South Territory was the very region where Evelyn had been reborn back then.

  At this moment, a dazzling burst of light suddenly bloomed in the empty forest. Streams of light intertwined and converged, gradually forming a semi transparent crystalline teleportation screen.

  The space at the center of the screen rippled slightly, and a figure stepped out from within. It was Ryan, who had just completed a cross region teleportation.

  The instant he steadied himself, blinding sunlight poured down through the gaps in the dense canopy, forcing Ryan to squint as he struggled to adjust.

  He raised a hand to shield his eyes and looked around. All he could see were lush, ancient forests, towering old trees with interwoven branches stretching in every direction.

  He had no idea exactly where he was. All he could do was follow a faint path through the woods, walking around in search of something recognizable.

  Eventually, behind a thick tree, he discovered a strip of cloth hanging from a withered branch, swaying gently in the wind.

  Ryan walked over and reached out to take it down.

  The moment his fingers touched the fabric, an inexplicable sense of familiarity surged in his heart. Yet no matter how hard he thought about it, he could not recall where that feeling came from.

  "Grimoire, run a scan. Whose cloth strip is this?" Since he could not remember, he decided to let Grimoire handle it.

  Tracing the origin of such an item was hardly a challenge for Grimoire.

  【Scanning… Scan complete. This cloth strip originated from the clothing Evelyn was wearing at the time of her rebirth. It is a remnant torn off by a fool who forcibly ripped her clothes.】

  Ryan fell silent. Seeing Grimoire's response, realization dawned on him at once.

  So this was a fragment of the clothes he had torn when he first met Evelyn as an enemy.

  Holding the strip of cloth in one hand, its color now faded to near transparency, Ryan could not help but smile with a mix of helplessness and nostalgia.

  Back then, the two of them had been locked in sharp confrontation, utterly incompatible.

  "So this means this area is where Shrouded Village is located?"

  As he continued along the forest path, Ryan carefully tied a knot in the cloth strip and placed it reverently into his storage space.

  Whenever Ryan thought about the price Evelyn had paid to send him back, he could not help but suck in a sharp breath again.

  Just how many magic crystals did she consume to directly teleport me from the Northern Border Icefield back to South Territory?

  Teleportation across two regions was far from a simple matter of stacking distance. And yet she had managed to place the landing point with such precision.

  Kicking small stones along the path as he walked, Ryan continued chatting casually with Grimoire.

  "Grimoire, what kind of expression do you think the villagers of Shrouded Village will have when they see me again?"

  "I really want to see whether they put up a statue for me. If they did, I will copy a magic tome for them as a thank you gift."

  After speaking, Ryan bent down and picked up a smooth, round pebble. A faint trace of magic gathered around his fingertips, and with a casual flick, he sent it flying.

  The pebble shot into the sky like an arrow released from a bow. With a soft sound, an Iron Feather Eagle with a wingspan of several meters that had been circling overhead fell straight down from the air.

  Upon closer inspection, there was a tiny blood hole in the eagle's chest, almost the same size as the pebble, with blood pouring out continuously.

  Precise control of magic had turned an ordinary stone into a deadly weapon.

  "Such good luck!" Ryan laughed heartily."I remember the first time I came here, it took me ages to run into a low level magical beast. This time I get a catch the moment I step out."

  If an outsider were present, they would surely think he was talking to himself.

  In reality, Ryan and Grimoire were constantly bantering with each other. From time to time, Grimoire would tease him about his entanglement with Evelyn, provoking Ryan to nearly curse out loud on several occasions.

  "Back to the village!" With a thought, Ryan stored the Iron Feather Eagle, which was nearly the size of an adult human, into his storage bag.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Then his internal magic surged. He lightly pushed off the ground with his feet, and his body rose straight into the air as if freed from gravity.

  Now that his magic rank had reached Senior Mage, Ryan had keenly sensed something unusual the moment he entered this region.

  Deep underground, there seemed to be some presence emitting a hidden yet sinister aura, causing the magic of the entire land to become slightly chaotic.

  But Ryan could not be bothered to investigate further, nor did he plan to deal with it. That cold and obscure aura gave him an extremely ominous feeling. Right now, all he wanted was to find the villagers of Shrouded Village. Everything else could wait.

  Flying high in the sky, Ryan's field of vision became exceptionally broad.

  To his surprise, aside from the Shrouded Village he remembered, several small villages were scattered throughout this region.

  However, the villagers in those settlements all had sallow faces and listless expressions, exactly the same as the people of Shrouded Village had looked the first time he met them. It was as if they were all trapped in hunger and exhaustion, severely lacking food and survival resources.

  Ryan did not linger. Following the memories in his mind, he pushed his magic to increase his speed and flew straight toward the direction of Shrouded Village.

  Just a few minutes later, he arrived at the location where Shrouded Village should have been.

