Crack! Crack!
In almost an instant, the barrier, which had only had a single crack at first, quickly split apart in every direction.
Then...
BOOM!
Countless giant spores poured down.
"Ahhhh!"
"Protect the King!"
The hall instantly fell into chaos.
"Time Freeze!"
The Goblin King quickly shouted.
The next moment, the spores that had been pouring down like a waterfall all stopped in midair.
The panicked guards and maids remained frozen in the middle of their movements.
At that moment, they looked more like finely made wax figures, completely motionless.
The Goblin King looked unwillingly at his followers and the goblin hall paved with gold bricks. In the end, he grabbed Royal Advisor and leaped toward the side hall.
BOOM!
Glug... Glug...
"Ah! Help... Glug..."
The instant the Goblin King left, time began moving again.
The next second, countless giant spores landed.
But instead of exploding from the impact, they enclosed every goblin inside them.
The goblins desperately tried to escape from the spores but found they couldn't.
No matter whether they hacked with knives or stabbed with spears, they couldn't pierce the spores' transparent outer layer.
At that moment, they felt like chicks trapped inside eggs.
The eggs were also filled with liquid that kept them from breathing.
After struggling for a short time, every goblin trapped inside the giant spores suffocated to death.
They became new nutrients for the spores.
———
[The Land of the Desert]
Ethan naturally had no idea that, because of what he had done without intending to, he had thrown the entire Goblin Kingdom into chaos.
At that moment, he was still dealing with the last few giant spores.
After several rounds of Black Hole Tornadoes, the number of spores had dropped straight down to only one or two hundred.
From a distance, they looked like countless sky lanterns floating in the air.
However... with so few left, they were much easier to deal with.
No matter how powerful they were, Ethan's Crescent Slash easily cut them apart.
The strangest thing was, these enlarged spores no longer exploded.
Instead, once they were cut open, they sprayed out large amounts of light red liquid.
When the liquid landed on the ground, it directly melted away a layer of sand.
Its power was quite frightening.
'Could it be...'
Looking at the melted sand, Ethan suddenly remembered the Strong Acid Ants he had cut in half.
'Could the source of the Strong Acid Ants' acid actually be these giant spores?'
'And these spores...'
'Are the Strong Acid Ants' food.'
'So whenever Strong Acid Ants were around, Boom Boom Mushrooms never appeared. Could it be because...'
'The ants ate them all?'
At that moment, Ethan felt like he had finally uncovered the truth about the Land of the Desert.
Slash!
As Ethan split the last giant spore with a single sword strike...
[System Notification: Desert Tree Protection Mission Completed!]
[System Notification: Hidden Reward, Team Mission Completed!]
[Teleporting...]
Right after that, everything went dark before Ethan's eyes.
The next second, he found that he had already been teleported out of the Land of the Desert.
He was back inside the Goblins' long, narrow maze.
In front of him was a platinum treasure chest.
There was also a small Lost Divine Statue.
Ethan quickly looked at the small stone statue of a little figure holding a shield.
As expected, a prompt appeared.
[Guardian Statue: Among the Lost Prophetic Statues, this is the most distinctive Guardian Statue. As long as you provide it with enough energy, it can create a huge protective barrier to protect everything inside from harm.]
[P.S.: You can sacrifice enemies to upgrade the barrier.]
'So this is the hidden reward.'
'Luckily, I didn't kill that bitch Harriet on impulse.'
Now, after putting away the Guardian Statue, Ethan turned his attention to Harriet and Charlie.
Harriet's face immediately turned pale.
"We're partners who signed a Lord Contract! You can't kill me! Otherwise you'll break the Lord Contract. When that happens, not only will I die, you'll die too!"
At that moment, Harriet truly regretted why... she hadn't signed a real Lord Contract with Ethan.
Instead, she had used a fake one to deceive him.
Although she believed Ethan shouldn't have been able to see through it, she was still very scared.
"Sister Harriet, stop lying to Lord Ethan," Charlie suddenly spoke, "You never signed any Lord Contract with Lord Ethan. You were only using the Deception Mask's ability to fool him!"
"Charlie, how could you?"
Harriet was stunned.
She had never imagined that the one who would betray her in the end would be the quiet and weak-looking Charlie.
"Sister Harriet, I just think we can't keep going like this," Charlie said, meeting her accusation without changing his expression, "We have to be honest people."
"Honest people?", Harriet laughed, "Then when I was about to light the Netherworld Incense to kill Lord Ethan, you were the one who said you wanted to take his mag... ugh!"
Before she could finish, a sharp pain suddenly shot through her heart.
She looked down.
At some point, a knife had appeared in Charlie's hand.
The tip of the blade had gone straight into her heart.
The cold blade was slowly freezing her heart, leaving her with less and less hope.
"Sister Harriet, you should know what should be said and what shouldn't," Charlie pushed the knife in a little deeper. Then he leaned close to her ear and whispered, "I really didn't want to kill you. But if I want to live, I can only use you as the sacrifice. You should be proud that your death has value. Goodbye forever."
"Uh..."
Harriet stared at him, but she couldn't say a word.
She could feel her life slipping away quickly, yet she couldn't do anything anymore.
Who could have guessed, the plan to kill Ethan had been Charlie's idea from the very beginning.
Too bad no one would ever know.
Because everyone who knew... was already dead. [T/N: Shocked Pikachu Face!]