Green Monster Epic

Chapter 339: Intrigues and Scheming

“Tell me, why did you attack me?”

Although Allen spared this gnoll's life, he broke both of its arms and legs on the spot. A gnoll who had been lively and jumping around was now forced to endure the pain, slumped on the grass, barely maintaining its balance.

“I, I really just thought you were a demon, so I was thinking, could I… Ah!!!”

The gnoll still wanted to quibble, clinging to its previous excuse.

Allen didn't stand on ceremony. He directly grabbed one of the gnoll's toes and snapped it off, tearing it away.

“If you don't tell the truth, I'll tear off your fingers one by one. Even if you survive, don't even think about picking up a weapon in the future.”

Allen, who had resorted to cruel methods, remained calm, as if it were an ordinary matter. With a light flick, the toe bounced off the gnoll's face and landed on its leg.

“You, hiss, I…”

Fear and struggle flickered in the gnoll's eyes. The words reached its lips, but it swallowed them back, with too many concerns in its heart.

Crack~

“Ah!!!”

Allen didn't give the gnoll too much time to think. He exerted force again, breaking another of the gnoll's toes. This time, before the gnoll could cry out in pain, Fidel on Allen's back let out a gasp of surprise, watching everything with heartache, his little head shrinking back behind Allen, no longer daring to peek.

Allen turned his head, glanced at the little guy behind him, and, seeing that he had no problems other than a slight fright, stopped paying attention and turned his gaze back to the gnoll on the ground.

“It seems you're still not giving up, thinking I wouldn't dare to kill you!”

Allen moved his hand again, tearing off another toe from the gnoll's other foot and tossing it in front of the gnoll.

“Ah~~~ I, I'll kill you!!!”

“Ah~~~”

The shrill screams echoed across the empty grassland. Allen frowned slightly, scanned his surroundings, and, finding nothing unusual, a cold, gleaming dagger appeared in his hand. At the same time, he gently pried open the gnoll's jaw with his other hand, instantly dislocating it, preventing it from closing its mouth.

It seemed he had to resort to more effective methods. This grassland was not a peaceful place, and no one knew if demons would appear. To save time, Allen simply used what he considered the most effective interrogation method, using the slow slicing technique to question this gnoll.

A wad of dry grass was stuffed into its mouth, preventing the gnoll from making too much noise. Allen's dagger sliced off pieces of the gnoll's flesh, as thin as cicada wings, from its severed but still sensitive thigh, placing them one by one on its other thigh.

The slow slicing technique might not necessarily cause more physical pain than other methods, but what made it most terrifying was that the person could watch their own complete torso slowly turn into white bones before their eyes, feeling the life slowly drain from their body.

This was a torment and abuse of the mind. Even the bravest fellow might not be able to withstand such cruel torture. This time, Allen's captive was clearly like that.

After only slicing off a small portion of the muscle on the gnoll's left thigh, revealing the bone beneath, soaked in blood, the gnoll's spirit had already begun to collapse. The head with its mouth stuffed was constantly nodding, its throat making whimpering sounds, and its eyes were filled with pleading.

Even so, Allen swiftly scraped off a dozen more pieces of flesh before slowly raising his head and staring solemnly into the gnoll's eyes.

“Don't try to lie to me. I don't like being tricked. You only have this one chance.”

After saying that, Allen pulled the dry grass out of the gnoll's mouth and 'crack' corrected the gnoll's dislocated jaw.

“Hiss~~~ Ha~~~”

The gnoll sucked in breaths of cold air, trying to control its distorted face, not even daring to look Allen in the eye. Those arrogant, crazy eyes could only stare lowly at the ground.

“What's your name? Which tribe are you a warrior of? Why did you appear here to ambush me?”

Allen didn't have time to waste here with this gnoll, and asked three questions in one breath.

“Lord, I, my name is Somjet, a member of the Aregget tribe.”

The gnoll didn't hide its origins and answered easily, but when answering Allen's third question, its tone paused and dragged.

“The reason I, attacked, Lord, is because… Ah!!”

