Outside Black Hawk City more than a month ago, Ian, Flynn and Andrew, followed by Zach, the eldest of them, gathered in the "secret base" again.

Zach is seventeen years old and has been taking care of several of them since he was nine years old, with a warm and resolute personality, and is their "parent". Ian is three years younger than Zach, and Andrew and Flynn are the youngest, one is ten years old and the other is only nine. Zach said they were all his younger brothers and sisters he picked up.

Childhood abandonment is all too common in the slums. Ian still remembers that when he was six years old, he followed his "uncle" to the imperial capital, and in the blink of an eye, the "uncle" was gone, leaving him helplessly walking and crying in the slum until he met Zach.

"Come, come, I'll show you my new sword skills!" Zach smugly raised the tattered dagger in his hand and shouted to his companions.

"What kind of sword skills, you don't know how to think like the captain of the guard, what's there to see......" Flynn pouted and sat on a large rock, her little feet dangling boringly. Speaking of the captain of the guard, her face was full of admiration for the hero: "The captain of the guard is so handsome......"

"Little girl, what do you know, you have to practice the basic skills before you can exert your true strength!" Zack reprimanded in an adult tone.

"Probably going to the training ground to peek at the sergeants training again, right?" Andrew, who was a full seven years younger than Zack, smiled but pierced mercilessly.

"Zach, come one!" Ian shouted encouraging.

"Okay, look at the sword!" Zach pressed the short sword to his waist, pretending to have a scabbard, and "pulled" the sword from his waist, then held the sword in both hands and began to swing it. At first, it was quite decent, a bit of a discipline, but after a few moves, it gradually became messy, and in the end it was just a random slash.

With a "click", the short sword slashed into the trunk of the tree, and Zach didn't pull it out, his hand slipped, and he fell to the ground, causing Flin and them to laugh.

"Uhhhhh

The sound ......of the horn startled the birds in the forest, and all kinds of birds flew up in unison and fled into the distance. Something seems to be going on in the forest, which makes people and animals feel uneasy. The boys stopped playing, and Flin jumped off the rock, looking up at the birds in the sky.

Before anyone could speak, a second horn sounded. This time the sound seemed to be closer, but the direction of the source was still unrecognizable.

"Let's go!" Zach took off his dagger from the tree, shouting and gesturing for everyone to leave through the secret passage.

But as soon as he was about to get close to the entrance of the cave, Zach stopped. A demon wolf scurried in out of nowhere, looking around uneasily. It spotted the teenagers and immediately bared its teeth and demonstrated to them.

The Demon Wolf is only slightly larger than the normal wolf, but it contains a magic element in its body, which can emit small amounts of magic energy, so it is classified as a separate species of "Demon Wolf". They have always been nocturnal and seem to have been shaken out of their burrows by the sound of the horn.

"Cut ......," Zach spat out, "What shit luck!" and then raised his voice and shouted to his companions, "I'll open the way, you follow me!"

Andrew helped Frynn, who was already frightened, and slowly leaned behind Zach not far behind, and Ian had already touched the side of the entrance to the secret passage, clutching the stones he had picked up on the ground in his hands.

Zach slowly shifted his footsteps, lunging forward, swinging his sword at the wolf's head.

The demon wolf squeezed to the side with a clever leap, and as soon as he dodged Zack's sword, he opened his mouth and bit it. The ground was still shaking, and after Zack threw all his strength into the air, he didn't stand firm under his feet, and he caught a glimpse of the demon wolf biting him, and quickly turned around and blocked with his sword.

I only heard a crisp sound of "click", and the short sword was bitten off by the response.

With only one sword left in his hand, Zack fell backwards to the ground.

Seeing that the wolf's mouth was about to bite him, the stone in Ian's hand arrived. "Whew" There was a wail, and the huge stone hit the eye of the demon wolf on Ian's side, and the injured eye immediately bled non-stop. The demon wolf was in pain, and took a step back diagonally, but instead of running away, he became more and more furious, and the orange-yellow light of the demon pattern on his body loomed.

Andrew, who was behind Zack, thought that Zack and Ian had made the demon wolf back down, and wanted to come up and help Zack up.

"Don't come here!" Zach yelled as soon as he heard the footsteps behind him, but it was still too late.

At this time, the magic patterns on the demon wolf's body glowed with a dazzling red light, as if the skin was about to be scalded by lava.

