The two groups of people in the clear camp were looking at each other.

Lin An and Byron did not stop this slightly estranged hostile atmosphere of vigilance, after all, they were both collaborators and competitors, although Byron was a little absent-minded because of the things on the ship, but he still attached great importance to the results of this expedition.

Because this time he personally dispatched it, the people he brought were all good hands, these were all people recruited by Byron's development forces for more than ten years, and there were even two or three seeds in it that had the potential to advance to the Golden Sword Master.

Of course, in terms of mages, Byron's people are slightly inferior to Lin An's side, after all, the entry threshold for mages is extremely high, most of them are rich businessmen and nobles, which is difficult to recruit, and Byron's consistent low profile also makes it difficult for him to act openly and cannot get in touch with the mage circle.

Therefore, in addition to Amani, a mage who was adopted and cultivated by his organization, there are four mages under Byron's hands who can be trusted, and he brought two of them with him, and the other two have other tasks to stay behind, and the rest of the mages who are not absolutely trusted are excluded from this operation and do not know the truth at all.

Byron's family background is too thin, which is because he has attached great importance to secret power and has privately used a lot of resources to cultivate it from a long time ago, but when it comes to results, it is naturally not as good as Odin and Yokyadan, who have natural advantages and resources.

Therefore, at this time, he saw that there were four mages among the seven people on Lin An's side, and he was very emotional for a while, if he knew that these four mages were all participants in the Tower of Babel, I am afraid that he would be directly embarrassed.

Amani was the undisputed leader of the expedition, and this is a relatively important position.

He is also more active in the atmosphere, and introduces the identities of the two parties without exceeding their identities.

Byron saw that they were roughly familiar with each other, and after looking at each other's clothes, he said to Lin An:

"Master Lin's thoughts coincide with mine, since we both plan to hide our identities. Then let's pretend to be a mercenary group this time, so we don't have to pay too much attention to our identity! ”

He glanced at Lin An inquiringly.

"I have no opinion," Lin An smiled, "You can call me Lin." ”

"So you...... You can also call me Byron. ”

Byron also smiled, and when he saw the golden-brown eyes of the male mage behind Lin An, Byron didn't care, and asked his subordinates to change his name.

Unbeknownst to him, Saleen was observing with interest the various responses and attitudes of His Royal Highness the Prince, who was regarded as a chess opponent by Saleen himself, with great interest in his eyes.

"Old ...... Top dog. ”

Since he used the mercenary group to disguise his identity, Byron was naturally the head of the group. His subordinates were all awkward when they changed their names, but Amani was quick to change his words, and he reacted differently from this difference. It can be seen that the proximity is sparse:

Compared with those subordinates who have changed their words and followed Byron all the year round, Amani is obviously separated from Byron by a layer, not Byron's descendant, but because of this operation.

Observing this, Lin An's eyes flashed slightly:

It seems about what happened in Paradise Island. Byron knows whether the details are still in doubt, after all, if she is Amani and gets hundreds of thousands of gold coins, in order to conceal it, there will definitely be a lot of concealment and embellishment in the reported information.

And in Lin An's intentional perception, she didn't feel that Amani had too much reverence and loyalty to Byron under the surface of respect. It seems that Amani did not put his affection for the organization on Byron.

“…… The Lop Nur Pass is relatively low on the periphery of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and the mountains on the periphery of the Sumisipi Basin block the cold wave to the north. The vegetation here is dense, the four seasons are green, and there are still many non-freezing mountain streams in winter, but at the same time, the distribution of monsters is also very dense.

In the past two years, because of the eruption of the demon source, many new demonic beasts have been born in Rocky Mountain. The area around the pass has increased unabated, so the danger of entering the mountain has been much greater in the past two years. Even the mercenary regiments, which are stationed at the Lop Nur Pass all year round, often hear about casualties. ”

On the way into the mountain, Amani whispered something about the vicinity of the Lop Nur Pass.

