We traveled for days from village to town and from town to city.
In my travels, I saw the fear rise and the people become more paranoid about every shadow in their path.
The Shadow Lord didn't do a lot of damage whenever he attacked, but because nobody saw him, it led to people's imagination complete the unknown with their biggest fears.
The only reason they knew it was the Shadow Lord, it's because he tended to leave his huge arrows at the places he attacked, like as a message to spread more fear.
I've seen some of the arrows myself, and you couldn't fake those 3 block tall arrows no matter how hard you tried.
The more I followed the compass the deeper into the woods we got, making it a clear choice for a hidden base where the Piligers stayed.
Unfortunately, I didn't know how close I was to them since the compass was pointing it toward the target not telling how far away it was.
Then I suddenly remembered that someone could tell me how close we were.
"Alexa, how close are we to the Shadow Lord?"
That didn't help with what I wanted to know, but at least I knew the Shadow Lord was on a mission for away.
If I was lucky, maybe I could destroy his spawner as well, making him much easier to deal with.
We continued to gallop the forest as the sun was setting over the trees.
Soon the darkness of night would surround us making the monsters spawn as well.
In the end, I decided to stop for the night so the horse could catch some rest and I wouldn't have to eat any more brunches at great speeds.
"Violet, can you scout ahead for a few hundred blocks to see if there's anything?"
I heard a low growl then a few purple particles appeared.
While she was gone, I got off my horse and chopped a few trees to make a small clearing.
Then I crafted some fences out of those wood blocks and built a small room where I could put my bed in.
After that I gave the horse some water and apples before eating my dinner as well.
Tonight, I had my favorite meal, golden carrots.
Suddenly Violet appeared in front of me fully visible, making me choke a bit.
"Camp....500.... away."
So she found a camp 500 blocks away.
Is that the camp of the Piligers as well, or just another isolated village?
"Are they the enemy?"
"Yes..."
This made my mind froze.
We finally got them?
They were a few hundred blocks away probably preparing to get to sleep as well.
It's hard to believe that the journey of 2 weeks was about to end tonight.
I quickly finished my dinner and prepared to infiltrate the camp.
I didn't need to destroy the camp since it would take too long and there would be a few that ran away.
Instead, I needed to concentrate on getting rid of all the people who knew how to get to Alexa.
Or at least the ones who have the map.
With my belly full, I drank a few potions to see in the dark and to move at greater speeds, and then I went to infiltrate the camp.
I let Alexa stay behind since it tends to get in trouble without the invisibility potion, and Violet was still looking weird at it.
The darkness of the night came, and soon the monster appeared as well, but I was safe because of my armor which I was always thankful for.
Suddenly the darkness was cut by the light of the torches, letting me know that I was near the Piliger camp.
From tree to tree, I was getting closer to the heart of the camp, where I could see some Iligers patrolling with a tired expression.
This expression wasn't the result of one night shift, but multiple days of being vigilant, fighting, and overworking.
In conclusion, they were very jumpy at every little noise or were too tired to pay attention to anything besides the block In front of them.
Because of that, it was easy for me to walk past them even if I didn't have the armor.
Once I was inside, I could see the others talking, sleeping, or playing some kind of games in front of their respective houses.
All the houses had simple designs with no windows or second floors, probably so they wouldn't stand out beside the trees.
Inside, it was all filled with beds and nothing else, and what was infuriating was the fact that the beds were all of different colors making look like a clown's wardrobe.
In short, this was a box filled with beds similar to a prison.
No wonder they looked so depressed all the time, everything was bland around them.
But my compass wasn't pointing towards the poor-looking hoses, instead, it was pointing towards the house that was going downwards instead of up.
Here the guards were more rested but still bored, and inside there were multiple rooms, some of them decorated with monsters heads, painings or skulls.
I hope those came from monsters as well.
There were 6 large rooms and one commun hall with a big table, where two important looking pillagers were sitting and discussing while eating some cooked chicken.
"If Jeremiah hadn't died because of that hero we wouldn't had to humiliate ourselves and make a deal with the Prince. Now all the servants from all households are getting inspected for spies."
