Early the next morning, before dawn, the assembly point on the west side of the city was already bustling with a cacophony of voices.
Over thirty four-wheeled carriages, covered in oilcloth tarps, formed a long queue. Each carriage was assigned two cartmen and four guards.
Lin Qingyue and her team were assigned to the seventh carriage.
They shared the carriage with two other adventurer teams—one of three members, the other of five. The groups kept a clear distance from one another.
The carriages rolled out of Stormwind, heading north along a dirt road deeply rutted by countless wheels.
The initial part of the journey was uneventful.
Aside from the violent jolting that threatened to shake their bones apart, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
It wasn't until their midday rest that an unexpected visitor broke the silence.
The captain of the five-person team sharing their carriage sidled over.
He was a burly man, built like a bear, with a face full of coarse, fleshy features.
"Hey, ladies. Headin' to the front lines to make a fortune?" he mumbled through a mouthful of tough, dried meat, spittle flying from his lips.
Lin Qingyue offered a polite nod but didn't reply.
The burly man chuckled, deliberately lowering his voice and leaning forward to create an air of mystery.
"So, have you heard? This war... the real reason it started?"
Here it comes, Lin Qingyue thought.
She maintained a perfectly measured smile, her heart completely unmoved.
The first absurd rumor of the day is about to drop.
"We're listening," Su Wan said coolly, her words as sparse as gold.
The burly man's eyes lit up. He glanced around furtively, like a thief, then leaned in even closer, his voice dropping to a near-whisper.
"I have a cousin who works in the Royal Palace kitchens. He heard it with his own ears—it's not about the elves trying to snatch the Prince and Princess at all!"
"Then what is it?" Xia Lian's curiosity was successfully piqued.
The burly man slapped his thigh with a loud smack.
"It's His Majesty the King! He's set his sights on the Elf Queen!"
"His Majesty wanted to make the Elf Queen his ninth consort, but she turned him down flat!"
"Well, that did it. His Majesty flew into a rage, made up some excuse, and declared war. The whole thing is just a scheme to kidnap the Queen!"
"Pfft—cough, cough, cough!"
Lin Xiyue, who had just taken a sip of water, sprayed it out unceremoniously.
Xia Lian's mouth hung open, and the dry rations in her hand fell to the ground with a soft thud.
She remained completely oblivious, frozen to the spot.
On Su Wan's perpetually icy facade, distinct cracks appeared.
It was an expression of utter bewilderment—a mix of "Where am I?", "Who am I?", and "Has the world gone mad?".
Lin Qingyue silently lowered her head, her shoulders shaking violently as she desperately suppressed the laughter threatening to erupt.
[Ding! Host detected experiencing absurd joy from the continuous collapse of their worldview. Elation Value +233!]
[Current Version: E - The Tyrannical King's Failed Attempt to Forcefully Marry the Elf Queen Leads to a War of Spite. Does the Host wish to create an "Absurd Rumor Collection" database?]
No! And thank your entire family for the offer!
Are you trying to infect my brain with a memetic hazard?!
Forcing down her laughter, she looked up, her expression once again calm. She even asked with genuine seriousness, "Then... what about the Elf Army massing at the border?"
"It's all an act!"
The burly man gave her a "You just don't get it, do you?" look and explained matter-of-factly.
"The Elf Queen doesn't actually want a real war, but she has to save face. So she sent a few troops to put on a show. Once His Majesty comes to his senses, apologizes, and sends some gifts, this whole thing will blow over!"
"...Makes sense." Lin Qingyue nodded with utmost sincerity.
It makes perfect sense. The logic is a closed loop, completely airtight.
She began to suspect that the "Core" of this Dungeon might just be "everyone spouting utter nonsense with absolute conviction."
The carriage continued on its way.
During the rest of the journey, they heard at least five brand-new versions of the story from different people:
Version F: The Elven Race's Divine Tree is actually a giant brewing apparatus that requires human royal blood as a fermentation starter. The wine it produces grants immortality.
Version G: The Human Prince is actually a cross-dressing master who disguised himself as a princess to dance at an Elven festival. When the Elf Queen saw through his disguise, he flew into a rage, triggering a diplomatic crisis.
Version H: The Elf Princess fell in love with the Human Prince, but the Prince's heart belonged to the Elf Queen. This earth-shattering love triangle ultimately ignited a war between the two nations.
Version I: There's no Elf Army. It's all a massive lie the King cooked up to levy war taxes. The front lines are actually peaceful—everyone's just having picnics.
Version J: The Elves and humans are secretly working together. They're faking the war to distract other continental powers while they secretly excavate an ancient treasure.
-
By now, even Xia Lian had gone completely numb.
She leaned close to Lin Xiyue's ear and whispered in a tone of someone who had seen through the vanities of the world:
"Sister Xiyue... at this point, the Kobolds attacking Sister Qingyue just because of her pink hair... actually seems... pretty reasonable."
Lin Xiyue nodded gravely. "At least that rule was simple and direct. Didn't require any brainpower."
Su Wan remained silent for the rest of the journey.
But Lin Qingyue noticed her fingers tapping unconsciously on her staff, the rhythm growing faster and more erratic.
It was a habit she had when she was utterly bewildered, her logical framework on the verge of crashing.
The Ice Mage's worldview was undergoing a shattering fracture.
On the afternoon of the third day, the caravan entered a stretch of road known as Ash Canyon.
Sheer cliffs, as if carved by knife and axe, rose on both sides, squeezing the sky into a narrow gray sliver.
The road narrowed, and the light abruptly dimmed.
The cart drivers' expressions tensed, and the cracks of their whips grew short and anxious.
The guards tightened their grips on the weapons at their waists, their eyes sweeping back and forth across the shadows on either side.