"Roar" - accompanied by the roar of the demon wolf, seeing the fire shining in its open mouth, it seemed that it was about to burst out a huge magic fireball, smashing into Zach and Andrew behind him. Ian was already at a loss, he had nothing left of him. The secret passage was not blocked by the demon wolf, but everyone was still here, how could he just take care of his own life?

hesitated for a moment, but saw Zach shouting "run" and pounced on the devil's mouth with his bare hands.

As soon as he hugged the wolf's head, a huge magic fireball burst out of the wolf's mouth and smashed on Zack. Zach didn't even have a struggling movement, and the withered black began to spread rapidly from his chest that was hit by the magic fireball, and in an instant, the whole person turned into a ball of charcoal and fell to the ground stiffly.

Because of such a close distance, the demon wolf was also injured by his own magic fireball, and he roared and retreated a few steps, and his mouth and nose were also full of blood and broken meat.

"Zach!" Andrew and Flynn exclaimed, and Flynn was already crying.

Ian gritted his teeth, mustered up the courage to rush to the mouth of the secret passage, and shouted, "Run!"

Andrew grabbed Flin and ran towards Ian. But as soon as he took a step, there was a muffled sound of "woo" in the air. Ian was so shocked that his heart was so dizzy that he felt as if his blood was boiling, and his heartbeat was deafening.

He wanted to go to the secret passage again, but Andrew couldn't move. His body was wrapped in a strange blue light, as if there was a huge force controlling him, and the whole person floated.

"Leave me alone, you guys ...... away!" Andrew said, his eyes and mouth bursting with blazing white beams.

Immediately after, more pillars of light burst out of him, and Ian didn't know what it was, but it was by no means a good sign. At this moment, the injured demon wolf pounced on him in a frenzy, as if he had lost the most basic survival instinct, and was disorderly and frenzied.

Not only the demon wolf, Ian just felt that the whole forest and the whole valley were going crazy.

He covered his ears, not wanting to hear the rumbling and roaring tremors, nor the crazy whining, but even more afraid of the terrible and strange howls of the birds and beasts around him.

The demon wolf pounced on Andrew in mid-air, the two beings were surrounded by blue and blazing white light, and the light and space were chaotic and twisted here, and Ian saw the figures of Andrew and the demon wolf entangled vaguely and distortedly.

Suddenly, several bright rays burst out from the light, as if they could not be contained and were looking for an outlet, and the ground and trees swept by the strong light broke apart. Immediately after, there was an explosion, and Ian was thrust into the trunk of a tree behind him by the air current, knocking his eyes with gold stars and his throat sweet.

He vaguely saw that Flynn was also shocked and flew seven or eight steps away, lying motionless on the ground at the moment, I don't know if she fainted.

When the dust settled, Ian opened his eyes wide and tried to find Andrew, but there was still his shadow, and it was still the damn demon wolf standing in the dust mist. As his gaze froze, Ian felt his blood freeze: the wolf's body was still there, but its head was gone, and Andrew's upside-down head was attached to his neck. Andrew's body, on the other hand, is gone.

At this time, "Andrew" also opened his eyes and said two words to Ian in a weak but strangely unfamiliar voice: "Run......"

Ian's brain couldn't function and think anymore, but he hadn't forgotten about Flynn yet. He turned and threw himself at Flynn's limp body, trying to pull her up, only to find that it was Flynn's body that was pulling up. Her head had been neatly chopped off from her neck.

"Ah——!h

Fear, boredom, despair, loneliness, fear, exhaustion, countless negative emotions descended on the boy together, destroying his nerves, which were about to collapse. He wanted to raise his hands to cover his eyes, but he saw that his hands were also glowing with a pale blue light, exactly like what appeared on Andrew's body.

Am I going to die, too?" Ian thought, staring at his hands in a daze.

But the light only softly wrapped and wrapped around his hands, and then dissipated after a while.

Seeing that the demon wolf was like a specimen and had no intention of moving again, Ian, whose brain was blank, stood up and staggered towards the secret passage. The surrounding mountains and forests were still trembling, as if they were earthquakes. Accompanied by the miserable roars of countless birds and beasts, it is like a sonata of the end of the world. Ian's mind had come to a standstill, and with his body's instinct he stumbled into the secret passage and escaped the valley.

Behind him, were the corpses, wreckage, and mutations of his brothers and sisters, and there was nothing he could do but let them stay there.