Natalis had never imagined she would one day sit on the back of a giant dragon, let alone one that was bouncy and springy.
She lay flat on Little Chubby Dragon's back, both hands gripping two dragon scales, peering down curiously.
She had actually traveled this Darkwater River many times before.
Whenever Leaf of No Distinction had a mission that required crossing the Shadow Mountains, she would squeeze into a pile of cargo boxes in a merchant ship's hold, peeking through a narrow gap in the porthole. What she saw was always the same: a water surface compressed into a thin, dark line by the darkness, and the endless black mountain walls repeating on both sides.
But this time was different.
Looking down from the dragon's back, it seemed as though the entire Shadow Mountains had unveiled their mysterious veil.
The Darkwater River wound through the mountains like a thin, dark green thread. On the mountain ridges on both sides, slow-moving shadow moss crawled thickly. And deeper in the forest, she actually spotted several points of orange-yellow light.
"Look, look." She patted Little Chubby One's scales and pointed below. "There are people camping in that forest."
Hidden in a sunken valley surrounded by layers of shadow forest, there were indeed a few small camps.
Around the camp, several figures in dark cloaks were carrying stone boxes and ancient metal vessels that had just been dug up.
A few professional grave diggers with shovels poked their heads out of a deeper pit in the distance and shouted some unclear words toward the camp.
Shadow professionals, grave robbers, thieves... these people were often unwelcome in the taverns of White Tower City-state. But in these mountains, they were the most resilient beings besides the shadow creatures themselves.
This place was livelier than she had imagined.
Still, today the Shadow Mountains gave off a strange feeling, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
Orion, sitting at the very front of the dragon's back, also noticed this anomaly.
He frowned, looking down at the shadow tendrils writhing and drifting along the mountain surface. His voice carried clear confusion.
"Strange. These shadows are much more active than usual."
"Before, when we traveled the Darkwater River, the shadows on both sides at most just crawled slowly along the stone walls. They never scurried around like this."
Following his gaze, Chen Yu looked toward the shadows that were churning and flailing like claws.
Those dark substances, which originally only moved slowly along the mountain surface, now seemed stirred by something. Tendrils extended from rock crevices on both riverbanks, some even crossing the water toward the opposite shore.
You'd think this mountain range was welcoming their arrival.
Salemir shook his head. "Although there is no barrier between shadow and reality here, the shadows usually don't like to move much."
"Something unknown might be happening deep within the Shadow Mountains."
After saying this, worry crept onto his face.
Before joining Leaf of No Distinction, he had spent time with shadow professionals in the Shadow Mountains. He knew very well that the history of this range was far more than just a barrier separating the eastern and western continents.
If something truly changed here, the entire shipping route from White Tower City-state to Emerald Crown might be affected.
And they happened to be heading back to Emerald Crown right now...
Na—Orion leaned forward from behind Chen Yu's shoulder, about to say something comforting, when he noticed the sack beside him twitch slightly.
Without even looking, he threw another punch. The sack went quiet again, slumping limply to the other side.
Meeting Chen Yu's gaze, he smiled. "This guy can't even sleep still. Don't mind him. He's been like this since childhood."
Chen Yu ignored him and asked Orion, "How much longer until we reach the shadow boundary near Elurn city-state?"
Orion mentally calculated the distance.
Estimating at their current speed, even he found the result hard to believe. "We're flying much faster than a boat travels. At this rate, we might reach the other side of the Shadow Mountains by tomorrow morning."
Chen Yu said nothing to that. He simply wobbled his gel, bounced around, and continued looking ahead.
Natalis, however, perked up again after lying down for a while.
She was the type who couldn't keep questions bottled up. Whatever came to mind slipped right out of her mouth. "Lord Slime, they say the United Empire is full of intelligent slimes like you. Is that true?"
Chen Yu thought seriously for a moment, then wobbled his gel.
"That should count, I suppose."
His slime subjects were indeed good learners. The literacy rate in Slime City Academy had been climbing higher every month since the United Empire was established.
Now even the citizens of Darkness City could sit upright on little stools and use their gel hands to gesture at arithmetic.
But just as dwarves were bold and hearty, and elves were reserved, most slime citizens were simple in nature and easily deceived.
No one dared do such things within the empire, but once they crossed its borders, it was a different story.
