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Everyone was startled. The confused General Dresden asked Xia Fan, “How do you know this?”

Xia Fan sighed. “Through my Scent Ability! The smell of the Demon Palace has changed, and the White Bone Regiment seems to be moving once again, becoming something different from before.”

Xia Fan was not lying when he said that. He did indeed smell the changes to the White Bone Regiment, who were trying to trap the humans inside the Demon Palace. Two steps were required: The first was the self-destruction sequence being activated, while the other was to interfere with the humans evacuating from the premises. By keeping the humans in constant battle, they would be able to drag things out and make it impossible to leave.

“Then what do we do? The Domain outside is still up, while the palace interior has explosives and the White Bone Regiment. He has basically forced us into a corner here!” a warrior gasped, his face pale as a sheet.

“We go down!” Xia Fan announced decisively. “I’m sure Stanley was able to leave this place because there’s still a secret passageway that we had no clue about. All of you saw it with your own eyes how his throne suddenly descended. Furthermore, the Demon Palace is currently completely enclosed in the Domain, so the most likely route of escape is underground!”

Dresden let out a sigh, feeling that Xia Fan’s deduction ought to be correct. After all, Cotillard was on the sea’s surface. If Stanley wanted to leave the palace without having to confront Cotillard, the safest way would be to secretly sneak away through a secret underground passageway!

Thus, everyone hurriedly got on their way. They did not care to search the Demon Palace for any valuable information; it was more important for them to escape with their lives intact!

—-

Xia Fan’s Scent ability had demonstrated its value once again. Though Cid Raleigh the old dragon knew that going deeper underground was the way to escape, he only knew the logic behind doing so, and not the route itself. Xia Fan had no choice but to track Stanley’s scent, searching for a possible passageway through the maze-like palace.

“Wait a minute!” Cid Raleigh suddenly shouted as they were escaping. “That room on your right, there’s a wall mural!”

Xia Fan turned to his right and looked. Sure enough, it was one of the many countless corridors in the Demon Palace. He seemed to have passed by this place before, but right now, the room was not completely flush with the wall. The room had been hidden, and after Stanley fled, because of some strange coincidence, it had suddenly opened up.

“What are you looking at? The Demon Palace is about to blow up, and dawdling any further will just get us blown apart along with it!” Xia Fan said.

“Don’t worry, I know Stanley’s style very well. He would have mobilized the White Bone Regiment to attack, and if he failed to kill you all, then he’d blow the palace. After all, there’s no upside for him to just bring this place crashing down right away. In any case, we must go in and take a look. I seem to recall seeing that mural in some other place before.”

Cid Raleigh sounded very certain, so Xia Fan had no choice but to take a look in the room. Aside from the mural, there were also many ancient tomes and many maps. From the cramped writings and the various markings made all over the map, Stanley must have studied the maps in this room in great detail.

“What maps are these?”

Dresden came over and casually grabbed one from the table. Meanwhile, many others crowded around Nikai to check in on her. It looked like a scene of a superstar being mobbed by fans. Because she had difficulty moving, Nikai was being carried by Dongfang He and Jia Yuntian. They had found a chair and had Nikai sit on it as they set up chairs in front and behind her respectively.

‘That’s a map of the buffer zone,’ Cid Raleigh answered in a low voice.

‘Buffer zone?’ Xia Fan did not understand, so he probed to clarify.

‘The Realm of the Dead is split into three levels. The large area in between these levels is also known as the buffer zone. There’s life there as well, and they are some fairly unique lifeforms. They are neither human nor demon, and could be considered the third force of the realm.

“Both humans or demons have sent people to explore the buffer zone, but it is unfortunate that it is simply too huge. It is like an unending beehive, or a never-ending maze. Exploration parties rarely ever make it back, and even if they got lucky and did just that, whatever information they brought back was limited.

