Wow! The item-dropping rate is really high!

"...So, Lord, you say you came to escort us to the city following orders?"

Bai E nodded and said, "Yes."

A regular soldier from the army barracks was the one rescuing them from the grip of demons?

But could someone who dares to confront demons so directly and shines with the aura of a leader be just a regular soldier?

A formerly disgraced officer demoted for misconduct? Or was it merely a temporary retreat?

However, the fact that a city was willing to send someone to actively accept them was always good news.

The elder was advanced in years, seen much and knowledgeable, yet he had spent his entire life in the same wilderness oasis.

He had heard of cities but had never truly encountered one.

After being ostracized from the oasis, they had already lost faith in their kin; hearing that they could live in a city made them feel both lost and excited.

"Lord... what is a city like?" an eager boy asked, his eyes shining with anticipation.

"A city..." Bai E said with a distant look in his eyes, for he also did not know what it was like inside a city, but with the protection of the army barracks outside, people inside should certainly live more safely and comfortably, right?

"A city is a home surrounded by steel."

"And what about you, sir?" a girl piped up, her clear eyes fixed on Bai E's face, asking with a hint of hope.

"Me?" Bai E smiled at her, "I'm a soldier; I live outside in the army barracks."

The girl's eyes lit up, "Then can I go to the barracks?"

"The barracks are for fighting; you should focus on living well."

Other places Bai E didn't know, but at least in Blackwater City, according to the information he had—

With the consumption of artificial humans, the pressure to conscript from natural humans wasn't large.

Even if Kiro Lan were to enter the barracks, she would most likely learn to become a qualified nurse just like Mashati whom they had met before.

But if not necessary, there was no need to enlist.

Bai E just smiled and explained, "However, it will be your own choice. I just received orders to take you back. Maybe once in the city, you'll find a more interesting life waiting for you."

"So we can join the barracks if we want?" the girl seemed somewhat insistent.

Bai E spread his hands helplessly, "If you volunteer, you probably can, but that's not up to me."

Having received her answer, the girl didn't press further, "Understood, sir..."

"As for you..." Bai E addressed them after calming their emotions, "Where are you from, and how many are you?"

This was related to making judgments about the refugees' background and planning the relocation.

"We come from Jinshuizhou Town..." The elder spoke softly about their group's origins.

A simple issue of resources.

The capacity of a wilderness oasis to sustain a population is finite, and with the population swelling, natural selection inevitably filters out the weaker individuals.

This group before him was one that had been filtered out.

The process was inconsequential now; fortunately, they were still alive... covers it.

"When we left, we were six hundred and thirty-one; now, there are only four hundred and seventeen left." As he spoke, the elder glanced back at the body drained by the demon, excluding it from the count.

"Four hundred and some..." Bai E mused softly. The number was almost double what he had initially been informed.

However, as long as these people were willing to cooperate, moving two hundred or four hundred people did not differ fundamentally in difficulty.

"Zzzz~"

Having broadly understood the situation, Bai E heard the voice of his teammate through the earpiece; the determined tone of Ying, as if regaining strength, "Bai E, how are things on your end?"

While slowly regaining the ability to act during the wait, those who had stayed in the vehicle had already rationally analyzed their current situation.

Out of rationality, they needed to send someone back to the barracks to report the situation here.

A demon invading the real world was a serious matter, something only the professionals at the Heretical Arbitration House could handle.

And out of emotion, they didn't want to see their brother Bai E fighting alone.

Especially after having shared the real-time images inside the den with the demon, they felt even more anxious.

But it seemed that the Bai E had discovered the demon's weakness and valiantly started to resist; the following events were beyond their observation.

The demon, needing more strength, actively stimulated the seeds of fear in their hearts, causing their consciousness to fall into a haze.

The images shared by the demon in their minds ended unnoticed while they struggled against the void and darkness. When they tried to recall, they found their memory blurred by the struggle and fear, making it impossible to clearly remember all the details.

Only their trust in a particular name was deeply rooted in their hearts—

Bai E.

Invoking this name in despair as if it truly brought warm salvation.

So, when everyone awoke once more from the terrifying illusion in their minds, Ying immediately contacted Bai E.

"My side?" Bai E glanced again at those refugees slowly regaining their senses, watching them huddle together in the dark to soothe their inner scars, he smiled and replied, "All is well."

"Good!" Ying's voice was buoyant, "We're coming in."

"Oh, and..." Bai E remembered something and spoke as a reminder, "Bring some food in."

"Alright."

After ending the conversation, Ying looked excitedly at the other warriors, "He's fine."

Everyone's situation was generally the same; the images shared by the demon only stayed on the moment when Bai E was fighting alone.

Then, a surge of emotions not their own forcefully welled up, threatening to drown them. Despite everyone's cautious resistance, at some point they vaguely lost track of the shared images.

