"A strong opponent is not scary, what is scary is your cowardly heart that dare not face the challenge!" - Bald Eagle Lan Qi
In a combat training room equipped with new-age equipment, a man with short blond hair kept beating the boxing doll with his fist wrapped in red flames. The doll shaped by high-strength resin armor has good resistance, and even the flames on the fist have never been able to cause the doll to show slight scorching marks. Even if the temperature of the red flame on the man's hand has reached six hundred degrees.
The high temperature of 600 degrees is the sign of the proficiency of the third-order fire element. And the man in the fist is Sauron.
Exhausting all his strength to strike the doll for the last time, the flames from his fist dissipated, and Sauron lay down on the alloy floor in a large font.
This is an underground combat training room set up by the headquarters of the Parklan family. Sauron should have stayed in the Eternal Night City of the Dark Council at this time to receive advanced training for the Blood Knight. The reason why he stayed in his family was that he was temporarily suspended for up to three months because of the failure of Sauron's mission.
Leah's blood samples had been brought back to the Dark Council, and the three tubes of samples were immediately received by the Council's Academy of Sciences and put into research. But just as Sauron thought before, he should have brought back Leah, a living specimen of the Discord. And because of Leah's death, the upper echelons of the blood cavalry believed that Sauron had mishandled this mission, so it was deemed a mission failure.
So now Sauron will appear in the family, which is said to be a vacation, but it is actually a punishment in disguise. Sauron knows this better than anyone else. And during the three months of his vacation, the competitors in the blood cavalry can take advantage of this vacuum to rise to the top. This will lead to a series of unpredictable consequences. What is certain now is that Sauron's status not only in the blood knights, but also in the family has been shaken.
Thinking of this, Sauron remembered that golden eye. If he hadn't killed a zero halfway, how could he have ended up like this. But Zero's berserk attitude is still deeply imprinted in Sauron's mind. Before forgetting him, Sauron dare not and is unwilling to touch Zero again.
But Sauron didn't want to touch Zero, which didn't mean he was willing to let him go. In fact, he already has a target candidate. That man was Kabu's father, and also a fifth-level sniper expert. Sauron knew that when the other party learned that his son had died in Zero's hands, that person would definitely not let Zero go.
Because of that man, he put all his heart and soul into Kabu.
It's a pity that the man nicknamed Bald Eagle went far away to a small elk town after retirement. It is far away from the coastline that has been redeveloped after the cataclysm, and the transportation is inconvenient. Even though Sauron had sent his entourage there two months ago, counting the time, the entourage only arrived at Elk Town two days ago.
And after getting this news, and using some special means of transportation, it would take the bald eagle about ten days to come back. But it doesn't matter, as long as he can come back, Sauron imagines that Zero's death should not be far away.
Thinking of this, Sauron put on a faint smile again.
The Central Continent is very large. In the past fifty years after the cataclysm, under the development of companies and nobles, many lands have returned to the embrace of civilization. According to incomplete statistics, there are not 800 or 1,000 settlements or bases that exist in the form of civilization in the Central Continent alone. However, these large and small human settlements only occupy a coastline from the east to the north of the mainland.
But from the west to the east of the mainland, nearly 80% of the places are still unknown to chaos. The place is full of darkness and danger. Even the Dark Council, the most powerful organization in the mainland, and the Scarlet Knights, an armed group under it, have never planted that scarlet flag on the land in the southwest. There are too many unknown lives there, countless ruins are shrouded in savage darkness, and the light of civilization has not yet touched this forbidden land of life.
Therefore, the southwest land is an adventure paradise for all kinds of powerful people. Some people brought back priceless species or resources on this mysterious land, while more were killed by undiscovered mutant creatures wandering in this land, and became their midday meal. Only desolation left a heap of bones on the ground. Sometimes, there are even no corpses.
But even so, there are still more people flocking to this unknown territory. There are hundreds of related tasks released by the Dark Council alone through the company network. Regardless of the Dark Council or other chaebols, their top leaders are eager to carry forward the secrets of this land. For them, the unknown represents a vast undiscovered resource, which is a great wealth.
Elk Town.
This is a small town located on the edge of the southwestern land. According to legend, before the Great Cataclysm, there were fertile forest resources near the town, where a large number of elk lived and bred. Residents of the town make a living by domesticating elk, so it is called Elk Town.
But after the cataclysm, the elk either died out or mutated into a ferocious species. The large forest was replaced by sand and stones, and the huge wound on the earth naturally separated the small town from the mysterious southwest land. Until twenty years ago, a major among the Scarlet Knights led a thousand soldiers to the town, rebuilt Elk Town and set it up as a bridgehead to the southwestern land.
