readx;?? Located in the northern part of the Brilliant Continent and south of the Boundary Mountains, the Kingdom of West Luo is more of a loose union than a complete kingdom. Pen~Fun~Pavilion www.biquge.info Although most of the other human countries on Olopa practice the feudal system, none of them has such a serious situation of "strong places and weak centers" as the Xiluo Fei Kingdom.

The local lords within the kingdom not only had completely hereditary titles, lands, and official positions, but also had completely independent tax, military, and bureaucratic systems, and even set up checkpoints between several rival lords within the same kingdom, seriously hindering commerce and the flow of people.

In the final analysis, the kingdom of Xiluo is only because of its geographical location too close to the Snowy Federation of the magicians' country, and the noble lords of various places know that they cannot resist alone, not a kingdom that was established without a group, and the royal family of this country is not even the most powerful among these noble lords, but just the product of balancing forces and diplomatic tools for dealing with foreign countries. The majesty of the royal family only existed on the surface, and in reality the influence of the royal family could not leave the royal capital of Smoitons. This is also why since the outbreak of the civil war between several lords in the north that began last year, the royal family of Xiluo is completely unable to act, not only can they not have the power of administrative orders like the royal families of other ordinary kingdoms, but they do not even have the most basic power of adjudication and mediation, the only thing they can do is to pray to the gods of light, before the energy of the kingdom is completely consumed, these lords can feel tired and will stop themselves.

Because the central power is pitifully small, the royal family of Xilofei is also plagued by a very serious problem, that is, a shortage of funds. Originally, it was only natural that the local lords received taxes from the people in their territories and used a portion of them to support the central royal family. However, because the local lords of Xilofe were too strong, they could intercept and withhold the taxes paid to the royal family for various reasonable or unreasonable reasons, and later even blatantly put them into their own pockets, and not a single copper coin flowed into the royal capital, so that there were several starvations in the royal capital of Smonica, not to mention ordinary people, and even members of the royal family were starved to death several times.

In such a situation, the royal family had to find another way to raise funds. The royal family took advantage of Smoniton's location at the confluence of several inland rivers and its convenient transportation to develop commerce. They broke the taboo and started a business with the Snowy Federation, which was supposed to be the enemy, and adopted a very tolerant attitude towards the magicians and alchemists who came from the Far North, making themselves the only window for the Snowy Federation to communicate with the outside world, opening up the north-south freight, and making a lot of money in the trade between the Snowy Federation and the southern merchants. The money earned is used to buy daily necessities such as grain and cotton, and it is basically self-sufficient.

In addition, the kingdom of Silo is famous as a "hot spring paradise", with more than 90 hot springs in the country, of which more than 20 are concentrated near the city of Smoniton. The royal family took advantage of this unique advantage to engage in a "hot spring economy". The city has established a magnificent water diversion system, bringing hot springs from the suburbs to the city, and the whole city has built hundreds of large and small hot spring hotels, which originally served only the merchants who came and went, and later became famous, the powerful and wealthy commoners of all Olopa came to visit, as long as they could give money, the royal family never picked on the guests, and collected them all; This made Smoliton more and more prosperous and the city grew in size.

But in this way, it has also given rise to the emergence of some "side industries". Thieves' guilds, gambling, prostitution, black markets, money laundering, the dregs of society gathered in large numbers in Smoniton, and the city even became the only place in Olopa where opium poppy smoking was legally and openly, and behind each hot spring inn, there was a "rest room" for guests to smoke poppies. The misty hot spring vapor is mixed with a few wisps of enchanting aroma. The opium poppy industry has brought a large amount of income to the royal family, and although the Central Church has repeatedly issued five orders demanding that the royal family of Xilo Fe must ban the opium poppy, who will spoil their own jobs in the face of huge profits? The royal family of Xilofe has turned a blind eye to the repeated warnings of the Central Church and continues to go their own way.

However, no matter how difficult the conditions were, the drugs brought enormous wealth to the vulnerable royal family, but they also laid the root causes. Finally, on this day, retribution came.

In the middle of the night, a tight siren sounded in the royal palace in Smolitton, and then a large group of soldiers rushed out, blockade, intercept, and search from house to house. Ten minutes ago, the most serious palace assassination took place in the palace, and more than 20 people with the blood of the Xiluofei royal family, from the sixty-year-old king to the six-month-old baby, were all killed.

At that time, no one knew what the soldiers were searching for, and the few witnesses only watched a few black shadows moving and leaping rapidly on the streets and rooftops, not looking like human beings, and any soldiers or pedestrians who stood in the way were killed in an instant, and the vital parts of the dead left marks of sharp teeth and claws similar to those of wild beasts.

"Huhuhu......" A large group of cavalry led the hounds and chased desperately. Only the best horses can keep up with the speed of the murderers, and only the best hounds can sniff out the direction of the murderer's absconding. The leader of the pursuers was a knight who had lost his right arm and had a blood-stained bandage around his severed arm. He is the captain of the Royal Guard and the only witness to the true face of the murderer. He knew that the murderer was not human at all, and the moment he staggered by the murderer, they made a hundredth of a second of eye contact, which made him clearly see that the murderer was a huge gray wolf. In that life-and-death confrontation, the captain lost an arm, but his sword left a long sword mark on the giant wolf's stomach. The captain gritted his teeth and pursued wounded, killing the giant wolf, not only to avenge the death of the royal family and fellow guards, but also to avenge the loss of his own arm.

Several hounds stopped at the door of a small bath. The soldiers dismounted, flashed their blades, and rushed into the baths under each other's cover.

However, in the smoky baths, in the steaming small baths, only three young girls bathe naked in the hot water.

"Ah?!" Seeing the strange man suddenly break in, the girls were so frightened that they hugged each other.

"Have you seen any strange creatures come in?" the captain asked the three maidens.

"No, no...... Get out! Men get out!"

The captain looked around the bathhouse, which was too small to hide anyone, let alone a giant wolf. And if a giant wolf had entered, the women would not have bathed so calmly, but if there was no suspicion here, why would the hounds all stop at the door?

With this question in mind, the captain considered whether to let people continue to search the "rest hall" behind the bathhouse, but he did not make up his mind for a while. Just then, the neighing of horses and the barking of dogs suddenly came from outside the door. The captain was shocked and immediately withdrew from the baths with his men.

When he returned to the door, he found that the horses and hounds that had been guarding outside had all been killed. The animals died in the same way as the hapless pedestrians and soldiers, with their tracheas snapping straight through their fangs and suffocating quickly.

"Damn!" the captain scolded.

And just then, he suddenly saw something strange.

Around the corner of the alley, there were two ghostly green dots of light, flickering and faintly, and then suddenly disappearing—they were the eyes of a wolf, and after realizing that the humans were watching him, the wolf turned and ran.

"Chase!" the captain gave an order, leading all the soldiers to chase in the direction of the wolf's escape.

At this moment, the three girls who were holding each other in the bath separated. The frightened and shy expressions on their faces vanished at once, leaving only indifference. After finishing acting, they returned to their original selves.

One of the girls walked out of the pool to the shore. I saw that on her stomach, there was a long and deep sharp weapon scar that had just been scratched. In front of the captain and the soldier just now, the two companions hugged her tightly, not only for the sake of acting, but also to cover up the obvious sword wound.

The maiden took a bathrobe from the hook on the wooden wall, draped it over herself, and then ordered the other two maidens in the back: "There is no time. While the other companions had attracted the attention of those soldiers, we immediately rushed to the rendezvous point. ”