Maya took out another mechanical spider and guided Xiao Chen, Elena and Evelyn towards the corpse.
The corpse was wearing a high elf wizard robe, and fell on its back beside a cluster of tree roots. There was a wound on its back, and blood stained the robe red.
"It looks like he was a high-level wizard under Uncle Nord. How could he be killed here alone?" Elaina walked around the body and then squatted on the ground to look at his face. "It seems that his face is also injured."
Xiao Chen went forward and turned the body over. He found that the wizard's eyes and nose were completely black. His eyes had been burnt beyond recognition. "He was attacked from the front by the enemy. It should be a fist-sized high-temperature fireball that hit his nose directly. He must have been blinded for a moment, and then in panic, he was stabbed from behind."
Xiao Chen stood up and looked around, then concluded, "It should be a surprise attack, and it was done by his companions."
"Ah, why?" Elena said, covering her mouth lightly.
Xiao Chen walked to the tree root, pointed at the scattered blood spots on it and said, "Look at this blood, it should be splashed when someone stabbed him in the back. So, I judge that this is where he was killed. However, there are no signs of fighting around. As a high-level mage, as long as he found the enemy, he would never be killed so easily. This means that he was completely defenseless when he died and was killed before he had time to resist. And from the footprints on the ground, there were many companions around him. It couldn't be an external enemy, so only his companions could have done it."
"Mr. Xiao Chen is right. The wound on his face was probably caused by the Sunfire spell of the Sunfire Priest. And there just happened to be a Sunfire Priest in the team sent by General Nord." Evelyn said after carefully examining the wound, "In addition, the wound on his back was also caused by the elven sword."
"Killing each other?" Elena asked.
Evelyn stared at the messy footprints on the ground for a while, nodded and said, "There are six people in total, and this wizard is the fifth one. When they came to the edge of this cluster of tree roots, some kind of situation happened to the companions in front and behind, and everyone stopped. You see, these deepest footprints are caused by them standing still for a long time.
Evelyn analyzed the traces and became talkative. She pointed to a set of footprints and said, "But this mage is different. He walked back and forth to check on these people. When he walked in front of the Sunfire Priest, the priest had become an enemy. He directly hit the mage in the face with the Sunfire spell, blinding him." She stepped back and pointed to a set of footprints on the other side and said, "The heels of these footprints are particularly deep, and the steps are very scattered. He must have been standing unsteadily and retreated backwards, retreating to this tree root. At this time, the warrior who was originally at the end also moved. He stabbed the mage in the back with a sword, and then when he drew the sword, blood splashed on the tree root, leaving that string of blood. After the mage's heart was pierced, he was kicked by the warrior and fell face down on the tree root. He didn't hold on for long before he died. But after killing him, whether it was the Sunfire Priest or the swordsman, all his companions didn't care about him at all, but left directly."
"Generally speaking, even if they have different positions and betray their former companions, people will not just leave without caring. The remaining five people here are acting like this. It is very likely that they don't have much willpower left."
"Could it be that his companions were controlled by that voice? And turned into monsters that slaughtered their companions?" Elena took out a piece of cloth from the storage ring and covered the face of the corpse.
"This is not surprising. If it weren't for Master Xiao Chen, I might not have been able to hold on. Although the voice didn't tell me what to do at the time, I know very well that as soon as I relax, I will become a puppet that completely obeys its commands." Evelyn said with lingering fear.
Xiao Chen said, "Perhaps it is because the mage's mental strength is so strong that he resisted the control, so he became an outlier among the crowd and was targeted for death. We should not stay here for long, let's go back and meet up with Di Ning and the others."
At this time, Maya's mechanical spider jumped up, waved its two legs for a while, and quickly ran back the way it came.
“This is…” Elena was confused.
Xiao Chen slapped his thigh, "Oh no, they must have been attacked, let's go!"
———————
After Xiao Chen and the other two left, Maya continued to scout the surroundings through the mechanical spider, while Di Ning and Roger guarded her from the front and back.
"This place is really big. My spiders walked back and forth for about 20 minutes without encountering any borders. Although they don't run very fast and walk in a zigzag pattern, this is still amazing." Maya frowned halfway through her muttering and whispered, "Hey, why is the spider at 11 o'clock broken? This shouldn't happen. I checked every spider carefully yesterday."
“What’s going on?” Di Ning asked. “What did you see? Were you attacked?”
"I don't see anything. The image the spider sees goes black, and then there's nothing. This has happened before when there was a malfunction." Maya took out another spider and prepared to explore that side again.
Di Ning stopped her and said, "Wait a minute, let the nearby spiders come over and take a look first."
Since a lot of spiders were released, and the two nearby spiders were not too far from the accident site, the spiders at ten and twelve o'clock quickly turned around and ran towards the location where spider No. 11 had lost contact, under Maya's command.
Spider No. 10 arrived there first, but before it could see clearly the situation of Spider No. 11, it also saw a black shadow passing over the head of Spider No. 10, drawing a sword-like light.
"There's someone there! They chopped my spiders! I saw it from the last spider." Maya shouted.
“Tell the last spider to look up,” Dinin shouted.
Spider No. 12 just raised its head and saw a man swooping down like a big bird, raising its long sword and slashing it. However, before Spider No. 12 died, Maya caught a glimpse of the man's appearance.
"Elf! It's an elf attacking my spider!"
"Elf?" Di Ning held his chin and walked back and forth a few steps. "Could it be the missing people? When Elena and the others come back, we will go in that direction to take a look."
At this moment, Roger, who was ready for battle, suddenly heard the sound of a bowstring: "Enemy attack!" He leaped forward and threw Maya to the ground. An arrow pierced his fighting spirit and nailed his shoulder blade.