.

  "Obis Larc! It's the Green Devil and Salt Devil! How can there be a Green Devil and Salt Giant here? And also have a Shaman Sorcerer?"

  As soon as this was said, even those around who had a little knowledge were also stunned.

  The Green Goblins and Salt Goblins are a branch of the Man-Eating Goblin tribe. The Green Goblins have a green protective color similar to leaves on their bodies, and they generally only appear in the dense coniferous forest areas at the foot of snowy mountains. They are completely different from the Man-Eating Goblins in terms of body shape, as they are more agile and cunning due to living in the forest for a long time.

  The Saltwraiths are a branch of man-eaters living in the salt marsh forests on the border between Wolf and Fox, where the salt marshes and red earth slopes are known as the two largest barren lands in the wilderness. The Saltwraiths living in the salt marshes love to eat salt, their heads are slightly smaller than those of ordinary man-eaters, but their bodies are stronger, they live in salt caves all year round, with a layer of salt crystals on their bodies, just like wild boars that have been smeared with pine resin and then rolled in sand, this layer of salt crystals is their natural armor.

  Like the Oni, both Shio no Majo and Midori no Majo are infamous native outlaws of the Danube Badlands.

  The probability of a shaman emerging in the bandit tribe is almost negligible, and unlike the Saman priests who worship at the holy altar of the Kingdom of Bimont, the shamans of the bandit tribe are generally "one-trick ponies" who only know how to use the dual-effect divine technique "Bloodlust", which has both healing and battle-rousing effects.

  The Green Devil has skin that can change into various plant colors, and their hair is also similar to leaves and grass in appearance. The Salt Devil's exterior is a crystalline layer of salt, looking like a block of stone at first glance.

  According to Liu Zhen's estimation, this was probably also the reason why those human sentinels failed to discover them. These green demons changed their skin color to that of withered grass, and coupled with their lifelike appearance, they could easily disguise themselves under the shadows of the desolate hills and the dim moonlight, making it truly difficult to detect them.

  Salt Demon and Green Demon are also great thieves of the Danuo Wastes. However, their territory does not belong to the Red Soil Plateau, and it is clear that there should be no connection between the Green Demon and the Salt Demon. The relationship between them is as absurd as a goblin claiming to be a descendant of the Mouse tribe of Bimon.

  Liu Zhen was baffled, but he finally figured out one thing - these bandits were far from being a match for the bear-like Kuma and the cannibalistic demons that had taken over his old lair; they actually possessed Shamans!

  Having a shaman makes the bandits not just simple bandits, representing that this bandit team's combat effectiveness has increased by about twice, and it is already completely different from those stupid bandits like the bear-like goblins.

  To put it in a more colloquial way, this is like comparing Liu Zhensheng and Wang Zi. One is a small lord, the other is soaring high above, looking down on the masses from a lofty height.

  Ambushing a human merchant group was nothing unusual for these bandits, but why would one be the Salt Demon Bandit from the salt flats and the other be the Green Demon Bandit from the forest, appear together here? Bandits usually didn't encroach on each other's territory. Liu Zhen's mind was full of questions.

  Liu Zhen was pondering why the human camp suddenly erupted in chaos. As soon as the Salt Demon joined the battle, these human mercenaries immediately suffered a disaster. The salt scales on the Salt Demons' bodies were so thick and heavy that even swords and knives couldn't cut through them. Even with great strength, it was impossible to chop off more than a small piece of salt. Only the Flowing Star Hammers wielded by the wandering warriors had a massive killing effect.

  The Salt Wraiths have not only a hard salt shell, but also a naturally petrified skin. Under this double protection, the Salt Wraith is like a heavily armored infantryman, clad in heavy iron armor, and is far beyond the reach of most mercenaries who only possess light weapons. Although the star hammers of the wandering knights can smash open the scales of these Salt Wraiths, their numbers are simply too few. Moreover, because the battle line was drawn too close, they lost the path for the war horses to charge, and from time to time, both men and horses were knocked down together.

  The storm has stopped, and Champaa is again shyly showing her face in the clouds.

  Three green-skinned shamans, who were casting "Bloodlust", stood out particularly. The red glow emanating from their staffs made the green-skinned thieves even more oblivious to pain, growing more ferocious with each battle.

  The number of Salt and Green Devils bandits was just too many, this battle had already been decided from the moment they were ambushed.

  Most of the robbers in the wilderness are dozens of people who come out to attack merchant travelers. This human merchant team is equipped with 200 mercenaries and wandering guards, originally thought that as a protective force, it must be more than enough, but once encountered a large-scale robber gang of over 1,000 people, there is only a sigh of helplessness.

