"What on earth is happening? When did I get poisoned?"

Confused, Li Wei started to recall what happened. As far as he was aware, there was only one thing that might have poisoned him! He easily put the pieces together; there was no doubt the food they ate with the merchants was poisoned!

That meant that everyone was probably also poisoned!

Li Wei quickly opened his inventory and took out an antidote. The small pill was quickly tossed inside his mouth, but he did not receive the system prompt he was expecting, instead, he received:

[System prompt: The antidote you consumed is not effective against the poison]

"F*ck!"

Li Wei cursed loudly and quickly drank a health potion to refill his HP. Outside, the fighting noises were becoming clearer! He could easily guess that those who were asleep all woke up and probably joined the fight.

"-5" Another tick of the poison lowered Li Wei's HP.

"Hmmm. In that case..." Li Wei quickly took out another antidote. This time, it was a potion; the one concocted by the Lake Fairy. He quickly removed the cap and downed the antidote.

A few seconds later, the long-awaited system prompt appeared:

[System prompt: The antidote you consumed has neutralized the poison]

Li Wei let out a sigh of relief but there was no time to celebrate.

"Cling Cling"

Loud sounds of two metal hitting each other came from just outside his tent. Li Wei knew he could not stay there any longer. He quickly grabbed his swords and stormed out of the tent.

As he came out, Li Wei quickly saw the two fighters: one of them was a masked warrior while the other was the scared face paladin who belonged to the escort team. The latter was clearly on the losing side, desperately using his shield to block his opponent's sword strikes.

The paladin had less than 50 health left and was completely suppressed by his opponent. He rushed out of his tent as soon as he heard the noises, but he was immediately attacked by the masked warrior. Due to the poison, his strength and dexterity were drastically reduced. He could protect himself with his shield, but it was clear he wouldn't last for long.

The masked warrior activated [Cleave] and was about to smash the paladin's shield. He saw the skill and closed his eyes, preparing for the impact. But to his surprise, the impact never came. Instead, a loud painful scream was heard.

When he lowered his shield to have a look, he saw that another player had just stabbed the masked warrior with 2 swords.

When Li Wei saw the paladin in a dangerous situation, he immediately reacted and charged at the masked warrior. He used the Gliding Steps to make as less noise as possible and when the masked warrior activated [Cleave], Li Wei mercilessly pierced his swords in the warrior's back, activating [Impale] to maximize the damage.

The masked warrior was level 20 but he did not have a lot of vitality. He had a total of 160 HP but with Li Wei's sword piercing his defenseless back, he lost more than 50 HP at once.

"Ah! A dirty rat is sneaking on me!" said the warrior as he turned to look at Li Wei. There was a difference of 5 levels between the two. There was no way Li Wei could defeat him. But fortunately, Li Wei was not alone.

The paladin who was now facing the masked warrior's mask was also present and he immediately acted.

[Taunt]

"F*ck! You did not learn your lesson!" shouted the masked warrior. With fury in his eyes, he disregarded Li Wei and swung his sword back at the paladin.

This bought Li Wei time to pull back his sword and attack again. But it was clear that the paladin would not survive for long. He barely had 30 HP after a couple of attacks.

The paladin could not see the masked warrior's face, but the slight movement of the mask told him that he was cruelly smiling. The paladin saw the masked warrior raise his huge sword high above his head and violently swung it down.

"Bang!"

A violent shock went through the shield as the paladin's health plummeted to 10.

Li Wei managed to lower the distracted masked warrior's health to 70, but that was clearly not enough.

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The warrior was already raising his sword again, preparing to deal the final blow to the paladin. But at that moment,

"Woosh Woosh"

2 faint sounds were heard and were quickly followed by the painful scream of the masked warrior who immediately dropped his sword.

Two arrows flew in the darkness of the night and directly pierced the masked warrior's eyes. Behind the exhausted paladin, the silhouettes of the two tanned men of the escort slowly walked forward, their bow ready to be fired again.

"Ahhh my eyes!"

The masked warrior loudly complained but he was now completely defenseless. His eyes were hurting are were completely disabled. Even as he violently pulled out the two arrows, his bloodied eyes could not see a thing.

Taking advantage of the situation, Li Wei quickly attacked, taking down the blinded warrior. He tried to grab his sword back, but without being able to see, it looked like he was just randomly moving his arms around him. In the end, he quickly fell under Li Wei's sword.

"Thanks!" declared the paladin as he took out a health potion and quickly drank it. A "-5" appeared above his head.

"You have also been poisoned?" asked Li Wei.

"Yes, and the antidotes are useless... I can only delay the inevitable with health potions," answered the paladin.

As Li Wei looked around him, he saw that other fights were taking place. Several NPC adventurers were fighting head-on with other masked attackers. More importantly, it seemed like everyone was effectively poisoned.

The merchants were nowhere to be seen. "How can they still sleep with all this noise?" thought Li Wei.

At the same time, Galaxy, accompanied by the rest of the players joined Li Wei's group.

"We need to get moving!" declared Galaxy as soon as he arrived.

"What? I don't understand... Why are we running away? We need to protect the merchants!" said Maestra with her innocent voice.

But no one answered her. Instead, the two tanned men nodded and took the lead. They ran in the direction opposite to the merchant caravan with their bows ready to fire.

"We have been poisoned by the merchants! It is obvious that they are in cahoots with the evil cult! They might even be members of the evil cult!" declared Galaxy.

"We need to run away quickly! For now, they are focusing on the NPC adventurers who are stronger and might be a threat. We need to take this short time window to get away quickly! It's our only chance of escaping alive," continued Galaxy.