"We can't do anything about that, plus we're not the only one suffering from this purge of spies, but the other kingdoms as well, making it hard for the others to get along."
Were they talking about the spy I killed and took his compass?
I didn't know that triggered such a large reaction, maybe that's not such a bad thing in the end.
I looked at my compass and saw that it was pointing at one of the two men at the table.
But I was confused since he didn't look anything like the General I saw last time.
Was that a fake one or is this one a fake?
I had to hide in a corner where I couldn't be seen or found and switched my helmet with the Monocle of Truth.
Soon the world turned gray, and I could see the status and the inventory of those people, and it was harder to decide if he was the General or not.
They both had precious items they stole from the cities and both of them had an Undying Totem which showed how important those two were.
I guess my best choice would be to listen to them continue to speak or interrogate one of them to hear the truth.
Either way, I have to wait for the two of them to split up.
I stayed in there for a few hours, listening to them brag about the city they managed to loot, the number of people they killed, or how many got captured.
It got dark very quickly to my displeasure.
But because of them being so casual about their war crimes, I was able to find some information for my next decision.
Those two would die for sure that's not going to be a debate. The question is if I should do this myself, or tell the closest city where their camp is so they can get all of them in one swoop.
They do deserve to die, but I don't have explosives on me, and they had prisoners since they couldn't craft items themselves.
There was some good news as well.
It seems they don't get along with the People from the Prince party, and the only reason they're even willing to work with them is that the President of the Coral Kingdom knew their next destination was a port city, making the infiltration process much harder than necessary.
But now with the Shadow Lord, they could divide their forces towards the borders, and the General took the most powerful soldiers with him to steal a ship and follow the map.
They didn't know how they controlled the Shadow lord, and their camp was far from each other, with the Prince being present with the General in this expedition.
Everyone knows they would betray each other, but they still need to use each other, so it comes to a truce between them until they get what they want.
I have a feeling this would not turn out so well for either party.
While this was good news and a potential way for the problem to solve itself, there was some bad news as well.
The General heard of an iron ship that managed to fight the monsters of the deep seas and come back alive.
Not only that, but the General suspects they 'accidentally' found the location of the secret weapon against the System.
Looks like the Siren's crew, manages to brag so much that they now have a target on their back.
Now, with a ship like that, they wouldn't have to worry about being taken since it was always guarded against thefts.
Not only that, but they also have diamond armor and tools to help them fight against anyone coming their way, so their confidence should be through the roof.
But there are a couple of ways you could work around that.
Such as using the Shadow Lord to kill or intimidate the crew to do their bidding.
You could also bribe one of the crew members to betray his people since they're too new to build any meaningful loyalty.
The last option and the most probable one, is to kidnap the members of their family and threaten them while assassinating the captain in her sleep.
And that's only possible because they don't know the danger coming after them.
After all, they only need one person to show the way towards the guardians, so they don't need to bother a lot.
This puts me on a time limit once again, since I have to warn Siren about this and get a proper army to fight those guys since I can't do it alone.
Even If I had the whole crew fighting with me, it's still 1 pirate against 10 enemies, not including the Shadow Lord who would be there for sure.
Why did they have to brag so much at the bars with the dead guardian, now they have a massive target in their back.
While It was unpleasant, I had to make a quick decision an letting those guys live for another day.
I'll have to get back at my camp, let the horse rest and get to the closest city to tell them this location.
Just to be sure, I'll hand them the compass in case they would move while they prepare an army to attack them.
I'll also have to warn them to search for the Prince's camp, since only a selected few went with the General in the Puperfish City.
As the two Iligers were done talking and went to get some rest, I explored the camp for any weaknesses that the future attack could exploit.
Not only that, but I also found the house where they kept the prisoners, they loved better then expected.
And in the end I counted all the Iligers that were in the camp.
After I noted everything down, I went back to my camp where I saw the horse sleeping while Alexa was looking after the fire.
"Hey Alexa, did you by any chance read a map of the Coral Kingdom?"
Alexa quickly turned around and scanned me from head to toe.
"That's good to hear, could you lead me to the closest city?"
I looked at the horse who was sleeping peacefully under a tree and decided to leave in a few hours.
With that done, I went into my own room and went to sleep.