  After seeing that several attempts to break through were overwhelmed by the robbers' human wave tactics, a white flag immediately rose from the crowded mercenary crowd, and the material on which the white flag rested with golden edges should be the sacred white robe of some pastor.

  In front of this white flag with international common meaning, the robbers also gradually stopped under the command of their leader. Several killing salt demons also retreated to one side with blood-stained weapons under the scolding of their leaders.

  A human merchant with a pockmarked face, who seemed to have some guts, walked out of the crowd under the heavy guard of several mercenaries holding shields and began negotiating with the robbers.

  The corpses on the ground were divided and eaten by these salt demons and green demons, and in a short while, each of the standing bandits was devouring a bloody piece of flesh.

  Liu Zhen and the Mastiff person stood on the barren hill, explaining as they looked, causing Jing Yu and Aiwier to spit out sour water.

  "What are these robbers trying to do?" Liu Zhen asked with a frown.

  "Charge ahead!" Corina exclaimed eagerly.

  He was told by his boss that he was itching to try out the salt scales, changing colors and testing the quality under my ivory long knife.

  "Ah ah!" Vieillard was also anxious to death.

  "Two knights, as professional soldiers, even if ambushed for three days and nights, should not lose patience. Don't worry first, the musketeer slaves are not in the center of the killing, although one didn't run away, but also one didn't die." Liu Zhen shook his head coldly: "These bandits are too strange, I couldn't help but feel a little curious"

  Absurd things always happen on the prairie

  The leader of the Sharba slave caravan, who had a mole on his face, and the Salt Demon Green Demon's leader-like figure argued fiercely for half a day. The distance was too far, Liu Zhen didn't know what they were talking about at all, only saw that after discussing for half a day, the human merchant pointed and pointed at those musk deer slaves tied to the big cart in the distance, with a mouthful of saliva splashing everywhere.

  Tell it to Jingyu and Aiwier, they can't figure out what's going on either. The cannibal demons never give up on food, these humans are all their fresh meat in their eyes. If you want to use the Musketeers as a substitute, will the robbers agree?

  After a period of humming and discussing, the leader of the bandits surprisingly let the green demons and salt demons make way for a road, releasing more than 100 remaining mercenaries and merchants, and also returned some dry food to them.

  Liu Zhen was shocked to see that a salt demon bandit leader actually patted the shoulder of the Sharba merchant group's person in charge with a very polite attitude.

  These released mercenaries and merchants disappeared into the wilderness without looking back.

  "What's going on?" Liu Zhen was absolutely incredulous that these bandits had suddenly turned into Bodhisattvas. These man-eating bandits, for whom any mobile species were their food, how could they possibly have a sudden surge of compassion with the arrival of winter?

  "Boss, let me take a few people to go around and chase those humans?" Gud asked.

  "It's not a big deal to catch up with these humans, our main goal is to rescue the Musketeers." Liu Zhen shook his head slowly: "Humans will come back sooner or later, and they can clean up whenever they want. But these green devils and salt devils may not be able to come here next year. Let me take another look."

  On this side, the militiamen were fiercely discussing all sorts of absurd things, while on that side, the Salt Demon and the Green Demon quickly cleaned up the battlefield.

  Spoils of war piled up like a small mountain on the truck, all those unfinished corpses. These bloodied and battered bodies were tied to the truck in a heap, and the shoulder blades of the captured Musketeers were also pierced by the Tree Devils with long vines, like a large piece of meat skewer, being escorted by more than 1,000 Green Devils and Salt Devils bandits, winding their way north.

  When Liu Zhen and the militia arrived, the entire human camp was left with a dead silence and a miserable scene that only existed in hell.

  A human skull, stained with crimson blood, was casually thrown to the ground, its surface very clean, without any remaining flesh. A boot stepped on it, making a cracking sound.

  Jade and Evie stood far away, smelling the thick, unscattered bloody smell in the air, not daring to come closer.

  The militiamen picked up quite a few palm-sized salt crystals from the grass, which were very crystalline and felt heavy in their hands, with a strange and nauseating smell.

  "It was the rain that broke the armor on these salt demons." Liu Zhen shook his head and chuckled, pinching these hard salt flakes into powder.

  Bela found a silver coin that had been trampled into the mud and water from a collapsed tent. The coin had an unusually intricate pattern and decoration, with exquisite workmanship. On the front of the coin was a crown, on the back were tulips and tassels, and above them were the abbreviated letters of San Francisco.

