Chapter 1513
[ 568 words ]
The guide was a man in his forties named Zamu.
Zamu was a member of the Lahu tribe, born and raised deep within The Aila Highlands.
His family had survived off the mountains for generations, formerly making their living as hunters.
As a result, no one knew the highlands better than he did.
“Zamu has guided for us a few times. He knows these mountains like the back of his hand.” Commander Miller held nothing back in his praise.
When Zamu heard they were venturing in to find a medicinal herb, he immediately voiced his disapproval.
“Going into The Aila Highlands this time of year is a death wish. None of you have survival experience, and you’ve got women with you. You really shouldn’t go.”
Even Zamu wouldn’t dare venture deep into the mountains alone during this season.
The weather was too brutal to survive.
“I know young people nowadays have plenty of money and love to go exploring.”
“You can go anywhere else you want, but if you go in there, you probably won’t come out.”
“There’s no cell signal deep inside, and there’s some kind of magnetic interference. You won’t be able to contact the outside world.”
Magnetic interference.
Claire immediately understood what he meant.
“Zamu, I know you’re trying to protect us by telling us not to go.”
“But the herb we’re looking for is a matter of life and death.”
“Several lives depend on it. If we don’t have the antidote in seventy-two hours, they’re dead.”
“They’re soldiers. They aren’t afraid of dying, but we can’t let them die because of a plot hatched by Sundara. Don’t you agree?”
If she had brought up anything else, Zamu might not have been swayed.
But the moment she mentioned operatives from Sundara, it struck a nerve deeply ingrained in every citizen of Solenia!
“How did those foreigners get their hands on this plant?”
“We suspect someone from their side snuck into The Aila Highlands.”
Could Sundara have cultivated the plant themselves?
Given the extreme conditions Dreamweed required, it was practically impossible.
If they hadn’t grown it themselves, they must have harvested it in Montara.
And the most likely place to find surviving Dreamweed was The Aila Highlands.
The plant had been eradicated
Let
almost everywhere else, except for the deepest, most inaccessible
reaches of these mountains.
Claire pulled out the detailed sketch of the Dreamweed she had drawn and showed it to Zamu.
“Take a look at this. You spend a lot of time in the mountains. Have you ever seen it?”
Originally, Silas and his team had been against revealing the existence of Dreamweed to a civilian.
But Commander Miller had sworn on his life that Zamu was an honorable man with an unshakable moral compass.
They figured that even if Zamu had ulterior motives, one man couldn
pose serious threat net
to use his knowledge. .net>
He was a seasoned mountain veteran, after all. What if he knew exactly where the plant was?
That would save them countless hours of dangerous, blind searching.
Zamu studied Claire’s sketch intently. The plant had a delicate, crystalline appearance, with long, slightly barbed leaves.
It bore small, butterfly-shaped purple flowers, and its fruit resembled glittering purple gemstones.
Dreamweed truly lived up to its name—it looked like something pulled straight from a fantasy.
Its beauty wasn’t its only defining trait, but it was certainly the most memorable.
Claire’s artistic skills were
excellent she wouldn’t have been
able to design her own clothing line otherwise so her sketch was incredibly accurate. Content Belongs
“I think… I’ve seen this before.”
Zamu had initially assumed this was just a group of rich kids with a death wish.
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