"Pat, pat, pat" In the sky, a flock of red-eyed crows flapped their wings and swept past.
They circled back after a while, hovering in the sky for several rounds, some landing on branches to search carefully, but ultimately failing to discover Eddie and the Swordswoman hidden beneath the leaves of plants.
The crows flew up again, one after another, heading in another direction.
Ever since Eddie killed the first red-eyed crow, the flock had flown over his head at least twenty times in a day and a night.
It was clear that the powerful figure hidden in the Ghost-Sees-Sorrow Eagle's Cry Gorge was adept at controlling crows.
To find Eddie and the Swordswoman, this hidden powerhouse controlled at least two hundred crows, deploying them in turns to search everywhere, flying over Eddie's head repeatedly, but they were all deceived by his camouflage and found nothing.
The Swordswoman, still harboring anger towards Eddie's roguish hands, secretly admired his cunning. Using branches and leaves as camouflage was indeed a brilliant idea! Not just crows, but even humans would struggle to discover them.
By a rapid stream, numerous Iron Claw Rock Eagles scattered in a flurry of alarmed cries.
A green, lumpy-headed dragon, carrying a black-robed figure, circled down.
Eddie and the Swordswoman quickly hid in the crevices between the creek stones, watching the black-robed figure's movements.
He chanted over a black skull, which emitted waves of black mist that eventually condensed into a mass.
The black-robed figure threw these black mist balls to the ground, and as the mist dispersed with crackling sounds, bizarre-looking skeletal figures were summoned.
Some of these skeletons still bore remnants of their past lives, such as a tattered glove, a silver chain stained with black blood, or a rusty long sword.
The Swordswoman's face darkened upon seeing this. Eddie, the transmigrator, didn't understand what was happening, but she knew very well that she had found her target.
These skeletons were the people she was looking for – the Royal Exploration Team!
But they were all dead, transformed into skeletons by the black-robed figure's horrifying necromancy.
So, the one responsible for the annihilation of the Royal Exploration Team and controlling the crows was this necromancer!
But how could a necromancer, exclusive to the Abyss, appear in the Dragon Rising Continent?
How long had this black-robed necromancer been hiding in Ghost-Sees-Sorrow's Eagle's Cry Gorge, and what was his purpose?
"My undead servants, move and find those two living beings," chanted the black-robed figure, his bony hands summoning green phosphorescent lights and casting them onto a dozen skeletons.
The skeletons, under the green phosphorescent light, morphed, changed color, and grew larger, transforming from first-level skeletal figures into second-level bone skeletons in just ten seconds.
Among them, the leading skeleton, which absorbed several green phosphorescent lights, was enhanced into a third-level Iron Bone Skeleton.
This Iron Bone Skeleton leader had long bone blades growing out of its arms. The Swordswoman knew this was the necromancer's control technique.
Any living being nearby would be detected by these skeletons, rendering their leaf and branch camouflage useless.
Fortunately, the skeletons' detection range was limited to twenty to thirty meters, and they were currently separated by the stream, or else they would have been discovered immediately.
She lightly drew a circle on Eddie's back with her hand, signaling readiness for a surprise attack.
The distance was a bit challenging, and the success rate of the ambush wasn't high, but it was worth a try.
Otherwise, once the black-robed figure on the venomous dragon took to the air, they would be powerless.
She estimated the black-robed necromancer's strength to be around a sixth-level Sect Master.
If they succeeded in their ambush, they had a good chance of killing him.
The only problem was the man's caution; the dragon landed on a protruding rock, ready to escape into the sky at a moment's notice.
In aerial combat, apart from the Bloody Queen, both she and the big bad wolf could only watch helplessly.
It would be somewhat difficult for the Bloody Queen, a third-level Gold, to kill the sixth-level Bronze venomous dragon, especially with a sixth-level Sect Master necromancer on its back.
"Shh!" Eddie caught the Swordswoman's hand.
As she tried to pull away, he made a calming gesture, signaling that there was a situation and they mustn't move.
The Swordswoman glared at him with her rouge tiger eyes but eventually stayed still as instructed. She wanted to pull her hand back, but Eddie pretended not to notice and kept holding on, taking advantage of the situation.
The Swordswoman almost kicked him into the creek, but with the black-robed figure present, it would ruin their chance of ambushing.
So, she refrained. She had wanted to punch him, but a second later, she forgot all about it, nervously hugging Eddie's back, her ample chest unconsciously pressing against him, trying to keep him as low as possible.
Because, following Eddie's gaze, she spotted a terrifying creature on the rocky cliff of the perilous valley, absolutely still, hidden like a rock on the cliffside.
Its target was the black-robed man and his venomous dragon below, but the wary black-robed man and the dragon were completely unaware of this terrifying creature.
As the venomous dragon flapped its giant wings, slowly rising with the black-robed figure, the terrifying creature suddenly moved like lightning.
Its two scythe-like giant arms, like two black lightnings, sliced through the air, capturing the dragon's massive body in its grasp.
The sixth-level Bronze venomous dragon couldn't even struggle, only emitting mournful cries.
