The Crescent City is not as large as Neverwinter, but it occupies the status of the capital city in the southern territory of the Midsummer Country, at the center of the castles of the lords, stone fields, towns, and trading markets, and the city is clean and orderly, with wide, straight and green stone streets that can be walked freely. The houses in the city were also built of whitewashed stone, with steep pitched roofs supplemented with black-gray tiles.

Vanessa would visit Crescent City every spring with her mother's guard of honor, and she remembered that Crescent City was full of flowers at that time, and every house had the dragon rose flag of the Delin family on the eaves and windowsills, but now things are wrong, the rose crown has been replaced by a blood-dripping sword, and the former lord of Crescent City, Sir Gauwen, has sworn to be loyal to Queen Chloe forever, but as far as she can see, Vanessa has not seen a dragon rose flag.

The streets were crowded with people, and Vanessa remembered that the Crescent Square was once bustling with vendors, jugglers, travelers from afar, and freshly caught fish from the nearby river, and now the streets were filled with solemn sights of patrol soldiers and stray cats and dogs in plate and chain mail, and the occasional whisper came from the corner, as unrecognizable as a ghost in the night.

The Soul Slayer's hut is in a small alley behind Crescent Square.

Vanessa and Reina walked around the fountain in the center of the square, looking for someone to inquire about the Soul Slayer's residence.

The fountain pool was large, and there was a stone sculpture of a queen wearing a crown, twenty feet high from head to toe. The queen held a scepter in her left hand and an ear of wheat in her right, symbolizing authority and abundance, her green and white curly skirt was covered with moss, and the second half of the crescent moon scepter in her hand had been broken long before Vanessa was born, but it still looked very noble and majestic. At this time of the day, the spring was usually crowded with washerwomen, who would frolic in large wooden basins thicker than their own waists to snatch the vantage point, stirring up a pool of spring water, and some of the washed clothes had nowhere to dry, so they hung them directly on the queen's crescent cane.

But now the Stone Queen doesn't even have a diaper on her scepter.

Towards the end of the circle, the princess and the archers discovered the reason for the inaccessibility of the square - the cage by the billboard.

The small billboards were plastered with piles of crowded notices, stacked on top of each other, mostly about chasing deserters, and a few with large forks in blood-red paint indicating that people had been caught and put to death. A few feet away, a dozen iron cages hung from creaking wooden stakes. The cage of Prometheus, Vanessa heard this kind of criminal law in Weima's bedtime story: birds of prey are outside, flying and pecking human flesh; People are in cages, and they will not rest until they die. The space inside the cage was so small that the captives could neither sit down nor turn around, but could only stand naked, exposed to the scorching sun and wind and rain.

The dead bodies in the cage looked at them with empty eyes, the scavenging crows ate their eyes, the owls and vultures shared their entrails and intestines, and there was a fat man in one cage, the iron cage was so small that it was impossible to imagine how he had been put in the first place. The fence pressed into his stomach in agony, the flesh bulged out from between the bars, and the sun burned him bright red from head to toe, his body was not yet fully **, the wind was blowing, and the flies and maggots reluctantly changed their positions, lazily continuing their feast of flesh.

Vanessa's front eyes were dizzy and almost fell on top of Reina, Reina reached out to hold the princess steady and covered Vanessa's vision with her body, "They are deserters, and they deserve it." This ambiguous act shielded them from the patrolmen's suspicious gaze, and the guards didn't bother too much with the two of them, thinking that they were just ordinary lovers.

This is tyranny. A tyranny that the Delin family never had. If Solanda wasn't stupid enough to use a sword as a rice spoon, she shouldn't have used such a horrific trick against her own people. Unless—Vanessa's pupils constricted suddenly—Solanda was denying her mother's words!

In the more than half a year since Solanda returned from the Sand Riding Country, she and Ilia have been living in fear, and have no time to observe the relationship between her and her mother, if the coup d'état a month ago shows that Solanda is vengeful, and changing the direction of the decree represents a complete break with her mother. If it weren't for Solanda's deep hatred for her mother, she would never deny her mother's decision-making in political affairs, so what kind of hard mustard existed between them?

"Let's go." Reina shook the princess's shoulder.

Vanessa came back to her senses and told herself that she would figure out these things one day, and that she should focus on the task at hand, and the sooner the connection between herself and the villagers of the hermit village was removed, the closer she would be to her goal of recovering the Land of Midsummer and rescuing her mother and sister.

"There," Vanessa said, no longer looking at the cages, and gesturing down an alley to the east. She had taken Elija out of her mother's palace to buy candy at the candy house at the end of the alley. That was half a year ago, but it seemed like it happened to her in her previous life. I don't know if the candy house is still there. It used to be a noisy alley, and under the arcade where the vendors did business, the clerks and coins were busy, and there were thin old men selling runes and weapons, women selling herbs, and crappy jugglers, and the doors of the candy houses were always open to the inside, and the colorful sweets were drooling, and the small traders knew who would bring the business for them, and they crowded around the candy houses, and a man was selling apples in a cart, and a woman was selling grilled herring with fine onions, and chickens and children were scurrying around people's feet.

Vanessa recalled the sweet scene, and in the blink of an eye, the people and objects were gone, as if curled up by the long black tongue in the alley, but fortunately the candy house was still there, and the small door was closed.

Vanessa knocked on the door, "Anyone?" ”

After a long time, a dissatisfied hum came from inside the door: "No more sugar, the syrup has been requisitioned by the city lord for military rations." ”

"We don't buy candy, we want to ask you about someone."

"There's no one," the voice said angrily, "and they're all going to war." ”

"We're looking for Paladin the Soul Slayer, and if you have something to ask him for, please point us in the direction of his house." Reina shouted.

"Hah!" The voice cried out, "It's useless for you to go to his house, he's not at home." ”

(l~1`x*>+``+