The Ahais Outpost is an ordinary supply outpost in the western frontier of the Lark Empire, which is often located on sparsely populated roads, especially in areas with a relatively open view such as some rivers and mountains. On the one hand, it is convenient for the maintenance of the road and provides a shelter and resting place for passers-by, and on the other hand, the soldiers stationed there are also responsible for maintaining law and order and looking out for the surrounding situation.

The Ahaith Outpost is located on a mountain range called the Ahaith Pass, which is crossed from east to west, and after a few days of walking, it leaves the territory of the Ralk Empire and enters the border of the Meesian Forest.

This is a fairly old road, it is said that it was still very important hundreds of years ago, and there was an endless stream of merchants coming and going here every day, but as the village of the forest elves gradually moved into the depths of the forest of Mees, the road was no longer full of passers-by.

Less in demand from the villages along the way, today's merchants choose to transport their goods by airboat or boat to the big cities deep in the Meath Forest, from where they can then be transported to the surrounding villages.

As a result, the Ahaith outpost gradually became deserted.

So much so that there is often only one soldier on duty in the huge outposts, patrolling during the day and resting at night.

There is a human village in the valley to the east of the pass, the village is not large, a hundred and ten families, relying on the surrounding mountains and forests to eat, the people in the village are very fond of the old outpost, the outpost that has been through the vicissitudes of life is even older than their village, like an elder standing in the pass from afar, guarding them.

So the adults would often bring some game there, and from time to time they would bring two jugs of wine to accompany the soldiers on duty, and the children would often run madly from the village along the mountain road to the outpost, and build their own little outpost with stones, and then draw some interesting things with black charcoal.

I often come back out of breath when it gets dark, and the adults are relieved.

Now on duty at the sentry is a gray-bearded veteran, who is much more calm than the young soldiers who can't bear it, and he stays here for almost two years, and when no one passes, he often snorts a pipe on the sentry post, squints against the wall to look at the clouds in the sky, and often laughs and plays with the children of the village to make them love.

Although it is lonely and cold most of the time compared to other jobs, at the end of each year, just like now, on the last afternoon of the year of the stars, the outpost is still much more lively than usual.

At the end of the year, on a sunny day, the people of the village, as they do today, take their children along the mountain path to the pass, dressed in thick clothes, warm food baskets, and some with flutes and other musical instruments, to look out from the old outpost – a tradition in their village.

The view here is extremely wide, you can see the forest of Meath below stretching forward to the mist at the end of the view, several wide rivers meandering in the forest, flashing the shadows of the setting sun, and at night those with good eyes can faintly see the elven city hidden in the depths of the forest, revealing a little soft light.

Watching the dusk sun sink little by little, the last rays of sunlight disappearing behind the dark green horizon, the villagers on the pass cheered and began to prepare for their night celebration.

The veteran also stood dutifully on the sentry post, and according to the requirements of the above, he had to wait at least until the twilight faded and the stars rose and the sky was completely dark, and he could come down from the sentry post to rest and let the next sentry on duty take his place.

Of course, he is the only sentinel in the entire outpost now.

He smiled and looked at the lively scene below, spat out two smoke rings, and once again set his eyes on the mountain road, which was gray and white in the twilight, and he unexpectedly saw the figure of a pedestrian, who appeared at the end of the mountain road in the distance.

Although this year is not a triennial festival, people usually celebrate it with family and friends, and at this time, it is unusual for people to be on the trail at dusk at the end of the year.

The veteran took out the long mechanical mirror, ready to take a closer look at the figure.

If there is any danger, or if there is a crazy monster chasing after him, he needs to prepare in advance.

But from the magnified field of view of the mechanical mirror, he did not find the target.

"Huh?" he put down the mechanical mirror and squinted again, his face changing.

I saw that in just a few breaths, the blurred figure had already narrowed a large distance, no wonder I couldn't see the person in the mechanical mirror just now, and the old soldier had a bad premonition in his heart, and picked up the spear on the side. Soldiers don't like anomalies, anomalies represent beyond experience, and beyond experience means that things will be completely unpredictable.

"With such a fast running speed, is it a high-level warrior......" he muttered.

