The snow in Scorpion Valley drifted overnight until the first rays of morning light pierced the sky the next morning.

Elbuck Volcano stands at the northernmost tip of the Scorpion Valley, towering above the sky from its southern foothills, with a white valley basin in front of it and a moon-cold plateau in the background, as far as the walls of giants in the background.

The extinct volcano, which is separated by a mountain vein from the Scorpion Valley and the Mooncold Plateau, is said to have fallen into eternal sleep during the Third Age, with the kingdom of humans to the south and the plateau to the north where dwarven clans have settled for generations.

In addition to the steep mountains and perennial snow cover of the extinct volcano itself, the journey from Scorpion Valley to the base of the mountain is also a major hurdle to dissuade the challengers - after all, as many locals have told outsiders, Scorpion Valley is called Scorpion Valley precisely because in the northern part of the valley is infested with snow wolves, sometimes encountering a terrifying creature called the Ice Scorpion.

Some of the explorers who died while climbing the mountain fell off a cliff, while others died at the mouth of a snow wolf before reaching the foot of the volcano, or were attacked by an ice-armored scorpion and never returned to their homeland.

The presence of snow wolves and ice armor scorpions was a big reason why Countess Kalaya had to choose her route carefully. Since setting out from the inn in the direction of the ruins early in the morning, the team has been unblocked, except for the rare encounter of a group of snow wolves who have taken the initiative to attack the inn less than half a minute after leaving the hotel gate, and they have been very fortunate to have encountered no other obstacles.

Thanks to the battle to repel the snow wolves, Finn's party outperformed any of the armed servants brought by Terkes, so much so that Countess Callea did not hesitate to incorporate the young men into the escort that would soon enter the ruins.

Lord Terx didn't want to see someone of lower status steal the limelight from him, but he had no choice but that Fyn and his party had been specially invited from Orlan by himself, and even if he wanted his people to accompany him and Countess Callea deep into the ruins, but in the spirit of not slapping himself in the face, the somewhat cautious blonde lord finally couldn't help but express his dissatisfaction with Countess Calea's approach.

But fortunately, with his talent to graduate from the Violet King Wizarding Academy, Lord Tarks himself was also recognized by the Countess of Calea, and after the battle, he was naturally arranged by the Countess to enter the list of guards after entering the ruins, just like Fain and others.

Countess Callea had only six sets of exploration tools for people outside of the exploration team, and Finn, Lilith, Arya, Camussa, Leah, and Terkes had just made up their share of the six. After the countess's exploration party had gathered their escorts, Telx ordered Douglas, who had not rested all night, to stay in the inn and arrange his followers, and then began their journey from the inn to the ruins with the exploration team and Finn, and finally arrived safely at the ancient ruins that the countess had discovered after a whole morning of walking in the snow.

The ruins discovered by Countess Kalea and her exploration team were located on the back of an inconspicuous cliff at the southwest foot of Mount Elbak, and the people who had arrived here from the inn relied on the markings on the map to pass through a cedar forest, and then repelled a few snow wolves in the cedar forest, only to see that there was a bronze arch built on the rock wall of the cliff on the edge of another clearing that had been covered by the pine forest, and the two doors of the arch had already fallen into the snow in front of the arch under the erosion of wind and snow and time. The scene behind the arch is visible to the crowd as a long corridor that extends into the darkness.

The Countess and several members of the exploration team took out the map to confirm it, and quickly decided that the bronze arch, which had lost its door, was the entrance to the ancient ruins they had found. With an iron longsword in his hand that he had purchased from Orlan's blacksmith shop, Finn stood in the middle of the line and looked up at the bronze arch of the ruins for a while, his brain quickly recalled that when he had explored this place in his previous life, he immediately came to the same conclusion as Countess Kalea, that this place was indeed the entrance to the dwarven ruins in his memory.

"So, now that we're here, what are we waiting for?" Seeing that the destination was in front of her, Leah twisted her neck, which was a little stiff from the weather, moved her arms, looked back at everyone with an excited and interested expression, and then took the first step forward to prepare to be the first to enter the entrance of the ruins.

As soon as the paladin boy with maroon hair took a step forward, Finn immediately reached out and pressed his shoulder with his left hand, which was not holding a sword. Leah sensed that Finn was deliberately stopping him, and immediately half-opened his mouth and blinked, and turned his head to look at Finn again with a puzzled look and asked, "What's wrong, Finn?" ”

"What a presumptuous, my stupid brother." Without waiting for Finn to explain to him, Terkes on the side witnessed Leah's behavior, and then turned his cheek to look at Leah with contempt, sneered and shook his head, and then handed the staff he held with his right hand along the way to his left hand, lowered his body and grabbed a snowball wrapped in stone hearts from the snow, "Look, you still need to improve your knowledge level in all aspects, the ruins of ancient people are not something you can enter and leave as you want." If it hadn't been for your paladin friend who had caught you in time, you'd have been- this is what happened! ”

With that, Telx threw the snowball in his right palm into the bronze arch that served as the entrance to the ruins.

The snowball wrapped in the stone core threw a graceful arc in the snowy mid-air, and then at the moment when it was about to pass through the arch, it suddenly stopped in the air as if it had hit an invisible transparent wall, and then was cut in half by a cold light that brushed straight down from the top of the arch...... (To be continued.) )