By the first rays of the sun on the fertile plains, Kohler's guards were already at work, some packing their bags, others busy saddling their mounts and stirrups – and one day they would be able to leave the land barren by the harassment of the beasts and enjoy delicious food and comfortable beds in the city.

"Be natural," Rhaegar said as he looked at the busy crowd with a blank expression, and said in a voice so light that only Colar, who was close to him, could have guessed what you were thinking. ”

Corral didn't speak, he just turned his face and stared at the geist with his bloodshot eyes, then took a deep breath and strode towards his men.

"Sharp, you lazy fellows," cried the knight, "if anyone is delayed, I promise that even if we get to the city, he'll have to spend the night in the wasteland." ”

If you look at the map, the Plain of Abundance is undoubtedly the most prosperous area in the interior of the Empire, and it is bordered on all sides by the four richest provinces of the Empire, and the large and small cities surround it like the stars and the moon. In reality, however, there was a more or less empty space between Kohler's domain and the rest of the region, where there were no towns and where no man was stationed except for a few inhabitants, neither the Empire nor the Kohler realm.

The official explanation for its existence is to reassure the lords by declaring that the Empire has no intention of doing anything for the actual territories, but on the other hand, they also isolate the territories to a considerable extent, making them islands on land, and the Empire has enough time to react if the owners of these realms have bad intentions and attack from that direction.

As a buffer zone to the north with the Empire's direct territories, the Kengal Heath has actually been considered a dispensable area for the past decade or so, because everyone knows that His Majesty the Emperor favors his younger brother, and that the Prince has no ambitions, as can be seen from the shape of this buffer zone - the whole wasteland is shown on the map as a narrow strip, and at its narrowest point it is less than twenty kilometers.

"We may be able to save some of them," Corral whispered to Rhaegar before entering the wasteland, "It's only a dozen kilometers from Visennat, and if we go full speed, we should be able to rush through." ”

"If those monsters were just spontaneous hunting teams," Rhaegar said, "there's no doubt about that, but you and I both know it's impossible, and if you remove some other factors that you don't want to face, the mage who controls the beasts will be enough to keep everyone dead without even a bit of dregs." From now on, you have to follow me closely and be ready at all times..."

Rhaegar leaped from his horse, grabbed Collar's belt with one hand, and flew with him into the air, and below them, a dozen black, shiny spikes the size of an adult's arm protruded from the ground without warning, and strung seven or eight horses, including their mounts, and their owners to the ground.

"It's a burrower. Rhaegar didn't stop, he swept through the sky like the wind, and in an instant reached the sky above Kohler's carriage, and the next moment, an invisible hand forcibly lifted the canopy of the carriage, and then grabbed the unconscious prince and rose into the air.

However, a huge attraction came from the ground, causing Rhaegar to leave the air with the two of them in vain, and the spirit only floated in the sky for a few seconds before falling back to the ground under the effect of the opponent's pre-arranged forbidden flight magic.

"Follow me, take care to avoid those black dirt," Rhaegar manipulated the hand of magic to send Colar and the prince dozens of meters away, "that's where the Drillers lurk, and once they dork, they can't move. He quickly applied a few secondary spells to the knight who was carrying Kohler on his back, and then turned up the power of the detection magic to the maximum, and in an instant he detected the monsters that had been ignored because of their hidden magic.

The Driller's attack on the Guardians was nearing its end, and about half of the Drillers were lucky enough to break out of the lurking range of those terrible killers, who were slow to burrow into the ground beforehand, passively waiting for the prey to find the Driller on its head and poking its spikes out of the ground several times, and after finding that they could not reach anything other than air, they reluctantly stopped hunting and began to enjoy the prey they had captured.

The originally flat ground suddenly cracked a dozen large holes silently, dozens of thick tentacles stretched out from the black holes, entangled the fallen horses and guards, dragged them in, and then closed them again, in the blink of an eye, those scattered broken limbs and internal organs, as well as the blood all over the ground were gone, and the ground returned to its original cleanness, as if nothing had happened.

"Everybody watch your step," Corral couldn't remain silent after all, and the knight, who had already made his way through the Driller's range, instructed his men in a loud voice, "Avoid those black grounds." ”

A tremor of the earth came from afar as he spoke, and then a loud sound like thunder reached the ears of the people from beyond the distant horizon.

"Get out of here," Rhaegar said hastily to Corral, "you can't save anyone, not even the Prince will die here." He cast another acceleration spell on himself and the knight, and without looking back, ran away from the sound from which it came.

Corral hesitated slightly, he didn't want to leave behind those men who had already escaped the sniping of the Drillers, but he knew very well that Rhaegar was right, there were only two possibilities for that terrible noise, either the number of upcoming monsters, or the opponent was a behemoth taller than a mountain, in either case, his strength alone could not save anyone.

"Spread out as much as you can, take a detour back to the territory from other places. This reminder was the only thing the knight could do for his men at the moment, and Kolar, carrying Kohler, began to follow Rhaegar on his back.

By magic, their speed was increased to faster than that of their horses, and a few minutes later, Kolar, who was already far away from his men, heard the thunderous roar of the beast behind him, and the screams of his companions.