The Winter God Church was completely wiped out on that day.

Afterwards, the Moon Goddess Church expanded their influence to the Fabino Duchy, and Gambell was the one who profited the most from all that happened.

Even though he had “enough” evidence to prove that the Winter God Church was at fault, Gambell’s actions still came with significant implications.

Additionally, some people had also started to realize that, as the Barrier crumbled, the Eternal Treaty that restricted the gods was also beginning to lose its effectiveness.

The relationships between the various gods began to shift ever so slightly. They were still allies, but they were now also rivals.

This was exactly what Su Chen was hoping would happen. After all, a united group of enemies was much more frustrating to deal with than a divided one.

But he was still far from fully tearing their alliance apart. Su Chen’s plans were still budding, which was why the gods hadn’t caught on yet — it wasn’t because they couldn’t see what was happening, but rather because it was too negligible for them to take notice.

The day that the Winter God Church was wiped out eventually came to be known as the Arrival of Winter.

After the Arrival of Winter, Fabino’s status remained relatively unchanged. This was undoubtedly a good thing for him.

What worried him, however, was that his son had disappeared.

A group of merchants slowly traveled along a road as the sun began to set.

This caravan’s documents showed that it belonged to the Red Kite family.

“Let’s hurry up and get out of this muddy area before night falls!”

A tall man yelled impatiently at the rest of the caravan from the back of his horse, ordering them to speed up.

A storm had recently passed through the area, and as a result, the ground was extremely muddy. The wheels of their carts repeatedly got stuck in the mud, and it took significant effort to extricate them each time it happened.

This made their advance extremely slow and arduous.

At that moment, another carriage sunk into the mud.

This made Filo extremely agitated — it seemed that it would be impossible for them to reach Scorched Cliff City by nightfall. In fact, they would be lucky to even get halfway there.

The main issue was that, with every extra night that they spent in the wilderness, the danger that they faced increased.

Those Scorched Earth pygmies and large-eared dwarves would finally have their long-awaited opportunity to take a bite out of them.

At that moment, however, a guard yelled, “Boss, look over there!”

Filo glanced at where his subordinate was pointing at and saw a youth walking along the road, not far from where they were.

This young man seemed quite plain and unassuming, and he was dressed in plain clothes. There was also a thin veil draped over his face, making it difficult to make out the young man’s features. Even so, this simplicity was precisely what made him stand out even more in this kind of an environment.

Yes. While others were struggling to extricate themselves from the mud, this young man calmly and easily walked across the mud’s surface without being affected in the slightest. In fact, his clothes weren’t even stained after reaching the other side.

His simple, clean appearance betrayed his noble upbringing.

“Everyone, be careful!” Filo said in a grave voice.

He clearly understood that anyone who could walk through this desolate wasteland was not an ordinary individual. If the other party had any ill intentions, then it was time for him to demonstrate his value.

The person in front of them was headed right in their direction.

A few of the more cautious guards reached for their bows.

The person stopped about twenty meters from them, and then asked, “Can you tell me how to get to Halcyon Earth Forest?”

He was just asking for directions?

The guards all glanced at each other.

Without their leader’s permission, they would not answer the question.

Filo thought for a moment, pointed in a certain direction, and then said, “Go twenty kilometers in that direction. Then you will reach your destination.”

The traveler shook his head. “You’re lying to me.”

“Hm?” Filo was taken aback.

“Why would you lie to me?” the traveler continued pondering out loud.

Filo instinctively replied, “I didn’t lie to you.”

The traveler sighed and flipped his palm over. A large fireball immediately roared to life. “I didn’t want to do this, but if you lie to me one more time, I will have no choice but to punish you a little.”

Whoosh!

The caravan’s archers immediately nocked their arrows and drew their bows. A few of their arrows were even glowing brightly. Those glowing arrows were Magic-Nullifying Bolts. Even if their opponent possessed extraordinary skills, the caravan’s guards still had a way to defend themselves.

The tension in the air was palpable, and just as they were about to reach their limit, a voice suddenly spoke up. “I apologize, esteemed guest. They just wanted to protect me. You’re right in thinking that the Halcyon Forest isn’t in that direction......”

“It’s in the same direction that you’re going, right?” the traveler interrupted.

The chariot’s screen opened, revealing a young noblewoman’s face.

The young noblewoman was slightly taken aback by the traveler’s question, but she quickly nodded and said, “Yes.”

“Goodbye,” the traveler said, before turning around and leaving.

He seemed to have no intentions of stopping.

“You shouldn’t have told him the location, Young Miss,” Filo said in a low voice.

“Then what should I have done? Let you keep lying to him? And then allow an avoidable fight to break out? Don’t forget that he already had some idea of what the correct direction was,” the young noblewoman replied. “This person might be only pretending to not know where the Halcyon Earth Forest is and has some ulterior motive. Or, he is very smart and able to infer the truth from the scant clues available. Regardless of which case is the real one, you do not need to provoke him.”

Filo thought for a moment before nodding. “You’re right, Young Miss.”