  This silver coin is the standard currency of the human nation of San Francisco, which is cruder than the silver coins of the Kingdom of Bhutan and does not even have the ability to print letters and patterns on it, so the exchange rate between the two currencies is 1:2.

  The measure of value can be so strange sometimes.

  Liu Zhen took the silver coin and brought it to his mouth, blew on it, and then put it next to his ear. Immediately, a crisp, ringing sound floated by.

  "Capitalism," Liu said, confiscating the silver coin.

  "Let's go and kill them! Whoever dies first will be the one to bear the brunt, let's take their stuff!" After searching around in a house-to-house manner for half a day, Good found nothing but two packages of coffee beans and several trampled coffee pots on the tripod, except for a few tents soaked in muddy water. Thinking about the dazzling equipment on those mercenaries and adventurers, Good's eyes were blazing with fury.

  These words have hit everyone's heart, and the militiamen all stared at the boss with wide eyes.

  "Don't worry, none of these spoils will escape. The way home for these two gangs is absolutely not north, but should be south." Liu Zhen shook the mud off his boots on the felt tent.

  He picked up a coffee pot and rounded out the flattened part with his hand.

  The gurgling brook washed away the blood flowers that had just bloomed, and it was still spotlessly clean.

  "Go get some hay, have a pot of coffee and then head back home, it's not late," said Liu Zhen.

  "Go home? Why?" The militiamen's eyes widened

  "What's the point of not going home? These guys are bringing slaves and pushing carts, moving as slow as snails. Now we're going to go deal with them, but the terrain here isn't suitable for a sudden charge by our mammoth cavalry! Are you telling me that you militia really want to have a head-on collision with these hard-shelled salt demons? Dammit! I'm not that stupid!" Liu Zhen said: "Let's first go home and take a bath, then eat some breakfast, and then we'll go deal with them. I guarantee it. They will definitely pass through the Giant Demon Wilderness Plains because...I just found out where they want to go."

  The militiamen returned at dawn, when the sun had just revealed a tender red corner like a poached egg, and most of the people in Feilongcui had not slept all night.

  The sentinel of Quincampoix, who was on watch, having seen them from the horizon, awakened everybody; and all were eager to know what success they had met with.

  Unlike what many people guessed, the militiamen returned empty-handed.

  Under the strange gaze of everyone, these militiamen drove the slow-moving mammoths onto the red earth square. There was no bloodstain on their rattan armor after the battle, and the knights' spears of the mighty mammoth warriors even showed new white edges.

  Originally, if the militiamen and Richard had returned triumphantly, Choi Bae-ja would have worried about how to take care of them. But the militiamen returned without a hitch. However, Choi Bae-ja felt a faint pain in her heart.

  In fact, deep down in her heart, she was looking forward to Li Ze's triumphant return.

  There are only two possibilities for returning empty-handed.

  The first possibility: the Mastiff Warriors possess a keen sense of smell, making it impossible for these human slave traders to hide. The humans had grown wings and flown out of the Donau wilderness.

  Another possibility is that Richard changed his mind.

  The first one is more unlikely, so there's only the latter possibility left.

  Although she knew it was wise to do so, this answer still made Cui Peishan's heart and mouth feel stuffy.

  Gantan Ni walked down the steps from the corridor. Her beautiful, slender eyes stared tightly at Liu Zhen, a hint of disdain flashing out unintentionally.

  Richard Huron welcomed his lover who jumped down from a mammoth, with a worried face.

  Liu Zhenhong took Cong Yu and Eve down from Mao Xiang's body, took over the cheese and goat's milk handed over by the half-bodied chef, and drank a mouthful with a loud gulp.

  "I've got some bad news and some good news. Which one do you want to hear first?" Liu Zhen asked, wiping the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.

  "Is that good news or did you spill the beans?" Cui Peishan was smiling ambiguously at Liu Zhen, as if in "praise".

  "The answer is wrong." Liu Zhen shook his head, took a big bite of cheese, stuffed some into Xiaozhu and some into Guoguo: "The good news is that the population of Feilongcui will increase soon."

  "What's the bad news?" asked Choi Bae-soon.

  "Bad news is - we're going to have a battle!" Liu Zhen was ecstatic and burst out laughing: "We'll capture quite a few this time!"

  "What's gotten into you?" Song Tanni looked at Liu Zhen strangely.

  "Last night, I tracked the human trafficking gang's trail for three hours and finally arrived at their campsite, only to find out that they had been attacked before we got there." Liu was shocked and snapped his fingers. Gud took over a silver coffee pot.

