"Ahh

A piercing scream resounded through the snowy forest, and Hodge awoke violently and sat up from his tent.

He looked left and right, and Fink and Hughes awoke from their slumber, exchanging glances, understanding that the piercing scream was not a dream in their sleep, but something that really happened.

Something happened!

The three of them hurriedly dressed and were about to search for the source of the sound, when Hodge suddenly stopped his movements and grabbed Fink: "Let's not go look for it together, don't forget that there are other people here besides us, Reverend Fink, you go and wake up the guards on the carriage on rotation, and then go to Miss Carroll." ”

Fink nodded, and immediately trotted in the direction of the carriage.

Hughes yelled at him with a look of indignation: "How can you let him go, what if Miss Carroll has an accident, at this time it is obvious that a knight like me should go to protect it." ”

"You have to stay and protect me. Hodge rolled his eyes at him, "Do you think the priest and the doctor together can fight off the beast?"

"What does it matter to me whether you live or die, if the beast eats you, maybe I'll have a celebration for it. ”

"Oh, I still have a lot of corrosive potions in my medicine chest, which may not be enough to deal with a horde of beasts, but it is more than enough for a human knight. ”

"Bold civilian, you dare to threaten ......*!

Hughes didn't have time to finish his words before he let out a scream and dodged, and a bottle of potion fell in his original place, and the purple-black solution flowed out of the broken glass, and the snow that came into contact with it quickly melted and rose until the gray-brown soil was exposed, and this was not over, even the soil was eroded by the solution, and began to take on a dark purple color.

Hughes broke out in a cold sweat, and his armor might have kept him safe for a while, but his boots were made of leather, and if the solution spilled, he would be crippled or lame.

He glared angrily at Hodge, who had a calm face.

"Words don't threaten anything, this kind of action is called a threat, understand, young knight of the noble family?" Hodge didn't want to delay any longer, and took a step, "Don't delay, come with me, the sooner you find the monster, the sooner you can leave this place." ”

Hughes stomped his foot hard and gritted his teeth to follow.

The two of them walked through the snow forest, the snow was piled up thickly on the ground, making it difficult to walk, Hodge looked around, the pines that had grown here for an unknown number of years were forty or fifty meters high, and the dense trees could even shade the warm winter sun, and he noticed that the branches and leaves of the pines were scattered with dense white particles, which were not snow, but something called graupel, which was directly condensed by cold water.

They finally came to the place where the sound came from, where one of Hughes's guards was standing, and when he heard footsteps behind him, he turned around, and the moment he saw Hughes, he bent slightly to salute.

"Alright, now is not the time to salute and tell me what's going on. ”

The guard's throat twitched, and he swallowed a mouthful of saliva, leaning half to give up enough vision for Hughes and Hodge to see.

It was a big tree that needed to be surrounded by three people, and if you cut it down in its entirety, you could even build several sturdy and spacious wooden houses, but this tree is not the point, the real key is under the tree.

There were two small snowdrifts under the trees, and I don't know how long they had been piled up, but they were much higher than the surrounding snowdrifts, apparently because there was something there that covered them into snowdrifts, and as for what they were, there was no need to guess what they were, but someone had already slapped the snowdrifts off the top, revealing their original faces.

It was two people, judging from the fluffy necklines that peeked out of the snow slightly, they should be two hunters, their eyes were cloudy like albumins, the skin of their faces was frozen and stiff, and the blood vessels under the skin were clearly visible, dark blue, and it was obvious that these two people had been dead for a long time.

"It's Takan and Bonnard. Hodge recognized the two of them.

"Who's that?" Hughes was confused.

"They are Hood's companions, this snow forest is the most difficult and dangerous piece of hunting in the woods near the village, even experienced old hunters rarely set foot here, but Hood's archery skills are excellent, Gao An's cleaver is good, and Bonnard is extremely good at stealth, these three are the elite of village hunters, so the three of them often come to this snow forest to hunt snow wolves, and each time they come back safe and sound......"

Hodge looked at the bodies of the two and sighed, the low temperature made his exhaled breath clearly visible: "But it seems that this time they missed, Hood returned to the village with serious injuries, and they died directly here." ”

He crouched down and patted away the rest of the thick snow that had been piling up for a long time, and had turned from snow to frost except for the newly fallen parts, which he could not remove.

"Come and help me break up the frost and snow on both of them. ”

"Why should I help you?"

"Unless you don't want to know the truth, Miss Carroll will be disappointed. ”

Well, Hughes instantly succumbed and obediently called the guards to clean the frost and snow from the corpses, which greatly improved the efficiency of the removal, and after a while, the full picture of the corpses of the two had appeared.

Hughes's face was ugly, and he immediately turned around and wanted to vomit, but he couldn't vomit anyway, only the cold wind and snow poured into his throat, which was even more uncomfortable.

He saw the bodies of the two men clearly, and the degree of disgust alone was even greater than that of Hood.

There is a large hole in each of the chests of Gao An, which directly penetrates all the organs, and in addition to the snow in the carrion, there are also many gray-white snow insects parasitic, which are squirming and fat bodies.

And Bonnard was even worse, his body was directly broken into three sections, one below the lower abdomen, one section from the lower abdomen to the chest, and finally the hands and head rested on the shoulders, which was the last section.

Hodge took a closer look at Bonnard's body cuts and found that the cause of his separation was not a cut of iron, but more like a stranglehold by a tremendous force.

What kind of monster can strangle a strong human alive?

"Did you make the screaming we heard just now?" Hodge asked the guard.

He shook his head: "Actually, I found it when I heard the screams. ”

"Not you?" Hodge was stunned, "and you weren't the one who shot the snow on top of these two bodies?"

"No, I was already what you saw when I came. ”

In this way, there are other people who scream, of course, it can't be Gao An and Bonnard, who have been dead for months, there must be someone else here.

But where has that man gone now?

"That ......," said the guard with some confidence, "I can probably guess who screamed." ”

"Then don't you say it quickly, don't bother. Hughes was an impatient, and grabbed his velvet collar directly.

"I just remembered!" the guard hurriedly argued.

"Alright, let him down. Hodge walked up to him, "What do you know?"

"Ahem......" The guard was a little deprived of oxygen, and coughed a few times before he said: "That scream was familiar to me, but now I think of it as Hayden's voice." ”

"Hayden?"

"It's also a guard, I took over him during my shift this morning, he didn't go back to the carriage immediately, but ran to the bushes next to him to relieve himself, I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, I thought he would go back after the relief, but now I think back that something is wrong. ”

"The bush next to it......" Hodge pondered, "how far is it from the campfire?"

"It's still a bit of a distance, about 100 meters or so. ”

"You mean he got out of the campfire?"

"Yes......"

Hodge's heart sank, and he had a bad premonition.