José pushed away the stone that was pressing on top of his head and crawled out of the pile of rubble, coughing violently on his stomach as his lungs inhaled too much dust. His hair was messy, with a lot of tiny stone grains mixed between the strands, and only two eyes could barely be seen on his gray face, which looked very embarrassed.

After a while, he finally relented, wiped the saliva from the corner of his mouth, and stood up.

Although his head was still groggy, he took out a rejuvenating potion and put it under his nose, using its strong, pungent smell to force himself to stay awake. He tore off the ragged Burning Legion-style trench coat and threw it to the ground, revealing the Valhalla-style white shirt below, with a homemade leather strap tied to it, his black book was firmly fixed to it, and a row of small grooves were specially made on the strap, which contained all kinds of reagents in small test tubes, and the awakening agent was one of them.

José took off the black book and opened one of the pages, on which were written in many neat and neat small letters, and José pressed his hand to one of the lines, and as his hand stroked, the line disappeared, replaced by an old and cleanly washed trench coat that appeared in his hand.

José put on his old trench coat and walked silently into the depths of the ruins, a natural spellcaster with near-miraculous abilities, able to record objects into his own words, like the trench coat he draped over his body.

Jose's standards of action are only two, one is the law of the empire, and the other is Dan Merson's order, in the entire Hegu family, Jose is a relatively special existence, until he was twenty-five years old, his ability was gradually revealed, and before that, Jose has been very mediocre, no merits, coupled with his unusual style of acting, even within the Hegu family, he is very unlikeable, except for Dan Merson, Dan Merson showed special attention to Jose at a very early age, the Hegu family is a big family, Dan Merson has many nieces and nephews, no one understands why Danmerson alone attaches so much importance to this unlikable child.

When José's talent became apparent, people began to admire Dan Merson's vision. But for José, none of this really mattered, it was Dan Merson who led him to Valhalla and taught him his responsibilities as a member of Valhalla, for him, apart from Valhalla's dogma, Dan Merson's words were the truth.

So when Dan Merson told him about this order that was contrary to the laws of the Empire, Jose hesitated, many spellcasters are the wealth of the Empire and the hidden danger of the Empire, and Valhalla is the last barrier to eliminate this hidden danger, so Valhalla must not have any problems, this is what Dan Merson taught him, but now Dan Merson is asking him to do things that are contrary to the legal system.

After receiving Dan Merson's letter, Jose quickly rushed back to the capital from the Iron Keep, and in the secret room of the Grand Chapel of the Capital at Valhalla, Dan Merson told him, "Valhalla is loyal only to the Empire, not to a certain person." José didn't understand what Dan Merson was trying to tell him, and he took the task, but this time it wasn't because it was Dan Merson's order.

José is twenty-nine years old and still single, which is rare among the large families in the capital, but because he is not the direct heir of the family, and with the acquiescence of Dan Merson, the Hegu family has not arranged any marriage for him, and for him, the marriage seems to be more distant than the abdication of the regent.

José never acknowledged the existence of such a thing as love, and his heart never throbbed for anyone, but for the first time he felt it when he heard the name from Danmerson's mouth.

Thirteen years ago, Jose was arranged by Dan Mosheng to become a transfer student in Tiangong Academy, he was one of the first demon spirit students to enter that school since the establishment of the empire, it was not a very pleasant time, because of his character, the other demon spirit students in the academy were unwilling to be with him, and the students of other races respected him because of his demon spirit status, with only one exception, that is, Ye Duyu.

Looking at it now, he was able to become friends with Ye Duyu largely because of the relationship between Dan Mosheng and Ye Zhiqiu.

However, their relationship did not last long, two years after he entered the academy, Ye Duyu's sister Ye Duxue unfortunately passed away due to medical malpractice during childbirth, and during that time when Ye Duyu needed friends the most, Jose accepted Dan Merson's suggestion to go to the Elven River to join Valhalla and resolutely left the capital, and after that, the two never had any contact again.

José did not inform Pavic and his party about the relationship between himself and the mission objectives, for a number of reasons, the most important of which was that José did not trust them, and on the contrary, they did not trust Jose, who was assigned by Valhalla to dictate to them.

Jose knew that there were many conflicts between the military and Valhalla on many issues on the front lines of the Iron Keep and Black Keep, and the military did not like Valhalla meddling in their own territory, but the army has always been the place where spellcasters gather the most. José had thought that this contradiction would be limited to simple negative emotions such as disgust and distrust, but what he didn't expect was that the other team members, led by Rheinstein Pavic, would choose to cast strategic magic without notifying him, and then watch indifferently as he slid down the cliff with the shattering mountain in the earthquake.

Fortunately, José was quick enough to survive, relying on a temporary shield. However, physical fitness is not Jose's strong point, although he has always insisted on exercising, but compared to Pavic and his party, it is still much worse, plus the outskirts of the town have been completely reduced to ruins, and it is difficult to walk, Jose has been left far behind them.

Thankfully, as Pavic always did, he had no intention of hiding his tracks, and the horseshoe prints were clearly visible among the rubble and rubble, extending all the way to the front of several low bungalows.

The destructive power of the earthquake had diminished slightly, the houses had not completely collapsed due to their low and simple structure, and José saw the black horses tethered to them behind a half-collapsed house, twenty horses in all, and José found something else, several bodies of humans who had not died from the earthquake.

