Chapter 229

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Chapter 229: Dark Forest

The tall Gnoll leader darted into the forest, leaving only a moving shadow in the distance.

Jesse and Greed were hit hard by the bomb explosion, but they still chased after its shadow with all their might. That guy had escaped the mercenaries’ hunts many times before, and this time they couldn’t let him get away again.

Jesse stuffed the imp into his backpack and ran at full speed, but Greed started to fall behind.

He looked at Jesse with exhaustion, while Jesse, fueled either by the life energy he had absorbed earlier or by not having engaged in a high-intensity battle with Hogger for a few minutes, still had good stamina.

Despite telling Greed not to push himself earlier, with Hogger right in front of them, Jesse didn’t want to miss any chance.

"Oh! Damn it!"

Greed howled from behind, while Jesse ran faster, with only the shadow in the forest in his mind. He had to catch up!

After chasing for who knows how long, crossing numerous tree roots and pits, Jesse felt like he was getting closer to the shadow. Without a doubt, Hogger was heavily injured and couldn’t run for as long as a healthy Gnoll.

The figure of Hogger became clearer to Jesse. He targeted him, casting Curse of Weakness again while running, feeling his energy draining.

Hogger stumbled and fell to the ground after being cursed. Jesse quickly drank a Mana Potion, threw away the bottle, and chased after him. Hogger suddenly got up and kicked up a cloud of dust with his hind legs heading toward Jesse.

Jesse stepped aside, but still got hit on the face by some rocks, which hurt a lot.

Hogger broke through the dust and swung down hard, breaking Jesse’s sword with one strike!

Hogger excitedly howled and swung his axe with his one arm, Jesse dropped his sword and quickly stepped back, feeling like each swing could chop his head off, even the wind from the axe made his neck ache.

Unable to hit Jesse several times, Hogger took a big step forward and swung horizontally again, but Jesse blocked it with a magic wand!

Hogger grumbled in frustration, swung again from the same direction, Jesse blocked with the magic wand again, the impact made a clamping sound that numbed his entire arm, making him realize what Greed had just been through…

And now, Hogger was already under the influence of the Curse of Weakness…

"Hogger… will never die…"

Hogger roared and opened his mouth as if to bite Jesse’s shoulder, Jesse dodged sensitively, but Hogger bit sideways, Jesse blocked his foul teeth with the magic wand. Seeing the magic wand being bitten, Hogger chuckled, biting down on the knife in his hand and swung horizontally, Jesse gave up the magic wand and jumped back, feeling his stomach grazed by the wind, narrowly thinking he had been ripped open.

Smirking with the magic wand in his mouth, Hogger swung the knife again, Jesse reached out, and the magic wand emitted a shadowy light suddenly broke free from Hogger’s mouth, ripping out several of his teeth.

Hogger screamed as he was knocked down by the magic wand, even his cleaver fell to the ground.

It struggled to get up, but this time it was not as strong and agile as before.

But Hogger seemed more hysterical, under the moonlight his face covered in blood looked like black ink blot, even though his eyes could not focus, shaking all over, still roaring and raising his hand as if wanting to punch the warlock in front of him to death.

Jesse knew that this guy’s last bit of strength supported by crazy willpower had basically been exhausted with this fall.

He picked up the exaggerated Orc cleaver, chopped it into its forehead with all his might, completely ending the life of this monster.

The cleaver stayed in the skull, Jesse slowly exhaled and took a few steps back.

Watching the Riverpaw chieftain’s limbs still twitching uncontrollably, thinking that twenty years later if any adventurers came here, no matter who they saw wanted, it would not be Hogger.

Stormwind Prison would never have a prisoner like this again.

At this moment, Greed caught up panting from behind and asked, "Did I miss something?"

"We missed it all, Greed." Jesse moved his gaze away, pointing to Hogger’s body not far away, saying, "Look, I killed him."

"You shameless jerk." Greed panted, supporting his knees, and said, "I really have no more strength, darn it… Hurry up and help me take off this armor, quick."

"I was just joking…"

Jesse helped Greed take off his armor little by little, gave him a Healing Potion to drink, and Greed lay panting in a soft pile of leaves, grimacing.

"How bad are my injuries, Jesse?"

"They look okay, a bit bruised and swollen, but doesn’t seem too life-threatening." Jesse sat beside him and said.

"Life-threatening injuries, you underestimate me, huh?" Greed grabbed Jesse’s collar, saying, "There’s no way a group of brainless idiots could take my life, you’re just… I regret knowing you…"

Before he could finish speaking, this guy was already asleep while holding Jesse’s collar.

Jesse found the taste of Greed’s words quite strange, feeling like something out of a movie where a dying person is stubborn.

