The clear blue sky, the long white clouds, the blue sky under the clouds, but not the vast. Slightly undulating hills and sparse groves are dotted around, and the lines of the hills are so soft that they seem to be a turquoise ocean, slowly flowing into the sky.

This is the fertile plain of Middle-earth. Looking at the shepherds who appeared from time to time driving a few cows and sheep to wander on the turquoise sea, Chenguang only felt that he wanted to lie on the blue waves immediately, quietly feel the breeze on his face, and listen to the whispering of the cows and sheep. Unfortunately, the Carolingian soldiers walking beside him ruthlessly destroyed this beautiful picture.

At this time, it had been two days since they had been escorted by these soldiers to the city-state of the Carolingian Duchy. For two days, the team has been walking on the endless grassland.

The Middle-earth Plain is located in the middle of the entire Tamchanaburi continent, and there are eight countries evenly distributed on it, from north to south: the Duchy of Saxony, the Duchy of Franconia, the Duchy of Tuvabian, the Duchy of Bavaria, the Duchy of Salyan, the Duchy of Riplian, the Duchy of Carty, and the Duchy of Caroling.

These eight countries are a little different from the rest of the mainland in Namchanaburi. As early as thousands of years ago, in the era of the great war between the human race and the demon race, the Eight Kingdoms of Middle-earth were a powerful country - the Middle-earth Empire. The Empire's king, Besman, was known for his iron-blooded warfare, and was known throughout the northern and southern states of Bizhou, and was revered as the Iron Emperor.

The Iron Emperor has always been at the forefront of the war against the Demon Clan, and he also regards fighting as his highest honor. Besman had thirteen princes, each of whom was also a brave warrior. But the accident occurred among these thirteen princes.

The demon clan is afraid of the majesty of the Iron Blood Emperor, and wants to get rid of it quickly. They secretly designed to seize the handle of a prince, and used it to coerce, both soft and hard, promising to use the future monarch as a bargaining chip, so that the prince would fight back against his father on the battlefield. The prince was helpless, unable to endure the physical torture, but also a little tempted, and finally agreed to the demon clan. As a result, the prince's assassination failed, and the Iron Blood Emperor was seriously injured and rescued by the other princes, but the prince who killed his father fled to the realm of the demon clan.

The Iron Emperor regarded the betrayal of this prince as a great shame, and as soon as he recovered from his injuries, he led the rest of the princes to hunt down the traitor. Three years later, the Iron Emperor broke into the hinterland of the demon clan alone and took the head of the traitor with his own hands, but he lost three other princes in the war.

After this battle, the Iron and Blood Emperor's old injury recurred, and he never fought again. Soon after the defeat of the human race over the demon race, the iron-blooded emperor, who knew that the limit was approaching, called the remaining nine princes together and made a last wish to divide the Middle-earth Empire into nine, so that the nine princes each led a land, supported each other, and worked together for the people. At the same time, he inserted his holy sword into the square in front of the palace of the Middle-earth Empire, claiming that if one of the royal descendants could one day draw the holy sword, the Middle-earth Empire would be divided into a composite group.

Unfortunately, the Iron Emperor's wish was soon destroyed, and the nine princes who had lived in harmony in the past came to their respective territories, and their principalities were inherited by their respective descendants. However, within a few decades, the monarchs of these principalities began to covet the lands of other countries, hoping that their principalities would restore the majesty of the former Middle-earth Empire, and a conspiracy quietly unfolded.

The Duchy of Rudioli, one of the nine principalities, was secretly in contact with the Duchy of Tuvaben, and the kings of the two countries conspired to merge the other principalities one by one.

After negotiation, the two kings made a secret agreement, and the two countries were merged, and the two kings took turns to rule, and began to gradually unify the countries of Middle-earth.

Unfortunately, according to the agreement between the two countries, the monarch of the Duchy of Tuvaben was first in power. And the first order of this monarch was that the monarch of the Duchy of Rudioli tried to seize power and usurp the throne, and he captured and killed all of them.

Poor Rudioli and his lineage of nearly 100 people were slaughtered overnight, and only one young heir escaped from the capital under the desperate protection of some dead soldiers, whose whereabouts are unknown, but it is said that he was also seriously wounded and could not survive.

The victorious Duchy of Tuvaben did not benefit much either, because the loyal people of the Duchy of Rudioli did not obey the orders of Tuvaben at all, and after learning that all of their monarchs had been killed, almost all of the Duchy of Rudioli declared their independence from the Duchy of Tuvaben overnight, or surrendered to other principalities, or left the city alone.

When the other principalities learned of this, they immediately took precautions, and from then on, the eight kingdoms of Middle-earth refused to give in to each other, and there was no further merger. It was only later that some powerful countries on the periphery of Tropchanuri coveted the land of Middle-earth and launched an invasion of Middle-earth, and the eight countries of Middle-earth knew that it was difficult to resist with the strength of one country alone, so after the collegial agreement of the eight countries, whenever there was an invasion by foreign enemies, the eight countries must send the same number of troops to resist the enemy, thus leaving the impression that the peripheral countries were united by the eight countries.

After listening to Zweig, the leader of the Carolingian guards, gave an introduction to the Eight Kingdoms of Middle-earth, everyone finally had a general understanding of the Eight Kingdoms of Middle-earth. The reason why Zweig told everyone these things was because he was a descendant of the people of the Duchy of Rudioli, which had been annexed. His family did not want to follow Tuvaben and chose to join the Carolingian Duchy, believing that their monarch was not destined for succession, so their descendants hoped that the more people would know about it, the better, and that it would be better to spread the word to the heir of the Duchy of Rudioli, who had fled, and then he would return to lead his people again.