The gnoll's hesitation made Allen slightly unhappy. With two swift movements of the dagger, two more pieces of flesh flew off the gnoll's thigh, and Allen strung them on the blade of the dagger, waving it back and forth in front of the gnoll's eyes.

“Ah!! I'll talk!! I'll talk!!”

The gnoll Somjet screamed a few times, then sucked in a few breaths of cold air, begging for mercy repeatedly.

“Actually, I was sent here by my tribal leader, Lord Magda, to find and attack those warriors returning to the grasslands from human territories.”

“Why does your leader want to attack us?”

Frost gathered in Allen's eyes. They were all wasteland compatriots, and Allen didn't think he had any interaction with the other party, so he couldn't understand why the other party would do such a thing.

“That's, that's because, the task you are carrying out is uniformly distributed to the members of each tribe by Mansa City. In fact, every tribe in the alliance has sent out its own personnel. If that tribe successfully completes this task, their status and weight in the alliance's deliberations will be improved in the future…”

Allen didn't know that beneath the seemingly calm and peaceful Mansa City, various intrigues, calculations, and traps were hidden among the member forces. Listening to Somjet's description of their assassination of Allen and his group, who had struggled to break through the siege and return to the wasteland, a piece of cold ice settled in Allen's heart, and his entire body exuded a strong chill.

But thinking about it carefully, this wasn't something difficult to understand!

The three major camps of the Wasteland Alliance, from the enlightened faction that tends to get along, communicate, and exchange harmoniously with the surrounding four civilizations, to the hawk faction that opposes the surrounding four civilizations, and the balancing faction that is committed to maintaining the natural harmony of the Feyman world, actually have different demands and goals, which will inevitably lead to various contradictions and disputes. It's just because the Natural Temple behind the balancing faction is powerful, and the wasteland also needs the many gods of the Natural Temple to fight against the gods of the four major civilizations, so everyone can maintain the current situation.

In private, everyone will definitely have various tricks, launching targeted actions against other tribal opponents for their own interests.

“Actually, it's not just our tribe that has such arrangements. In fact, other tribes have also sent people to lurk around here. It's just that the grassland is vast, and finding people depends on luck.”

“Sir, your luck is truly terrible, to run into me… Alas, I should say my luck is terrible, to run into you…”

Poof!

Having learned the cause and effect, Allen's hand flashed with a cold light. Somgett clutched his chest, his eyes filled with disbelief and intense anger, as he slowly fell backward.

From the very beginning, Allen had no intention of sparing this gnoll's life. Since the other party had the ability to offer a hit on him, then he had to bear the consequences of a failed assassination. Moreover, after hearing the other party's explanation, Allen couldn't let him go even more. Who could guarantee that the other party wouldn't return to report to the tribe's legend, and then one day, accidentally run into him again and try to assassinate him?

Although he seemed to be embarking on the path to becoming a legend, Allen only had a vague understanding of how to proceed. Whether there would be progress in the end, and whether he could break through to become a legend, was something that wouldn't happen until the year of the monkey!

After feeling the other party's chest and confirming that the heart had stopped beating, Allen resumed his steps and hurried away.

Originally, he thought that after arriving in the territory of the wilderness tribes, he could relax, but after experiencing the previous assassination, Allen realized that perhaps he was even more dangerous after arriving in the wilderness.

With light steps, starlight appeared on the ground to the west. Allen hid and sneaked across the prairie for three or four days, a journey that would normally take him two days to complete. However, although he was delayed for some time, Allen didn't encounter any major troubles along the way, let alone any assassinations.

As for the little guy, Fiddler, since he personally witnessed Allen's brutal methods last time, he had become much quieter. After all, the little guy was born into a human noble family, and had been pampered since childhood, never experiencing life in the wilderness, so naturally he couldn't understand Allen's actions.

Clang!! Clang!!!

Kou'er, Bush, and several goblins formed a tight defensive formation, still stubbornly resisting the demon legion's assault. This time, they followed Fischer's personal guards, setting up a defensive position to meet the demons' repeated attacks.

Although Fischer had promised Allen to keep Kou'er and the other goblin youths by his side, even Fischer's own remaining followers had been sent to the front lines. How could he fulfill his promise to Allen?

