The Oriental thoughtfully prepared a local guide for the Celestial Songs.

The guide was a tall, swarthy man, dressed in a robe woven of animal skins and feathers, and looked like any of the Fangs. It wasn't until he saluted in a way unique to the Tongyuan Empire and reported his name that Dolan realized that he was also an Oriental.

"Chen Xin," he pointed to the skin on his face, "I'm from the Tongyuan Empire, and I'm here to get sunburned." I've been in Fangguo for many years. ”

Until the end of the operation, this was the longest sentence Chen Xin had ever said.

Why he came to Fang Country and what he was doing here can only be left to Dolan to guess; Chen Xin himself is like a hard and silent stone, no matter how the leader Ji Xuelun beats, he can't beat a word he doesn't want to say.

The Barrier Mountain Range was full of forests, blocking most of the daylight, and the thousands of mountains, which were deeper and darker than the other, were like a bottomless black hole, swallowing the lives of dozens of soldiers in half a month. Even though Ji Xuelun was anxious and panicked, suspecting that he was deliberately sending him to death, Chen Xin did not make a sound defense, and similarly, when Gaia finally found a cavity in the mountain after a long search, he still only nodded.

"Yes," he patted the parchment map and pointed ahead, his finger following the figure for a few Fallen Spirits. Several people were already dizzy in the mountains, and no one could understand the map, so they could only look at Chen Xin and put away the parchment and make a gesture: "Open a hole from the top of the mountain and go down." "It's like it's a simple job.

While he was far away, Ji Xuelun complained to Duolan in a low voice: "I see that this person is very dull. ”

This team leader is a Peugeot man with thoughtful facial features, a few years younger than Uncle Lin, but his temperament is as lively as Lin Yuqing. Cheerful and straightforward, with sharp words, he often gives the impression of intelligence—and after a few days, Dolan realizes that this is just an impression.

Even with Gaia, it still took nearly five days to build a passage to the belly of the mountain.

The entrance to the tunnel is not large, and only an adult cat can burrow into it, and it can be covered with a few bushes. After entering it, the entrance turned into a small point of light behind him, and quickly disappeared into the belly of the mountain. Gaia's dirt path avoids the rocks and twists and turns like a thin wormhole, and the deeper you go, the more it looks like you've stumbled into a dark hell where even light can't survive.

"Ready," Chen Xin at the front shouted, "there is no way." ”

After he said this for a long time, Dolan faintly heard the echo of something falling - it seemed that the stone that had been kicked down by Chen Xin had finally hit the ground after so long. Before they knew it, they had come to the top of the cavity of the mountain.

"Handa," Ji Xuelun commanded solemnly, "give us a light and see the situation." ”

In the thin air, a few stars lit up with a "snap" in the darkness, and there was still one left, as if it could form a pattern of some constellation.

The cavity cliff was nearly a kilometer long, and it fell straight down, falling into the starlight darkness, and on the opposite mountain wall, something as tall and long as a pillar rose - it was not until Doran climbed halfway down that she realized that there was a relief of a human face nearly a thousand meters long carved into the cave. Chen Xin did not fall into the spirit, and with the help of several other falling spirit envoys, he finally came to the ground. The "stars" floating in the air fell down with their masters, and with the help of the stars, the Tianxiangqu people saw this ancient arsenal clearly for the first time.

Years later, Dolan still can't forget the shock she felt when she was among the mountains of spirit stones.

With just a little starlight, these elves who had been sleeping for an unknown number of years suddenly woke up, and suddenly bloomed with a variety of colors of luster and jumping and shining - even if all the gems and gold in the world were piled up here, they could not withstand the deterrent power of the spirit stone as if it were about to take people's breath.

It wasn't until this moment that Doran felt that her mind had finally left the Celestial Dream.

It was as if they had accidentally broken into a myth, and for several minutes, everyone could only stand in this sea of spirit stones, unaware that all the fallen spirits had quietly appeared.

For a while, the five of them seemed to be taken away by the luster of the cave, and they watched in a daze as a few falling spirits walked through the pile of spiritual stones like swimming fish. The thousand-meter-high cliff above them was still shrouded in darkness, but under their feet was flowing and dancing with a gentle light like water waves—every time they were touched by the falling spirit, the spirit stone suddenly rippled with deep and light colors.