So for now, the United Empire's interactions with the outside world were limited. The slimes who could leave were either wise Slime Scholars or strong enough slime adventurers.
Hearing this, Natalis grew excited. She pushed her upper body higher on the dragon's back.
"So they say the United Empire is taking in a lot of half-elves. Is that true?"
"Of course it's true." Chen Yu's answer was even more decisive this time. "We welcome all races that abide by justice and order, whether they're magical creatures, humans, or hybrids."
"As long as half-elves are willing to follow the empire's code and conduct themselves according to Slime City's rules, they can live freely and obtain citizenship in the empire just like any other race."
Natalis stared at him for a long time. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and snorted. "You sure talk a big game. I won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes. Unless..."
"Unless what?"
"Unless you let me meet the legendary Slime Emperor himself and hear him say he's willing to take in us half-elves. Then I'll believe it."
She raised her chin high, deliberately putting on a proud look.
As if Chen Yu didn't know what water was sloshing around in her belly. He chatted with her half-heartedly, occasionally throwing back a reply, but most of the time just wobbled his gel to show he'd heard.
Who knew how much time passed. Maybe it was already dawn outside.
The sky over the Shadow Mountains was always the same gray gloom, but the three on the dragon's back could sense time passing through their biological clocks.
Orion's eyelids kept fighting each other.
Natalis had long since stopped talking. She was sprawled out on the dragon's back, snoring away, probably dreaming of some delicious food or treasure. Her hand unconsciously gripped Little Chubby One's dragon scale, squeezing and kneading it over and over.
Salemir sat near the back of the dragon, his back still straight, but his head began to droop bit by bit. Each time it sank to his chest, he would jerk it back up.
Chen Yu, however, wasn't sleepy at all.
His Divine Sense had already spread far ahead. Over a hundred miles away in the forest, he detected a strange group of elves.
Little Chubby One immediately stopped circling, its dragon wings beating powerfully. The whole body, along with everyone on its back, suddenly accelerated, charging straight toward the direction locked by Divine Sense.
The sudden acceleration jolted the three awake instantly.
Natalis bounced up from the dragon's back, rubbing her eyes while reaching for the giant hammer beside her, caught in the border between drowsiness and combat readiness.
"An attack? Who? Where?"
Orion came to his senses a little faster.
Steadying himself, he looked ahead. On the horizon beyond the forest, he could already vaguely see a patch of greenery that felt completely different from the Shadow Mountains.
His voice carried surprise. "We should be almost there. The boundary between Elurn city-state's primeval forest and the mountains is right ahead."
As he spoke, his gaze unconsciously fell on the little slime crouching beside him.
He was sure he hadn't told this slime any specific landmarks up ahead. Yet it seemed to have seen the destination from far away, charging straight toward it without needing directions.
Soon, Orion spotted something along the riverbank below and pulled out an arm to point. "Look over there."
At the edge of the distant dark forest, a long row of flickering firelight was advancing along the riverbank.
Getting closer, they could make out that these were elf patrol soldiers holding pine-torch torches. The oak leaf emblems on their armor reflected a dull silver luster in the warm light.
Their formation was neat and stretched long, escorting several crude iron cages. The bases of the cages dragged continuous ruts through the muddy riverbank ground.
But strangely, the cages didn't hold people or half-elves. Instead, they held clumps of squishy slimes.
Salemir explained, "The Council seems very wary of the newly born Slime United Empire. To prevent border infiltration by slime spies, patrols here often capture any suspicious slimes near the border."
"So around here, any slime that gets close is locked up as a potential monitor of the United Empire."
"And then what?" Chen Yu asked.
"There's no 'then.' These wild slimes don't live long anyway. Most of them, locked in cages without dew or sunlight, silently evaporate in their cells within a few days."
Salemir spread his hands and added, "They say it's to monitor the United Empire, but these patrols can't tell which slimes are intelligent. So they just lock up all the slimes they catch in the wild and let them go after a while. Not many slimes survive that long."
Well, it sounded like the United Empire's influence was quite significant.
But what made Chen Yu even more curious was that he hadn't even started infiltrating yet. He hadn't even set up a single Gel Signal Tower in Golden Radiance Valley. How was the Ancient Tree Council already guarding against slimes as spies?
Was there some reason he didn't know about?
