Under Gaia's power, several rocks rose from the ground and smashed down in the direction of the Inquisition's army. Half of the mountain trembled violently, like an earthquake, and when it ran out of strength and returned to Dolan's body, there was a tall and low stone forest in front of it.

The soldiers died and fled, and they dropped their torches and wounded comrades, and disappeared in a moment like a low tide—the orange-red fire jumped up in the forest like a demon who had escaped from the ban, but the land was soaked in blood and dew, and it was not allowed to burn into a wildfire, and slowly extinguished.

When the green smoke slowly drifted through the trees, the dark night was also mixed with a trace of cold morning light, and gradually dissolved, dispersing into wisps of dark blue, announcing that the day was coming.

It was only then that the villagers of Ellington realized that the night was almost over.

The spirits returned to their hosts, leaving nothing but a mess in the mountain clearing, the fire-blackened trees broken and tumbling to the ground, still billowing white smoke. The earth seemed to have been torn apart countless times, filled with deep pits and cracks, engulfing patches of trees and bushes. Where the battle took place, the surviving vegetation stood sparsely in the crevices, swaying to usher in the morning breeze.

They tried to find all the dead villagers from the corpses on the ground, and carried them into a shallow ravine and buried them. The graves of twenty-nine dead bodies formed a long mound between the ravines, the color of freshly turned soil, which stood out strangely in the shade of light brown and dark green.

In addition to Ma Qi and others who left the team in the middle of the group, there are many more villagers who have disappeared, and I don't know whether they fled in the battle, or whether they have died in an unknown place and have completely become part of the mountain.

As for the corpses of the soldiers, the archers, and even the Knight Captain Anlu himself, they were all left behind by the villagers of Ellington. There are quite a few people who have fled last night's battle, and the news here cannot be hidden, and the reinforcements searching for them should be coming soon—perhaps, they are now on their way.

"Leave them a big gift,"

The wine bag spat at his feet, and his eyes were still bloodshot from the smoke. "What a restless stinking thing!

The stubble-covered man's voice fell, but his companions were shrouded in silence, except for the messy sound of horses' hooves trampling on the grass, the only response to the wine bag. They seized the horses of the nobles tethered to the forest and piled all their luggage on horseback, but the industrious animals did not know that they would be killed if they encountered a steep mountain that they had to climb.

From that night on, the villagers of Ellington were about to reoffend after the Holy See's expulsion.

They walked like frightened birds for a few more days, until they left the border far behind, and then cautiously rested on a secluded mountain. At first, the whole village was two or three hundred people on the road together, but by the time they settled down by a mountain stream, there were less than a hundred people left.

That winning battle meant nothing to them. Every day on the road, Dolan could hear the low cries of women and children, repeating one tune after another, like a piano with broken strings.

This ubiquitous and lingering scream really upset her—so many people had died in the village, but it was these people who seemed to have a leaky throat and eyes who survived. Of course, she also grieved for the dead, but who would it be good to cry so that she couldn't even see the ground clearly, and to be dragged away?

Glancing at the sobbing figures in the distance, she pursed her lips and slashed hard at the log beneath her feet.

As Lin Junyou said, this is the corner of the Barrier Mountain Range between the Fang Kingdom and the Holy Alliance, deep and hidden, full of forests, and I don't know how many years I haven't seen human footprints. And the Ellingtonians are now like this mountain, caught between the two countries.

To survive in this barren mountain for the time being, they have too much to do.

In the shadow cast by the towering trees, simple tents stood up like huge mushrooms. Every meal can be exhausting: hunting and gathering food alone can hardly satisfy the two meals a day for such a large number of people—among other things, collecting firewood alone is enough to spend a day's work.

In addition, the people of Ellington also need to arrange for people to patrol the vicinity, take care of the livestock, and survey the terrain...... But among them there were seven or eight valuable laborers, who did nothing all day, but sat on the floor and cried and cried.

Doran chopped wood while listening to the movement over there. When the tall and thin figure rustled closer, she raised her head and greeted, "Uncle Lin, you're bored again." ”

The figure seemed to notice her and stopped.

Dolan tilted her head and smiled at him, "Come here." ”

In such a dense wild forest, the light of the sky faded quickly, and even the sun could not shine into this cold and cold mountain. With each step Lin Junyou took towards her, the forest seemed to darken, and he exhaled, stirring up a cloud of white mist in the gloomy green darkness.

