"Iluna, why are you here? As I remember, your team entered from the northeast of the Pantanal Swamp."
Shade also hugged Iluna and felt relieved. No matter what, it was great to meet Iluna under such circumstances.
When he and the witch entered the Great Swamp, they were in the southeastern part of the Great Swamp. Even if they had deviated from the direction when they encountered the Invisible Son a few hours ago, they should not have deviated so far.
Iluna blushed and let go of Shade, looking up at him with an irrepressible joy on her face:
"We were attacked, and I accidentally got separated from the main group, so I summoned this horse to catch up."
The heavy fog just now was obviously used to separate the team.
"But I probably chose the wrong direction, and I didn't meet anyone along the way. Later, I met an old woman who lived alone in the Great Swamp and made a living by growing herbs. I helped her and cooked for her. She pointed me in the direction and said that I could find the person I was looking for in this direction."
Iluna's face turned even redder, and she hurriedly explained:
"Strangely enough, when I met the old woman, I didn't think anything was wrong with her. It was only after we said goodbye that I realized it was impossible for an old woman to live alone in such a deep area inside the Great Swamp. Moreover, I didn't ask for her herbs as a reward, but she gave me this."
Iluna took out a blue teardrop-shaped crystal. Although Shad was surprised, he remained calm no matter what happened to Iluna:
"There are many strange things in this swamp. After Miss Carina and I went deep into this place, we also encountered many inexplicable things."
Xia De brushed the snow off the shoulders of the seventeen-year-old girl, who tilted her head and looked at his hands, even a little uneasy.
"I got separated from the witches as well, but there's no need to worry about them. Those ladies are more powerful than us."
He showed Iluna the witch's golden ring on his finger:
"They can sense the location of the witch jewelry, so they should be able to find us soon. But time is running out. Fortunately, I met you. Let's keep going forward."
Xia De pointed to the glowing orb above his head again:
"You have a mount, but you don't know the way. I have helpers who can help me find the way, but it's still too slow to rely on just my two legs."
"Okay, let's go together."
Iluna looked at the horse and realized that they would be riding together in a while, so she immediately bit her lip to prevent herself from laughing.
Although she had complained about this action in a small corner of her heart during the blizzard and deep into the Great Swamp, she was reluctant to see this journey end.
The "Snowy Night Illusion" encountered after "Lost in the Snowstorm" and "Invisible Enemy" has not appeared since Shade and Iluna met. Although it is unknown what the mirror man is, they seem to only attack lone travelers.
With Iluna's mount that ignored any terrain obstacles and was immune to most attacks, the next move became much faster. The horse wrapped in blue ghost fire was so fast that even some slower attackers in the Great Swamp could not catch up with them.
The Pantanal Voodoo Society used the Pantanal Swamp as its main base of operations. They planted and cultivated many dangerous plants and animals deep in the swamp that were not even in the atlas of the church and the academy. With Iluna's horse, neither the bloodthirsty vines nor the terrifying worms could attack them, which saved a lot of time for the next journey.
The whistling wind became more and more strange, and the thick darkness seemed to be completely frozen by the extreme cold of late winter. The power of the evil creatures in the Pantanal was further eroding reality. Iluna sat in front holding the reins, and Shad was behind her, talking to each other about what they had encountered after entering the Great Swamp.
Iluna knew the intelligence of most of the ring sorcerers sent by the church to the swamp. Because the battlefield this time was far away and dangerous, there were not as many participants as in Midhill Castle. Except for Iluna, almost all the participants were high-ring sorcerers.
The church also knew that the stars would reach the correct position at about 1:30 a.m. Thursday, and their original plan was to reach the central lake of the Great Everglades before midnight. But from the current situation, only about half of the team can do this.
At 10:57 on Wednesday night, the sword light of Shade defeated a giant bear with two heads that jumped out of the darkness in the snowy night. They did not stop and continued to move forward. Shade took back the night watch and looked around vigilantly. The bumpy horse made it difficult for him to control the direction of the sword as if he was standing on the ground.
While Iluna controlled the direction of advance according to Huang Yue's instructions, she asked with some concern:
"Do you need a break? You've been fighting for the past half hour."
"It's okay. I'll use the Time Key to rest once we get closer to the big lake. We should be there soon."