"Stay sharp! This stretch has been dangerous lately!" one of the guards in their cart whispered, his voice strained with tension.
"Three transport teams have already vanished here—no survivors, no bodies."
An alarm bell rang softly in Lin Qingyue's mind.
She glanced at Su Wan, who understood immediately. With a light tap of her fingertip on her staff, a faint ring of ice-blue light pulsed and vanished.
Xia Lian silently climbed onto the roof of the cart, crouching low as her sharp gaze scanned the cliffs on both sides.
A few seconds later, her voice drifted down from above, low and heavy, pressed down by the wind.
"Left front, top of the cliff. Something's moving."
"Not alive... its movements are extremely stiff."
The moment she finished speaking—
BOOM!
A hundred meters ahead, the road erupted without warning
A wave of earth and rubble surged skyward, accompanied by a scalp-tingling scrape of bone on bone as dozens of ghastly white skeletons clawed their way out of the shattered earth!
Two points of eerie green Soul Fire flickered within their empty eye sockets.
They clutched rust-eaten swords and blades, their jawbones clattering madly as they let out silent roars at the sky.
Undead!
"Ambush—!"
The guard's desperate cry was instantly drowned out by a deafening barrage of explosions.
The caravan's escape route was cut off.
More [Skeleton Soldiers Lv. 21] scrambled down the cliffs on both sides, converging into a white tide of death that swallowed the entire caravan in an instant!
"Form up! Protect the carts!"
The well-trained guards roared, forming a circular shield wall.
But the undead were too numerous and utterly fearless. They even slammed their own bony frames against the shield wall, trying to smash an opening.
The two adventurer parties from their cart had already leaped down and were locked in combat with the undead.
"Xiyue, hold the front! Xia Lian, find high ground and snipe their Soul Fires! Su Wan, prepare crowd control!" Lin Qingyue snapped, her Priest's staff already gripped tight in her hand.
She decided not to trigger Melody Beyond the Strings just yet.
The time wasn't right.
"Hah!"
With a furious shout, Lin Xiyue slammed her heavy shield, [Immovable Mountain], onto the ground with a resounding thud. A ring of pale golden Holy Light Energy radiated outward, transforming the area before her into an indestructible barrier.
Meanwhile, Lin Qingyue lowered her center of gravity, holding her staff horizontally with the tip pointed forward.
It was the opening stance of a spear technique.
"Sis, maybe you shouldn't—" Lin Xiyue began, but her words were cut short.
A Skeleton nimbly dodged past her shield, lunging at Lin Qingyue like a bolt of white lightning. Its rust-eaten blade swung down toward her head!
Lin Qingyue moved.
Her staff struck like a viper, precisely hitting the Skeleton's wrist joint.
Crack!
A crisp snap of bone.
The rusty blade flew from its grasp, spinning through the air.
The staff's shaft whipped around in a fluid motion, whistling as it tore through the air and slammed into the Skeleton's cervical vertebrae.
Thwack!
The skull flew off, the Soul Fire in its eyes instantly extinguishing.
The headless skeleton collapsed into a heap of bones.
Clean. Efficient. Not a single wasted motion.
A nearby guard's mouth hung open in an "O," his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. "You... aren't you a Priest?"
"Who says Priests can't fight up close?"
Without looking back, Lin Qingyue thrust her staff again, piercing another Skeleton's eye socket and shattering the Soul Fire within.
"By the Holy Light, that enemy looks like it's worth a fight—and I mean that literally."
She weaved through the horde of Skeletons, her staff sometimes thrusting like a spear, other times sweeping like a club.
Every strike landed precisely on the undead's most fragile joints or their skulls, where the Soul Fire resided.
There were no flashy skill effects.
Only the most primal, ice-cold, violent dismantling.
Su Wan's Ring of Frost exploded at the perfect moment, freezing a large group of Skeletons that were attempting to encircle them.
Xia Lian's arrows flew as if they had eyes, piercing one Skeleton's eye socket after another, precisely extinguishing their Soul Fires.
Lin Xiyue stood guard at the front, each slam of her heavy shield reducing two or three Skeletons to piles of bone fragments.
The four of them fought with perfect coordination, clearing the undead around the carriage in an instant.
But a new problem arose.
There were far too many undead, and their targets were unsettlingly specific.
A significant portion of the Skeletons ignored the other adventurers and guards, splitting into three groups and surging forward like a tide in three different directions!
One group relentlessly charged Lin Xiyue, who held the front line.
Another bypassed her at all costs, making a beeline for Lin Qingyue at the rear.
The third and most bizarre group completely ignored the four of them, rushing straight toward the back of the carriage convoy!
"Protect the Priest!" a guard shouted in terror from the rear. "These damn things are specifically targeting the convoy's Priests!"
"Again?!"
Lin Xiyue smashed a Skeleton to pieces with her shield, the impact jarring her arm. "What is it this time?" she yelled. "Does pink hair taunt undead too?!"
"No, it's not the hair," Su Wan's calm voice cut through the chaos of the battlefield.
"It's the aura of the Holy Light. They say undead can't distinguish colors, but they're extremely sensitive to the Holy Light."
"You, Qingyue, and the convoy's Priest. In their perception, the three of you are like the three brightest beacons in the darkest night."
Lin Qingyue pierced the skull of a lunging Skeleton with a backhand strike of her staff and sighed.
"So, this Dungeon's Rule Two is meant in a broader sense?"
"In the undead's aesthetic system, the Holy Light counts as 'high appearance,' so they prioritize attacking it?"
What kind of twisted aesthetic system is that?!
[Ding! The Host has deeply resonated with the absurdity of the Dungeon's rules. Elation Value +233!]
Resonate my ass!
Right now, all I want to do is dismantle these bone racks and use them for firewood!