They were so beautiful that it took them minutes to remember how valuable these stones were to the outside world.

"Let them add to that," Ji Xuelun whispered as if his mouth was a little dry in the endless glow, "There is still a lot of work for a while......

By "work", he meant opening a gap in the other side of the mountain to transport the spirit stones out of the belly of the mountain, and if the direction was right, the exit should be right on the mountainside where they had parked their wagon.

Even Gaia, who consumed the most, regained all his energy after absorbing a whole spirit stone, but whether it was Ji Xuelun's "girl", the giant python composed of hair, or another small book, they did not stop collecting spirit stones.

Even though Dolan wished she could return to the Heavenly Fantasy Song immediately, she couldn't help but say a few words, she instructed Gaia, and silently observed the other fallen spirits.

She could see many of the qualities of the fallen spirits: for example, all the spirit stones that touched the pages of the small book melted like ink into the texture of its paper, and when it re-appeared as a spirit stone on the page, the ground was already empty. The girl in the seven-layer gauze skirt always has a light footsteps as if she is about to dance, and after watching it spin a few times, her mind will begin to faintly dizzy - this falling spirit of Ji Xuelun is likely to affect people's minds.

After looking at it like this for a while, Dolan suddenly felt a little strange, and when she turned around, she happened to meet another pair of eyes.

Chen Xin nodded politely at her and looked away. What he was looking at just now was not a spirit stone, nor a falling spirit, but a falling spirit envoy.

After half an hour, several Fallen Spirit Envoys finally got together and watched Chen Xin take out the parchment map again. The old map was yellow, brittle, covered with hair-thin white creases, and it was probably going to end its life when it completed this mission.

"We're here," Chen Xin poked twice where he had crossed the map, and it rustled as if it was about to break: "It should be dug out from this side." ”

This time, Gaia dug hard.

The direction Chen Xin chose was almost entirely filled with layers of desperately heavy rocks, and if it didn't smash the stones first, it wouldn't have been able to get into them. The other two fallen spirits also struck: a large number of black hairs climbed up the rock, and after a moment of burrowing into the gap, the stones that were shattered by it poured down like a torrent, and the small book just needed to be neatly attached to the rock, and soon there was only a deep black hole with a thick earthy smell beneath him.

Everyone was full of energy, but no one expected that when they finally cleared a passage, Chen Xin suddenly found that they were digging in the wrong direction.

"Isn't that what you told us?" Ji Xuelun raised his voice, and there was a sudden echo in the cavity of the mountain. Looking at his appearance, Dolan will mistakenly think that the person who did it for nothing is him: "You just said that you dug a passage here-"

Chen Xin didn't speak, just shook his head vigorously, and kept pointing in another direction.

Under such silent stubbornness, Ji Xuelun was quickly defeated, he gave Dolan a "look" look, sighed, and beckoned a few people to start work again.

Fortunately, the rocks on the other side were greatly reduced, and Gaia opened the way in the cracks of the mountain rocks, and the other two fallen spirits followed to sweep the rocks blocking the way, and the speed was not slow. All five humans were left in the cavity, and they had only one thing to do - fill the sacks with spirit stones.

The arsenal contained not only spirit stones, but also a much larger amount of armor, swords, various types of armament, and the bones of soldiers who carried supplies back then. In the corner of the cave next to the skull pile, thousands of spears stood in the air, too corrupted by the air to be used, but fortunately, everything else was tightly sealed in an oilcloth bag, waiting for the moment to see the light of day under the royal coat of arms of the Tongyuan Empire.

The majestic and bright red royal insignia has long since faded and blurred, like ghosts about to retire from the stage. Chen Xin's fingers slowly stroked the dark brown mark, carefully avoiding it, and cut the other end of the oilcloth bag with a knife—

The armor that was enough to equip 50,000 people is now usable, and only a few thousand remain.

While these vintage armors don't have the Tongyuan Empire's royal insignia on them, they still retain a distinctly oriental style, as well as the iconic fine mesh chain mail. The few people who tried to put on the armor looked like mercenaries from the Tongyuan Empire, and they looked at each other with a little embarrassment, then took off the armor again, and said nothing.

The line between resistance and collaboration with the enemy is a very vague matter.

