black pine forest.
The towering giant trees block the sunlight, and the dense bushes and vines form walls. The life cycle entrenched in this land forms a closed energy field, completely blocking the breath outside the forest. After the mysterious jungle, everyone feels as if they have stepped into another world.
And this feeling does not seem to be an illusion.
"It's foggy?" After the cart gradually slowed down and entered a stable state, Lily raised her head and looked to the rear. What she saw was a strange thick fog—the thick fog was entangled in the forest a hundred meters away. In between, it was as thick as some kind of gray liquid, and the mist drifted slowly with the breeze in the forest, and the outline of Greenway's green barrier could hardly be seen through it: you know, that magnificent barrier was in It can be clearly seen from several kilometers away.
But now he could only vaguely see a strange shadow hiding behind the fog.
"It's strange... Those imperial soldiers didn't come after them..." After calming down, Charlemagne realized another unusual thing, "It's not right, they don't give up so easily..."
Vivian glanced at the prince, "Anyway, now we can finally determine who wants your life."
"The Black Sword Knights are directly under the orders of Emperor Dragon, and no one can order them except the emperor himself," Hao Ren continued, "and judging by their shoot-to-kill attitude, they have clearly confirmed your identities. And it was ordered to hunt down—how did you offend the Emperor?"
"I don't know," Charlemagne replied simply, "To be honest, the situation has been completely out of my expectation and control since I came to Dragon. There was no news about what happened in this country before... Intelligence I can’t help you anymore.”
Hao Ren curled his lips and looked in the direction of the other two caravans: the third caravan has switched its form, and the folded partition walls have not yet returned to their original shape, which makes it a "convertible car" surrounded by a bunker ”, so you can easily observe your surroundings. He saw that the personal guards in the other two caravans were safe and sound, and the shields on the caravans were also functioning well.
After realizing that these caravans were equipped with powerful shields, the personal guards shrunk their bodies back inside the shields in time, except that at the beginning a rash guy leaned out to meet the enemy and was accidentally scratched by a spear , all are safe and sound.
"I didn't expect these cars to be equipped with such powerful magic barriers," Ai Wenna said with some surprise, "Your 'World Tree Temple' seems to have a very remarkable technology."
"We have always mastered cutting-edge technology," Hao Ren waved his hand nonchalantly, "The key question now is what are you going to do next? The Black Sword Knight is chasing and killing you, and the one behind the order must be the Dragon Soul Emperor Brentin, So you definitely can’t go to the imperial capital—do you want to continue this ‘secret mission’?”
In Hao Ren's view, the development of the matter to this point is equivalent to the breakdown of the relationship between the Dragon Empire and Yisu. No matter what reason the Dragon Soul Emperor wanted to attack the Charlemagne brothers and sisters, this kind of assassination of the royal family of the neighboring country Both are tantamount to declaring war. In this case, any "secret mission" mission is meaningless.
But Awenna shook her head after pondering for a moment: "No, we must complete our mission."
"Huh?" Even Leah, who was squinting and obsessed with studying, couldn't help but open her eyes and looked over, "Are you kidding! That Emperor Dragon wants to kill you, and you plan to go to the imperial capital to find him? "
"No, let's go to Princess Constance," Evanna said seriously, "cross the imperial capital and continue northward, heading for the six northern provinces..."
Hao Ren opened his mouth, but before saying anything, Charlemagne already took the initiative to speak: "Sorry, our mission is very important. Of course, we have no position to ask you to continue with us. Our brothers and sisters have been taken care of by you along the way. I really can't ask for more, after everyone left the black pine forest, they went their separate ways... "
"Wait a minute, I haven't said anything yet," Hao Ren immediately interrupted him with a wave of his hand, "You are going to the northern border to find that Princess Constance, right? No problem, anyway, who are we looking for?" It's all the same, let's go to the north with you."
This time it was Charlemagne's turn to be dazed. He stared at Hao Ren dumbfounded: "That's okay? Don't you also shoulder the mission of the World Tree Temple, so you must go to the imperial capital to find Emperor Dragon?"
"It doesn't matter, what we have to do doesn't necessarily have to find that Brentin, or we don't have to go to him first," Hao Ren laughed. The queen's curiosity is no less than that of the Dragon Soul Emperor... Maybe she can answer many of my questions."
"And one more thing," Vivian added lightly, "With your own strength and the current situation where your whereabouts have been exposed, without our help, can you really reach the six northern provinces safely?"
A trace of imperceptible embarrassment flashed across Charlemagne's face, but he nodded silently: "So... then I have no choice but to continue disturbing."
"It's just cooperation." Hao Ren smiled, but his eyes fell on the tall armored "corpse" in the middle of the carriage. "Since there are no pursuers, let's get to know these black sword knights well now." …”
When the topic was brought up here, Awenna and Charlemagne showed a look of nervousness and fear at the same time. The latter was quite calm, but the former jumped two steps to the other side of the carriage, and the one who seemed to have The lifeless "corpse" drew enough distance.