  "Who could possibly wipe out a merchant caravan with two hundred mercenary guards?" Chui Pei-shih found it too incredible to believe.

  "Our good neighbors, the robbers of Donau steppe." Liu Zhen said with a smile.

  "It's impossible!" Chui Binsi and Gatan Ni exclaimed in unison.

  Bandits on the wasteland always go out in groups of dozens to rob, even if it's like the bear-like thieves who ambushed Feilong last time, mobilizing more than 100 people at once for a large-scale operation. They will absolutely not engage in a fierce battle with well-equipped large mercenary groups. Generally speaking, there is no four-to-five-fold difference in strength. The bandits on the wasteland will choose to follow you first, then gather their men and implement the robbery.

  This batch of Charba slave troops had as many as 200 mercenary guards, and there were also knights on horseback. Their equipment was excellent, their martial arts were exquisite, and although the number of people was not large, it should be absolutely enough to intimidate those mobs of bandits and thieves on the wasteland.

  "I'm not joking." Liu Zhen's smile was reined in, and he became serious: "After a night of tracking, the mastiffs followed the footprints all the way.

  "We finally caught up with these mercenaries, but before we could even make a move, they were ambushed by an alliance of about 1,500 Salt Demons and Green Demons! These thieves are really something else! They killed the humans without them even having time to react, classic!"

  "Salt demons and green demons bandits? How can there be salt demons and green demons here? They're not local bandits!" Everyone was stunned.

  "I have another piece of bad news to tell you, these green demons and salt demons thieves also possess a shaman who can use the Bloodlust technique." Liu dropped another bombshell.

  "Thief Shaman?" The exclamation turned into a chorus.

  "History repeats itself," muttered Elder Anduril, the coral elder.

  "I concur with your assessment, Elder Anduril. It's likely that the bandits of the wasteland have united once more. Just as they drove the Hill Dwarves out of the Donau Wastes, they'll either drive us out or wipe us out." Liu Zhen shook his beard and narrowed his eyes.

  "What about human mercenaries? And what about our Dir tribe's musketeers?" Helen asked.

  The human mercenaries suffered heavy casualties and eventually surrendered. However, for some reason, the bandits let them go, I couldn't figure out why. Don't worry, the Musketeers are fine, they didn't participate in the battle, not a single one was injured. According to the "Rituals of Sacrifice" which records the living habits of the man-eating demons and their close relatives, those Musketeers will become food for the Salt Demons and Green Demons. However, before they start eating, these bandits didn't plan on killing the food and carrying it on their shoulders. They also took away a large number of dead human mercenary bodies, even if they were hungry, they shouldn't eat the Musketeers first, so you can rest assured about this point." Liu Zhen said with a smile.

  "We need to seek help from outside! Richard! It's terrible that the bandits have joined forces, and what's more, these bandits already have a Shaman and the Razor Hill quilboar thieves are also getting involved." Choi Bixi's expression was extremely solemn.

  "No need!" Liu Zhen shook his head at the beautiful snake woman: "Master! I came back specifically to tell you this, and soon our Fēng Líng Cūi will face a large-scale bandit battle. I don't need external support, and even if I ask for help, it's useless. The nearest military station is at least 100 miles away, what can they do? Wait for the officials of the Xíng Shěng Military Department to approve again? Wait for them to cross the Sāng Gān River and count our slaves? Besides, if we request reinforcements, it will probably be when Hélène leaves. This place is so unsafe, isn't it just an excuse for the temple to transfer her away? They are carrying slaves and spoils of war, moving slowly, and must go to Dāo Zī Shān, passing through the giant demon wilderness near Hóng Tǔ Gāo Pō. I happen to be ambushing there, and will catch them off guard!"

  "They have fifteen hundred fierce and warlike Salt and Green Demons, as well as Shaman Sorcerers," said Cui Peishan. "I'll go with you."

  "To kill a chicken, one doesn't need to use an ox knife. Our militia can handle it even if we lose half of our men. This time, there's no need for Master Yalong to make a move, just wait at home for our news. Since the bandits have joined forces, you'll have more chances to worry and work hard in the future." Liu Zhen said with a smile.

  "What makes you so confident?" Cui Peishan looked at Liu Zhen.

  "Can a lack of confidence hold a dragon ritual?" Liu Zhen was taken aback and smiled freely, turning to the hippopotamuses: "Half an hour's time, hurry back into the water once, moisten your skin, and have breakfast while taking a bath."

  "You two stay behind." Liu Zhen said to Ning Yu and Aiwier: "This time you go, you will have nightmares for the rest of your life."