The rain was pouring down, the air was cold and damp, and the climate of the Ice City was as cold as his name suggested, even in spring.

Nedra rode his horse down the road on the outskirts of the city, with a large burden tied to him, and he kept whipping his horse all the way, and from his countenance he seemed to be in a hurry.

A gust of wind blew, and fine raindrops crackled down on his face, and the rain on his face ran down his wrinkled cheeks, soaking his long white whiskers into a stream.

He was walking on a deserted forest path. The trail was rough and rarely walked, and the rain made it particularly muddy, and despite Nedla's constant scolding, his old horse kept running slower.

Suddenly, the horse's feet slipped, and Nedra and the horse fell into the dirt, scattering the contents of the baggage.

"Wow......! Damn it!" Nedra's right arm landed under him as he landed heavily, and when he shouted it, his mind was swallowed up in excruciating pain.

It took him a while to roll on the ground before he regained some of his senses. He looked sideways at his right arm and gasped.

It seemed that his old bones could no longer withstand such an impact, and his right arm was folded outward, apparently broken.

"I should have slaughtered your dead horse!" He yelled, but the poor horse didn't understand, and just collapsed and looked innocently at Nedla.

"It's really abominable! this kind of thing is a waste of my mana......" Seeing that Nedra did not panic, he rolled up his right sleeve with his left hand, gritted his teeth in pain and put his right arm in place, and then raised his left hand, palmed his right elbow, and closed his eyes.

Nedra held this motion for a few seconds, and then his left palm began to glow with a faint golden light, while his right elbow began to turn purple and gradually emit steam, as if it were very hot.

After a while, he slowly opened his eyes, raised his right arm, and moved around the air a few times, and it turned out that he was already healed!

He glanced at the old horse, who had collapsed to the ground, his front hooves sprained, and could no longer continue his journey. Helplessly, he frowned, got up and started the same spell on the horse.

Nedra is an old wizard. He is over 70 years old, but he is still in good health thanks to his long-term practice of witchcraft and mana maintenance.

All the while, he lived in the Ice City. Although the climate in this northern capital is somewhat cold, it has a thriving trade, all kinds of supplies, and several wizarding organizations, and Nedra can often communicate with his peers, and life is not comfortable.

But just last month, strange things started to happen.

The wizards of Nedra's wizarding organization, the Order of the Crown, have disappeared one after another, and so far there have been five of them, and the bodies of two of them have been found in two separate wilderness areas on the outskirts of the city a few days ago. According to rumors, both bodies were directly pierced through the chest by a sharp sword, and the technique was clean, killing them with one move.

This frightened Nedra. He believed in his heart that the other three missing people were likely to have the same killers earlier, but they had not yet been discovered.

Nedra has a good relationship with these people, and usually has close contacts, he has the impression that these people do not have any enemies, and now they have been killed one after another, the greatest possibility is ...... It's because of "that thing".

It was a day half a year ago, and Hugh, another member of the "Soul Society", one of the three remaining missing, knocked on Nedra's door. At the time, Nedra was playing cards with her neighbors at home.

"Lao Nei, I have something to tell you. Hugh gasped, looking like he was on his way.

"What's the matter, in a hurry. "Nedra still has a handful of cards in his hand.

Hugh stretched out his head to look inside the room, and there were four or five other people inside, presumably all of Nedra's card friends, teasing each other and laughing.

"There are a lot of people here, it's inconvenient to speak, you come out for a while. Hugh looked cautious.

"Huh?" Nedra looked disdainful, but still took two steps out the door with him, "What the hell are you doing, mysterious?"

"That's right," Hugh said in a low voice, leaning closer to Nedra, "the president wants to invite you to help him catalyze a demon. ”

"What?!" Nedra's mouth opened wide in surprise, and he immediately lowered his voice, "The demon spirit is a taboo in our wizarding world! What does the president want it to do? I can't do this job, I have an old bone, and my mana is also weakened, you better let him find something young and strong." With that, he waved his hand and turned to enter the house.

"Don't worry, old Ne," Hugh grabbed Nedra's arm, "You don't have to worry about mana, your mana will increase greatly after catalysis." The president has already gotten the magic chip, and he just wants to borrow your technology, and it will definitely not consume your mana. ”

Hearing the words magic chip, Nedra instantly stopped and turned around, "Are you serious?"

"Of course, when did I lie to you?" Hugh continued, "and not only that, but the president has prepared a good reward for you. He took out a small box from the burden on his back and opened it gently, revealing rows of neat gold bars.

Although Nedra had a thousand voices in his heart admonishing him: "Don't go, don't go", he left everything behind as the dazzling golden light flashed in his eyes.

"You wait, I'll pack up and leave right away. Nedra replied.

Nedra pulled her mind back to reality.

He regretted it very much, because he knew from the beginning that it was never a good thing to involve demon spirits, and he didn't want to get involved, but he didn't expect that in the end, he still didn't resist the temptation of money and was involved.