‘Demon King Stanley has collected a large number of maps regarding the buffer zone, which means he had spent a lot of his time specifically looking into and studying it. Given Stanley’s personality as someone that would not put effort into anything that would not benefit him, he would surely not be doing this if he did not have any particular reasoning behind it.”

Xia Fan’s eyes lit up. “Do you remember? Stanley said before that since his assignment on this level was done, it was time for him to head back and rendezvous with his brothers!

“That is to say, Stanley did not choose to be reborn on the first level for no reason, but that he was assigned here by Harry Kane. Could this assignment of his be related to the buffer zone?”

Cid Raleigh nodded. “That is a very likely possibility. Humans and Demons have battled against each other for a very long time, and neither side has been able to achieve victory. Perhaps the Demons have found some sort of method to finally beat the humans in the unknown parts of the Realm of the Dead, in the buffer zone.”

“We must not let him succeed. Let’s bring all these maps back with us!” Xia Fan decided.

Cid Raleigh waved him off dismissively, “They are all just fragment pieces. Besides, Stanley isn’t stupid enough to leave things critical to the fate of his race in a place like this.”

“But there are so many maps, numbering well in the thousands. Yet they are all fragments?”

‘But of course! Have you seen the lift that brings you to the second level in Subduing Demon City? Honestly, going down to the second level, even at the fastest speed, would take a full week. The distance between the two levels is all considered the buffer zone.

‘Forget these maps, even if they are ten thousandfold greater, they would still not be enough to completely cover the zone.’

Xia Fan widened his eyes in bewilderment. “What the heck, why does it sound like the buffer zone is even larger than the three levels of the Lower Realm added together? How could there be such a wide expanse?”

Cid Raleigh answered, “It’s said that the place was a dark prison in the past, where the people above would imprison their criminals. Actually, you need not be so shocked. The biggest of the three realms is the Middle Realm, where all the universes are gathered. For the person who could create the three realms to conjure up the buffer zone would be nothing more than child’s play.”

‘Oh right. Use your nose and sniff. What’s the paint used to draw the mural? Why is it that I feel something is slightly off with it.”

Xia Fan gave a nod and took a whiff. He was promptly startled, reaching out to lightly touch the mural. A small piece of the red paint peeled off and stained his finger.

“It’s blood,” Xia Fan said grimly. “Human blood. It has been a very long time, and it’s even giving off traces of skin and bone remnants from its smell. If I’m not mistaken, the red used on this mural was forcibly created by humans cutting their fingers, and the other colors are from natural plants and minerals like indigo, purple mulberry, chrome, and so forth.”

Cid Raleigh was stunned, but then had a big realization.

“In ancient times, there were countless humans that were sent to investigate the buffer zone, and nearly 99% of them never came back alive. I’m afraid there was a human that was trapped underground here, and because he could not locate an exit, he used the last of his life to make this blood mural, in hopes that the rescue team could find it. Unfortunately, for some reason, it was Stanley that managed to find this mural in the end!’

“Why use blood to draw? He clearly had plenty of natural ingredients to produce the different colors with. The fact that there’s indigo just means that not only were there mineral veins in the buffer zone, there were even plenty of plants!” Xia Fan was nonplussed.

Cid Raleigh laughed excitedly. “It’s very simple. Because ninety percent of the map is fake, and only the red line he drew with his blood represents the real path! This dying warrior was very clever. He knew that his companions might not be the ones to find this mural, so he tried to hide it!’

“Going by your line of thinking, the reason this warrior was willing to use his blood on this map is because it is very important. He must have found something in the buffer zone!” Xia Fan finished Cid Raleigh’s conclusion.

‘That’s right, you’re right on the money! You sure like up to your namesake as a wolf cub of the Skywing Clan. Not only is your nose keener than a wolf’s, you’re also much smarter than one.

‘We need to etch this map deep in our minds. It’s just too bad the map has already become rather incomplete due to the passage of time and the tremors from before, so there are many red lines that we can’t recognize. But I’m sure Stanley that b*st*rd must have a more complete copy of it!’