"Among them, how many of them have fallen spirits, right? I remember Sister Lianzi did. Doran looked at him and smiled, "Her own husband can't be saved by herself, but she blames you, a person who has not fallen into the spirit, for not being a good savior." ”

Lin Junyou didn't look at the girl in front of him, and looked at the ground with a wry smile. His thin chin looked sharper, and there was a faint glow of black under his eyes.

"It's not for nothing that they blame me. It's me, after all...... forced everyone to escape. ”

In the past few days, as if to make up for the guilt of taking a life with his own hands, he has taken care of the women and children who have lost their loved ones. However, they did not appreciate it—this small group of young and old was busy wailing all day long, and almost never showed a good face to the village chief who had led them out of their homeland.

"The nobles want to kill people, and you run away with them, but it's your fault. ”

Whatever the situation, Dolan was accustomed to speaking softly, so that it was impossible to tell whether she was mocking or advocating for him.

Lin Junyou suddenly raised his eyes and looked at her, his eyes seemed to be filled with vague helplessness and sadness.

"If I'm not mistaken...... Ah Yu's height doesn't seem to be as tall as you now. After a while, he suddenly sighed lightly.

Dolan suddenly felt her lower abdomen tighten. The other - in her cold life, Lin Yuqing is another person she really regards as family.

"Uncle Lin, I'm also worried about Ah Yu. The people in the village have also fallen down, so why don't we go back and look for it? It's just the two of us, and it's not easy to attract the attention of others. She said softly.

Lin Junyou furrowed his eyebrows and did not make a sound.

"Uncle Lin?"

"You make me think," he whispered hurriedly, turning his head away. "How can I leave the village behind now?"

Dolan was stunned, what could she not leave behind? The people of Ellington were no longer children, and without one watching, they could tie up their tents and skin their hares.

"Ah Yu is not with us, maybe it is safer. Lin Junyou threw down the words, didn't look at her again, turned and walked back to the camp - Dolan looked at his back and frowned.

Lin Yuqing is alone outside, how can Uncle Lin rest assured?

I don't know if it's her delusion, it seems that since that night, Uncle Lin has avoided her a little, and now he doesn't even want to go with her to find Lin Yuqing. Is it because she saw the most helpless look, so I'm embarrassed?

Dolan threw the chopped wood to the ground with a clatter, and the grass on the ground shook suddenly, and the soil covered the heavy wood.

She really misses when she was a child, when she and Lin Junyou were as close as a real father and daughter. She still remembers that when she was only five or six years old, Uncle Lin held her in his arms with one hand and Lin Yuqing with the other...... Where did she go? Is it the town, or Jiyingling? She couldn't remember.

I also can't remember her mother's condition. At that time, did she die?

The woman with a perpetual sad face is like a dark background color in her childhood, forever absent and never erased. She had barely fulfilled her responsibilities as a mother, and even her death seemed to be a relief that she finally didn't have to raise children anymore. But she wasn't lonely at all when she was a child—on the contrary, as she grew up, Dolan began to feel that she was an orphan.

On the way to escape this time, perhaps to avoid suspicion, Lin Junyou slowly distanced himself from her, and even when he was together, he always looked embarrassed, as if he didn't know how to deal with a girl of her age.

Now...... Even Lin Yuqing is missing.

The boy who always ran around with her, had the fallen spirit on his body been discovered by the nobles? Did he fall into the hands of the Holy See? Just as she did not expect that she would be homeless one day, she did not expect Lin Yuqing to suddenly disappear.

Before she knew it, her familiar life had been torn apart by the word "falling spirit".

Dolan stood in a state of flux for a moment, until the bundle of firewood was rolled down the hill by Gaia, and she came to her senses and climbed down carefully in the dark. The villagers had already made fires—not the white of Tutan, but the real bright red ones—crackling in the night, radiating light, heat, and smoke.

The Ellingtonians were strangely silent compared to fire.

The faces that have been seen for an unknown number of years look unfamiliar under the light and shadow of the red flames. Their expressions were stiff and forbearing, as if no one's mind was on the hot soup pot in front of them, and they didn't know where to go. Dolan sat down by a fire, Lin Junyou glanced at her, picked up a pot in front of her, got up and brought it to the women.

Dolan didn't move. Her slightly stiff face was softened by the firelight, but there was a hollow darkness in her body.