He couldn't figure it out, and he didn't intend to dwell on it.
Natalis had already gripped her giant hammer. "Lord, need some help? I promise to beat all these annoying elves flat."
"No need." Chen Yu wobbled his gel slightly.
[Gel Projection]
Green radiance silently sprinkled down onto the riverbank below.
The elf patrol soldiers instantly felt the surroundings brighten.
The captain was the first to draw his Staff. The rangers nocked their arrows in unison, all eyes alertly scanning the dark forest around them.
"Who's there? Show yourself!"
Bowstrings creaked in the misty night air. But apart from the sound of water and echoes from the mountain walls, no one answered them.
What they didn't notice was that when the light fell on the cages, the slimes lying lifelessly at the bottom suddenly twitched. Their gel bodies visibly plumped up.
A few Metal Slimes, bathed in the glow, seemed to have been injected with a whole bottle of high-grade life potion. Bursting with energy, they transformed into meteor hammers mid-air and smashed open their cages.
"What?!"
Before the elf captain could finish chanting his protective spell, the Metal Slimes had already turned into meteor hammers bouncing around the patrol formation.
All sorts of colorful slimes swarmed forward, using the simplest method of ramming to knock the remaining patrol soldiers to the ground, beating them black and blue.
After finishing off the entire patrol, the slimes hopped off the elves' chests with satisfaction and scurried away with soft splats.
But they didn't get far. An invisible force gently lifted the fastest-bouncing orange slime at the front.
Its little gel hands paddled frantically in the air. One by one, the other companions were also lifted by the same inescapable force, floating up into the sky.
Natalis watched this scene in amazement from the dragon's back. The slimes floated up from below one after another, being absorbed into a strange space.
Even more magical was that she could still see the miniature silhouettes of these slimes inside Chen Yu's belly.
They were floating slowly in the gel, their round little eyes wide open. Then their figures gradually blurred until they completely disappeared.
These slimes weren't being devoured by Chen Yu. They were being teleported back to the empire's homeland.
This was a new use he had discovered for his gel demiplane.
Because the main slime body and all gel avatars shared the same gel demiplane, anything an avatar stored in the demiplane anywhere in Zeyarila could be retrieved by the main body back in the empire.
In other words, every gel avatar was a unique kind of teleportation gate.
If the empire wanted to wage war in the future, Chen Yu could simply send a gel avatar ahead to scout and act as a teleportation gate.
Then, back in the empire, he would swallow the legion into the gel demiplane. The legion could then reach their destination through the gel teleportation gate.
Although this long-range deployment was limited by the demiplane's capacity, the flexibility it provided was enough to turn the opening of any war into street fighting inside the enemy city.
Because the gel avatar was a physical entity, this gel teleportation gate was immune to magical interference. It was remarkably stable.
His goal in coming to Emerald Crown wasn't just to find Count Bran and the others. He also wanted to leave Little Chubby One here to serve as a teleportation gate.
This way, the distance between the empire and the Ancient Tree Council would be infinitely shortened. Next time he wanted to come, he wouldn't have to bother crossing the Shadow Mountains.
Orion and the other two clearly had no idea what he was doing. They simply thought it might be some strange slime spell, like the golden light earlier.
Little Chubby One descended lower over the forest and landed on barren ground.
Chen Yu bounced around and turned to face the three. "Alright, we part ways here. You know the way back, right?"
The three all breathed a sigh of relief at not having to enter Emerald Crown. They quickly nodded. "Lord, you go ahead. We know the way back."
Chen Yu wobbled his gel and left them with one last sentence. "Go on. If you ever need help, just come back here. Or go directly to the empire and ask for help. A Mu will assist you."
"Goodbye, Lord Slime." Natalis waved at him cheerfully.
"We'll be off now." Orion quickly hoisted the sack onto his back and led the other two away.
Judging by the barely concealed joy in their escape, not having to enter Elurn city-state was clearly more valuable to them than anything else.
But Chen Yu knew that these half-elves would come looking for him again sooner or later.
Maybe they could cause the Ancient Tree Council considerable trouble.
Chen Yu and Little Chubby One transformed into green light and vanished from their spot. His goal was clear.
It was deep within the Shadow Mountains.
Although he didn't know why, Count Bran and Arthur seemed to be surrounded by shadow creatures there.