This Augavin was truly cunning—a single, simple sentence had already created a crack in the alliance between Lin Lei and the others. Augavin watched Deslir and Olivia with a smile, waiting for their answers.
Looking at Augavin in the distance, Lin Lei's thoughts were consumed with worry for his family.
*This Augavin is a mid-level god. His strength far surpasses mine, Deslir's, and Olivia's. And he has a whole group of subordinates behind him—those four powerhouses at his back must all be god-level experts as well. Escaping is going to be nearly impossible.*
The situation had become as dire as it could possibly get.
Compared to his own life and the lives of so many of his relatives and friends, if he could protect them, Lin Lei wouldn't care if he died.
"If Augavin destroys Dragonblood Castle and immediately leaves, that would be fine. But if he finds the micro-realm secret chamber..." What Lin Lei feared most was that Dilia, Wotton, and the others would all be killed—and he was certain of one thing.
Once Augavin laid eyes on Dilia and the rest, he would absolutely strike.
Because Augavin would inevitably discover that Dilia, Buck, Cesla, and the others all had divine cores within their bodies.
"What do I do?" Lin Lei's heart was starting to panic.
"Hm? When I first arrived, I noticed your Dragonblood Castle had quite a few people—quite a few Saints among them. How come they've all vanished?" Augavin muttered aloud, feigning confusion, while fixing his gaze on Lin Lei.
Lin Lei's heart lurched.
When Wotton, Dilia, and the others had gone into hiding, Augavin had very likely already been scanning Dragonblood Castle with his divine sense.
"My divine sense only detected that they all entered some location underground, and then their auras simply disappeared." A faint smile played at the corner of Augavin's mouth as he stared at Lin Lei and spoke slowly. "Could it be that Dragonblood Castle has some sort of special magic array underground that can conceal auras? Once I've dealt with you lot, I'll definitely have to take a good look."
Beads of sweat immediately formed on Lin Lei's forehead.
Even Deslir beside him had grown tense. Right now, Deslir's physical body was still inside the micro-realm—only his Light-attribute divine clone was out here in the real world. After all, without a divine core in his main body, it wouldn't do much good in a fight.
"Lin Lei, what do we do?" Deslir transmitted through his divine sense.
Lin Lei was panicking internally as well.
Even if he sacrificed this Wind-attribute divine clone, he wouldn't care. But if the micro-realm secret chamber was discovered by Augavin, then everyone inside—every last one of them—would not survive.
"Bei Bei!" Lin Lei didn't hesitate any longer. He sent a soul transmission directly to Bei Bei, who was still in the Dark Forest.
"Boss!" Bei Bei responded immediately. "You finally remembered me! I've been missing you so much these past few days. Boss, when are you coming over?"
Inside the Dark Forest, in the metal castle.
Bei Bei had been lying lazily on the floor inside the castle, basking in the sunlight. But the moment he received Lin Lei's soul transmission, he shot upright with excitement.
"Bei Bei, I need you to do something for me. A mid-level god named 'Augavin' has attacked Dragonblood Castle. I don't know how this will end. But Bei Bei, no matter what it takes, you have to get Lord Beirut to help protect the group hiding inside the micro-realm secret chamber."
At a time like this, all Lin Lei could do was ask Bei Bei for help.
"What? Boss, run! Get out of there!" Bei Bei instantly went rigid with fear—a mid-level god. He knew full well the gap between a mid-level god and a lower god.
Lin Lei smiled bitterly inside.
Run?
Setting aside whether escape was even possible, he couldn't run right now. The moment he fled, a fight would immediately break out—and the battle would end just as quickly. Once that happened, Augavin would find the "door" to the micro-realm secret chamber. That would be catastrophic.
"Bei Bei, my main body is inside the micro-realm secret chamber too. Don't worry—even if my divine clone is destroyed, I won't die," Lin Lei said.
But once a divine clone was destroyed, Lin Lei would lose forever any chance of cultivating the Wind-attribute elemental laws. The price was enormous. Yet compared to the lives of his loved ones, Lin Lei would sacrifice anything without a second thought.
"Boss, don't worry—I'm, I'm coming right now!" Bei Bei was in a panic.
"Bei Bei, remember—go ask Lord Beirut," Lin Lei urged.
Meanwhile, inside the metal castle in the Dark Forest.
"Lord Beirut—he's not here! He went to the Tomb of the Gods! What do I do, what do I do? But Boss is in danger like this, and the enemy is a mid-level god, and I—I haven't even reached the god level!" Bei Bei was so frantic he didn't know what to do with himself.
"If Boss dies..." Bei Bei's eyes were beginning to turn red.
"Yaaaaah~~~" Driven nearly mad with desperation, Bei Bei tilted his head back and let out a piercing, shrill scream.
"Bei Bei, what's wrong?" Almost immediately, three Purple Gold Rat Kings flew out of the metal castle—the Harry brothers.
Bei Bei blurted out urgently, "A mid-level god has attacked Dragonblood Castle, but Lord Beirut went to the Tomb of the Gods! What do we do? If we wait any longer, I'm afraid..." Tears had welled up in Bei Bei's small eyes.
The three Purple Gold Rat Kings exchanged glances, a trace of anxiety flickering in their own eyes.
All of this may sound like a lengthy description, but in reality, the soul exchange between Lin Lei and Bei Bei had taken only an instant. Beasts and their masters communicated without needing to release their divine senses—so Augavin naturally couldn't detect it. He was still watching Deslir and Olivia.
"Deslir, Olivia, leave. Now," Lin Lei transmitted to them through his soul.
Leave now?
Deslir and Olivia didn't choose to flee.
"Lin Lei, have the people inside the micro-realm secret chamber scatter and run," Deslir transmitted back.
"Absolutely not. Can't you see that behind Augavin there are still lower gods and over fifty peak Saint Realm powerhouses? If Wotton and the others try to escape, it really will be over." Lin Lei understood perfectly well that to deal with the three of them, the mid-level god "Augavin" alone was more than enough.
"Oh my, how touching," Augavin remarked, watching the three hovering together in the distance. "How very loyal of you."
"But the price of loyalty... is death."
Both groups were over a hundred meters apart. For god-level experts, if the distance closed too suddenly and one side launched a surprise attack, there might not even be time to react. But at a hundred meters' distance, with the reflexes of a god-level powerhouse, there was still enough time to block or counterattack.