Chapter 4: The Banquet
Ke Zhou slowly walked into the room, and Xiao Liu had been standing on a magic array for a long time. He waited for Ke Zhou to enter the magic array, but Ke Zhou hesitated for a moment and asked:
"You forgot...... Isn't this thing useful to me?" Ke Zhou said, Xiao Liu patted his head, and seemed to remember this question. Immediately after, he quickly ran out of the room, grabbed Ke Zhou, and rushed out of the door in a few steps. At the same time, all kinds of black particles began to appear around them, and they quickly gathered at the door of the huge house, and after ten seconds, a huge black giant eagle appeared in front of the two of them.
"Hurry up, come up, Pippi Eagle, let's go!" Ke Zhou was pulled onto the giant eagle by Xiao Liu, and then, the giant eagle spread its wings violently and flew out like a cannonball.
Ke Zhou only dared to close his eyes and hugged the back of the giant eagle. Diametrically opposed to him is Xiao Liu, who is standing on the giant eagle and giving him all kinds of blessings, and it seems that he attaches some importance to this matter. It's just that Ke Zhou can't figure out why this person must take him, in fact, there is no reason to take him at all.
While he was still thinking about it, the giant eagle had already landed. The huge impact force made him almost faint, after all, flying directly in the air on a giant eagle, and this terrifying way of landing, made him feel a very strong discomfort. He barely rolled off the eagle and fell to the ground, trying to get used to it.
This is the area of the palace where flying mounts are parked, but even such an area is large and boundless, and the mounts are stacked on top of each other like mountains, rising and falling. After Ke Zhou stood up, his eyes straightened, he had never seen such a grand event - griffins, giant eagles, flying snakes...... The various mounts remained quietly in place, as if something terrifying had scared them.
"What's going on with this group of mounts, why do they all look scared?" Ke Zhou turned his head to ask Xiao Liu, but found that Xiao Liu's face was not very good-looking. He looked at Ke Zhou's appearance with a little surprise, "No, even if you can't touch the magic effect, you should be affected by this kind of mental coercion...... Don't you feel it?" Xiao Liu asked as he lowered his head and walked towards the grand building in the distance with Ke Zhou.
Ke Zhou tried to feel this coercion, but there was no response—it was obvious that his special constitution had been resolved along with this so-called "coercion". In other words, it is likely that this coercion is not essentially some kind of momentum, but a special "momentum" created by magic.
And Xiao Liu, after a short period of surprise, seemed to realize this problem, he glanced at the top of the palace with some confusion, then lowered his head and patted Ke Zhou's shoulder, and said seriously: "Even if you can ignore it, now I hope you can pretend to bow your head slightly, after all, this is not my home." After he finished speaking, he took Ke Zhou and continued to move into the distance, Ke Zhou listened, and obediently bowed his head and pretended to be similar to the guests around him - serious, humble, and cautious.
After walking for a while, they came to an entrance to the palace, where there were some guards checking the invitations. But having said that, this inspection is also very lax, basically just let it in at a glance, unless it is for some suspicious people, there is no ability to check at all. For example, when Xiao Liu took Ke Zhou through the inspection place, this group of guards let him go without even looking at the invitation, and didn't even ask him Ke Zhou's identity.
"Is it so lax here......" Ke Zhou secretly asked Xiao Liu next to him, and Xiao Liu also replied in a low voice, "After all, who dares to make trouble here, even if you let it go casually, no one will not be able to think about it, besides, it is better for you to call me Master Xiao or Teacher Xiao here, if someone asks you about your identity, you will say that it is my apprentice, and if you ask your background, you will say that it is an orphan, understand?" After Xiao Liu explained, he simply pinched Ke Zhou's identity - after all, the identity of an orphan is quite a panacea.
Ke Zhou nodded and continued to follow Xiao Liu. The two of them walked through a hall and headed towards an open-air area, where there were a few tables scattered around, and a few people were also seated, all of whom looked about Xiao Liu's age, and looked like the kind of magician-like person. The only difference is that some of them brought people like guards, and some of them didn't.