Lin An knew that Byron had already sent someone to explore the neighborhood, and Amani's explanation was undoubtedly for them, but she looked sideways and saw that Byron was also listening with relish, and Ron seemed to remember his duties at this time, and from time to time checked and filled in the gaps in Amani's introduction.

Although he said that he wanted to hide his identity, Byron and Lin An were undoubtedly surrounded in the middle to protect, Byron saw Lin An's expression looking at him while walking, and looked up and smiled at Lin An, the prince's unique bearing made him stand out in the crowd even if he was wearing mercenary clothes:

"Lynn, what's the matter?"

"You...... You didn't have a lot of love before, but now you seem to be interested again? Lin An replaced the habitual title.

"You can see it,"

Byron smiled again, his white teeth made his smile look very healthy, as if after leaving the environment of the imperial capital, a certain temperament of his was opened, and his later words were transmitted with a vindictive spirit:

"I'm not afraid of your ridicule when I say it, in fact, I myself yearn for the mercenary life, but because of my identity, when I became an adult, except for patrolling the fiefdom every five years and a limited number of two or three short trips, I spent most of my first half of my life in the imperial capital.

Sometimes I really envy your life, and I can put down a qiē at any time and set foot on the whole continent - but this kind of talk is not easy to spread, and I am afraid that it will make people ridicule and not know the suffering. ”

His tone was relatively relaxed, like a casual tone, but Lin An could feel a trace of depression in his feelings at the moment.

Byron's disappointment is not a matter of a day or two, and Lin An doesn't think that Byron will spread out his situation in front of her, a person who has not been friends for a long time, so the trace of depression hidden under his relaxed tone may be related to the situation before he left the fleet.

Thinking of the information he got from Lancet and the seizure of Byron's power to lead the army, Lin An vaguely felt that the emperor was playing a game of chess, but he couldn't see the emperor's intentions clearly.

And Byron was tacitly approved by the emperor at this time to go on an expedition with her, which was tantamount to being kicked out of the chess game by the emperor, no wonder he was not in his mind, it was difficult to be depressed, and even she, an outsider, felt that Byron's neglect was too unfair:

Look at it with talent. Byron is not inferior to Charles, and even in Lin An's opinion, Byron's tenacity and steadiness under forbearance are more suitable for that position than Charles or even Odin.

"Fish already have the whole ocean, so why envy the vastness of the sky?" Lin An said lightly.

Byron's expression moved slightly, "I'm afraid that he thinks he has the ocean, but in fact it's just a pond." ”

"Whether it's the ocean or the pond itself varies from person to person, and even those who are born in ponds are much luckier than those who are born in silt and smelly water. If I were that fish. He will first manage his own pond, and then wait for the opportunity to wash him into the rivers, lakes and seas when the heavy rain comes. Lin An said unhurriedly.

"Do you think this fish will have such a chance?" Byron said after a moment of silence.

"I don't know," Lin An said indifferently. "Fate is full of unpredictable possibilities, maybe the opportunity will never come, maybe it will come in the next moment, always stretch your neck too long, maybe not wait for the opportunity to come. The fish had sunburned. ”

"I originally thought the same way, and I always did it, but when it came to the end, I found that I was still unwilling."

Byron couldn't say these words, and he thought about them in his heart, but Lin An's words coincided with his philosophy. This made Byron feel a sense of relief, and at the same time, he slowly sorted out his mind, because he couldn't calm down beforehand. Gradually stabilize dìng.

He and Lin An looked at each other and smiled, and the defensive gap in his heart that had risen because of this operation had weakened by two points.

……

While Lin An was discussing the topic of fish with Byron, a three-inch-thick door with cast-iron plywood was kicked open in one of the secret rooms of the rock fort, and Odin, dressed in a crimson cloak, strode in through the doorway.

The man sitting in the high-backed chair was jolted to his feet by the loud noise. But he tripped under his feet in a panic, and almost fell to the ground with a thud with the heavy high-backed chair.

The man in the secret room looked at Odin as he walked in, with a hint of panic.