The same fire, extinguished in the middle of the night, fell silent, and regained its vigor the next day. In the cycle of life and death, a month of peace, fatigue and hunger passed—perhaps because the heavy mountains had cut off the Papal army, and they finally gave up the pursuit.

But the anxiety floating in the air seems to be getting stronger day by day.

What is the situation out there, is the hunt for the Fallen Soul Messenger still continuing, and is the identity of the Ellingtons already known to the Angel family...... Even though Dolan often went on patrol with the men of the village, she could not answer any of these questions. In the end, she didn't have a chance, so she went out with Uncle Lin to find Lin Yuqing.

Perhaps because there was no alcohol to drink, the temper of the wine bag also became bad. He was very likable when he was drunk, but after more than a month of drinking, there was no more unbearable person in the world, and there was hardly anything that did not make him angry. Finally, in the middle of the night, with a "clang" that woke everyone up, a tent collapsed, and the wine bag and another man rolled on the ground and scuffled.

"Don't force Lao Tzu to take out the falling spirit!" the wine bag shouted inarticulately, and immediately caused everyone around him to panic, and in the chaotic darkness, no one noticed that a group of black shadows had broken into the forest in the distance at this time—in such a dark forest, even the light of the torches in those hands was dissolved a few steps away.

The first to notice the situation was Gaia.

"Who is it?"

A goosebump exploded on Doran's skin, and as soon as she screamed, Gaia had already rushed out far away, and the woods shook and shook with countless leaves and twigs falling in clusters—she rushed back to her tent, grabbed her sword in the dark, and shouted to the villagers who were still in disarray, "Someone is coming!"

The girl's voice tore a crack in the chaos, and when she heard a "pop", the night immediately lit up a little snow-white.

The snow white rose rapidly, and he jumped up on the clearing, reflecting all the surrounding scenery without color, and as soon as Tutan turned his long face, he immediately saw the figure in the distance clearly, and immediately shouted, "The noble dogs are here again!"

In just a dozen eyes, the swords in the hands of the group and the leather armor on their bodies shimmered with their signature luster in the white flames. The anxiety of the villagers, who had been preparing for this day for a long time, quickly grabbed their weapons, jumped up from the ground, and rushed forward with a "ha" sound.

"There's a Fallen Soul Messenger here!"

Among the figures who had just broken into the forest, someone shouted in shock and panic.

It was probably a search team that found them when they were overwhelmed by the defense—Doran pursed her lips and was about to command Gaia to rush out of the ground, when a heavy, hoarse voice shouted something she didn't expect: "Brothers, don't be impulsive!

Everyone was stunned, and Tutan's white fire suddenly became a little stronger, illuminating the snow in the woodland in front of them.

"Don't do it yet!"

Lin Junyou's voice rang out along with his footsteps, and he hurried to the front of the crowd and stopped the wine bag. He stared at the group of figures in the distance for a moment, and then asked, "Who are you?"

The white fire dispelled the shadowy darkness just now, and under its illumination, everyone could see that these uninvited guests were indeed not the noble army—they had never seen such a miserable-looking noble army.

The dozen or so men were all in disarray, their leather armor in tatters, some carrying broken swords, some carrying wooden sticks. It was as if they had been through a battle, and many of them were blackened with blood on half of their bodies, and as they walked, each step was so heavy that it looked as if they were about to fall into the grass.

A middle-aged man coughed as he separated his companions and walked out, his gaze sweeping around the people of Ellington Village. When he realized that the other party could not be the judge, he breathed a long sigh of relief, and even Dolan felt it from a distance-the middle-aged man glanced at Lin Junyou, and said in a dumb voice: "Listen, you seem to be hiding from some nobleman?"

"I'm asking a question," Lin Junyou lowered his voice, his body straight. "You should give me an answer. ”

The other party was silent for a while, and the dozen or so routs seemed to be a little noisy and uneasy.

The middle-aged man couldn't help but look at the white fire in the forest and the bulging mounds underground, hesitated for a while, and finally raised his chin: "Have you ever heard of Tianxiangqu?"

"Celestial Thought...... Are you rebels?" Lin Junyou asked rhetorically, and the camp fell silent for a while.

"Yes," the middle-aged man suddenly turned to the side and threw something on his shoulder on the ground. Dolan looked through the white fire and found that it seemed to be half a horse's leg - "Our troops fought Jiyingling today. ”

His words were like pebbles, stirring up waves of whispers among the people of Ellington.

