Phoenix City is located in the southeast Phoenix Spirit Land within the scope of the new human exploration continent, belonging to the Xianying Alliance, with an area of tens of thousands of square kilometers, and dozens of garrison bases deployed in the outer ring, which can be regarded as a large human settlement city-state, or an independent kingdom.

The other city-states settled by the new humans were scattered in other regions that were incomparably far away, with countless thousands of meters of majestic mountains, rivers like heavenly rivers, and deep ravines almost deep into the center of the earth, not to mention the infinite desolate beasts that crisscrossed the wilderness.

Of course, the most frightening thing is that there is a mysterious living fog that seems to have life in this vast land, wandering willfully on this continent, they will come suddenly, or they may disappear suddenly, sometimes along with the fog there are unknown terrible relics, ordinary people once they encounter the mysterious living fog, often experience all kinds of incredible weirdness, usually the end of nine deaths.

Xia Chan drove a dilapidated four-wheel drive car rented by a car rental company north, listening to radio music, and speeding on the Pingchuan Highway surrounded by ancient mountains.

Although it was winter, the climate of the blessed Phoenix Spirit Land was still pleasant, the cold air was a little sweet, the endless feather grass and alfalfa along the way were still blowing in the wind, and all kinds of unnamed rodents, bison herds, and deer herds came and went.

The scenery along the way is strange, but Xia Chan has no intention of lingering and resting, all the way through the mountains and mountains, and finally arrived at the Hakka town on the edge of the spiritual land in the afternoon.

Hakka here means to live in a foreign country, and the name of the town means that this was not their hometown in the first place.

The town was desolate with only a few thousand people, as it was close to a forbidden area of the wilderness, and there was something unusual about the spirits in the land, water, and air.

Xia Chan's car was parked outside an old restaurant on the edge of town, and many gilded signs with patent leather had fallen off and shook in the wind, making people worry that they would fall at any time.

"What do you want to eat?" As soon as Xia Chan entered the door, a middle-aged man with a thick nasal voice moved to the stove with a loud sound of 'de, de'.

The stove is very short, Xia Chan immediately noticed that this middle-aged boss was a cripple, to be precise, there were handmade wooden limbs below the left leg and thigh, and then look at the white olive green military uniform washed on the boss, needless to say, this is a veteran.

The shop is small, with only four small tables, but all of them are very well kept.

"A bowl of jajanjangmyeon. Xia Chan glanced at the menu on the wall, and casually picked up a table near the door and sat down.

"What?" the boss asked, in a loud voice.

Xia Chan noticed that the boss's ears were not good, so he stretched out his hand and pointed to the first row of the wall, but the fried noodles he wanted to order were the third to last on the menu.

Fortunately, the boss's eyes were good: "Oily noodles, so good." ”

The boss is very fast, open the coal stove tuyere, pull the bellows quickly, boil the water, pour the skin below, pour cold water, so three times the colander starts the pot, pours the hot sauce on the table and does not take more than five minutes.

"Boss, you're alone. Xia Chan asked loudly while the boss didn't walk away.

"What's the matter?" the boss muttered and turned around to take a tablet and water-based pen from the countertop, "The forehead ears are not good, you write, you can read." ”

Xia Chan repeated it on the tablet.

The boss meowed, his thick eyebrows jumped, and he raised his hand to point in the direction of a sky full of lead clouds: "It's all over there." ”

Xia Chan saw the signboard at the intersection outside, which was leading to Oak Town, the destination of his trip, but it was already deserted, so he wiped it off with a rag and wrote two words.

"Young man, I'm sorry, I don't remember what they were like, I was thinking about revenge for them back then, but those monsters couldn't find ......"

Xia Chan didn't want to go deeper on this topic and buried himself in eating noodles, but the boss seemed to have found someone to talk to and opened the conversation, regardless of whether the only customers in the store were listening or not.

After eating the noodles, Xia Chan almost learned that the family of the small shop owner was a victim of the disaster in Oak Town eighteen years ago, he was only seventeen years old at the time, he had not graduated from high school, and the welfare house did not accept him, so he had no choice, so he joined the army and went to the pioneer corps.

He joined the army at the age of eighteen and returned to his hometown at the age of thirty-two, losing a leg and youth, and bringing back only a wounded illness.

This veteran's experience is so similar to his own in the previous timeline, and then no one knows about it, Xia Chan went out after checking out, and picked up the handwriting board and asked, "Has anyone been to Oak Town in the past two days?"

"Usually how can there be a fool to go, except for the Qingming Festival, the flow of people in Hakka Town is going to Longmen Town in the east, and there are many people who take risks at the border where the bird doesn't shit. ”

Xia Chan put down the handwriting board and was stopped by the boss's rough big hand, he seemed to remember something: "Yesterday, there were three young people driving around the town, and then they hit the street sign outside and ran, the car seems to be going to Oak Town, and the sign is still erected again......"

Xia Chan, who was preoccupied, said goodbye to the shopkeeper and decided to drive to Oak Town immediately.

The car drove through the desolate wilderness and hills, the air became more and more clammy and cold, the cold wind howled, and the sky was so gloomy that water could drip out, like a snowstorm would blow at any moment.

