The Great Thief

He had to make a last stand!

Lu Li laughed at himself when he realized that he had run in the wrong direction.

The trees here were obviously ancient and there were countless layers of fallen leaves on the ground which greatly affected his move speed.

As a Thief who had lost his move speed, what else did he have left?

Going to kneel and wait for the big monkey to beat him to death?

Lu Li didn’t give up; he didn’t want to give up until his HP bar was empty. He wasn’t afraid of death, so what else was there to be afraid of?

As such, he kept running for his life. Everything else that was around him didn’t matter.

There was only one thought in his mind – keep running.

"My life belongs to myself, and I make all my decisions willingly and freely."

Skymane was getting tired of this chase as well. Why was this flea-like creature always able to escape its grasps?

Obviously, he couldn’t just give up on it.

He was the owner of the island and for as long as he could remember, no one had dared to offend him or his territory.

All intruders had to die!

With such thoughts in his mind, the gorilla continued chasing.

Lu Li was finding himself with fewer and fewer ways to escape. He walked into a narrow corridor which was surrounded by even thicker vegetation. The stone path underfoot was the only thing saving him.

"Guru, we’re on the boat. You can come over now." Now that Lu Li had pulled the Boss away, Laugh Into the Heavens had finally managed to get the Gnome Princess to board the ship.

Now that she was on the ship, the quest was basically completed.

It was likely that they didn’t know a super-difficult level 45 quest would be completed by these two or three individuals.

"You...." Lu Li paused before gritting his teeth and saying, "Go first; just leave now. Just in case something else happens."

"Oh..." Laugh into the Heavens exclaimed, "What about you?"

"I’ll think of a way to escape. Once I find an opportunity I can return to the city," Lu Li said quietly. Even if he died, it was just 10% EXP.

He just didn’t know if he would lose any equipment.

With the exception of his ring, all of his other equipment had a chance of being dropped.

"Alright then, we’ll head off.’ Laugh into the Heavens didn’t have any choice either, so he didn’t say anything else. Obviously, in this current situation, completion of the quest was their top priority.

As the thousands of large and small gorillas chased him, Lu Li kept moving forward.

He didn’t know what was ahead, but he knew it was better than the gorillas that were chasing him. As such, he just kept running towards the end.

No matter how long a road was, it would always inevitably end.

Even if the road didn’t end, Lu Li couldn’t run forever; those damned gorillas had injured him greatly. Fortunately, he was quite fast, and he had skills, effects and potions.

At the end of the road, there was an octagonal altar that looked a lot like a door.

The altar looked like a simple door frame, and there was a faint blue magic energy that made up the door itself. The door swirled and looked like a whirlpool, giving off the illusion that Lu Li’s soul would be sucked in.

This was likely a portal, but he didn’t know where it would take him.

Suddenly, Lu Li heard the System prompt.

System: To discover the secrets of Haraku Island, use the secret orb.

The orb that Lu Li had placed into his backpack started shining as he approached the portal. He finally understood what this item was for.

It was a secret area!

Unlike Instance Dungeons, secret areas were even more mystical. Each of them were unique and hard to find.

So this was the legendary Haraku Island – the one that was supposedly perpetually surrounded by fog. Players in his previous life had tried to come here to farm gorillas to sell as pets. Groups of mercenaries have sailed these waters in search for this place, but had come up with nothing.

He should have known it would be here.

As a boulder whistled towards Lu Li, he knew he didn’t have time to think and just entered the secret area. It was certain death outside, but only the possibility of death inside, so the choice was clear.

At first, everything was just black.

The secret area was really dark – he couldn’t even see his hands. Lu Li quietly went into Stealth and crouched on the floor, motionless. His eyes eventually adapted to the dark and he could a little bit in front of him. He could only vaguely make out things that were a few yards ahead of him.

The ground felt like scorched earth and there was a heavy smell of sulfur.

Fortunately, those gorillas had no way of entering this secret area.

Right now, he needed to decide whether he would just go home or explore what was in this place. This was a secret area after all, so it would be dumb to just walk away.

Lu Li was struggling to overcome the temptation to explore. Although he knew it was going to be very dangerous, he still decided to go deeper.

He cautiously pushed ahead and tried not to make any noise in this deathly-silent place. His Stealth was quite convenient as it reduced the possibility of him being discovered.

After looking for a while, he found the first monster.

It was a Double-Headed Hellhound.

Lu Li finally understood why he saw a group of gorillas beating up a Double-Headed Hellhound on the island. It turned out that the monster was from this secret area.

So, what was this secret area?

He had read many books about the game’s lore and quickly narrowed it down to two possibilities.

The first was a prison – perhaps a demon prison. In that case, Lu Li didn’t have much to gain here as the imprisoned demons couldn’t be directly killed and could easily kill him.

The second possibility was a small abandoned world.

In the cosmos, Azeroth wasn’t the only world – there were many different worlds and creatures. Some of these creatures were very powerful and evil, addicted to the pleasures of destruction. In their lust of destruction, those cruel creatures destroyed one world after another in this endless cosmos, until they came face to face with the Bronze Titan Sargeras.

At the time, Sargeras was not the biggest enemy of Azeroth.

In fact, he was actually a good person at the time. He was a member of the Bronze Titans and one of their strongest warriors. He was responsible for conquering these evil creatures.

Although those evil creatures were strong, they couldn’t stand up to Sargeras and most were executed by him. Only a few of them were taken away and imprisoned by a few different Lords.

These worlds that had lost their masters would inevitably break down.

Even after Sargeras betrayed the Pantheon and released the demons that he had defeated and imprisoned, he didn’t allow them to return to their homelands. As such, these small abandoned worlds continued to degrade.

Lu Li hadn’t seen one before, but based on the literature, he guessed that this was like one of these small abandoned worlds.