"It's like it's armored, it's not an ordinary adventurer, it's carrying a weapon...... It seems to be a heavy sword......"

Instead of continuing to watch from the sentry post, the veteran quickly came to the villagers who were preparing for the celebration and said a few words, and then straightened the emblem of the Ralk Empire on his chest, and walked to the mountain road at the pass with his head held high and waited.

The other party came from the side of the Meath Forest, and if it was a forest elf, he couldn't snub the other party.

While estimating the time, the other party had already appeared in the field of vision, and the veteran was shocked, and found that the other party was much stronger than he had inferred, and the last time he saw such a warrior was in the royal guard of the imperial capital.

He hurriedly straightened his body again, and with a squeak of gold and iron scraping, the other party was already standing in front of him.

……

Looking at the many villagers on the pass, as if they were preparing for the celebration, Minerma frowned.

She didn't expect to encounter so many people in this long-lost pass, but she soon realized that despite the large number of villagers, it seemed that the entire outpost was only the soldier on duty in front of her, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Starting in Snowy River at the foot of the Frost Mountains, she followed the clues provided by the supernumerary staff of the Temple of Nature to track down Honorom's whereabouts, all the way to the camping ground. I have to say that this is really an extremely tiring task, not only to find these unclear clues, but also to try hard to put them together to see some clues, and most importantly, not every clue can lead to professionals like the Temple Scout, more ordinary guards, ordinary traders, trying to get information from their mouths will inevitably hear all kinds of useless memories and long nagging.

The task was driving her crazy.

Fortunately, there was only one soldier, and Minerma stepped forward to be questioned.

But she suddenly turned her head, stared at the mountain road behind her with a knife-like gaze, and shouted angrily: "Who's where!"

Ignoring the astonishment of the people around her and the doubts of the guard, she decisively drew her blood-colored heavy sword: "I see you! Reveal your body! Who are you? You have been following me all this time, haven't you?"

There was little clear on the mountain road, and there was no movement at all.

"If you have the ability, you can pretend it for me again!" Minelma sneered, her body jumped high, and the blood-colored heavy sword brought out a sharp edge of ice and snow, and slashed towards the uninhabited stone steps in front of her: "Pretend to show me?!"

The spacious stone steps of the ancient road were broken into two, and more than a dozen special stones turned into powder.

In the gray-brown twilight, a black shadow appeared on the stone steps in front of Minelma, as if it had been obscured by special magic, and it was completely impossible to see.

"Who are you?!" Minerma shouted with a crosssword, "Who sent you to follow me?!!deceased?empire?temple?"

"What do you want to do with me all the way from Snow River Town to here? Are you coming at me or at my mission?!Who is backing you up so that you dare to follow the members of the law enforcement team and meddle in the affairs of our sacred law enforcement team?!"

Minelma's dark silver heavy armor chest lit up with a flaming sword.

The villagers who were watching from a distance around them exclaimed, and the gray-bearded veteran breathed a sigh of relief, the law enforcement team was well known in Todel, always standing on the front of the Alliance, and being the enemy of all degenerates and cultists.

"I'm just passing by......," the shadow whispered, its voice disguised as magic, and the stabbing sound made no sense of the man's original timbre, "I'm not used to dealing with people, so I hide myself when I'm on my way." ”

"Ha," Minelma laughed ridiculously, "can you really say such a thing?

She took a step forward: "Come with me to the law enforcement team for trial, if you are really just passing by, no one will wronged you." ”

Before the words fell, the black shadow on the stone steps in front of him seemed to be a little flustered, and no longer wanted to continue talking to Minerma, so he suddenly waved his sleeves and turned around and fled along the mountain road into the distance.

"Where to go!" Minerma let out a long howl and chased after him with his sword.

When she found the temple from Snow River Town for supernumerary reconnaissance, she vaguely felt that someone was secretly spying on her, but she couldn't find the peeping person at that time, so she thought she was too vigilant and had a delusion. But along the way, every time she approached the key clues, she had this looming feeling of being spied on, which made her very irritable, and she never let her guard down.

