding, her tone icy. "Weren’t you the one always complaining that I’m too impulsive and reckless? Now that I’m actually analyzing the situation, you’re rushing me."

Ye Zheng pointed into the depths of the fog and said angrily, "The Divine Travel Team is almost here!"

Feng Ling said, "What do you think the fake Immortal’s reaction will be when it finds the offerings are gone? Don’t you want to stick around and see?"

"Why are you trying to get a thrill out of this at a time like this?!?" Ye Zheng was so furious she stomped on an already broken table leg, shattering it into smaller pieces.

Seeing that the two were about to start fighting again, Xu Yiming timidly raised his hand. "I... have an idea."