Zweig finally told everyone one thing, the holy sword that the Iron and Blood Emperor inserted in front of the palace is still there, and no one has been able to pull it out for thousands of years, I believe that it must have been left by God for his former monarch.

When Chenguang heard this, he became a little interested, and asked, "Where is the palace now, and can we go and have a look?"

Zweig said: "The palace and its surroundings are designated as the holy capital of Middle-earth, located in the center of the whole Middle-earth, and no country has the right to govern it. It is now guarded by the guards who served the Iron Blood Emperor for generations. These guards were all powerful warriors, and their leader was one of the most powerful oracles in the continent of Nanchanaburi. ”

When he heard Zweig say that the divine envoy was made, his eyes were full of reverence, and Chenguang had also heard of the power of the divine envoy, and he was even more interested at the moment, thinking that he would be able to meet him immediately, and kept asking about Zweig's holy capital, which made Jacktu behind him a little unbearable, and said: "Chenguang, people's holy capital is a sacred and inviolable place, but you said it like a sightseeing place, which is too disrespectful." ”

Next to her, Amytis and Guo Xinzhu nodded again and again, and Chenguang accepted the words stupidly.

At this moment, it was the second day of being escorted by the Carolingian guards, and everyone was able to get so acquainted with the Carolingian guards, all thanks to the young prince, although he was a little arrogant, but he did have a royal demeanor, and the young monarch was not lacking in persuasion, so it took less than a day to nod these Carolingian guards. Even Team Zweig apologized to Amytis for fighting the lady.

However, although these Carolingian soldiers were a little pedantic, they were meticulous in their work, and they still kept everyone's weapons persistently, and did not change their mission to escort everyone to the city-state.

Chenguang watched Niu Er and Zweig talk happily, and intuitively felt that these two people should be from the same country.

After another day's walk, a magnificent castle suddenly rose on the steppe in the distance. The gray city wall was covered by an arrow tower at intervals, which concealed a four- or five-story building, and several spires stood on all sides of the tower, the highest of which had a huge bell embedded in the top of the tower.

The radius of the castle is not large, about forty or fifty zhang square, but looking inward from the door, there seems to be a large empty square inside, so the depth of the castle should be greater than the width.

As the crowd approached, at the foot of the castle, an almost wooden city spread out over the grassland. The houses here are a little different from the rest of the state of Namchanaburi, they look low, and there have been two- and even three-story buildings in Wange City and Guairah, but there are almost none.

When they went to the city, they found that although the houses here looked small, they were noticeably stronger than they had seen before, and all the houses were reinforced with rocks at the bottom, and the wood used was very well worked, so that the whole city looked neat and uniform, much more comfortable than Wange and Guaira.

There are not too many people in the city, and a group of people walk on the street, and pedestrians look at everyone curiously.

Zweig led the crowd straight to the castle. Several guards in armor at the gate of the castle stopped the procession, and Zweig stepped forward to say something. Niu Er quietly translated, Zweig said: The Ninth Patrol of the Southern Guard Army has found a group of suspicious people on the southern border, they may be nobles or high-ranking officials from other countries, so they are escorted to the city lord to decide.

The guards guarding the gate immediately instructed the other guards to keep an eye on the gates, and turned around and ran into the city.

The crowd waited at the door for a moment, and the guard ran back, only with a dozen of the same soldiers behind him. The soldier said a few words to Zweig, who turned to the heir and said, "The lord of the city is ready to meet the people, but only those who lead the way can go, while the others can go to the inn in the city and be guarded by the guards."

After some discussion, it was decided that Xiao Hei, Niu Er, Xu Xun, Chenguang and Guo Xinzhu would go together, and the others would go to the hotel in the city under the leadership of the guards.

The five of them, under the escort of the soldiers, entered the castle. The interior of the castle is as expected, it is a huge courtyard, the left and right sides are surrounded by three-story stone city towers, the city tower is about 100 zhang long, the city towers on the left and right sides are exactly the same, it looks very neat. Facing the castle gate in the center is a five-story building, about 40 feet to the left and right. There are one or two spires on the towers on three sides, and the five-story tower on the front is still the tallest, the one with a huge bell embedded in the top. The castle tower on three sides surrounds a courtyard, which is sealed by a wall that is more than a foot high, and the gate is opened in the middle of this wall.

Walking through the city gate, walking in the middle of the empty courtyard, there were patrolling soldiers and miscellaneous servants on both sides from time to time, but no one came forward to talk, and it felt both empty and warm.

Coming to the five-story building, the soldiers stopped, and looked up to see a terrace protruding from the second floor above the gate, where several people dressed as mages stood on it and asked a few words, and Niu Er quietly translated that these people were just asking themselves if a few people had weapons, how the others were placed, and so on.

The escort soldier replied a few words, and then the two-tall gate creaked and slowly opened from the inside.

Walk into it, it is a very wide hall, about five or six zhang high, more than ten zhang left and right, more than ten zhang deep, and then it is partitioned by a leap platform that is more than one person high, there is a ladder road that is more than one zhang wide in the center, and there is a hall on the leap platform, which is still more than ten zhang in radius.

The room is very large, but there are no windows in sight, and it looks very dark. There were no lights in the hall at the entrance, but the hall above the leap platform was as brightly lit as day, and everyone really couldn't figure out what kind of lights could be so bright. A few people followed the soldiers to the platform, only to find that the lights came from the pillars on all sides of the hall.

When the soldiers stepped forward to report, Chenguang looked around carefully, and found that the light emitted by these pillars was not a lamp at all, but from a bead, the light of each bead was not too strong, but each pillar was inlaid with more than ten beads, and there were more than ten beads on all sides of the hall, and the light of hundreds of beads was combined to create such a light.