There were three corpses, and it looked like a family of three, the mother and child died by the wall, stabbed to death with a clean knife, the wound was pierced from the mother's left back, the mother's heart was pierced, the child's forehead was pierced, and finally a slit and a red patch were left in the wall. The husband died not far away, his cheeks were high and swollen, his bloodshot eyes were full of unwillingness, his face was excessively distorted because of pain, compared to the mother and son, he died not so simply, the knife wound was cut from the left waist to the right chest, it should have been done by Pavic's adjutant Nogu Passarian, he was the only left-handed man in the group, the knife wound was not very deep, but it made the intestines in the man's stomach turn out and flow to the ground, it can be seen that he was tortured before he died.

Judging from the situation at the scene, Pavic tortured the family of three, but the human seemed to have failed to give a satisfactory answer to Pavic.

This is probably the reason why the inhabitants of the surrounding houses have disappeared, and the other townspeople who live here have fled the area due to the torture of Pavic and his party, and Pavic seems to have little interest in them, leaving no other corpses here.

After killing the family of three, Pavic and his party tied their horses here and walked deep into the town, judging from the footprints, they began to move separately from here, to José's confusion is that there are no people left here, theoretically Pavic would not make such a low-level mistake.

Out of an abundance of caution, José checked the footprints again, and only seventeen people left here and headed for the inner perimeter of the town, which means that Pavic left two people to look after the horses, but now these two people are gone, these people are the elite of the Burning Legion, they may be a little unruly, but they will never do anything to leave their posts without permission, that is, something must have happened here.

After some searching, José found the two people left behind in the half-collapsed house, their bodies to be exact. Tariwen Keaton, Lieutenant, who killed four dragons, and Tariwen Riemann, who was second lieutenant, killed two dragons. The two men were a pair of brothers, and their abilities were quite outstanding in the team, and their bodies were embedded deep in the walls of the house, with only half of their heads exposed, and from their high-drum and upturned eyes, they were suffocated to death in the walls.

This is a dangerous opponent, and killing two Burning Legion elites cleanly and leaving them too late to report is not something that can be done simply with a powerful spellcasting ability. José silently flipped the black book to a blank page, wrote the names of Tariwin Keaton and Tarim Riemann, then closed the book and turned and stepped over the fallen wooden door, where a slightly twisted human figure could be faintly visible in two deep holes in the wall behind him.

Jose judged that it was not the demon spirit beside Ye Duyu who killed the Taliwen brothers, although he was very powerful, but his attack was not so clean, and the most important thing was that the dark clouds above his head still shrouded this mountain town, and it seemed to be thicker than when they first came, which showed that Ye Duyu and his party had not left here yet, this was the outermost part of Pavic's encirclement, if it was Ye Duyu and them, it would be impossible to break through here and not want to leave.

However, this also means that there is still an extremely powerful spellcaster in this town who has not been recorded by Valhalla, and the haze in Jose's heart is even thicker when he thinks about this, this town may not be as simple as they think.

After following the footsteps of Pavic and others for a few hundred meters into the town, the surrounding situation is more like a normal post-earthquake disaster area, full of collapsed or cracked houses, and scattered among the rubble are Moro people and humans, who are either wailing or digging.

The earthquake seemed to change the distribution of groundwater around a well, the water gushed out from the bluestone wall of the well, the townspeople lined up with buckets of water to hand out water from here to put out the fire from a burning house, José walked to the well and scooped some water with his hands and washed his face briefly, and the surrounding townspeople avoided him as an outsider with a strange face.

José didn't pay attention to the villagers, his heart was beating a little too fast, and his breathing rate was abnormal, his hands were shaking uncontrollably, he couldn't concentrate, he felt a little helpless, and he could see that his judgment had been affected by this emotion.

A human girl ran from a distance with a bucket of water, bumped into Jose who was standing by the well, and bounced to the ground, she was obviously frightened when she saw Jose's inky lens, and quickly got up and kept shouting sorry.

But José didn't look at the girl at all, his eyes were firmly fixed on a bell tower that seemed to collapse and tilt at any moment, some villagers shouted to José, my lord, it's dangerous over there, but José didn't listen at all, he came to the edge of this dangerous building that no one dared to approach, and what attracted him was a face on the wall, Neuman Bell, a lieutenant, participated in the killing of three dragons, this is the third body found by Jose, the body is also sealed in the wall, but the difference from the first two is that Bell is afraid that he died before being dragged into the wall, his head is deformed by the shattering of his skull, and it looks like it was crushed。

Things are going in the worst direction, this mysterious spellcaster is killing them purposefully, because he, their identity as a hunter has been changing to prey, and to make matters worse, these soldiers don't have time to signal before they die, and Pavic probably won't even notice the existence of another enemy until the next team contact.

This was an unexpected situation that was not expected in advance, Jose's mission on this trip was to bring Ye Duyu back to the capital alive, but now he had to temporarily take on the responsibility of collecting the bodies of these people, and leaving the corpses of people from the army here might cause unnecessary trouble.

There was one more name on the black book, José stood quietly facing the slightly twisted humanoid hole in the clock tower, if left alone, he didn't know how many more names needed to be written down in his black book, although meeting with Pavic and the team members could cause conflict now, José decided to release the flare to gather Pavic and the others.

José reached out and pulled a small test tube filled with blue liquid from the slot of the strap, which was a signal flare specially equipped by the Second Research Institute for the Burning Legion to hunt dragons, and it was easy to use by smashing the test tube to shoot a conspicuous high-brightness beam into the sky.

But José couldn't crush it, and a dagger suddenly reached behind him, against his throat, and a strange but somewhat familiar voice came from behind him, "José, long time no see." ”