Michael looked at the writhing figures of the five Forest Elves with a deep frown.
Their breathing was rough, and it looked like they were about to pass out at any moment. The five Forest Elves were conscious, yet at the same time, they weren't.
Tiara was standing next to him, wearing her combat armaments and a grim expression. She and the territory's army had been hunting when they noticed a commotion. They found the EmeraldLeaf Adventurer Team lying on the ground, writhing in pain as they tried to endure the effect of the highly potent poison that coursed through their bodies.
Due to the poison, the bluish vein beneath their fair skin had turned purple. They were throbbing wildly and were clearly visible to the eye.
"What happened to them?" Michael asked quietly while bending down.
His hands hovered above Lilica's body, golden streams manifesting in his palms.
"Icarus, Iglisis, Blaire, and her tracker team are currently observing the pursuers from a considerable distance. They'll warn us once the pursuers get too close to us, or our territory," Tiara explained calmly. She threw one glance at the Forest Elves writhing in pain and added, "It looks like there are quite a few Adventurers after them!"
That was not an answer to his question, but Michael simply nodded his head. He began to use Extraction on the Forest Elves to extract the poison that coursed through their veins.
Extracting the poison within all of them required great focus and a total of half an hour. Afterward, they were given healing potions to invigorate them and aid their recuperation.
In the meantime, the pursuers inched closer to their position. Iglisis reported that they had issues passing through the densely grown Untamed Jungle and that the pursuers were very careful. They expected to encounter monsters and the Forest Elves behind every bush and tree trunk.
According to Iglisis, most pursuers were also injured. Some even pursued the Forest Elves after they'd sustained severe injuries.
'Why are they doing that? Are their lives worth less than their desire to kill the Forest Elves?' Michael wondered at this point.
It wouldn't take long before they would encounter the pursuers, and Michael had yet to make a decision about what he was going to do.
"W-where are we?" A weak voice reached his ears.
Michael turned around and saw that the first Forest Elf had regained consciousness fully.
"What happened?" He asked instead of answering the Forest Elf's question.
Something felt off. The trackers reported a few minutes ago that the pursuers were split up in six different groups, and that it looked like the six groups were not working together. They insulted each other and threatened to attack each other more than once.
Michael believed that the pursuers were different Adventurer teams, which had joined their forces to pursue the EmeraldLeaf team into the Untamed Jungle. But that was especially weird.
By now, Michael had been to Xiltra many times. Hence, he knew that most people avoided the Untamed Jungle. Rumors in the city were ripe that most Adventurers wouldn't make it out of the Untamed Jungle if they were to venture in – which was more or less the truth.
If one didn't know the topography of the Untamed Jungle, and the location of the monster habitats, it would be quite difficult to pave a way through the Untamed Jungle and survive.
"Y-you…you are the human Lord… Are we in the Untamed Jungle?" The Elf asked weakly, barely able to keep her eyes open.
"What happened to you guys?" Michael asked again, a little bit sharper this time.
The Elf's pointed ears twitched, and she moved her head to look straight into Michael's dark eyes. The next moment, her eyes turned moist.
She was not able to say anything as she pressed her lips together in a thin line and began to cry silently.
Fortunately, Lilica had regained her full consciousness as well. She was disoriented and looked around to figure out where they were. She only stopped moving frantically when she saw Michael.
"Thank Yggdrasil. We're not dead," Lilica murmured while the tension in her body eased a little.
She ended up lying flat on the ground, staring gratefully at the canopy of humongous trees high up in the air.
"We were on a mission," Lilica said after a minute of silence.
"A mission?"
"Yes, but that doesn't matter right now," Lilica sighed deeply before she added, "Important is just that the mission was outside Xiltra, and that six Adventurer Teams ambushed us. We managed to kill or cripple the strongest Adventurers we faced, but they managed to poison each of us…"
A stunned silence followed Lilica's words. It was only when the remaining members of the EmeraldLeaf Adventurer regained their full consciousness that one of them added painfully, "...Jighorim sacrificed himself to help us flee into the Untamed Jungle…"
"If six Adventurer teams joined their forces, you guys must have offended someone big in Xiltra. What did you guys do?" Michael asked straightforwardly.
While it was sad that one of them had sacrificed his life to protect his team, that was not important to Michael. He didn't want to intervene in a battle against a powerhouse if Lilica and her team had done something stupid.
Michael may not hate the EmeraldLeaf Adventurer team, but it was not as if they were best friends either. Their relationship was nothing special – and he wouldn't sacrifice his loyal subjects by offending another powerhouse just to save a few people he was barely acquainted with. Senator Keltos was already problematic enough.
"That's the thing. We didn't offend anyone. Since we're the only Forest Elves in Xiltra, and one of the few groups of Forest Elves in the entire Zentika Empire, we have always been very careful. The only time one of us has been careless was when our youngest went out to drink with a few Lionhearts. He exposed that there is a Lord in the Untamed Jungle – you. However, that is something I already told you, and it is not exactly something that justifies the ambush of six Adventurer teams either…" Lilica said while her tone grew colder as the words tumbled out of her mouth.
"I think…I heard someone asking if we've killed the Blood-eyed Minotaur…" A weak voice from behind Lilica added all of a sudden.
It was one of the other Forest Elves, who had regained his consciousness.
"One of them asked me who our Master is. It was a little weird. We clashed, and he asked that question out of nowhere," Another Forest Elf added.
At this point, Michael roughly understood what must have happened.
'Did the remaining subordinates of the Senator take action? That should be it!' Michael murmured to himself, 'That must be it! They probably thought that the Forest Elves lied to them to kill the Lionheart Leader and his group, and the Lionheart, who was working with the Blood-Eyed Minotaur's group. That's why they chose to eliminate the EmeraldLeaf team altogether!'
Michael couldn't be certain that his guess was right, but he was confident that it was, at least, close to the truth.
He took a deep breath, and let a few thoughts run through his mind.
Not long after, Blaire, her group of trackers, and the two aerial units of his combat team returned to him.
The pursuers were about to reach them.
Michael manifested the Onyx Dragon Armor Set before he waved his arm once. In the following seconds, the territory's entire army disappeared in the thicket of the Origin Expanse.
"The guests are about to arrive," Michael mumbled with a small smile on his face,
"How about we welcome our guests?"