  Yet the sight before him made him freeze instantly. The village below was no longer what it once was.

  All that remained were rows of dilapidated wooden huts, their roofs collapsed and walls cracked. Branches and rubble were scattered everywhere. Not a single person could be seen. The place was deathly silent, enough to chill the heart.

  It was obvious that Shrouded Village had been abandoned for quite some time, perhaps during the few months since he had left.

  Ryan was completely stunned."What happened? Where did the people of Shrouded Village go?"

  In the next second, his figure flickered, and he appeared at the very center of the village, at the spot where the Tree of Life that once contained magical power had stood.

  Now, however, only a charred and rotten stump remained. The gentle magic that had once wrapped around it had completely vanished, and there was not even a trace of life left.

  "Was the core energy stolen?" Ryan frowned deeply at once.

  He carefully searched the ruined village several times, hoping to find some clues left behind by the villagers.

  At that moment, a structure taller than all the houses in the village abruptly came into view.

  It was a crude yet orderly building. Although its main door was damaged, faint signs of careful maintenance in the past could still be seen.

  Ryan's heart jolted violently. They really had erected a statue for him.

  Given how impoverished Shrouded Village had been back then, constructing a building taller than all the houses must have cost an enormous amount of time and effort. The weight of that gratitude made his nose sting slightly.

  He hurried inside. Directly opposite the entrance stood a wooden statue. Though the material was ordinary, the carving was remarkably detailed, his features clearly recognizable. It was obvious that the villagers had painstakingly crafted it.

  Beside the statue were several small wooden carvings of children. Their workmanship was crude and somewhat ugly at a glance, clearly the handiwork of those kids.

  These small figures were pressed closely against his wooden statue, their poses intimate, filled with admiration and gratitude.

  Yet now, both the building and the carvings had fallen into ruin. Cobwebs covered them, wood chips flaked away, and time had ultimately erased these traces.

  The emotion in Ryan's heart was instantly replaced by unease. He circulated the magic within his body and let out a thunderous roar that shook the sky.

  "Where did the people go!"

  Empowered by the magic of a Senior Mage, his shout became a tangible shockwave. The entire ruined Shrouded Village trembled three times, and birds in the distant forest were startled into flight.

  But the only response was deathlike silence. Not a single figure appeared.

  Unwilling to give up, Ryan shouted several more times. His voice pierced through the forest and actually drew villagers from several nearby settlements.

  They approached Shrouded Village cautiously, hiding behind trees or broken walls, their eyes filled with wariness and fear.

  "Who are you, and why are you making such a disturbance here?" A burly man stepped out from the crowd and shouted, forcing himself to be brave.

  Three equally sturdy men followed behind him. The magical fluctuations of all four were extremely weak, their magic levels not even comparable to the hunting team Shrouded Village once had.

  Ryan locked onto them instantly. His figure flickered, and he appeared before them as if by teleportation, urgently demanding,"Where are the people of Shrouded Village? Where did they go?"

  The sudden teleportation startled the men, who all took half a step back, utterly shaken.

  This was absolutely someone they could not afford to offend.

  The leading man forced down his fear, stared at Ryan, and replied in a trembling voice,"They are dead."

  "Dead?" The news stunned Ryan, his mind going completely blank as he froze for a long moment.

  "Yes." The man nodded with difficulty.

  "How did they die!" Ryan's voice shot up instantly, charged with uncontrollable agitation.

  He remembered the Village Chief saying that Shrouded Village had existed for at least several hundred years, and that the Tree of Life, as the village's guardian, ranked among the strongest forces in this region.

  When he had just investigated, he had discovered that the guardian deities of the surrounding villages were mostly only at the level of Sixth tier to Seventh tier Adept Mages, completely no match for the Tree of Life.

  "It was an Undead Knight riding a skeleton horse!" The man swallowed hard, fear surfacing in his eyes."He wielded a bone blade and charged into several villages in broad daylight."

  "Daytime? Impossible!" Ryan grew even more agitated."Undead creatures fear sunlight. An Undead Knight should only be able to act at night!"

  His thoughts instantly went to the Undead Knight who had once tried to kill him by the cliff.

  "We do not know why either!" The man's voice cracked, close to tears.

  "All we know is that the disturbance was enormous. Every village's protective barrier activated on its own, trapping us inside. We could not see what was happening outside, and we had no idea what exactly happened to Shrouded Village."

  "When the protective barriers disappeared and we dared to come out, we found bloodstains everywhere in several nearby villages, but all the villagers' bodies were gone."

  "Only Shrouded Village remained, with nothing but ruined houses. The people inside were nowhere to be found, and not even a single corpse was left behind."

  After hearing this, Ryan stood frozen in place. He did not ask any further questions. His figure flickered once more, and he vanished from the men's sight in an instant. He had to find more clues.