“Treeborn, take down that Vrock overhead!!”

Kou'er, Bush, and the other berserkers and shield warriors desperately blocked the demons' counterattack in front. Although Tom had advanced to become a berserker, he was still in the center of the formation. He wielded his two small steel axes, hacking at the nearest demons, while calmly watching the situation around him, constantly directing his companions to fill gaps or focus their attacks on a certain target, so that their squad could hold out longer.

“Leave it to me!!”

A soft but confident voice came from his ear. A Flash spell exploded on the small battlefield. At the same time, a small figure suddenly appeared behind the swooping Vrock. It was Eileen, using the temporary shadow created by the Flash spell to activate Shadow Jaunt. Two daggers with armor-piercing attributes, wielded by Eileen, stabbed fiercely through the Vrock's chest, directly reaching the heart within.

“Roar!!!!!”

The Vrock flapped its wings in vain, then staggered and crashed to the ground, its heavy body falling directly into a pile of demons.

“Eileen!”

Kou'er shouted, but couldn't provide any rescue, because the squad formation needed her and Bush to maintain it.

After falling into the demon pile, Eileen didn't panic too much. She used Ripplewalk to create three afterimages, relying on her small body to rush left and right through the gaps in the demon ranks, while wielding her Void Blade, leaving behind blossoming blood flowers at the demons' lower body vitals.

“Courting death!!”

A powerful Horned Devil directly charged with its horn, closing the distance with Eileen, knocking several demons along the way.

Ding!!

Eileen steadily crossed her daggers in front of her chest, using the force of the opponent's charge to fly into the air. But she didn't guard against a Vrock in the air that had long regarded her as prey, accurately timing its dive with great force, pouncing fiercely at Eileen, seemingly wanting to take Eileen's life directly.

Poof!!

Eileen's body seemed to vaporize directly under the Vrock's pair of steel axes, but in reality, Eileen had found the location of Kou'er's squad in mid-air, and used Shadow Jaunt to emerge from the shadow under Bush's tall figure.

“Hey!!”

Bush's heavy hammer stirred up a fierce hurricane. A Howler Demon he faced didn't even have time to self-destruct before he smashed it up like a baseball, sending it flying into the demon ranks several meters behind him. With a deafening roar, the area where the demon landed turned into a sea of fire, affecting dozens of demons.

At the same time, a Horned Devil thought it had caught Bush off guard, and a sharp thorn, along with its burrowing charge, went straight for Bush's chest, but a heavy shield just happened to block the way.

Clang!!!

The Horned Devil shook its head, its mind somewhat dizzy for a moment. Before it could recover, a slender, one-handed sword pierced through its neck, cutting through its throat, then gracefully retracted. Treeborn's figure flashed past, heading towards another battlefield.

Barrington shook his left arm. The Horned Devil's burrowing charge was powerful. Although he had inserted the heavy shield into the grass a step ahead, Barrington still bore most of the force himself.

The fierce battlefield slaughter ultimately ended in the demons' defeat. When Kou'er and the others crawled out of the pile of corpses, covered in blood and sweat, a small figure, riding a snow-white dire wolf, galloped over quickly.

Linnaeus had previously been in the spellcaster team behind, concentrating on casting buffing spells for the central army. When the battle ended, he went straight to the position where Kou'er and the others were. Before he even arrived, a divine spell emitting a faint green glow on Linnaeus's oak staff had already taken shape. As Linnaeus found the figures of Kou'er and the others, he waved it, and it quickly flew towards where Kou'er and the others were. A misty drizzle washed away the blood on the bodies of the goblin warriors, while also nourishing everyone's bodies and restoring their strength.

“Kou'er, did any of you get hurt? I'll help you heal!!”

Linnaeus, who was galloping over, had a sincere and intense concern in his eyes. After two years of tempering on the grassland, those bad habits that Linnaeus had developed in Thornburg were finally being corrected bit by bit, and he had also integrated into the backbone of the younger generation of the Greenwild Tribe.

Although, now Kou'er and her group number no more than eight people.

I'm late, I had something to go out for!! Sorry!!