It's just that no matter what means she used, she didn't notice the person in the secret, and even in a clearing, she suddenly turned around and attacked, directly leveling a large area of woods, but still didn't find any clues about the other party. It was as if it was really just her delusion.

She also carefully speculated about the identity of the other party, if the other party can really let herself follow her unconsciously, then what kind of strength will the other party be, and what kind of strength will it be, and finally think that it should be an assassin hidden in the shadows, the best profession of all professions to conceal the body, only this profession can still track herself without being discovered when the strength is not as good as herself.

But now he's finally showing his feet.

She had left behind an invisible chain of perception when she landed on the pass, and she had left many of these anti-tracking structures in the past two weeks of tracking, but this was the first time that the other party had missed the trigger.

She couldn't actually see the other party's hidden form, but she felt that the chain was glued to the other person's body, allowing her to easily determine his position and drive him out with an attack, even at this moment she could still sense that the chain was still attached to the other party, and the other party was running away and trying to remove the chain.

"Hmph......" Minerma chased after the figure, "Sure enough, you also have times when you are careless." ”

Confirming the other party's existence, she no longer fears that the other party will clear her chain of perception. At this distance, even an assassin of her strength would not be able to hide out of thin air under her gaze, not to mention that this gaze was not the gaze of an ordinary gaze, she had used her mental power to lock on to the opponent's magic fluctuations.

"You can't escape this time!" Minelma sneered, hanging her sword back behind her as she ran, her speed even higher.

The other party was obviously a veteran, and the speed of escape was very fast, even if she had crossed the earthly line and mobilized the power of the great warrior, she still couldn't intercept the black shadow in a short time. But the distance is getting closer.

Her face was covered with frost, and the lines under her feet turned from red to dark blue, and her speed was a little faster.

The other side seemed to be a little faster, but still half a point slower than Minelma.

It didn't take long for them to rush from the pass of the mountain to the foot of the mountain, and there was a wide river not far ahead, and on the other side of the river was a forest, which should have stretched all the way to the Meath Forest, and if the other party escaped into the forest, it would be too difficult to track.

Minelma estimated her speed, frowned, and flipped her hand to summon a magic card.

It was a fourth-order Wind Wing card, its dark yellow hue shimmering with the sunset, gathering magic fluctuations between her green jade fingers.

This Wind Wing card can summon a pair of giant Wind Eagle Wings behind you, nearly doubling your running speed, and if you are proficient in using it, you can use it to fly directly in the sky, much faster.

But Minerma is not a non-professional person, she has always been unable to control this kind of magic, at most she is only used to speed up her run, and she will quickly destroy magic cards when she uses them, and fourth-order magic cards are precious to her, which is why she didn't use such magic in the first place.

But don't let the other escape into the forest!!, Minerma bit her lip hatefully, the surging magic energy converged on the cards in her hand, and her body leaped into the air, and when she fell again, a pair of huge green wings had spread behind her.

Her speed nearly doubled, and in an instant she was close to the dark shadow in front of her.

But then she saw that after the black shadow paused for a moment, a huge blood-colored bat wing took shape behind her, and the wings fluttered and rushed into the sky, and in a few breaths, it rushed into the clouds, and it was no longer real.

"Scarlet Batwing...... How could it be ......" Minerma stopped by the choppy river and looked up at the gloomy sky.

Scarlet Bat Wing and her Wind Wing card are both fourth-order, and the other party can control them so skillfully, at least they are high-level mages, but how can ordinary high-level mages hide their bodies in front of her? Why didn't they use such magic to escape in the first place when she was chasing? Why didn't they ...... in the first place? She was seduced!!

"Damn! I've been fooled!" a thought flashed through her mind, and she turned around and ran towards the pass.

She didn't even take the mountain path in order to speed up, and her cyan wings whistled, and she rushed all the way along the straight line to the top of the pass with the dark blue magic dazzling pattern, and jumped down heavily, crushing a huge black stone.

The crumbling stones rolled down the cliff and made a huge movement, but it was not enough to calm the anger in her heart at this moment.

She saw that the villagers were all looking at her with trepidation.

But she couldn't see the gray-bearded sentinel anymore.