Chapter 608: Withering Gorge

Only after hitting her target did the female hunter Moses lower her long bow. As the team’s long-range scout and sniper, this cold-faced hunter’s role was to eliminate any enemies within sight from a safe distance.
“It’s just a low-level skeleton. Nick, go take care of it and let it rest in peace!”
Seeing that the target was a low-level undead creature that an ordinary person could easily handle, team leader Harkley signaled Nick to deal with it.
Nick crouched low and swiftly moved to the tree ahead, swinging his short blade and piercing the skeleton’s skull in one strike, causing its soul flame to dissipate.
As elites among adventurers, their team naturally knew how to deal with undead creatures to ensure their complete destruction!
However, the gray-robed mage, an outsider to the team, stepped forward and said, “As undead, simply breaking their skulls in such an environment isn’t enough to kill them completely. The dissipating soul flames will quickly attach to another set of bones under the influence of negative energy, forming new undead. You need to purify their souls!”
With a wave of his hand, he released a misty green light. Countless particles enveloped the glowing mass, breaking it down into tiny lights that fell to the ground. Instantly, the plants in that area regained their green color and began resisting the intrusion of negative energy.
The members of the adventure party watched in astonishment. Though this ability didn’t seem particularly powerful, as experienced adventurers, they could tell it was no easy feat. After all, even the lower-level mages they had encountered before couldn’t do such things!
Moreover, the power displayed by the gray-robed mage resembled the legendary power of nature—power usually held by the elves, rarely accessible to humans. Could he be an elf mage?
Harkley, who had spent years in the central and southern parts of the continent, had seen elves a few times but still didn’t know much about this relatively reclusive race. He only knew that most elves were kind and harmless, except for those in the underground world!
Thinking of this, everyone felt much more at ease and grew more friendly toward the mysterious gray-robed mage.
The gray-robed mage was actually Donald’s saintly avatar, and he wasn’t concerned about the adventure party’s thoughts.
The various signs of the Ashen Forest piqued his curiosity. Desiring to explore it further, he continued to follow the team deeper into the forest.

As the party ventured deeper, they encountered more low-level undead creatures along the way. The fog also began to obscure visibility, greatly hindering their progress. At that moment, the adventurers exchanged glances, all relieved that they had a mage in their group. With the spells cast by the mage to disperse the thick fog, they could at least detect undead creatures as soon as they appeared in sight, rather than having to move forward through the mist while constantly on guard against ambushes. If not for the mission objective, they wouldn’t have needed to go this far. Otherwise, they might have been lost forever!

Now, with the mage’s spells dispersing the fog within a hundred feet around them, one of the biggest obstacles to exploring the Ashen Forest had been overcome. Perhaps they could venture even further and gain more rewards!

The adventurers had good ideas, but they didn’t realize that not every mage could do this. Even an average silver-ranked mage would consider it impressive to create a spell effect covering just a dozen steps. The reason Donald could disperse the fog within a hundred feet—and keep the range unchanged as they went deeper—was because he had added a hint of domain power to his dispersion spell.

After all, the environment of the Ashen Forest was imbued with the power of the Death Domain, which exerted immense pressure on any forces not belonging to that domain. Only higher-tier divine domain powers could resist such suppression. The members of the Harkley squad were at most at the peak of bronze rank and couldn’t even sense such a vastly superior force, so they took it for granted without delving deeper into it.

If they had known more about mages, they would have realized that only a legendary mage could accomplish such a feat. The Ashen Forest was a place where ordinary professionals considered it a dead end, and even deeper within, there were entities that even legends and demigods feared. How could it be so easy for just a few of them to pass through?

The reason this trip was much smoother than their last visit was that Donald’s natural domain aura intimidated those low- to mid-level undead creatures. As a result, the ones they encountered along the way were too slow to hide or evade. There weren’t many of them, and their levels were low, so they posed no real threat. However, this situation wouldn’t last long. Once they reached deeper parts of the Ashen Forest and encountered higher-level or even legendary undead creatures, those beings would see the pressure from this foreign force as an act of aggression by invaders, and then they would swarm over!