He said behind Iluna, Iluna felt the heat on her ears and nodded with a red face:
"Okay... This time, the Chosen Ceremony is not only important in itself, the Church also cares about the enlightenment that the spectators can gain during the ceremony. Although the location this time is very remote, perhaps there will be more organizations involved this time than in Middlesbrough."
"This is normal. The influence of the chosen one will become greater and greater. Maybe in the end, all the ring sorcerers in the entire material world will be forced to be involved."
Iluna pursed her lips and wanted to ask Shade what preparations he had made to defeat Lakins Prisha after the ceremony, but her left eye caught a glimpse of a strange figure. Iluna immediately stopped her mount, and Shade frowned and looked around.
The snow was blowing, the biting cold wind was blowing on my face, and the voice beside my ear was reminding me softly:
Outsider, you have come into contact with the whispering element.
And it's not a whispering element in the ordinary sense. With such obvious traces and strong malice, the one who is peeping at their relics in the snowy night must be no less than the sage level.
“A relic.”
Shade reminded Iluna, and the two jumped off their horses and stood back to back. Two life rings appeared from behind, and because the two were close together, the two life rings appeared above their heads. Shade's life ring was much larger than Iluna's, so Iluna's life ring was inside Shade's life ring. One of them rotated forward and the other reversed, and the spirit runes flowed on the two rings, and the core spirit runes were almost completely attached together, making the two life rings look like they were originally one.
Of course, they did not notice this strange phenomenon at this time, but looked towards the swamp in the snowstorm. As they approached their destination, the dead forest had long disappeared, and now they were surrounded by a relatively flat swamp. The swamp was covered with snow, and if it weren't for the skeleton horse that could walk on any terrain, this section of the road would be very difficult to walk.
"Not sure if water walking would work in a swamp."
As Xia De thought about it, he saw a dark shadow appear on the right. The silver moonlight from his right hand swept across, but it only passed through the dark shadow and flew further into the swamp in the flying snow.
"Xia De, I see an enemy here. It's a black shadow, but I can't see its appearance clearly."
Iluna also said at this time, and Shade heard the sound of her throwing the Sunlight Gun, but it was obvious that the Sunlight Gun did not succeed in defeating the enemy:
"Be careful."
Xia De said softly, the silver moonlight dancing on his fingertips:
"Iluna, close your eyes—Silver Moon!"
The silver moonlight burst out from the raised right index finger, and in this snowstorm night, it was as if the moon had really fallen to the ground. Even the floating round gem was stained with a faint silver moonlight.
This move was indeed effective. The shadows that Shade and Iluna saw stopped moving forward at the same time in the moonlight. But they were still not injured, and just stopped in the swamp in the blizzard and looked at the two people:
"Iluna, let's switch positions."
The two turned back to back, and Shad and Iluna were sure that the black shadow they witnessed was not the same one, and this was not an enemy that appeared just because of the sighting.
The light of the silver moon lingered on the snow for a long time. After the moonlight on the snow gradually became dim, the two black shadows moved closer again, forcing Shade to use the light spell again.
He really didn't want to do this. Exposing his position in the dark swamp would attract more dangerous guys.
The black shadow would not be harmed by the light of the silver moon, but would just stop. When Shade confirmed this, Iluna narrowed her left eye slightly, looked at the black shadow she was facing, and then frowned suddenly:
"Shad, I think I know what this is."
She whispered:
"Remember? After the incident in Middleburg, I also performed the Chosen Ceremony, so I have a little power of the Chosen of Death. The eye you gave me can see the 'fatal weakness' of entities or non-entities to a certain extent."
"Yes, of course I remember. Did you see their weaknesses?"
"No, I saw a strong smell of death."
Iluna, who was back to back with Shad, held Shad's left hand with her right hand:
"I saw their essence. They are indeed relics, relics without a body, and relics that are close to natural phenomena..."
Her body was trembling slightly, and her voice was a little unstable, which was extremely rare for Iluna:
"An angel-level relic called Thanophobia, which embodies the fear of death of living beings. It only has this one characteristic. The more afraid of death one is, the stronger these shadows will be. There is no way to summon or dismiss them. This kind of thing is a part of ourselves. The more remote the place is and the weaker one's will is, the more likely one is to encounter them. If one encounters them when the soul is traumatized, they are almost impossible to deal with."