"There is something in the dream, it comes out of our hearts..."
Morian pinched his chin and repeated these words in confusion. He didn't seem to have heard of such knowledge in his knowledge. The old knight turned his head and looked at Veronica: "Your Highness, this seems to be Kind of like a wizard's trick."
"You mean mind illusion?" Veronica frowned, "These soldiers seemed to have suffered from great fear before they died, and the commander showed signs of madness... It really looks like he was struck by a wizard's mind Illusion, but I haven't heard of any illusion that has such a strong effect, and has such a wide range-everyone who can be stationed on the border of chaos is a veteran of many battles, and everyone has received at least one year of willpower training, Their resistance to illusions is very strong."
Hao Ren watched from the side without expressing his opinion. In fact, he knew far more than Veronica and Morian—he had seen the most powerful soul power in the universe, and he had faced it directly. The mental storms of the people in the city went crazy. He knew that there were many powerful and extraordinary minds in the world who could do these things, such as the whispering of the eldest son and the sleep talking of the guardian giant, but these things were difficult to explain to the local natives.
And he couldn't be sure what exactly the soldiers in this outpost encountered, because he didn't see any traces of the eldest son's tentacles moving inside or outside the outpost, and he didn't sense the breath of the guardian giant. Maybe it really happened here A spiritual storm, but the instigator did not appear.
After thinking for a while, Hao Ren asked sideways, "Have you ever come into contact with a Chaos monster that is good at mental attacks?"
"The existence of Chaos servants can interfere with human minds," Veronica shook her head, "They don't need to master the skills of mind attacks... Wait, could it be that a new breed of monsters has been bred in Chaos?"
Her Royal Highness's guess immediately made the old knight next to him nervous. Although Hao Ren just asked casually, it caused the two of them to have too far-reaching associations. Morian immediately got up: "We must return to the civilized world as soon as possible. Here I am afraid that what happened has not had time to be reported back.”
Veronica nodded: "Let's walk along the thorn road. There are still a few outposts on this line, and maybe we can find something else."
The Road of Brambles was a road in the shadow forest before it was completely corrupted. It was originally the road that elves in the forest used to communicate with humans, but as the forest completely turned into chaos, this road has also been destroyed. Chaos engulfs, poisonous plants and living bushes grow along the roadside, softening and deforming the dirt to make the road rough and rough. For ordinary travelers, there is no longer any way out in this jungle.
But for the knights of the kingdom, the road of thorns is still a passage—although it is blocked by corrupt forces, the crystal dust buried in the stone slabs of the road by the elf kingdom is still working, and the road of thorns is still more dangerous than the road of thorns. The surrounding wild forest is a little lower. At least on this road, man-eating bushes are not as ubiquitous.
Under the leadership of Veronica, the team quickly found the second outpost located deeper in the forest.
Although they had prepared for the worst before, after seeing the corpses everywhere in the outpost, everyone's heart was inevitably cast with a deeper shadow: all the soldiers here have also died, and the way of death is the same as The ones in the first outpost were almost exactly the same. The dead seemed to have experienced a terrifying scene before their death. Their faces were distorted and terrifying, their bodies were full of self-residual wounds, and the corpses had begun to rot. Besides, the inside and outside of the outpost There were no traces of battle to be seen.
The enemy did not attack on the physical plane, the battle was fought in the spiritual world, and it was clear that the mortal mind was defeated.
The same was true for the third outpost, but Morian spotted a wizard near the small fire in the center of the outpost.
The wizard also committed suicide in a frenzy, but before he died, he placed a large number of defensive runes around him, and fragments of his grimoire were also found scattered on the ground around the fire: Sacrifice your own magus The book is a wizard's ultimate hole card, and he will only use this trick when facing the enemy of life and death. Obviously, the wizard who died near the fire was the same as the commander of the first outpost. A desperate battle.
It's just that the mysterious magical power failed to keep the wizard, so he sat in the center of his defensive circle and took his own life. A hole was burned in his heart, which was the result of detonating his own magic power.
According to the death scene of the commander of the first outpost and the wizard of the third outpost, Hao Ren made a guess: Although the two also fell into a frenzy, they did not experience any signs of great shock. This may be the function of the fire device , although the fire did not completely shelter their spirits, it at least made them last longer than the soldiers who died in other parts of the camp.