The guards leaned against the railing, waiting for their master to finish the feast, yawning or squinting slightly, looking at ease with the security measures in place. It's just that in Ke Zhou's opinion, is there really a security measure here? scattered crowds, lazy guards, guards and palace guards who have nothing serious to speak of...... He even felt like he could go wherever he wanted now.
Xiao Liu took Ke Zhou to a table and sat down, there were already some small dishes on the table, he ate some small dishes casually, and then asked the service staff next to him for two glasses of wine, and sat there and waited. Ke Zhou was different from Xiao Liu, he was very interested in everything around him, such as the "necromancy" they were talking about in the distance, or the magical beasts that the guards and mercenaries were discussing on the other side, or the magic that the other maids and servants were discussing to strengthen their physical fitness and make their work easier.
This world is indeed closely related to magic, but in the process of listening to their conversations, Ke Zhou also realized that magicians are still a minority in this world, and it can even be said that they are very rare. And this world is more composed of professions such as warriors, archers, cavalry, and of course some assassins.
"Master Xiao, long time no see. Not far away, a man who looked younger than Xiao Liu walked over, waved at him, and then sat down next to him. This person looks fatter than Xiao Liu, with a smile on his face, and his face is a little shiny. He kept rubbing his hands, brought a glass of wine from the maid next to him, and looked at Xiao Liu while drinking.
"Hey, hey, brother, don't stop talking, how are you doing" The middle-aged man smiled while drinking, and raised his glass to Xiao Liu. Xiao Liu, who made it this time, was embarrassed not to raise his glass, so he had to touch the glass and go on with a wry smile. It seems that he is very reluctant to communicate with this person, and he doesn't even want to meet him.
The middle-aged man drank a few glasses, and he could see that he was not very willing to talk to him, so he took care of himself and left the table, and soon, there were only two people left on the table, Xiao Liu and Ke Zhou. They were just drinking by themselves, Ke Zhou didn't dare to take the initiative to speak, for fear that something would be exposed, while Xiao Liu didn't want to speak at all, just looked at the atrium quietly, as if waiting for someone.
Not long after, a few more people came over to toast Xiao Liu, and he only symbolically replied. Those people also seemed to have been accustomed to Xiao Liu's attitude, and they didn't say much after the toast, and left quickly with a smile.
After about half an hour, the crowd quieted down, and on the side of the atrium, you could barely see a gorgeously dressed lady slowly walking out under the protection of several heavily armed knights. She was followed by two small children, a boy and a woman, who looked to be only six or seven years old. They slowly walked to the center of the atrium, and then began to read something.
Ke Zhou and Xiao Liu were quite far away from there, and they couldn't hear what she was reading at all. However, when Ke Zhou looked at the table next to them, he realized: In fact, the people sitting here didn't care about what the people in the hall were talking about, they should drink and drink, and eat and eat, as if that side and this side were two worlds. And Xiao Liu, just quietly holding the wine glass and looking over there, looking at the lady who was protected by the soldiers, and didn't want to say anything.
Seeing this situation, Ke Zhou could only eat and wait for Xiao Liu. So far, he still didn't know why Xiao Liu brought him here, but in the spirit of being at ease when he came, he buried his head in eating, completely ignoring the affairs over there.
This silence lasted for a long time between Ke Zhou and Xiao Liu, and the discussion in the middle hall seemed to be about to end. Xiao Liu took one last look over there, then stood up, shook off his clothes, and led Ke Zhou around the central hall and headed towards the place where the mount was parked. He walked with a mechanical feeling, as if he had been hit by some great blow, and he finally turned his head to look at the palace, sighed, and then pulled Ke Zhou onto the giant eagle.
"Let's go......" The giant eagle spread its wings and rushed into the sky, just as Xiao Liu stretched out his fingers, intending to bless the giant eagle's ability, a violent explosion suddenly sounded from the palace behind him. At the same time, the overwhelming black crows rushed out of nowhere and gathered towards the palace.
A large number of gray particles began to gather in the middle hall, and even Ke Zhou, who could say that he knew nothing about magic, realized the seriousness of the problem. Xiao Liu pulled the giant eagle violently, then turned around and rushed to the middle hall.
"Grey ...... It's a curse, how can this be...... What the hell is going on?"