Chapter 593

Chapter 593: The Malicious Garden

During the night, Jesse’s group approached the eastern gate mentioned by the guard. An Ogre was sitting in the passage, looking extremely tired, dozing off several times but quickly waking up, resisting sleep.

It was evident that the Gordunni Ogres in Eldre’Thalas were short of manpower. If it weren’t for the elves inside dealing with more troubles than the Ogres, lacking the energy to counterattack, it would be difficult for these Ogres to occupy such a large area so quickly and boldly hold a gathering here.

They waited here for a while, but the Ogre was still awake. Mosa stood up and said, "I’ll go."

Under the puzzled yet hopeful eyes of a few people, Mosa quietly tiptoed to the Ogre Guard. Despite this unusual move for a Tauren, Mosa’s hunter experience helped her go unnoticed.

She took out some unknown powder from her pocket and sprinkled it on the Ogre’s face. The Ogre sneezed as he noticed the Tauren looking at him, then fell asleep heavily.

Mosa waved her hand, and the others immediately followed her into the passage, jumping over the Ogre’s legs.

They emerged from a long, dark passage onto a platform. The edge in front of them overlooked a dense canopy of trees rising up from below.

Jesse remembered this place. He recalled there was an imp here, and if he spoke to it, the imp would immediately start running away. Eventually catching and defeating it would lead to obtaining the key to Eldre’Thalas.

Of course, there was no imp here, as Molofeel had mentioned. After entering, the demonic presence was even sparser than before in the square. It meant the demonic energy felt by Jesse earlier in the square originated from the depths of the city – the Void Hound Immol’thar.

Looking down from the edge of the high platform, they could see a deep garden below. Towering treetops reached up to the highest point, with various flowers and unidentifiable plant species among the large trees.

The space was quite vast, with no end in sight from where they stood. Mist veiled the view among the tree trunks, revealing a stone-paved path leading into the distance. Arcane streetlights still shone brightly, indicating this was a man-made garden rather than a wild primal forest.

Greed asked, "Are the plants that the guard mentioned the ones that protect the elves?"

As the dwarf opened his mouth, the plants below rustled as if being blown by the wind. Jesse looked over cautiously and stretched out his hand. There was no sense of airflow disturbance here, the plants were moving on their own.

Vereesa whispered, "The source of the magical traces is deep in the forest."

Greed followed the pathway of the high platform and finally saw what seemed to be a descending area.

"Can we go down there?" he asked, pointing across.

Jesse observed the situation of the platform and knew it wouldn’t be as simple to cross from here. Soon, he noticed that behind the huge wooden door seen from the outside, a large tree was leaning over it. Probably because of this tree, the door couldn’t be opened from the outside.

The tree was alive, and the face of an old man on its trunk was glaring hatefully at the door crack.

Further away, in the direction Greed pointed, there were two similar wandering ancient trees. They were not moving now, just standing there, or leaning against the wall motionless.

"Look at those trees, Greed," Jesse said. "We encountered them outside the gate. Are you sure you want to run straight past and go down that slope? If we alarm one of them, the others might stand up and chase us. Think about why the Ogres are not forcefully attacking this place."

"Do we have to go down there?!" Greed asked, surprised.

"Shh, be quiet, Greed," Vereesa reminded.

Before the words had even faded, there was a rustling sound of leaves from below, as if the forest was voicing its discontent at the peace being disturbed.

"Are there ancient trees down there too?" the dwarf asked quietly.

"We’ll have to rely on Mosa to help us find out," Jesse said, looking at the thick trunk of a large tree growing up from below to in front of them, "At least this tree can’t walk, so we can use it to climb down."

Vereesa explained to Mosa and pointed in the direction where she felt the traces of magic. Mosa looked into the depth of the forest and said, "Follow me."

The Tauren transformed into a big cat, leaped from the platform, grabbed onto the trunk, made a few low growls towards the people behind her, and skillfully climbed down.

Although the trunk was too thick to wrap around, Vereesa easily found a rough spot to step on and grabbed hold of a protruding knob with her hand. She swiftly climbed up with her agile figure, keeping up with the Druid’s speed.

"Darn it, I’m not ready yet…" Greed glanced down below the edge, took a few steps back, charged forward and used the pointed end of his hammer to smash into the trunk. He hung onto it, swaying back and forth for a while, and slowly moved down by hugging the tree bit by bit.

Jesse watched Vereesa climb over, he tried to jump over and grab her. But his boots slipped, and he almost fell into the dark abyss below. Suddenly, something like a rope hooked onto his shoulder, stopping him from falling. He held onto the rope tightly.

He looked up and saw Molofeel using his tail to catch him just in time.

"Be careful, master."

Jesse nodded, then let go and landed on a sturdy branch below. Vereesa looked relieved to see Jesse safe and sound.

"What if I tell Kirin Tor that Jesse Seso fell from the tree and died, what do you think they would think?" Greed asked from above.

"They might celebrate with some wine after dinner," Jesse replied.

Greed chuckled, and as Jesse and he helped each other down to the bottom of the tree, Mosa had already familiarized himself with the surroundings.

Looking north from here, they could see a sinister tall wall with a huge closed gate.

They approached the gate, and not far from it, they could see the stone road extending from the gate and into the depths of the forest.

"The magic traces are not here," Vereesa pointed in the direction the road continued, "they’re on the other side."

Mosa nodded, turned, and walked a few steps towards the dense bushes, signaling for the others to follow.

"Can’t we just follow this big road?" Greed asked, pointing to the faint Arcane lights visible deep in the shade of the trees.

Mosa shook her head, pointed with her claw at the main road, then let out a hissing sound as a warning.

Greed immediately understood that it meant there were dangers on the road as well.

Jesse might not have seen what dangers lurked in the distance, but he knew what Mosa meant. Even in the game, there were Tree Men roaming back and forth in this garden that could attack at any moment.

Walking on the main road might be possible if they could find a pattern or have good luck, but that relied on the experience gained from facing dangers when they first arrived. Here, there was no room for trial and error – once you died, that was it.