He checked his body for any fatal injuries and confirmed there were no bloodstains on his back. Seeing that his breathing was steady, he looked like he was just tired and falling asleep, finally feeling relieved.

After all, movies can’t be made every day. As long as there are enough promises made, there will always be a few times when they don’t work.

Jesse approached Hogger’s body and measured his head, feeling like it was almost as big as his entire chest.

Carrying a head like that back was really unrealistic; it was heavier than all their luggage combined.

He remembered in the game, the proof of killing Hogger seemed to involve its claws.

Jesse looked at the single-armed gnoll, noticing that its claws were as big as his face. It was indeed an extraordinary gnoll claw, so he decided to take that.

He took Hogger’s large cleaver, chopped off the claw, let out some blood, wrapped it in cloth, tied it tightly to stop the bleeding, placed it next to Greed’s luggage, sat down, and took a few breaths.

He found a stone for the dwarf to rest his head on, leaned against a tree root himself, holding onto the magic wand, finally relaxing all at once.

His gaze slowly became sluggish, finally having some time to daydream.

Thinking about the Necromancer he had just encountered, Jesse felt like there were too many questions that needed to be answered.

First of all, who revived the Necromancer?

Besides the Death Knight, there was absolutely no other possibility. Jesse felt like the answer was practically handed to him.

Maybe the patrollers had also killed resurrected undead Gnolls before, but they were not good at telling which ones were undead and which ones were truly alive. That’s why there was a mistaken belief that they were killing more Riverpaw Gnolls.

To be honest, Jesse never expected to come and kill Hogger, let alone deal with a Necromancer, since there were no signs of any undead creatures in the game.

So if they hadn’t come to this forest to defeat Hogger, what would have happened next?

According to the game, although Riverpaw Gnolls had many warlocks who mastered dark magic, they did not have a Necromancer, nor did they have undead Gnolls like the rot hides in the Tirisfal Glades.

What caused this change?

Did the Silver Hand come here later? Or did Varian or Bolvar Fordragon carry out some kind of undead cleansing?

Is it still… Princess Onyxia?

Based on everything he knew, Jesse could only guess blindly, without coming to any reliable conclusion.

He was still somewhat excited at the moment, so his thoughts kept wandering aimlessly. He wasn’t sure if it was the Shadow Protection Potion affecting him, or if the life force he had drained kept him in a constantly excited state, with little obvious drowsiness.

But he still lay down to rest as much as possible, knowing that the Gnolls in the forest were still roaming around. Jesse not only had to protect Greed, but also had to be on guard against possible ambushes at any time.

Those Gnolls could smell blood and might surround him from all directions.

To be honest, after the recent battle, Jesse was no longer very afraid of these dim-witted creatures.

However, his worries seemed somewhat unnecessary as after about two to three hours, the forest was quiet. The Gnolls didn’t seem very interested in searching for the corpse of their deceased chieftain.

Just as he was beginning to relax his vigilance, a strange smell of decay drifted faintly in the air.

This smell was not related to the scent of blood and the foul odor of beasts emanating from the Hogger’s body in front of him, but rather the true smell of necrotic energy.

"Saenor… Saenor?"

How dare this guy not respond to his own call? It’s like having the heart of a bear and the courage of a leopard.

He took off the Warlock Pack and saw that this guy was actually sleeping inside.

Do demons also need to sleep? Has this guy gotten too involved with them for too long?

Just now, this imp used a lot of magic to help Greed fight against Hogger, now there are faint red patterns appearing on Greed, it must be the Blood Pact.

Jesse knows that the imp’s energy may be weaker than Greed’s, casting two or three spells will make it tired. "Wake up for me."

Jesse gently patted the imp’s face, and the imp opened its eyes in confusion.

"What are you doing…?"

"Do you smell something strange?"

"I can’t smell anything now…"

"Keep an eye on this place, I’ll go check over there."

"Okay…"

"Don’t fall asleep, don’t sleep before I come back! If there is danger, wake up this short guy, understand?"

"Got it!"

He placed the Warlock Pack containing imp next to Greed, stood up and looked in the direction of the deathly aura, walking in that direction for a while.

Then he realized, it was the direction Hogger kept fleeing to.

Not long after walking, he saw an area that seemed to be obscured by a dense group of dead trees, resembling a secret camp, just without the familiar tents.

In the dark night, Jesse could barely make out some shadows moving inside, their postures eerie.

Is that the Gnoll camp? Why is there no campfire at night?

He opened the map and checked the direction he had just traveled. There doesn’t seem to be any mark of a camp here.

Jesse dared not go further. The floating Arcane light on his body had not disappeared yet. If he walked on, he would definitely be discovered.

Let’s go back and wake up Greed before coming back together.