Half an hour after leaving Hakka Town, a large river stopped ahead, and there was a stone bridge on the river that was already somewhat dilapidated and broken.

In order to clean up the plague left by the undead, Oak Town, which was a settlement for tens of thousands of people, was burned to the ground, and after all these years, the land is still barren, with only sporadic mutated plants fluttering in the wind.

It is worth noting that a huge carbonized wooden pile with a residue of up to 100 meters is still standing hideously in the depths of the river bay.

After Xia Chan turned off the engine and got out of the car, he observed around the bridge and found that there was indeed an obvious new rut driving across the stone bridge, and the wet rotting moss on it had obvious traces of being crushed.

He reversed and turned behind a nearby barren hill, put large sundries such as sleeping bags and food into the Ouroboros storage bracelet, only carried a backpack, and carried a rune alloy longsword given by his eldest brother Lou Ju'an on his birthday, and then carefully returned to the same way to clean up the ruts along the road with bush branches.

To Xia Chan's surprise, he followed the rut all the way deep into the ruins, until he found an empty pickup truck near the stump of the giant tree in the depths, but there was no one there, only a shelter from the wind where the bonfire burned out nearby.

It was getting dark, the wind was getting louder and louder, Xia Chan searched carefully around the area, but did not find the expected figure, so he had to pick up the parasitic moss and dry bush branches that looked quite dry nearby, re-lit a bonfire, boiled a pot of hot water, and ate some dry food casually to pass away.

At night, he got into the camel hair sleeping bag he brought from home by the campfire, but he didn't dare to fall asleep in the first half of the night, and the weather became colder and colder in a daze, and finally there were snowflakes, and it was also a loss that his sleeping bag was placed under a collapsed rotten horizontal log to cover the wind and snow.

The spirit in the air of this wilderness is particularly cold, making people feel uncomfortable, Xia Chan did not dare to meditate and refine qi, even if the pores of the whole body were closed, it was extremely difficult to maintain body temperature in the middle of the night, and he fell asleep in a daze in the second half of the night.

Before dawn the next day, he was awakened by a terrible wolf howl.

Got out of his sleeping bag, grabbed his sword, leaped to a high place, and looked around at the desolate hills and ruins, and the sparse mutated trees, the snow was already a foot in the snow, and the faint frost and mist made it difficult to see far away.

Soon, a tall wasteland wind-ripping wolf with black and gray fur showed its head on a hillside, and the two eyes looked at each other from each other.

Another wolf howl rose.

Followed by the howls of wolves in all directions, Xia Chan had no mind to guess how many wind-tearing wolves there were for a while.

This wolf is usually found in the wasteland, and is a standard level 0+ threat creature on the Bestiary, with a low wind and frost attack attribute, and is good at group combat.

There was no time for Xia Chan to hesitate, looking at all sides of this place, only there were some stone buildings in the original central area of Oak Town in the east that had not collapsed, and the other wooden buildings had long been burned out, and there was no way to dodge.

Unable to pack his bags, he sped in one direction.

Even though Xia Chan's body method was extremely fast, this group of wolves seemed to be commanded, and he arranged an ambush on the road early, and the sound of tearing wind came from behind the snowdrift.

In the face of the wind-ripping wolf that pounced in the air, the long sword could only be unsheathed.

The tiger roared with his true qi, and his body followed the sword, the sword light did not have any fancy direct slashing, and the cold cold light pierced from under the wolf's ribs, and followed Xia Chan's body to flip, and while drawing the sword, he brushed with the wolf corpse.

He didn't dare to stop, he had encountered wolves countless times in his military career in the last timeline, and even if he had successfully cultivated his qi refining, he couldn't withstand the harassment and ambush of a wolf pack day and night.

The wolves of this pack are very patient, have considerable intelligence and well-developed harassment tactics.

For half an hour, Xia Chan had been going around in circles in the ruins, but he couldn't get rid of the wolves with extraordinary sense of smell and hearing.

After stumbling upon an entrance to a basement, he immediately smashed a masonry wall with his fist, blocking the entrance to the road and completely isolating him from the wolves.

Before that, he had killed no less than ten wolves, one of which could breathe cold and freezing gas, almost dragging him into danger.

He took out a flashlight from the Ouroboros bracelet and swirled down the stone staircase, all the way down, the stairs and walls were very slippery, with a large number of black-gray stains and moss, and after going deep into the well staircase for six or seven meters, he entered an open hall.

There was nothing in the hall except a few rotten chairs and a long broken table.

After a few turns, I didn't find any other way out, and now I go back the way I came, obviously unable to avoid the wolves.

He could only be patient, and then he stumbled upon a startling scene through the light of a flashlight, with a large number of shoe prints on the barely distinguishable granite floor that clearly did not belong to him.

And there is no floating dust on the bottom of the print, and the shoe print is obviously fresh.

Xia Chan thought of the pickup truck and the three people whose whereabouts were unknown in the mouths of the Hakka Town veterans.

They've been here before!

His flashlight was raised, and he aimed more closely at the surrounding walls, and then he noticed a mural on one of the walls, about four by five meters square, with a golden balance on it, and around the scale there were many different figures playing something.

After pondering for some time, I have already made a judgment that the mural is probably telling a story with an unknown meaning.