The terrifying creature opened its huge fangs and began to gnaw on the dragon's head, eating it alive instead of killing it first. The venomous dragon's screams echoed throughout the entire valley.
At that moment, the entire valley fell silent, all creatures frightened into hiding. As the terrifying creature devoured the venomous dragon alive, the black-robed man struggled desperately.
His body was also trapped in the creature's huge arms, unable to break free. Noticing its captive wriggling, the terrifying creature bit towards the black-robed man's head. Reacting quickly, the man took out a teleportation orb and crushed it with his skeletal black hand.
The teleportation beam flashed up in a second. However, just as he was about to disappear, the enraged creature raised one of its scythe-like arms and slashed, Snap!
The black-robed man, in the midst of teleportation, had his lower body brutally severed by the creature in the teleportation space.
The teleportation beam shattered, and half of his body fell to the ground with a thud. Had he not escaped so quickly, the sixth-level Sect Master strength black-robed man would have been instantly killed! Eddie and the Swordswoman watched in shock.
This horrifying creature was the legendary, supposedly extinct, Gold Level Seven Reaper Mantis, and it was a Golden King Beast.
The transmigrated man sweated profusely, thinking to himself, "My kidneys! Who said Reaper Mantises were extinct?
There's a living one right here, its body several times larger than the dragon, like a fighter jet. Such a terrifying creature exists in the Dragon Rising Continent?
Thankfully, it doesn't leave Ghost-Sees-Sorrow, or it would eat everyone!"
The sixth-level Bronze venomous dragon didn't even have a chance to struggle before being devoured bite by bite. "Such bad luck to encounter its natural predator," thought Eddie and the Swordswoman.
The Reaper Mantis ate the dragon's head and then suddenly discarded the massive body, flapping its wings and shooting up into the sky, vanishing without a trace.
Had it not been for the dragon's body crashing to the ground right before their eyes, Eddie and the Swordswoman might have doubted if the Reaper Mantis had ever been there.
"It seems to like eating dragon's magic crystals," Eddie thought, relieved.
He was fortunate to have handed the dragon's magic crystal to Sophia before appearing, otherwise, the Reaper Mantis's ambush might not have been limited to just the venomous dragon.
"It's a female mantis. I wonder if it has laid eggs. If we could find the egg case, we could find the Reaper Mantis's larvae!" The Swordswoman was tempted.
The larvae of a Reaper Mantis were Golden-level battle beasts with immeasurable potential. Eddie, startled, quickly waved his hands, "If you want to die, go ahead, but don't drag me into it. I haven't even enjoyed a blissful life yet!"
"You coward!" The Swordswoman was annoyed, having said it in jest.
Did he really think they would find Reaper Mantis larvae just like that?
"I think the wisest action right now is to finish off that black-robed man!" Eddie, as usual, preferred to bully the weak and pick on the soft targets.
"But he's already escaped. How are we going to find him? Who knows where he's hiding," the Swordswoman expressed concern about moving around in Eagle's Cry Gorge, given the presence of a Gold Level Seven Reaper Mantis lurking somewhere, ready to ambush at any moment, a thought that was deeply unsettling.
"Look," Eddie pointed at the skeletons dragging the lower half of the black-robed man's body, along with the massive corpse of the dragon.
"So, he's going to come back? Alright, let's wait as you suggest," the Swordswoman thought the necromancer was incredibly unlucky.
First ambushed by the Reaper Mantis, losing a sixth-level Bronze venomous dragon, and now about to be ambushed by her and Eddie.
Under this double blow, it would be difficult for him to avoid death. Although still annoyed with Eddie, the Swordswoman had no choice but to stay close to him.
Their bodies were in close contact, relying on each other for the success of the ambush, while Eddie secretly enjoyed their proximity. The Swordswoman, infuriated by his cheekiness, had to pretend not to notice, lest her reaction ruin their ambush.
Thus, they waited motionlessly for the injured black-robed man to return to the stream. About half an hour later, a man in a gray robe stood on the back of a giant Iron Wing Crow King, accompanying the half-bodied black-robed man back to the airspace above the stream.
The black-robed man cursed,
"Such bad luck, my new body, barely a month old, was chopped in half by the Reaper Mantis.
It'll probably take a year to fully recover. Didn't Lord Sog say there were no Reaper Mantises in Ghost-Sees-Sorrow? Damn it, if I hadn't run fast, I'd have ended up like my dragon, eaten alive. Ludon, help me reconnect my body!"
The man in gray robe laughed eerily, "Bad luck for you. I've been here in Ghost-Sees-Sorrow for nearly ten years and never encountered a Reaper Mantis.
It must've been your dragon's fault. Why did you have to show off with a dragon mount! Hey, what's this, a Golden King Beast?"
"What Golden King Beast?" The black-robed man, still in shock, shuddered at the mention.
"Don't worry, that's my Bloody Queen. I assure you, she doesn't like eating people's heads, especially not dead people's."
Eddie appeared behind the black-robed man, his smile as bright as sunshine. Of course, in the black-robed man's eyes, that smile resembled more of a devil's.