Chapter 969: Rawr?
Chapter 969 – Rawr?
"Is this... Heaven?" Gula grinned. Her eyes sparkled.
Lux stared at the grove in front of them.
Then looked at Gula.
Then looked back at the grove. "No."
Gula did not look convinced.
Lux lifted one finger. "I have been to Heaven. Recently. Multiple times. We are still in the mortal realm."
Gula’s eyes remained fixed on the trees. "I don’t care..." she whispered. Her voice became reverent. "Let me eat all that."
Two hours had passed since breakfast.
Two hours of preparation, coordination, archive checks, schedule rearrangement, and Lux pretending he was not quietly impressed by how fast his household had turned into an operational unit.
Naomi, Rava, Mira, and Fiera stayed behind to cover Ely’s responsibilities. Which meant Lux had brought only the necessary group.
Ely.
Gula.
Sira.
Lullaby.
Yue.
And himself.
A compact disaster team.
The portal had opened cleanly.
Lux was fairly sure it had opened correctly.
The system coordinates matched. The location fragments matched. The words from the ancient book had pointed here. The Ashen Viridian Grove.
Except...
Lux looked around again.
This place did not look like something called the Ashen Viridian Grove.
Based on the name, he had expected something creepy. Black trees. Burned roots. Ash falling like snow. Maybe a haunted mountain shaped like regret. A few cursed crows for atmosphere. Maybe some dramatic wind whispering old elven guilt. Standard ancient tragedy aesthetic.
Especially since it mention the name Hollow Mountain. So... it should be hollow, right? Like the name.
Instead, the grove looked aggressively alive.
Sunlight poured through enormous emerald canopies. The trees were tall and broad, their bark dark like polished old wood, but the leaves shimmered with faint green and silver light. Vines hung in graceful curtains from branches heavy with fruit. Not ordinary fruit either. Some glowed faintly pink, some gold, some blue-white like moonlit pearls. Flowers bloomed everywhere, and many of them looked edible enough to make Gula tremble spiritually.
The ground was carpeted with soft moss and tiny white blossoms. The air smelled of honey, fresh rain, ripe fruit, and something warm like bread just pulled from an oven.
Lux hated that it was pleasant.
Pleasant ancient places were worse than horrifying ones.
Horrifying places were honest.
Pleasant places smiled while hiding knives under petals.
[Location Confirmed]
[Region: Ashen Viridian Grove]
[Ancient Classification: Sacred Elven Root Sanctuary]
[Warning: High Organic Mana Density]
[Warning: Unknown Edible Flora]
Lux glanced at the last line. "Oh no..."
Gula clasped her hands together. "Those flowers are edible. I know edible when I see edible."
Sira crossed her arms. "You think everything is edible."
"Because a lot of things are."
"Not sacred things."
Gula looked offended. "Sacred things can be delicious too."
Ely stepped forward slowly, her eyes wide.
Unlike Gula, she wasn’t seeing food.
She was seeing history.
The kind of history that did not sit safely in books or family archives. The kind that breathed.
Her fingers brushed over one hanging leaf. The leaf shimmered under her touch, and a faint trail of silver light slid across her skin before disappearing.
Ely inhaled sharply.
Lux turned to her immediately. "You okay?"
She nodded, but her expression was distant.
"It recognizes me."
Sira looked at the leaf. "That sounds both good and bad."
Yue walked beside them, calm but visibly alert.
"It is an ancient elven sanctuary. If Ely’s bloodline is connected to this place, the grove may welcome her."
Lux’s eyes narrowed. "And us?"
Yue looked around at the lush paradise. "That is what we need to discover."
"Food..." Gula was already inching toward a low branch covered in golden fruit.
Lux shook his head. "Oh no..."
Lullaby hugged her pillow and yawned. "Focus, Gula."
"We look like a bunch of dangerous people," Ely huffed.
Lullaby lifted one tiny fist. "We are the devils. We should be dangerous." She scrunched her sleepy face and made her voice slightly louder. "Like rawr~ roar!"
Sira slowly turned her head toward her. "That’s not even scary."
Lullaby blinked. Then lifted both hands near her head like claws. "Rawr?"
Sira rubbed her forehead.
Lux looked away because if he smiled, he would never recover command authority.
Gula whispered, "It scared me."
"No, it didn’t," Sira said.
"It scared my appetite."
"That doesn’t count."
Lux lifted a hand. "Enough. Nobody eats anything. Nobody touches anything. And nobody rawrs at the sacred grove unless tactically necessary."
Lullaby nodded solemnly. "Mm. Tactical rawr."
Sira muttered, "I hate that I understand what that means."
Lux took a few steps forward. Something about the place scratched at his memory.
He had been here before.
Years ago.
A warlord had escaped from the underworld and avoided Greed House at all costs.
Smart warlord.
The type who believed running was strategy and hiding behind ancient geography was personality.
Lux’s subordinates couldn’t handle him. Every report came back with excuses.
"Spatial interference."
"Unknown terrain."
"Warlord vanished."
"Tracking disrupted."
"Please advise."
So Lux had advised.
By handling it himself.
He remembered opening a portal based on system coordinates, chasing the bastard. The warlord had ended up here, thinking the ancient grove would shield him from Greed authority.
It had not.
Lux had caught him somewhere near the lower ridge.
At the time, Lux hadn’t known the name of this place.
He had simply followed coordinates, crushed the escape route, seized the warlord’s assets, dragged him back to Hell, and filed the incident under "unpaid overtime caused by incompetent field agents."
Now the memory returned with teeth.
Lux looked toward the deeper part of the grove. "I’ve been here before."
Ely turned to him. "You have?"
"Yes."
"It was work."
"That explains it."
Lux ignored her and scanned the horizon.
"A warlord escaped the underworld. Avoided Greed House. My people failed to catch him. I tracked him here."
Gula looked impressed. "Did you kill him?"
"No. I collected him."
Yue’s lips curved slightly.
Lux continued, "And after that...The king summoned me. He asked about the warlord’s chase and looked concern. I thought he just beng nice since I was young. Now, I know the real reason."
Lux opened several system windows.
[Search Mode Active]
[Objective: Locate Hollow Mountain / Sealed Spring / Shrine Of The First Song]
[Environmental Scan: Limited]
[Organic Mana Interference: High]
[Elven Bloodline Resonance Required For Deeper Access]