If Lin An is here. You will be surprised to find that the man locked in the secret room is more than ninety percent similar to Odin's face, the two are like twin brothers, relatively speaking, Odin's face when he walks in the door is thin and pale, if you judge from the appearance alone, the one locked in the secret room is more similar to Odin in Lin An's impression.

But as long as you look at the momentum of the two people when they face each other, it is not difficult for a discerning person to tell who is the real Odin-

Although the faces of the two are as similar to the real people and projections inside and outside the mirror, the fake is the fake, when the stand-in appears alone, relying on the etiquette training and imitation of the bearing, the stand-in can barely hide the rock castle, but as long as the real Odin appears, the domineering momentum that he has cultivated for more than 30 years as the first heir to the throne has the pressure to bow the head of the most unruly sergeant with a single gaze, and the weak-willed person stands in front of Odin, and he will involuntarily kneel on the ground with weak legs, This is something that a stand-in can't do.

And as long as he is a sergeant who has served in the army, no one will mistakenly recognize Odin's iron blood and ruthless aura that is unique to soldiers.

The two rows of teeth on the stand-in trembled slightly, and he tried his best to stand tall and resolute, so as not to let the fear in his heart leak out.

Because he knew that Odin disliked him the most about wearing the same face like a coward - when Odin came to the rock castle to meet him for the first time, the frightened double once fell to his knees in fear and begged for mercy, but the lesson he learned made the double never want to think about it again.

Odin's indifferent gaze fell on the stand-in, hooking his lips into a smile full of the smell of a gloomy.

"The commendation of the Sumisipi Palace has come, do you know why? Because I captured a little guy half a month ago, and then led my troops to slaughter a quarter of the population of that little guy's tribe - all of them were young and strong, and there was not a single one left. ”

The stand-in was shocked.

Of course, he understood what Odin meant:

In a Ponto tribe, the proportion of young and strong people accounts for up to one-third, that is already a very prosperous tribe, and the slaughter of a tribe's young and strong is equivalent to the entire tribe losing all the combat power to resist foreign enemies, this can only be a one-sided slaughter, behind a quarter of the young and strong, there are more old and weak women and children who were slaughtered in the fear and panic brought by the war!

Odin's words mean that in the short period of half a month that the stand-in was imprisoned, he exterminated a criminal tribe.

But this is not the reason for the tremor of the stand-in, the life and death of the savage tribe of Ponto has nothing to do with him, the reason why he is shaking is that the scene is not in the script given to him by the Supreme, and Odin did not only do it. And the first time to report the battle exploits, and the meaning of the commendation order is equivalent to the fact that the supreme who was far away in the palace of Sumisipi already knew the fact that Odin left the place where he should be, and his real body appeared in the rock castle!

The stand-in looked at Odin in shock, he didn't understand the meaning of Odin's actions, but he knew that the cloud of death seemed to be hanging over his head.

“…… I have made a great contribution to the Empire, but unfortunately, in the midst of frequent fierce battles. I was also unexpectedly hit hard and dying. ”

The stand-in was stunned for a moment, and subconsciously looked at Odin, who was unharmed.

But a white light flashed before his eyes. Odin pulled out the long sword that had slaughtered countless lives in the expedition and the smell of blood lingered, and the stand-in only felt a sharp pain in his abdomen, and looked down at the big hole where the blue and black intestines could almost be seen flowing out, and his eyes were black, and he fell straight down.

"Come in."

Odin wiped his blood-dripping sword with a blank face. Behind the hidden door, a mage entered.

The mage was not surprised to see the stand-in lying in a pool of blood, and after squatting down to stop the bleeding, he took out several medicines from the skin pouch around his waist and performed on the stand-in, the pain caused the stand-in to let out several groans of sharp pain in the coma, and the wound in his abdomen also flowed blue and black blood. It emits some kind of rotten stench.

"His Royal Highness was severely injured by a traitor, and his body was poisonous, and he was unconscious most of the time. It is only occasionally possible to regain one's senses, and it is not advisable to move at present, and it is not advisable to see people lightly, so as not to suffer further damage or aggravate the injury. ”

The mage stood up and said calmly.