He had merely wanted to save them some trouble, but now, it seemed that his actions had only brought more trouble to their group.

And that lone traveler was probably not going to be the source of that trouble, Filo thought to himself.

At that exact moment, however, a cacophony of shrill shrieks interrupted his thoughts.

Arrows screamed through the sky; a large group of figures had appeared off in the distance and were currently charging madly in their direction.

Filo’s expression drastically shifted. “It’s the large-eared dwarves and Scorched Earth Pygmies! Dammit, there’s at least a thousand of them! Push the carriage over and prepare for battle!”

The caravan’s guards quickly dismounted and shoved the carts over, using them to form a defensive line. The horses were then pulled behind that defensive line, so that they could unleash a vicious cavalry charge at a decisive moment.

Filo rushed over to the young noblewomen. “Miss Felli, please get out of the carriage right now and mount a horse. There’s a lot of enemies. We might not be able to hold our position.”

“I saw.” The young noblewoman was anxious, but she did her best to remain as calm and steady as she could.

She gracefully stepped out of the carriage. Even though she was unfamiliar with the sensation of walking through squelching mud, she gritted her teeth and mounted a horse.

The vicious large-eared dwarves and Scorched Earth Pygmies, on the other hand, were obviously completely unaffected by the terrain.

Their feet were very flat and their bodies small and light. They also wore special shoes that were extremely well-suited to traversing through muddy terrain.

The large-eared dwarves and Scorched Earth Pygmies were both indigenous creatures of this area. Their strength was mediocrely average, but their reproductive rate was extremely high. As such, they typically relied on overwhelming numbers to secure victory.

Even a level three warrior would find it difficult to deal with over a thousand small creatures rushing them at once.

And even if each one of his soldiers was capable of fighting off ten creatures on their own, they still only had twenty soldiers and thirty or so horse drivers. Their forces were just a bit too weak.

Even so, they wouldn’t let these damned pygmies get off lightly.

“Fire the arrows!” Filo roared.

Arrows whistled through the sky, easily piercing through the chests of their targets among the oncoming horde of enemies.

Unfortunately, the archers were too few and the enemies too many. The twenty or so arrows were only able to claim twenty or so lives. The enemy horde was virtually untouched, and the arrow attack even gave the enemies an opportunity to close more distance between them.

“Fire again!”

Wave after wave of arrows flew forth, attempting to cull the enemy numbers as much as possible.

After five rounds of arrows, there were around a hundred or so corpses littering the floor. Most of them, however, hadn’t actually been killed by the arrows; instead, they had been trampled to death after falling to the ground.

But these vile creatures didn’t seem to care. Their bloodthirst was at its peak, and the only thing they could think about was slaughtering and plundering.

The first wave of enemies reached the archers.

Their ugly maws opened wide, revealing rows of sharp, yellow teeth. They were short, only about half as tall as a regular human, and they wielded crude stone blades. Their movements, however, were extremely agile and vicious. They clambered over the impromptu wall of carts, but were quickly met with spears to the neck.

The deaths of their comrades, however, didn’t cause the rest of the pygmies and dwarves to retreat in fear.

They continued to madly rush forwards as they yelled with whoops and howls.

“Attack!” Filo yelled loudly.

The guards put down their bows, pulled out their blades, and readied themselves to defend their position with their lives. Even the merchants pulled out weapons and stood on the front lines with the guards.

But as they stared down the seemingly never-ending wave of creatures, they felt their hearts seize with trepidation.

They knew that their defenses wouldn’t hold for very long.

At that moment, however, a giant wave of flames suddenly surged forwards from behind the horde of creatures.

The flames were fierce and intense, and they immediately covered a large swath of territory. Hundreds of the dwarves and pygmies were swept up in the conflagration, howling as they turned to ash.

What just happened?

Everyone was stunned.

As the flames disappeared, a figure could be seen off in the distance.

The lone traveler.

So he had run into these creatures as well.

The creatures were obviously not picky about their targets, and they hadn’t hesitated to attack an individual like him.

This time, however, they had picked on the wrong person.

The traveler unleashed a fireball with a simple gesture, which immediately turned into a wall of flames that surged forth, sending the remaining creatures fleeing in fear.

That was a normal fireball.

But when did fireballs become so strong?

Everyone was stunned.

Filo had seen people use fireballs before.

A normal fireball was only capable of killing a single large-eared dwarf. Since when could a single fireball become an entire surging wave of flames? That single-target skill had basically become an area-of-effect skill, which seemed to possess even more killing power than the single-target skill.

This was just too far beyond the realm of possibility!

But the other party had clearly just used a fireball technique.

In the end, two fireballs alone had been enough to scatter the attackers and frighten them away.

The large-eared dwarves and Scorched Earth Pygmies didn’t dare attack the traveler anymore, but they didn’t retreat either. Instead, they turned around and rushed toward the caravan.

“Help us!” all of the caravan’s guards cried out loudly.

Shockingly, the traveler shot them a casual glance before turning around to leave.

He just left the caravan to their fate, as if he hadn’t seen anything at all.