After the first batch of spirit stones was loaded, the transportation work could only be handed over to the falling spirits, in fact, since entering the mountain, the only request that human beings have for themselves is not to get in the way of the falling spirits. Speaking of which, even this mountain cavity is probably the result of the falling spirit many years ago, right?

Why did such creations, which completely transcend human beings, suddenly come into the world? Where did they come from, and what is their purpose? It can't be for the purpose of being cattle and horses for human beings, right?

They need to live on humans in order to survive - that is, sooner or later, the Fallen will realize that they can in turn enslave humans to provide them with their own nourishment.

It's just a matter of time.

That afternoon was all spent moving supplies. When the gray twilight covered the forest like mist, all the wagons were full, and some armor and weapons could not be loaded, so Doran ordered Gaia to bury them all in the pit.

With the exception of a few soldiers who died at the beginning, the trip went astonishingly smoothly. In less than ten days, Tianxiangqu and his party had almost touched the edge of the Barrier Mountain Range - Ji Xuelun even forgot the danger when he came, and said several times "The Barrier Mountain Range is not a big deal!" and something like that.

Chen Xin listened, but was still silent as always. The night before parting, while everyone had set up camp and eaten slices of air-dried meat and hot cakes, he took out the map, rolled it up without saying a word, and threw it towards the flames.

"Wait, this is burning?" Dolan was stunned for a moment, and hurriedly reached out to stop her, "Maybe it's still useful......

The parchment deftly dodged her hand and was quickly caught in a corner by the flames. It's as if she's just a little flying insect and doesn't deserve the other party to take her words to heart.

Dolan couldn't help but glance at Chen Xin—but the other party was like a stone man, staring at the firelight silently, unmoved. With a little pity, her gaze fell for the last time on the black, curled map.

The cross-shaped mark on the map, which marked the location of the cavity of the mountain, was about to be swallowed up by the orange-red flames, and along with it, the long lines representing the barrier mountain range were about to disappear. On the other side of the cross, beyond the barrier mountains, there was only one piece of emptiness.

"What's the place out there?" why don't you paint it?" asked Doran again. At this time, as soon as Chen Xin let go, the parchment fell into the bonfire, completely melting into a black shadow in a red light, but she knew that she didn't need to explain, because the other party had been watching her gaze.

After a pause, Chen Xincai replied, "The sea of quicksand." ”

"So we're only separated from that desert by a mountain?" Doran frowned slightly, "I've heard that the aliens all came from that desert, right? If they climbed over the barrier mountains like us......"

Chen Xin smiled suddenly—the lines on his cheeks disappeared in a flash, and he sat up straight, his face retreating from the firelight into the shadows, unable to see clearly.

"It's impossible to crawl over that side," he said softly. Dolan thought he had the next half to say, but after waiting for a while, he never waited.

So how can I get here?

The question didn't stay in Dolan's mind for long, and was quickly washed away by other thoughts. Over the years, the Fangnation system had worked so well that in the eyes of the rest of the continent, invasion had long since become a distant concept - anyway, as a result, all the aliens had been stopped outside the continent, and knowing this, Doran felt that it was enough like most people.

When the first alien race appeared in the cavity of the mountain, Dolan and his party had already left the Barrier Mountain Range and left the Fang Country. While the alien was groping his way through the dark cavern, Dolan was lobbying Ji Xuelun to speed up his speed and rush back to Tianxiangqu in the starry night, and when more aliens burrowed into the cavity and climbed the cliff, and walked into the forest of the Barrier Mountain Range for the first time in a thousand years, the group had just returned to the River of Sighs, and Dolan once again saw half a castle in the light of the setting sun on horseback.

The river in front of the castle is sparkling with gold, as if to welcome them back to the world.

As soon as he got off his horse, Doran rushed straight to the castle tower. Even if she did everything she could, her heart still hung in the air, not knowing if she would see Lin Junyou again. She lost her courage halfway through, and even had to ask the villagers who were also Fallen Spirit Envoys before she walked back to the castle.

At least Uncle Lin was still in the Tianxiang song last night, Joey said so.

Uncle Lin really didn't leave, and stayed in the Heavenly Fantasy Song all the time-

Dolan was not surprised by this result, but she was faintly surprised. Instead of rushing to find Lin Junyou, she went to the village outside the city first, and it was because of this that she soon discovered another thing that really made her suspicious.

Feng Lian is gone.