"It's a pity that we didn't know that there was still a Holy See Inquisition stationed in Jiyingling, and this battle was lost, and our gang was separated from the large army. We were all wounded, and we didn't even find any stutterers except for a few wine bags, and if it weren't for the chance to slaughter a horse, I was afraid that we wouldn't have touched it here. ”

The wine bag swallowed loudly.

"Why did you fight Jiyingling, how is Jiyingling now?" asked Lin Junyou with a frown.

"What's the place of the nobles and lords that can't be beaten? Besides, we heard that the earl of Jiyingling is dead, and the falling spirit has been passed on to a useless little girl, which is a piece of fat. If it weren't for a jury, we would have been drinking celebratory wine in the castle by now!" replied another thin man in a sharp voice.

"It seems that the Holy See people have saved the Mesoko family. Someone whispered, followed by another spit.

Dolan couldn't help but feel a wave of disappointment. Whether it's their lord or the knight of the Inquisition, they are all the same after all. Everything they do is because of the fallen spirits...... This time, the jury hunted down civilians in their own territory, and the Mesoko family did not say a word, only pretending to be deaf and dumb.

Such a person has to live from generation to generation.

She walked to Lin Junyou's side gently, just in time to hear him ask in a calm voice: "I heard that you Tianxiangqu conquered the city all the way and laid a lot of territory. If you don't go back to the place where Tianxiangqu is stationed, how can you go around in the barrier mountain range?"

The middle-aged man was born short and short, his face was bloodless from the white fire, but his eyes were shining. Hearing this, he sneered at each other: "I think you are also like honest people, why don't you stay in your own home, but also go around in the barrier mountain range?"

Lin Junyou has always been quite respected in the village, and his tone immediately angered several people; the wine bag was about to attack, but the middle-aged man suddenly raised a hand and said with a smile: "Don't be angry! If you have fallen spirits, those old men will not let you live...... We resisted because we didn't want to endure cold and hunger all year round, just to let the noble lord hold some garden party. So, they won't let us go either. At this point, we are grasshoppers on the same rope. ”

He grabbed the horse's leg on the ground, and took the initiative to drag his feet and limp out of the woods, and seemed to be not lightly injured.

"This little thing should be regarded as our greeting gift. The middle-aged man put the horse's leg in front of Lin Junyou, and sat down with a bang, and after such a journey, he was so tired that he panted.

Of course, his appearance may also be deliberately exaggerated, in order to show that he is harmless.

This middle-aged man who looked like a log stake didn't even seem to be the leader of the squad, but with him taking the lead, the others slowly approached. The bloody aura suddenly became thicker, Lin Junyou turned around and signaled, and asked someone to go and get some water.

"Thank you. A couple of men muttered at them.

Tutan put away the fallen spirits, and Dolan called for someone to make a new fire for the routs. The wounded soldiers approached the fire almost greedily, and the villagers of Elrington inquired about the outside world with the same greed. When the conversations rang out one after another, the stout middle-aged man seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Is this your daughter?" he said as he lit the fire and spoke to Lin Junyou. It doesn't take much intelligence to see that he is the leader of this group of villagers.

Dolan lowered her head and heard Uncle Lin reply, "...... Right. ”

The middle-aged man introduced himself: "I'm Billy, and they call me Billy Hammer, because I only make Hammer when I go to war." As he spoke, he tore off his sleeve little by little by the light of the fire—the fabric was so clinging to the flesh from the wound on his arm that the mere look made one sweat with pain.

"As you said, we're planning to go back to the Celestial Songs. Billy the Hammer quickly stopped, gasping for breath, and it took a long time for a short, square face to recover from the pain. "But with just a few of us, there is not much hope of going back. ”

"Where?" asked Lin Junyou.

While listening to the conversation between the two of them, Doran stood silently in the shadows, carefully examining the middle-aged man. A thought popped into her mind, as if someone had tapped her on the shoulder from behind, grabbing her full attention. Doran was haunted by the thought for a moment, and suddenly turned her head to glance at the camp of the villagers of Ellington.

The rudimentary tents stood in the forest, as ugly as the scars of the mountains.

Winter is coming soon, and they can't stay in the mountains all the time.

“...... It's not far, but to the west along the mountains, in a small town on the border...... "Billy the Hammer's voice poured into his ears. He explained it in great detail, and it could even be said that it was a little unnecessary.

Dolan looked up, just in time for the pair of small, round bean-like eyes. At this moment, she suddenly realized that she was not the only one who had the same idea.