With the small town as its base, the power of the Dark Council has poured into the southwestern land. In the past ten years alone, the Scarlet Knight has invested in a general, five major generals, a dozen majors, and hundreds of blood knights. For other regions that have been developed, this force is enough to destroy all known plutocrats and settlements along the entire coastline. It can be put into the development of the southwest land, but it is like sinking into the sea.
They seemed to disappear and never returned to Elk Town.
So the Dark Parliament changed its policy and opened Elk Town to other people in the mainland. Whether it is an individual or an organization, as long as they pay a certain fee, they can enter Elk Town for supplies. It's just that all personnel who want to venture into the southwest land must acquiesce to a contract that does not exist on any paper medium, that is, they need to perform the obligation of map drawing for the Dark Council.
From the moment they stepped into Elk Town, adventurers of any status acquiesced to the rationality of this contract. If you don't, it's not as simple as being patted on the ass and thrown out of town. Regardless of whether it is an individual or an organization, they will all suffer horrific revenge from the Dark Parliament.
This contract established its irresistible position with the blood of hundreds of supernatural beings two years before it was implemented. So now, no one is stupid enough to challenge the authority of the Dark Council and the force of the Scarlet Knight.
Wherever there are adventurers, there must be taverns. This has almost become common sense, and Elk Town is no exception. The only tavern "Dragon and the Beauty" in the small town was opened by the Dark Council. The price of drinks and services here is more than ten times that of other taverns in the mainland. If it wasn't for the fact that the tavern was not opened by the Dark Council, and a blood knight captain was stationed all year round, the tavern would have been torn down by angry adventurers long ago.
Now, of course, adventurers have to endure the exploitation of the council in silence. Of course, coming to a tavern to drink and have fun is voluntary, and the Dark Council will not force you to consume with a knife around your neck. It's just that there are very few adventurers who don't like alcohol. Even if the taverns are all low-quality alcohol mixed with water, there are still adventurers who enjoy it.
And even if you don't like drinking, it is undeniable that taverns are an important place to collect information and intelligence. You can give up drinking, but you can't give up intelligence. Entering the southwestern land without information is like taking off your clothes and walking beside a ferocious beast. No one would be willing to do so.
One source of intelligence is exchange, and the other is purchase. There are adventurers who sell information, but the most accurate and valuable information can only be sold by the tavern owner, the Dark Council. Of course, you don't have to expect to be able to buy intelligence information of a level higher than three in the tavern. Those are secret information from the Dark Council, and you can't buy them even if you have money.
But recently, an adventurer was selling all kinds of information in the tavern. Although this information is not enough to be sold secretly by the Dark Council, it is much more precious than the information sold by other adventurers or the tavern itself. Many adventurers have already bought precious information from that person, brought back something worth several times the value of the information itself, and left Elk Town happily.
In the eyes of adventurers, they are all lucky guys. They may be moved by other adventurers on the way, but as long as they return to the base protected by basic laws, those things are enough for them to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.
As a result, more and more people lined up to buy information from this adventurer, almost holding money in their hands, and this person's name also appeared on the tactical tablet computer of the blood knight captain in the tavern.
This person's name is Lan Qi, who has the nickname of Bald Eagle. The ability is the fifth-level sniper specialization, but he spent the first half of his life serving Parklan, a fringe plutocrat of the Dark Council. It was not until five years ago that he left the Parkland chaebol and came to the Southwest to take risks alone. During the five years, there were very few records of his entry and exit from Elk Town, and it was not until a month ago that he began to sell various information.
The captain of the Scarlet Knight looked at the black man with silver hair and silver beard on the tactical board, and with a swipe of his finger recently, he threw his information into the folder. An adventurer who sells information is not worthy of his attention. What the captain cares about is how long he will stay in this shitty place before he can be transferred back to the Blood Cavalry headquarters.
Elk Town is indeed an important stronghold for the Dark Council. Even if the blood cavalry who can be dispatched here have not achieved an inch of success, they will increase their contribution points according to the length of time they are stationed in order to improve their rank. But that's all for blood knights in the combat system. Being thrown in a semi-retired position like a captain, when he goes back, he is still just a captain. Even with the additional contribution points, it was not enough for him to be promoted to a major.
When the captain was very worried about his future, the bald eagle appeared in the tavern again. But, this was the last time he appeared in the tavern. Because in the near future, he will receive a message that he has to leave Elk Town.