What did the goddess mean by the last words she said to him? Il was racking his brains when an arrow shot out of the bushes, startling him.

The rustle of arrows dragging the leaves brushed the tip of his nose, and Il's eyes widened and his eyelids rolled in surprise. When he came back to his senses and looked at the road in front of him again, he was even more surprised. There were six or seven people standing at the intersection, dressed in tattered leather armor, holding long swords and daggers in their hands, all of them with a look of "the comer is not good".

"You come down for me, or we'll kill you!" One of them shouted a little smugly. Ilr quickly glanced left and right to make sure that no one was outflanking his back, and immediately recited a spell.

He flicked his fingers, and soon the three bandits standing in front of him were "thrown" out, as if something unseen in the air had hit them hard. The swords in the hands of those men flew high into the sky, and they gasped in surprise as they slowly rolled into the thorn bushes.

"If you want to welcome a stranger, I think it's best to use a more traditional way, such as a nice thing to say 'nice to meet you.'" Il spoke to the man who had spoken earlier, and then he added a smile to his majestic words.

The bandit leader's face turned blue and white, and he ran backwards into the bushes, shouting, "Arhan! Dereus! Help! ”

Before he could finish speaking, a cluster of sharp arrows flew out of the green forest like a wasp.

The two arrows rushed to Il's mount, and the poor gray horse neighed, raised his front hooves, as if to kick the invisible enemy, and then tilted his body and fell to the side, and his hooves kicked wildly, and he died helplessly. Luckily, Il's eyes were quick, and in a split second before the horse fell to the ground, he jumped off the saddle and rolled to the side, while thinking in his mind how to deal with the bandits. Now that the enemy is hiding in the bushes, surrounded on all sides, and he is only one person, what should he do?

If it weren't for such a hurry, Il wouldn't want to give up his saddlebag!

He gasped for breath and rolled under the roots of an old tree. It was the autumn of the year of choice, and the first frost of the year had turned the leaves golden. Grasping the old mossy bark, he slowly stood up, using the tree as his shelter, and watched the sounds in the woods alertly. And the impatient bandits rushed out at this moment and surrounded him.

Ilr sighed softly, leaned back against the tree, and uttered a spell. On a perilous night, a myriad of hungry beasts surrounded him, and as a last resort, he used this spell in the wilderness. Now, if he didn't hurry up and make it, he wouldn't be able to experience more adventurous nights! When Il finished casting the spell, he smiled and watched as the leading bandit approached, and the man slowly moved over as he looked at the trees around him with great vigilance.

The bandit's scolding voice was suddenly interrupted, and Il merged with the calm and serene tree behind him, his mind spreading along the extended rhizome of the tree to the tree next to it, with branches and leaves on all sides. Well, yes, it should be.

Il's ethereal body stretched out in the trunk of the tree, trying not to choke on his throat from suffocation.

Many mages were driven mad by the imminent feeling of being buried alive. But McGarra insists it's a skill that Ilr must master.

Did she foresee this day then? And even more in the future?

The thought made Ilminster, the prince of Asenrant, shiver. He stood up from inside the stem and walked outward. Could it be that everything he encounters is the will of the goddess Mistra?

If this is true, what if there is another god who is guiding the growth of another mortal, and the will of the two gods is in conflict with each other?

If she hadn't insisted that he "ride" to the sacred elven city of Comando, he would have turned into a falcon and flew high through the forest. The arrows of those stinky bandits couldn't move a single hair of his cold hair!

He was thinking so, and in the blink of an eye, his body had emerged from the dark and warm woods, solidified on the sun-drenched Sakudask Road, and he saw a dirty belt on his left, and to his right, less than two paces away, a bandit in a filthy leather suit. Il couldn't help but play the little trick he used to play on the streets of Hasanta back then: he lightly removed the dagger from the bandit's belt, but the bandit didn't even notice it. The stolen dagger, with a round head carved on the hilt of a fierce poisonous snake, showed a look of choosing a person to devour.

Il's body froze, and he stood still, like a stubborn stone, for fear of stepping on the fallen leaves under his feet, making a noise, alarming the bandits on the side, and revealing his whereabouts. The bandit walked away slowly, moving towards the place where the young mage had just disappeared.

Can you get your saddlebag back under the noses of the bandits without being discovered by them? Even if the bandit didn't have a bow and arrows in his hands, and he didn't have the skills to use crossbow arrows, he, Ilminster, was extremely reluctant to waste his spells on this gang of outlaws in the heart of Sakudask. On this journey, he has met countless tigers, leopards and jackals, and has heard that there are many fierce man-eating beasts on this road. Since embarking on this road, he had seen a lot of dry bones on the roadside and the remnants of the caravan of overturned carriage crates. Ilco doesn't want to be reduced to just another sensational tale of his journey, a legend that warns and frightens those who come after him.

