NOVEL WEB Chapter 17: Chapter 17
Rhys quickly calmed himself. A labyrinth that has a realm restriction is a perfect training ground for the younger generation to shine.
The treasures contained within a labyrinth were enough to improve the strength of the whole province to another level, but it seemed the five great families wanted to monopolise it.
He shook his head in disdain. Submerged in greed, they all forgot about the impending doom hovering over their heads.
The Whisperwood was too silent these days, almost as if the monsters here had gone to a party. This silence was unsettling.
He didn't have the help of the System to analyse the pattern.
The monsters were readying for something far more dangerous and terrible than the Azure Province had ever encountered.
[Analysis of current provincial situation suggests a high probability of a coordinated, large-scale event.
Do you want to burn 5000 years of lifespan for a deeper analysis of the fate of thousands of sentient beings?]
'Do you need to ask?' Rhys didn't even blink. Five thousand years to understand a threat that could wipe out the entire province was nothing.
A wave of insight, far more profound than any skill comprehension, washed over him. He saw not just facts, but intentions.
He saw the Feral beasts not as random agitators, but as scouts. He saw the strange quietness of the forest not as peace, but as the gathering of an army.
And then he saw the final, terrifying piece of the puzzle. The great families were not the only ones who had sensed the opening of the Labyrinth.
The beasts had sensed it too.
The pure, ancient Qi pouring from the Labyrinth was a beacon, a siren call to every monster in the Whisperwood.
They weren't just being pushed out by a beast tide; they were migrating, gathering, and preparing.
The great families could block the mountain passes and keep other humans out, but could they stop an army of monsters from burrowing, climbing, and swarming their way to the same prize?
The Labyrinth wasn't just a trial for the younger generation. It was a lure. And both humans and beasts were walking into the trap.
'A trap? By whom?'
[Not enough data to analyse.]
'Can you perhaps find my survival rate in it?'
[If you run away now, 1%… otherwise, almost 0%.]
'So I will surely die if I go there?'
[The chances of you dying while running away are the same as if you go there. However, that death will be meaningless, whereas if you happen to survive, the rewards will be tremendous.]
'Then what is your suggestion?'
[Run away…]
'Same…'
A disaster even a Tier 3 cultivator couldn't stop, what could a Tier 1 peasant like him do? Rhys was greedy, for sure.
But he wasn't foolish enough to be greedy when the chances of his survival were almost zero. He would rather choose the one percent chance of success while running away.
The fight below reached its clumsy conclusion. The Shadowcat, tired and overwhelmed, finally made a mistake.
It lunged at one of the Thorne disciples, who in a panic brought his sword down in a sloppy, overhead chop.
The blade crushed the creature's skull, killing it instantly but also audibly cracking the beast core within.
"You idiot!" Lady Luna shrieked, her beautiful face contorted in fury. She pointed a trembling finger at the boy. "The core is shattered! It's useless now! All that for nothing!"
The Thorne disciple flinched back, his face pale. "I... it was coming right at me, my lady!"
"Useless! Both of you are utterly useless!" she fumed, kicking a nearby stone in frustration.
Rhys watched from his perch, a slow, amused smile spreading across his lips. So much effort, so much noise, and in the end, they had ruined the very thing they were after.
It was a perfect display of incompetence. These were the so-called elites of the province, the heirs of the great families.
Pathetic.
But it kind of felt bad when he remembered how they were all going to die. And it felt wrong to be the only one who knew of the upcoming destruction and to have done nothing to warn the ignorant people.
[Host is too confusing for the System to analyse. Why should you care that strangers are going to die? Did any of them care when your family abandoned you?]
'That's because they aren't me, Rhys.'
At the end of the day, he was also human. Currently, his morality was that of an office worker on Earth. He didn't want to see people dying.
[What if you die too?]
'Don't I have you?' he blinked.
[I can't revive a dead person.]
'But my body can do that, right? You said, 'complete cellular reconstruction is possible'.'
The System went silent. Rhys shrugged.
Flawless Regeneration, the passive ability of his constitution, would regenerate him as long as he possessed lifespan.
Unless every molecule of his body was pulverised into nothingness, he would revive again and again.
That was also the reason he decided to stay behind. In that way, even if he couldn't stop the deaths, he wouldn't be guilt-ridden for the rest of his life.
After collecting the damaged beast core and other materials, the three youngsters turned to leave.
He decided he had seen enough.
These three were small fry, but they were a trail of breadcrumbs leading to a much larger prize. He would follow them.
They were his unwitting guides to the bigger fish.
He melted back into the shadows, circling around the clearing and moving with the group in the direction they were headed.
He stalked them for another hour, their loud, clumsy progress making them pathetically easy to track.
The woman, especially, made no effort to conceal her presence, as her loud complaints and arguments seemed to even scare a group of monkeys in the trees above.
Rhys merely glanced at the hiding monkeys, warning them to stay away from his prey with his eyes.
He didn't want the three of them to stall for more hours fighting Mid-grade Stage 1 monsters.
The monkeys quickly understood his actions, probably recalling the ghost who hunted Shadowcats to extinction, as they bowed their heads in his direction, then turned and left.
"Look, those stupid monkeys were scared of this uncle's muscles," one of the Thorne boys hyped himself up.
Rhys shook his head in disbelief. They were practically sending out a dinner invitation to every predator in the area.
He was sure that if he hadn't been in the shadows letting out his intent, they would have been attacked god knows how many times.
He watched as they walked right past a patch of valuable Moon-Glow Moss, its pale, shimmering leaves almost invisible to an untrained eye.
His own eyes, however, picked it out instantly. He plucked the leaves cleanly and put them in his pouch.
He saw them nearly blunder into a nest of Fire Ants, a species whose bite could leave a grown man screaming in agony for days.
Rhys, from his vantage point, could see the faint heat signature of the nest and simply steered clear.
These 'geniuses' were saved only by dumb luck.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of listening to their whining, Rhys sensed it. A large gathering of presences ahead. A campsite.
'Thank God, I don't have to follow these dumb shits anymore,' Rhys thought, climbing higher into a tree and settling onto a thick branch.
[True. No wonder the survival rate of younger cultivators is so low in this province.]
Their actions were almost like they were trying to kill themselves over and over—without even realizing it.