"No? Take everything away? How could you possibly escape Bloodbeard's pursuit like that?"
Liyue shot up from her seat, silver-white eyes wide as she pressed her hands firmly on the table.
She leaned forward, staring at Luciel with a grave expression, and urged,
"I know you don't want to throw these things away, but life is more important."
"That…" Mino, seeing that the white-haired girl had misunderstood Luciel, bit her lip before boldly retorting,
"You… you've misunderstood."
"Misunderstood?" Liyue froze, stunned.
"You'll understand if you step outside," Luciel said absentmindedly as he issued a command to the rock tortoise.
At his order, the massive creature rumbled forward in the direction Liyue had indicated earlier.
"Go out?"
Puzzled, Liyue furrowed her brows and walked toward the door.
But the moment she stepped outside, she realized something was wrong. The house was… moving?
No—it wasn't the house. The ground itself was moving.
"This… this… how is this possible?"
Liyue rushed to the edge of the shifting land and stared in disbelief, her silver-white eyes widening even further.
"Such a huge piece of land moving like this? This is unbelievable!"
Luciel walked up behind her, smiling faintly.
"Now do you still think we need to abandon anything?"
"You were just trying to laugh at me." Liyue rolled her eyes in irritation.
Her gaze drifted over the slowly receding hills and terrain.
"No wonder you refused to leave things behind… your home can move."
She let out a long sigh.
"Truly… incredible."
At last, some of the doubts weighing on her heart began to clear.
Luciel's confidence in staying near the thieves' territory made sense now—he had a mobile home.
If she had something like this, she would have emptied Bloodbeard's treasure hoard without hesitation.
"Little Black Tortoise, stop here," Luciel called out.
"Wooo~~"
The massive creature halted, raising its head before glancing backward.
"This is another member of my family," Luciel said as he patted the stunned white-haired girl on the shoulder. He introduced it with a touch of pride:
"This is Little Black Tortoise. It's also our home."
"Little… Little Black Tortoise?"
Liyue's mouth fell open in shock, her words stumbling.
"It's not little at all!"
"Maybe not." Luciel shrugged.
The Level 4 Rock Tortoise had grown to a body over a thousand square meters in size—roughly two and a half basketball courts.
But compared to the legendary divine beast known as the Black Tortoise, this one still deserved the name "Little Black Tortoise."
"So that's the truth behind the moving house," Liyue murmured as she tilted her head back to look at the tortoise's massive form.
Mino, having eaten half her meal, came running out. Her eyes lit up as she noticed the creature's shell expanding even more.
"Wow~~ Little Black Tortoise is getting bigger again!"
The rabbit-eared girl spread her arms wide, laughing joyfully as she ran across the tortoise's shell.
"If that's the case, you'll need to be more careful," Liyue warned softly, her gaze flicking briefly toward Mino.
"Little Black Tortoise is far too big. Bloodbeard will catch up eventually… unless you hide deep in the wilderness."
"I'll make sure they don't dare to chase us," Luciel replied calmly. His training as a special soldier had already given him a strategy for dealing with pursuers.
"What do you mean?" Liyue asked curiously.
She couldn't afford to ignore this—if Bloodbeard's men caught up, it wouldn't just endanger them, but also the safety of the Angel Wings.
She couldn't abandon the relic, nor could she bear to steal it away without conscience.
"You'll know soon enough," Luciel said lightly.
Ta-ta-ta~~
He stomped his foot, and at the edge of the tortoise's shell, a staircase of rock unfurled downward in a winding "7" shape, reaching the ground below.
The towering Rock Tortoise, at twelve to thirteen meters tall, resembled a small moving mountain.
"Xiaohong, bring me the wooden spears I picked up last night," Luciel commanded the red ghost spider through their bond.
Ta-ta-ta~~
"How did you make that stone ladder?" Liyue muttered, imitating him. She stomped her own foot cutely against the shell.
Nothing happened. No new steps appeared.
She tried again.
Still nothing.
"Hehe…" Mino covered her mouth as her rabbit ears bent playfully.
"Cut~~" Liyue pouted, then jogged down the stone stairs.
At the base, she looked up and whispered in confusion,
"Wasn't the stone ladder shorter last night?"
Luciel muttered to himself,
"The easiest thing to track us by is Xiaohong's spider silk. So… let's use it as bait."
He led them to the gorge where the tortoise had rested the night before.
The narrow canyon, flanked by two hills, was the perfect natural trap.
"Will traps really be enough to stop Bloodbeard?" Liyue asked, watching intently as Luciel worked.
"They should… probably," Luciel said with a crooked smile.
Drawing on the power of his newly upgraded talent, Earth Manipulation, he reshaped the terrain bit by bit.
He carved a vast cave into the cliff ahead, dug pits in the ground and planted spears within, covering them with thin layers of soil held by spider silk. He transformed the rocky slopes on either side of the gorge into rolling stone deathtraps.
"If they enter… how many will come out alive?" Liyue's voice trembled as fear crept over her.
"That depends on their luck." Luciel smirked, wiping sweat from his forehead.
He had burned through a lot of physical and mental strength in such a short time.
"…."
Liyue's silver-white eyes shimmered with astonishment.
Only now did she realize—Luciel wasn't an ordinary awakened.
In just one day, she had seen him:
Spin silk.
Command earth and stone.
Condense Angel Tears.
Communicate with beasts.
Four awakening abilities… in one man.
Who would believe it?
Could Luciel be… a man favored by heaven?!
Such a thought flashed through her mind before she could stop it.
"Alright, let's move. If they survive and manage to keep following, then their strength must be pretty good."
Luciel clapped the dust from his hands, casting one last look at the deceptively ordinary gorge.
"Bloodbeard's men are in for some real misfortune," Liyue murmured, already imagining the nightmare awaiting them.
In her heart, she quietly gave this place a name: Death Canyon.