Odin's gaze fell on the stand-in on the ground. Nodding in satisfaction, a hint of gloomy excitement flashed in the corner of his eye. He said to the mage, "I'll leave it to you next." ”

"Your Highness, rest assured, I will definitely live up to my mission!" The mage placed his hand on his left chest, where there was a non-obvious eagle crest, "—swear by the glory of Gibran!" ”

That night, the second snow fell in the rock castle after the beginning of winter.

The snowflakes were like pure white flakes, covering the earth with snow, but the rock castle was like a boiling summer.

Although the celebration banquet was clouded by the injury of His Royal Highness Odin, because the injury had not yet been reported, most people only knew that Odin was unable to attend due to injury, but this flaw did not reduce the fiery atmosphere at the celebration banquet.

At this time, in a remote corner gate in the corner of the rock fort, a figure wearing a thick cloak dodged into a small carriage carrying vegetables parked outside the door.

The coachman, who had a red rosacea, burped half-drunk, as if he didn't feel that someone was coming on the car, and with a flick of his horsewhip and the caravan came to the city gate, and the soldier guarding the gate smiled and took the bottle of wine thrown by the coachman and hid it in his arms, glanced at the coachman, did not bother to check, and waved his hand to let him pass.

"Your Highness, I am offended."

As soon as Odin got into the car, one of the people waiting in the car took out some bottles and cans, and after Odin nodded lightly, he carefully made a gesture on Odin's face.

Odin didn't pay attention to the changes in his face, and when the man stopped, he took the cylinder the thickness of the other man's finger and opened it with a specific method, and when he saw the contents of the paper hidden in the cylinder, his eyes were cold.

"Retreat? And a retreat with all the people who are associated with her? No one has seen any of them since eleven days ago? ”

Odin's voice was as cold as ice.

"Your Highness......"

Although he knew that he should advise the lord to focus on the more important matter at this time, but in Odin's cold gaze, the subordinate did not dare to speak at all, and his heart trembled slightly.

Odin stared at the contents of the paper for a long time, as if he could make a hole in it.

"I want to know where she is."

Odin coldly burst out these words, retracted his gaze, his face became cold and calm again, and then said lightly, "The original plan remains the same. ”

"Yes!" The subordinates were shocked.

……

The routes he traveled along were all explored, and Ron was surprised to find that Amani had arrived at his own home, bypassing the territory of many monsters, leaving him useless, as if he were completely redundant.

But Ron understood Lin An's intentions at this time.

He looked at the two sides who seemed to walk together in harmony, and when they moved, they both showed good strength, but Ron found his position from the previous overwhelm, and consciously followed John's side, never leaving, and from time to time whispered about the situation near the path he had walked.

John also deliberately or unintentionally blocked his view and the aftermath of the battle, and Ron looked around to carefully note the signs on the road. During the break, he secretly sat down in a hidden place from time to time to mark, and two days later, for the first time, he walked into the depths of the Lop Nur Pass unscathed, without even moving his hand once.

Because they avoided the normal path into the mountain, the group did not encounter any outsiders along the way, and the lone demonic beast they occasionally saw was also wiped out in the outpost fire, and when the main force arrived, only a corpse remained.

But it was not without accidents, one of the more dangerous ones was when he encountered a sneak attack by a group of more than fifty earth-based demon apes.

According to Ron and Amani, this may be a group of newly split branches from deep mountain populations. The group inadvertently broke into each other's newly occupied territory.

Fortunately, when the demon ape attacked tentatively, only seven or eight male apes in their prime were dispatched, and Lin An's perception was keenly prompted early. didn't let the demon ape's first sneak attack succeed.

Later, the demon ape launched two or three more attacks, but soon after it stopped inexplicably, and the entire population of fifty or sixty demon apes with an average of four or five orders or more appeared on the big trees in all directions, leaving only a gap in the southeast, and the demon apes squatting on the trees, which were already as tall as a man in the prime of life, stared at this group of uninvited guests for a moment.

