Chapter 501 - 498: Understanding

Chapter 501: Chapter 498: Understanding

"Since then, the captain has never let any team member walk at the very back," Zhou Dynasty said, a hint of nostalgia in his voice.

Li Luo nodded blankly. "That ’Li Mingfu,’ he was also one of your teammates, but he was ’stolen,’ wasn’t he?"

"Yes." Zhou Dynasty sighed. "He was already fifty-two years old and had entered the abyss very early on. Back then, you didn’t even need a relic to enter the second level."

"He didn’t have any special skills. He was usually a man of few words and didn’t talk much with us younger guys."

"Every time we explored a Sky Island, he always liked to walk at the very back. He’d say it was so he could keep an eye on every team member, but we all knew the back of the line was the most dangerous spot. He was just putting himself in the most dangerous position..."

"It was because no one could see him that he was ’stolen’ and forgotten by us. If it weren’t for the written records, we might have forgotten him completely."

"Ever since then, the captain only ever walks at the back of the team. He only changes position and rushes to the front when we encounter enemies."

"The captain never said anything to anyone, but I know he must feel incredibly guilty. Guilty for forgetting Li Mingfu, guilty that he wasn’t the one walking at the back that day..."

After Zhou Dynasty finished recounting this story, Li Luo understood his reasoning.

The "captain" walking ahead now didn’t seem to care about things like "who walks at the back."

Appearances and voices could be faked, but a person’s experiences could not. That incident had left a deep scar on the captain’s heart; there was no way he would forget it so easily.

"That’s not the captain..." Zhou Dynasty said, his voice laced with disappointment.

Then, Zhou Dynasty pointed to another team member up ahead.

"And that’s not Ah Wang. Ah Wang would never wear his backpack on his back."

"Why not?"

"Because we once went to a Sky Island that had a type of octopus. They would silently attach themselves to a creature’s back, then jab their tentacles into the brain and suck out the brains."

"Ah Wang is the team’s quartermaster. His pack is stuffed with all sorts of miscellaneous things, so it’s always the biggest one on the team. Those octopuses must have thought he was the fattest prey, so they kept attacking him."

"Even though we wiped out all those octopuses, Ah Wang never wore his backpack on his back again. He’d rather hug it in front of him or carry it in his hands."

Listening to Zhou Dynasty’s explanation, Li Luo was confused. "Wouldn’t that seriously affect his mobility?"

After all, these transport backpacks were huge. It would be a massive burden to hug it in front of you or carry it by hand.

Zhou Dynasty shook his head. "Perhaps the incident left too deep of a psychological scar on him. They said the octopus’s tentacle had already pierced his skull. A little further and it would have scrambled his brains into a paste."

"Ah Wang’s relic enhances his strength, so no matter how he carries the pack, he can handle it. He doesn’t really care about the inconvenience."

"So, that’s not Ah Wang either."

"I see," Li Luo nodded.

The team member up ahead called "Ah Wang" was wearing his backpack on his back in a perfectly normal way, showing no signs of anything unusual.

"Have you noticed anything else?" Li Luo asked in a low voice.

The two of them kept talking at the back of the group, but the teammates ahead showed no reaction at all. They just kept forging ahead on their own, passing through the starlit forest as if in a great hurry.

"Brother Tie is off, too. His relic doesn’t seem to be working," Zhou Dynasty said, looking at a burly man ahead of them with a puzzled expression.

"What does his relic do?"

"It causes an excess of iron in his body without any adverse reactions, and he can use that iron to make his body harder."

"If a normal person had that much iron in their body, they’d have gone into shock, fallen into a coma, and died of liver failure long ago. But the relic keeps his body stable despite the high iron levels."

"However, the price for using this relic is that he must maintain that level of iron in his body. If he’s deficient in iron, he’ll immediately become anemic, get dizzy, and collapse."

"So he has to constantly eat iron-rich foods."

"Constantly?" Li Luo asked, confused.

"Yes, every twenty minutes, thirty at the most, he has to ingest iron. But for convenience, he just takes some iron supplements or lozenges. They’re easy to carry and absorb quickly."

"But it’s been so long, and I haven’t seen Brother Tie take any iron. It seems like his relic isn’t active..."

Zhou Dynasty watched Brother Tie carefully. He was focused on rushing ahead and indeed hadn’t taken his iron on schedule.

Logically, after going so long without an iron supplement, Brother Tie should have been anemic by now. But he was still walking briskly, not looking like an anemic person at all.

"Because he has to take iron so often, Brother Tie frequently touches his pockets to make sure he has enough of his supplements. He’s also developed a habit of checking the time. If he can’t check the time, he gets very anxious."

"But this Brother Tie right now not only isn’t making that little gesture of touching his pocket, he’s just staring straight ahead. The old him would have been a nervous wreck by now."

"This leaves only one possibility: Brother Tie is also a fake."

Zhou Dynasty stated his conclusion with absolute certainty.

These familiar teammates only had the appearance of his friends; they lacked all of their characteristic "habits."

Zhou Dynasty knew his teammates well. If at first it was just a "sixth sense" telling him something was wrong, now he had concrete proof. Piece after piece of evidence confirmed that his intuition was correct:

This group of familiar teammates was fake.

’What on earth are they trying to do?’

Zhou Dynasty grew worried. These fake teammates were in such a hurry to lead him and Li Luo into the depths of the Starlight Forest—it was very likely a trap.

At this thought, Zhou Dynasty couldn’t help but slow his pace.

But then he remembered that his own goal was also the center of the Starlight Forest, and he found his courage again.

’No matter what, I have to go in and see what’s happening at the center of the starlight. More importantly...’ Zhou Dynasty glanced at the teammates ahead and clenched his fists. ’I’m going to find out just what kind of thing is impersonating you.’

In the increasingly dazzling Starlight Forest, the fake teammates’ movements grew faster and more distorted.

Gradually, they began to resemble a pack of ravenous beasts, charging toward the center with synchronized movements.

If not for having to wait for Li Luo and Zhou Dynasty behind them, they would have already rushed to the final destination in one go.

Seeing that Li Luo and Zhou Dynasty were still dawdling, the "captain" turned his head. His eyes were bloodshot, his brow was tightly furrowed, and anxious gasps escaped his throat.

"Keep up, faster... Faster..."

The once gentle and easygoing captain had become somewhat incoherent, desperately trying to suppress his inner urgency. But, as if worried the two would notice something was wrong with him, he immediately snapped his head back around.