He was standing, unsure of what to do, when a bandit hurried towards him with his head down and crashed into his arms.

The two of them collapsed in surprise at the same time, but the Arsenrant who had rushed to Comando had already picked up the dagger in his hand, and it was time to use it.

The dagger was so sharp that it cut through the bandit's forehead with a single slash. Ilr rolled to his feet, bounced up and ran, and in his haste, he stepped on the crossbow that the bandit had dropped on the ground, and the crossbow made a "snapping" sound, which should have been trampled on. Ilr ran towards the road, shouting in surprise behind him.

The bandit who was wounded by the knife should have been unable to see clearly by the blood spurting out, and he had to leave a man to help him. In this way, there is naturally one less person who can spare his hands to deal with Yir. Now he can't run away. The Boducan Rapids is still a few days away; And the journey back to Airtu is even further. He couldn't have let a whole bunch of vicious bandits follow him all day long while he was on his way, and he had to kill them first.

Ilr nimbly ran down the road, approaching his horse, and with his borrowed dagger he quickly cut off the saddlebag and sword bag, then grabbed the two bags and ran away with all his might, hoping to buy him a little more time for his next trick.

An arrow swept over his shoulder, and Il scurried around and ran into the forest ahead. The distance was enough for him to play a nice trick.

He had to stand up and prepare for a fierce fight. Unless......

He stopped suddenly, hurriedly put down his package, drew his sword, pulled out a dagger from his left and right boots, and drew the knife hidden in the hair at the back of his neck. He threw the pile of swords on the moss on the ground along with the daggers he had previously stolen from the bandits, making a "clucking" sound. In order to increase the power of his attack, he also reached for a small fork for eating, a broad-bladed razor, and while doing these things, he had already begun to chant incantations in his mouth.

The bandits were hurrying through the woods, and Il had been busy preparing his magic. He arranged each knife in order, carefully slicing himself open, letting his blood drip onto the weapon one by one. He pulled out a large string of small pockets and touched the blades of his sword one by one. Mystra had whispered to him that she had marked the little pockets so that he could see at a glance what was inside. She did such a wonderful job that Il couldn't help but thank her quietly. Finally, he clapped his hands.

The magic worked! Ilr grabbed the saddlebag and used it as a shield to block arrows that might be aimed at him. He curled up and hid behind his saddlebag. One by one, the seven enchanted swords rose in the air, ping-pong and touched each other, as if praying to themselves, and then, like arrows off the string, shot out.

A moment later, one of the bandits who rushed to the front screamed, and Il saw him turn around, clutching one eyeball, and fall heavily to the ground. The second bandit cursed and swung his sword. After a sound of metal clashing, the man took a few steps backwards and fell down, blood spurting from his sliced throat. The rice fork flew out and shot at the third gangster, who howled in horror and pain, turned sideways, grabbed the rice fork from his body with his hand, threw it on the ground, and then pulled out his leg and ran back. Several bandits behind him were holding swords, and they were originally rushing forward with their teeth and claws, but they stayed where they were, and after a while, seeing that the situation was not good, they also turned their heads and fled with him.

As long as the sword released by Il is stained with the opponent's blood, the magic will automatically fail. Ilr laid down his saddlebag and cautiously stepped forward, retrieving his dagger and fork from the fallen bandit. Now he can swagger away, but Il is still worried, how many gangsters are still alive? Most of the swords he unleashed had not yet fallen to the ground, that is, they had not yet been stained with the blood of the enemy.

The two bandits who fell to the ground gasped, and a deep blood mark on the ground showed that the third bandit would not live long. The fourth bandit fell face down beside Il's dead horse, and a long sword stabbed him in the back.

Ilr retrieved all the weapons, but the dagger he had stolen and the knife hidden behind his back were nowhere to be found. He searched along the road and found two more bodies. Both of the dead bandits wore weapons engraved with the symbol of the Great Viper. At this point, Il did not continue to search for the bandits, and returned to his own path. He scratched his chin with his hand, and he hadn't shaved much during the whole trip, which tickled his face. He shrugged, anyway, let's move on. Which gang has taken over this woods, and what does it matter? He carefully picked up the crossbows that the bandits had fallen to the ground, walked to a cave not far away, and threw them all into it. One of the hares in the cave was frightened and sprang out of the woods.

Il looked at the sword he was holding in his hand, all stained with blood, and couldn't help but shake his head with a little regret. Anyway, he really doesn't like to kill. He found a thick patch of moss, wiped his sword clean, and continued his way through the darkening woods toward the southeast.

The sky soon turned to lead ash, and a cold wind blew, as if it was going to rain. But after a long time, the rain did not fall, and Il was left alone with the heavier and heavier saddlebags, and trekked through the road step by step.

*****

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