Most of the people in the group also broke out in a cold sweat. Although he didn't know why the demon ape had suspended his attack, he was still a little scared when he escaped from the gap in that encirclement under the leadership of Lin An.

It's not that their group can't defeat this group of demon apes, but under the siege of this group of demon apes, they will have to pay a lot of casualties to annihilate them, and there will definitely be attrition at that time. And even Byron will be heartbroken by the damage to his subordinates.

"This demon ape has always lived deep in the mountains. The last time I was here, it was the territory of a group of dreadclawed beasts. ”

Amani explains to Byron.

Ron patted his chest and said in fear, "It's good that we didn't have time to kill a demon ape, otherwise they wouldn't have let us go with the vengeance of this kind of demonic beast." ”

"You're talking about my weird things too, in general. Although this demon ape mainly eats plants, its individual is very fierce. The invaders of the territory never let go, and this time they retreated for some reason. "Amani is also weird.

"Is it a natural predator? I remember that there seemed to be a small group of brain-eating eagles living on the mountain, and they liked to open the braincase of the juvenile ape and eat it by digging out the brain marrow inside. Ron said.

"Maybe." Amani wasn't sure either, he didn't seem to hear the Brain Eater's flight and scream, but it was probably just too nervous to notice.

Everyone was a little frightened, and after leaving the territory of the earth demon ape for a long distance, they stopped to discuss for a while, and then bypassed it far away and continued to set off towards their destination.

When Lin An was discussing with Ron, he glanced to the east, intentionally or unintentionally:

Since that time Lin An discovered Titi's peeping through the medium of plants by feeling, Titi seems to have learned a lesson and no longer peeps at her in that way that is very obvious everywhere, after going deep into the mountains and forests this time, the feeling of being peeped at along the way has not been for a while, and when Lin An went to feel it, it quickly disappeared again.

But when they were attacked by the demon ape just now, that feeling appeared for a long time, and it disappeared after they safely exited the demon ape territory, Lin An had a vague instinct that the demon ape's sudden stop attacking was closely related to Titi.

"This bad guy, when he catches it, he must teach him a hard lesson!"

I don't know if I felt Lin An's thoughts, and the frequency of peeping after that decreased a lot, which made Lin An faintly worried.

Because even if she noticed it, Titi only ran to peep at her again after a few days of separation, and now suddenly reduced the frequency, Lin An wondered if it was because of some damage it had suffered when it stopped the demon ape before.

……

Two days later, in a small town outside the Lop Nur Pass.

After the boss of the "Guns and Fire" mercenary group and a group of elites disappeared for a day without returning, they finally attracted the attention of the members of the mercenary group, and the owner of the inn where Lin An and the others used to stay felt that something was wrong, because he knew best where the people of "Guns and Fire" had gone.

The people of the "Hammer" mercenary group were anxious about their companion's injury, and when they returned to the town, they didn't have time to find the shopkeeper's bad luck, and when they settled their companions and remembered the shopkeeper, they found that the inn was empty.

When I inquired in the town, someone said that he had seen the shopkeeper carrying a bag and hitchhiking with a small caravan to the city to buy goods, and before leaving, he went to the tavern for a drink.

Just when the "Hammer" was angry, they didn't know that a rumor began to circulate in the town:

It is said that there is a secret treasure near the Lop Nur Pass!

The boss of the "Guns and Fire" mercenary group secretly obtained the treasure map and quietly entered the mountain with a core, while the "Hammer" mercenary group got the news out of nowhere, and was secretly searching for the "guns and fire" people, wanting to know the details from the other party......

It is also said that the boss of "Guns and Fire" has already made a copy of the treasure map, which is hidden in a secret compartment in the mercenary group's station......

The mixed town gradually became in a commotion, and with the flow of people in and out, the news began to slowly spread outward.

(To be continued)

ps：

Thank you, galaxy far, far away, for the big pink ticket! o(n_n)o~

Anyway, there has been a lot of foreshadowing before, do you know what Odin is going to do?