Panic appeared on Maestra eyes, it was the first time she was confronted with this situation and did not know what to do. She quietly followed the group, doing her best not to cause trouble to anyone.

As for Li Wei, he determined the same thing as Galaxy. The fact that he was poisoned could only mean that the food was poisoned, but the merchants also ate together! But there was one thing that only the merchants consumed: the alcohol!

...

At the camp, only two NPC adventurers were still alive. Three have already perished while the remaining ones were already on the brink of death. With the poison slowly ticking away their health and the reduced stats, they would not last for too long either.

Ten masked individuals were surrounding the NPCs. They were all expressionlessly looking at their prey.

On the side, the merchants' carts suddenly moved, and a dozen of merchant stepped out of the carts. However, they did not look surprised by the outcome. Instead, the merchant leader calmly approached the masked attackers.

"How is it going?" asked the merchant leader.

"The poison was effective. These two won't last for long!"

The merchant leader nodded, "Then what about the others? Were they not supposed to rush there to protect us?"

"I don't know. Did they figure something out and all decide to run away?” pondered the masked man.

"But that does not matter. It is the Mirage Forest. We can easily find them and they are still poisoned. Even if they will not die from it, they would at least be paralyzed"

"That's good. We'll send some men to capture them. The envoy is impatient to examine these players to find why they can actually revive upon death!"

"Bang!"

As the loud sound resonated through the camp, the merchant leader turned to see the last NPC adventurer dying to a [Fireball].

"Since we are done here. We'll send half of the men to capture those strangers while the other half help to move the herbs you brought! These damn guards, they almost took over the entire reserve of herbs!" said the masked man.

...

"What do we do for the poison?" asked the warrior with the axes.

When he looked around him, Li Wei noticed "-5" appearing above the head of the players with the exception of one player: Galaxy.

When the players saw their HP drop, they also noticed the fact that Li Wei and Galaxy did not take damage from the poison.

"I used holy water to remove the poison! I only had one bottle. Sorry," said Galaxy.

"Then what is the point of running away? We will all die anyway?" said a priest.

"Don't worry, dear. It will be fine!" said the priest's husband.

The nine players were running away as fast as possible. Li Wei was running next to the paladin who looked completely exhausted.

"What about you, Seven? How did you get rid of the poison?" asked Galaxy.

"I used an antidote. It is of a higher grade, so it was able to neutralize the poison," answered Li Wei. Naturally, he did not mention the fact that he still had one antidote left. He did not want to cause any argument in the team, especially if they wanted to escape safely, they needed to work together.

"Mmm I think it will be better if we go on our own!"

For the first time, the hooded rogue spoke and to Li Wei's surprise, the voice belonged to a female.

"What do you mean? It is only together that we'll be able to survive!" said the priest.

"Now is not the time to argue. We should work together in this sort of situation!" declared Galaxy who somehow ended up as the leader of the party. He was a mage and yet, he was standing at the very front of the formation.

The rogue roughly answered, "Do whatever you want. I do not plan on dying there! Good luck!"

And as she said that, the rogue suddenly jumped on a tree, and activated her skill [Double jump] which allowed her to jump again while using the stem of the tree as a support. Just like that, she disappeared in the foliage.

Li Wei frowned. He also felt like he had a higher chance of survival if he ran as fast as possible. He invested a lot in dexterity and could naturally run faster. Right now, he was only keeping up with everyone else, but at his peak speed, he would be moving twice as fast. The rogue's act already damaged the team's harmony.

The two tanned men looked at each other before saying: "Since it's like that, we shall also take our leave! We wish you best of luck!"

After that, the two ran into the bushes in a different direction. The two were rangers which was a class that had a high affinity with nature. They naturally had some skill that could help them hide in the wild. It was normally used when hunting preys and setting up ambushes, but it was also useful for this type of situation.

Galaxy was clearly not happy at the new development but said with a severe voice, "If you want to leave and try your own things, feel free to do it. But do it now! I do not have any guaranty to be able to save you, but I also don't want to waste my energy in trying to save someone that might betray me at the last moment!"

Those still remaining in the group became pensive. But in the end, they all chose to move on their own. It started with the paladin and the warrior who each bade farewell before running in different directions. Then, the couple also chose to leave the group, leaving only Galaxy, Maestra and Li Wei.

The latter was in a dilemma but in the end, he also believed going on his own was the best solution. This was just a game, what was the worst that could happen? It was just dying and losing a level. He might as well try his best!

And so, "Sorry, but I will also do the same! Let us meet again outside the Mirage Forest!" said Li Wei as he suddenly used all his strength and dashed out of view.

Only Maestra and Galaxy were left. The former had a very nervous and frightened expression. She knew she was the weakest of the group and only went on the quest to get some content for the forum! She never expected this thing to happen and was naturally very scared.

She looked at Galaxy, knowing very well that he will also abandon her. However, to her surprise, Galaxy smiled.

"So it's only the two of us left. How convenient!"

"What do you mean?" asked Maestra.

"It turns out I have a teleportation scroll with me and when I use it, I can bring another player with me!" answered Galaxy.

"Really? That is great! Let us quickly get out of this place!" said Maestra. Her tone immediately brightened as she saw a ray of hope.

"Naturally naturally! But just so you know, the scroll will teleport us at a random location 50km away! There is no way to know where we'll end"

Galaxy quickly took out an old scroll. It looked like one of those old Egyptian parchments. He quickly held it in front of him and tore the scroll in two.

'Sigh... Sorry brother, I did not expect to use this unique scroll so quickly… I’ll probably be scolded when I get back,' thought Galaxy as a bright light suddenly surrounded him and Maestra.

A few seconds later, the two vanished from the Mirage Forest.