When they snapped back to their senses, the images shared by the demon had already ended.

"Looks like Bai E drove away the demon?"

"Really... impressive."

The captain of Squad 2, his face flushed with shame, looked at Ying and said, "We owe it to Bai E from your team again this time. Otherwise, we would have been trapped here."

A soldier in the corner buried his face, not daring to meet anyone's gaze, 'On the way here, I told him he could call me when it's dangerous...'

What Bai E had advised before departing to be cautious proved to be correct. Unfortunately, even with utmost caution, it seemed to be in vain in this place.

There were no sudden attacks, no external threats.

The real danger came from within.

The Tiger Squad didn't split up, yet the heart of each member became an isolated island.

Except for Bai E...

It was said that this brother had performed remarkably well in the spiritual domain of the Bug Race's overlord in their nest, but since they were in the reserve echelon at that time, they didn't experience the feat that saved more than four hundred people.

Now it seems that if the spiritual energy domain of that Bug Race overlord had been as strong as what they were experiencing now, Bai E's achievements from that battle would have been unimaginable.

"Do we go in now?" a soldier maintained his skepticism, "He might not have really driven away the demon. Those scouts that disappeared before also became the demon's minions, right? His words now could also be a trap guided by the demon, hoping to lure us all back."

Faced with an enemy like the demon, which they did not understand, any assumption extended toward the most extreme direction.

"I don't think it's likely," Song Ying glanced at the speaking soldier, "Bai E has never let anyone down. He will definitely not become the demon's minion."

"But none of us present were able to avoid the demon's invasion. How could he be the only one? I find it hard not to believe this is a trap set by the demon."

"Don't forget, he was the one who saved us."

"I could have woken up on my own without his help." He recovered the fastest among all the soldiers who had stayed in the vehicle, and that was the source of his confidence that he was no worse than anyone else.

His teammate tugged at the corner of his clothes and whispered, "If it had been a trap from the start, then Bai E wouldn't have needed to rescue all of us from the cave."

The skeptical soldier looked earnestly at his teammate, "You should know, even on the Bug Race battlefield, he wasn't the only one who could move in and out of the frontline. But now, he is the only one who has resisted the demon's spiritual corruption. Don't you have the slightest doubt?"

The driver responsible for operating the vehicle hesitated before speaking, "I tried it once on the battlefield of the Bug Race..."

"That's because you couldn't handle it." The eyebrows of the skeptical soldier remained calm, "I don't mean to target anyone, but when we are on a mission, we need to be as cautious as possible."

"..."

Everyone present was an elite.

Every elite was proud.

They found it hard to believe that anyone else could easily resist and even counter something they themselves couldn't withstand.

The skeptical soldier's words didn't sound very pleasant, but they did have some merit.

"How about we leave some people in the vehicle?"

The captain of Squad 1 nodded, "Alright, let's do that. Ka Ruigan, you go with Ying's and the other squad to take some food to those refugees."

"Okay."

"No problem."

Both squad captains agreed without hesitation.

...

Within the cave, the five scouts who had gone missing earlier had also woken up from that terrible state, and Bai E had deliberately asked elders to call them over.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

He wanted to gather more information from them.

But now... these former elite soldiers seemed to be in a poor mental state.

Bai E's gaze swept over the derelict and grim expressions on their faces.

They were sharper than the ordinary refugees, but perhaps that was why they had been targeted more specifically by the demon.

"The two photographs in your hands were left by me, but actually, after leaving that information, I regretted it," one of the soldiers confessed regretfully. He was one of the first scouts to arrive here.

Unlike the ordinary refugees, their faith had been completely destroyed after being immersed in fear of the demon for a long time.

Even after the demon had been driven away, their mental state could not return to its previous vigor.

"I had the same experience as you all. After I woke up from the illusion and escaped the cave, it felt like I left a piece of my heart behind, and I wanted to pick it back up..." As he spoke, the soldier's eyes suddenly reddened, and he abruptly bowed his head to cover his eyes, a choking sob squeezing through his palms, "But I... I never expected it to turn out like this."

He felt as if he was done for.

Even after most of the refugees had bravely taken their first step in rebellion, he still couldn't shake off the demon's control.

Had the demon, whose power had fallen to a certain level, not been directly driven back to a higher-dimensional space by Bai E, he feared he would still be a pawn in the demon's hands.

"It's all in the past." Bai E was quite helpless and could only offer weak words of consolation, "It's all in the past. Actually..."

Bai E looked at the less than favorable mental state of the few scouts in front of him and still asked resolutely, "I want to know, during the entire process of being controlled by the demon, what exactly were you feeling?"

Although asking them to recall those unbearable memories might be torturous, Bai E had to probe their wounds in order to learn more information.

And there were some questions that had to be asked before the arrival of their comrades, especially since they involved the Exorcism Essential Oil he used. The origin of this stuff... was not so easy to explain.