And if the furnace fire can have an effect on that "invisible enemy", the culprit of this matter will naturally fall on Chaos.
On the way to the fourth outpost, Veronica's expression was gloomy and terrifying. This princess is not a restrained person. In fact, "Taros' Battle Rose" has always had a carefree temper and no princess temperament at all. Famous for her words and deeds, she slammed her fist on the trunk of an ancient tree when she passed by: "One hundred of the best veterans! They died in the camp so aggrieved! We don't even know what the enemy looks like! "
The ancient tree was awakened in an instant, an angry and evil face appeared on the pockmarked trunk, and the branches turned into sharp wooden guns and stabbed at Veronica: "I ate you!!"
Veronica drew out her long sword and drew a circular arc, the scorching flame instantly cut off all the branches attacking her: "Shut up, go to sleep!"
The ancient tree trembled, and all the branches gathered together: "Oh."
Hao Ren: "..."
Veronica looked dull on the way due to exhaustion and stress, and he only saw the fiery side of the knight princess at this time.
"There are new enemies in the chaos." Morian raised his eyebrows and glanced at Veronica quietly, "His Royal Highness, keep calm, the most important thing for us now is to survive in the forest, so that we can be saved." Report what you see to the General of the Western Territory."
The rest of the journey seemed even more dull, and after discovering the fourth outpost that had lost its vitality, the dullness of the atmosphere reached its peak.
Although no one said it clearly, a fact was already in front of Veronica's eyes: all the outposts set up by the Kingdom on the west side of the Shadow Forest had probably been pulled out.
The Road of Thorns is a road that runs through the forest on the west side. It happens to pass through every layer of defense in the forest. If the outposts along this road are all destroyed, then the possibility of the same thing happening in other areas will also be very high. High, and more importantly, along the way, the outposts that were attacked have not been investigated and cleaned up, which means that the nearby outposts have not sent people to check for abnormalities.
The Hearthfire Outpost in the Shadow Forest will exchange information with nearby outposts once a day, so once there is a problem with one outpost, other outposts will soon be aware of it, and according to the corpses that Hao Ren and the others found The decay situation, the first outpost was attacked a few days ago, no one came to investigate in this situation, there is only one possibility—
All outposts are gone.
The foundation of the kingdom's defense system built over two centuries was so vaguely wiped out. This made Veronica silent for the second half of the journey, and even the knights were silent. This kind of dullness Hao Ren was also infected. He couldn't find anyone to talk to, so he had to continue to study how to restore communication in the spiritual world alone.
Until they finally reached the border of the Shadowwood.
The trees in front became thinner, and the unpleasant depressive atmosphere in the air also suddenly decreased a lot. It was as if a certain boundary was suddenly crossed. After crossing two towering ancient trees that grew intertwined, Hao Ren suddenly felt light all over his body. .
He saw a piece of slightly undulating hills in front of him, and in the distance there were two majestic mountains. Between the mountains, a piercing beam of light pierced the sky, and even tore apart the dark clumps in the sky, revealing bright white sky.
Under the beam of light, Hao Ren vaguely saw a majestic city wall piled up with stones. Behind the city wall, there seemed to be towering fortresses and arrow towers. On the mountains on both sides, some man-made objects could also be seen along the mountains—these The buildings of the branch office in the entire mountain area were all bathed in the light of Symmetra, and the intensity of the light was far from comparable to the light from the furnace that Hao Ren had seen before.
Standing on the edge of the dark forest and looking at the light-coated mountains in the distance, it is as shocking as standing in hell and seeing heaven.
If Hao Ren was a local, he should know that it is because of this magnificent scenery that the two mountains in the distance are called the "Gate of Heaven" by the mountain people of the Talos Kingdom, but it doesn't matter if you don't know the name, He could still imagine how much it would affect a man who had trekked through the realms of Chaos for many days to see a world of light and splendor—and the knights around him were already cheering.
"It's the fortress of the western region!" Veronica finally swept away the depression of the past few days when she saw the radiant light of order. The light of order was so powerful that when ordinary people looked at the mountains of the western region They can break through the blockade of the fog of chaos, and as long as she sees the intensity of the Symmetra, she knows that the western fortress has not fallen. "Great, our fortress is still there!" (to be continued~^~)