And just a few months ago, there were rumors among the people, and some people claimed to have seen the demon race that was exterminated more than ten years ago!

Although it was only gossip at the moment, and most people did not believe it, thinking that some ill-intentioned people were alarmist, Nedra knew in her heart that this might not be groundless, and that it was most likely related to the demons he was involved in catalyzing. And this is most likely the reason for the disappearance of those wizards.

Now, if his speculation is correct, the murderer's target may soon be his turn.

The missing people are all wizards with strong spells in the organization, and they can be fatal to them with such a cold weapon, and the murderer must be a professional killer with extremely strong swordsmanship, if this person finds him, he must also be in danger.

Therefore, he chose to flee immediately. Even if the weather is bad, he will speed up the most remote paths and disappear from the city as quickly as possible.

However, it seems that God was not favored by him.

By the time Nedra forged the horse's leg, he was already out of breath. Obviously, casting two spells in a row in such a short period of time was too much consumption for his age.

Suddenly, he vaguely felt something moving not far behind him, and he quickly turned back, but saw nothing but a misty drizzle.

But he didn't dare to let his guard down. Years of witchcraft practice had made his senses very sensitive, and coupled with the fact that he was already on the run, his nerves were extremely tense. Nedra was sure that he was right, that there was someone around him at this moment, and that he knew that he was not seeing half a figure, which made him even more frightened.

"How can you deal with an assassin who can quickly make up for it and hide it so perfectly after being detected......" Nedra tried to come up with a solution, but found that his brain was empty, and his extreme nervousness prevented him from thinking.

He stood still, his eyes constantly scanning around, in a posture of preparedness, but he felt his muscles stiffen in panic.

However, as a wizard, he lacks enough experience in melee combat, and he neglects a very important position, which is above his head.

As Nedra cautiously stared at the gaps in the leaves in the forest, she suddenly heard the "rustling" of the leaves overhead, accompanied by a gust of wind.

Before he could raise his head, he felt a chill in his neck, and a glittering dagger rested on his throat, and the other party was already standing behind him.

"Wait...... Wait!" Nedra raised his hands in surrender, he didn't dare to look back, and stammered, "Your Excellency...... Calm down first, what is the misunderstanding of me...... Let's talk ......."

"Your name is Nedra?" the voice behind him was low, cold, but clear.

“...... That's right...... Your Excellency, ......?" Nedra searched his mind for the best answer, but only uttered that.

"Where did the door open?"

Nedra felt a chill in his heart, and sure enough, it was related to "that incident", and he knew that today was bad luck. Nowadays, it is impossible to fool the past, only to fight to the death.

Seeing that Nedra did not respond, the other party tightened his short sword, cut the blood out of Nedra's neck, and at the same time leaned close to his ear, and said viciously: "Let me ask you again, where is the Alien Gate? This is your last chance." ”

At this moment, Nedra suddenly let out a loud shout, his eyes shot out of golden light, his body was extremely hot, and instantly sent out a super powerful shock wave around his body.

This time he gathered all the mana in his body, and it exploded in an instant, and it was extremely powerful, directly flicking away the opponent's sword that strangled his throat, and at the same time, the opponent was also shocked back several meters.

Nedra turned to face the Assassin, but to his surprise, the other man looked very different from what he had expected.

It was only a young man of eighteen or nineteen years old, tall and sturdy, wearing a suit of light soft armor on his upper body, and a short sword in his hand that was shining silver and looked extremely sharp.

The man did not cover his face, and on his angular face, a pair of deep eyes were bright. Nedra also noticed a diamond-shaped scar on his forehead.

The man covered his chest with his hands and bent over with a pained expression, looking like he was defenseless against the shockwave that Netra had just had, and was in pain. At this time, Nedra only regretted that the previous two spell healing spells had consumed mana, otherwise this blow would have seriously injured the opponent.

"Who are you, and why do you know about the Alien Gate?" asked Nedra, feeling that she was in control of the situation. At the same time, his hands were open, and his palms were gathering golden light, ready to cast the next spell.

I saw that the man rubbed his chest, and quickly stood up straight, and did not speak, but raised his head and stared at Neidra with a wicked smile.

Nedra sneered at the other side. Suddenly, he felt the light and shadow flickering in front of him, and before he could see it clearly, there was a sudden coolness in his chest, followed by a sharp pain that rushed to his brain, and the blood in his whole body seemed to be devoured by his heart at a rapid pace.

He knew he had been struck.

The man's movements were so fast, so fast that he didn't even have time to react, so fast that the condensed magic ball in his hand couldn't be launched. This sword is so accurate, it hits the heart, pierces it with one blow, and is unbelievably cold.

His limbs were losing sensation, his body was falling backwards, and he felt like he was falling into the abyss. The scene in front of me began to blur, and the field of vision began to darken.

Before entering the endless darkness, he heard the cold but incomparably clear voice again: "My name is Joel. ”

It was the last voice Nedra heard in her life.

Then there is eternal silence.