So Donald didn’t intend to take these adventurers deep into the area; instead, he planned to leave on his own once they reached the mission target. Soon, under Donald’s covert protection, the group arrived at their target: Withering Gorge. Withering Gorge was one of the most important regions in the Ashen Forest. The mist dissipated as soon as one approached the gorge, but that didn’t mean it was safe—on the contrary, it had always been the place where the most adventurers lost their lives. The landscape of the gorge appeared as if covered in a layer of gray cloth, with mostly low shrubs and weeds of the same dull color. Only rarely could other colors be seen—often rare magical plants, and those that could grow here were basically precious materials for alchemical potions worth a fortune in the market! This gorge acted like a natural barrier, dividing the latter half of the forest in two. No one knew what lay deep within it. Adventurers who managed to return alive usually only went dozens of miles deep before having to retreat—or rather, escape! By that point, the area was filled with swarms of undead creatures, and powerful undead lords ruled their own territories. Not to mention those undead lords, whose strength was far above gold rank, their massive armies of undead were enough to bury most outsiders! “Master Mage, we’ve arrived at the mission site. It’s time to clean up the surroundings and collect the mission items. There are several precious alchemical materials here. Once we’ve cleaned it up, as long as we don’t go too far, it should be safe!” Donald nodded and said, “If that’s the case, it’s time for us to part ways. I need to go deeper. We’ve had a great time together. As a reward for guiding us, I’ll lend you this puppet for now. It’s enough to ensure your safe departure from this forest!” As he spoke, Donald waved his hand, summoning a humanoid puppet made of smooth stone. Its surface was covered with mysterious and intricate patterns, giving it a strong and agile appearance. Its arms were shaped like shields—it was the same advanced construct from the ruins of the Arcane Empire in the Dual-Footed Dragon Swamp: the Shieldwarden! “Don’t worry about it. After escorting you away, it will automatically return to me!”

With that, Donald turned and left. Though he seemed to be walking slowly, he disappeared from the adventurers’ sight in just a few breaths.
“Wait…”
It was only after the gray-robed mage vanished that the team leader realized what had happened. He tried to speak, but the mage was already gone.
“Leader, what should we do?” Scarred Jason asked. The others understood his meaning—meeting such a powerful being was a rare opportunity. If they could follow him, wouldn’t that be far better than their current life of wandering around on missions with no fixed base?
Hakli thought for a moment before sighing and saying, “This mage’s strength is far beyond our reach. He might even be someone like a Grand Mage of Gold. It’s already very lucky to have met him! Even if we chase after him now, it would only cause trouble. We’d better gather as many precious materials as possible and leave the forest to wait outside. Maybe we’ll see him return!”
With that, he took the lead in picking up his weapon and clearing the area nearby.
The other members followed suit, spreading out over a small area. Aside from the female hunter who stayed in the center to keep watch, everyone began to clear undead creatures and other obstacles while collecting alchemical materials they came across.
That seemingly extraordinary puppet followed them at a distance of about a hundred feet. In fact, it hardly needed them to do anything—almost all the undead creatures it encountered were killed with a single punch from the puppet.
Even when faced with a silver-level necromancer, the moment the latter managed to cast a spell, it was already reduced to pieces.
The necromancer’s spell of dark fire struck the puppet but failed to even scratch its surface, fizzling out with just a faint green spark!
It was then that Hakli and the others truly realized the puppet’s immense power.
At their location, it was rare to encounter undead creatures of silver strength. For their team, if there was only one enemy, even a silver-level undead creature, as long as it wasn’t extremely powerful, could be slowly worn down. But it was impossible for there to be only one undead creature here, so entering this place was already a very dangerous task for them!
On top of that, today they had encountered a silver-level necromancer that usually appeared only deep in the Withering Gorge!
Without this puppet, their team would likely have suffered heavy losses, if not been completely wiped out!
Still, even then, they couldn’t imagine the true strength of this puppet construct.

After being remade and enhanced with special techniques from the Babylonian pantheon, this Shield Guardian has reached a formidable level capable of withstanding attacks from legendary spells; even demi-gods cannot easily break it. Although it poses little resistance to the true body and avatars, it is an ideal guardian for this avatar. If the members of the Harkley Squad learned of this, they would be utterly astonished! This puppet is likely the most powerful true legendary being they have seen besides Donald! And Donald here is merely a saintly avatar, which strictly speaking is not considered a true legendary warrior.