"I still don't know how you killed this knight in an instant," Charlemagne said in confusion, "I have seen other battles. Although your magic is weird, there are traces to be traced, but this knight It was just now..."
"I didn't hit him," Leah said lazily, raising her eyelids, "I just destroyed his sword—and then he just fell here and didn't move."
Charlemagne was taken aback.
The scene of the previous battle also resurfaced in Hao Ren's mind: the black sword knight stepped into the carriage with two imperial soldiers to check the passengers, and ten murderous pursuers rushed from behind the caravan, and the battle broke out Afterwards, Leah came back to her senses for the first time. The weapons that the black sword knight and two imperial soldiers slashed at her disintegrated due to the power of the gods. Then the two imperial soldiers were killed by Vivienne and Lily, but the black sword knight …
He wasn't attacked, he fell by himself - after the mechanical sword was reduced to ashes.
Lily followed Hao Ren to the side of the "corpse" out of curiosity, looking at the motionless body without any scars, she couldn't help poking it with her hand: "Landlord, do you think he is Because we broke the equipment he obtained from krypton gold, we rushed to death in a hurry?"
Hao Ren glanced at the husky girl up and down: "It's a bit hot in the woods, but your intelligence isn't so degraded, is it?"
A threatening voice immediately came out of Lily's throat: "Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo—"
Hao Ren ignored her at all, but put his hands on the side of the Black Sword Knight's helmet, looking for the buckle to open the armor: "Let me see what he looks like... By the way, this thing is really tightly sealed, they I usually have to take it apart for a meal... "
As he muttered, the buckle between the helmet and the visor was first groped for, followed by a light click, and the black steel visor bounced slightly, revealing a narrow gap between the visor and the helmet. Narrow gaps come.
Hao Ren took off the opponent's visor smoothly.
The face under the visor made almost everyone gasp.
Even Lily muttered: "I don't think I want to eat dinner..."
The appearance under the mask is not what a human being should have—it is a completely deformed, stacked, and twisted face. The facial features and muscles are like wax that flows freely after melting, forming a hideous and terrifying shape, and solidifying On the collapsed and deformed skull, where the eyes are located are two sunken black holes, with a faint red light shining inside, and his mouth has degenerated into a tiny crack. Hao Ren can see this mouth One thing is for sure: these black sword knights probably don't usually eat, at least they don't eat like normal humans...
Not only do they not eat, but they also use their faces to prevent others from eating.
Well, they didn't try to stop it, after all, Hao Ren took off the visor at his own risk.
"This is the Black Sword Knight?!" Vivien suppressed the discomfort in her heart—although this face was indeed a bit unruly, but the strange things she had seen in the past ten thousand years were more than ugly faces, so she got used to it. He got up quickly, "Is this the result of biochemical transformation? Or... magical transformation? Are all the ace fighters of the Dragon Empire this kind of transformation freak?"
"How could this be, it shouldn't be..." Ai Wenna frowned and moved closer, although her face was so pale that she still forcibly suppressed the feeling of nausea and nausea, even with a hint of inquisitiveness He began to examine the reason for the mutated face of the black sword knight, "I have seen other black sword knights, and I have seen their real faces...they are no different from normal people..."
Hao Ren was taken aback: "The black sword knight you have seen is the same as a normal person?"
"That's right, Black Sword Knights are just a special type of troops, after all, they are just human beings," Evanna nodded, "They can't spend their whole lives wrapped in armor—of course they want to reveal their true colors .”
Lily touched her chin: "Maybe we just met the ugliest one..."
"Do you believe what you say?" Hao Ren gave her a white look, "And no matter how you look at it, it is obviously not a natural formation, okay? Who is congenitally deformed like this and can join the army and fight both civil and military? These eyes have become There's a black hole."
At this time, the data terminal floated down from Hao Ren's shoulder: "Compared to these superficial mutations, this... the changes in the living body are probably more surprising."
Awenna and Charlemagne looked at the data terminal floating in the air curiously. They have been interested in this thing for a long time. An amazing "golem" that can move by itself and has high intelligence. This technology looks at the whole world. Laherien has never heard of it, and the elf craftsmen and rune wizards will look forward to similar things when they are talking about business, but now there is a real one in front of them. How can this not attract people's attention
It's just that now is obviously not the time to investigate how much black technology the World Tree Temple has. The brother and sister quickly withdrew their attention and listened intently to the scanning report from the data terminal.
The data terminal stopped on the chest of the Black Sword Knight. After a static in-depth scan, it finally had a clear result: "Half of this guy's body is a mechanical structure, and the other half is hard to say is a biological tissue."