The sun is high

The cold air rushes along the plateau.

When the dark and deep tones of all the buildings in the royal city of Bolden were replaced by pure white, snowflakes also fell over the distant city of Salem.

They swirled and fell in the billowing smoke, and many of them melted into snow in the rising firelight before they even touched the buildings and the ground.

The pale curtain made of snowflakes cut off all sounds in Salem City, plunging this city that was crying in pain and panic into silence.

Early morning hours.

The casters of the Legal Committee responsible for maintaining the blockade ceremony of Salem City once again approached the southern gate of Salem City with a convoy responsible for transporting important supplies.

This is the last remaining city gate that has been spared after many coordinations. The remaining exits of Salem City have been controlled by the armies of Votel and Delan at this time, and remain in those cities. The Master of the Law Committee near the door only has the power to maintain the integrity of the sealing ceremony and judge whether unexpected situations occur.

The convoy that followed the Legal Committee basically transported important military supplies - alchemical bombs as consumables, magic flamethrowers that ordinary people can use at will, and of course crystal blunderbuss and special weapons that can cause small-scale flame explosions. Crystal bullets.

According to the judgment of the Legal Committee, without these things, it would be difficult for the mages and soldiers in the city to control the situation.

Now, they not only need to deal with the "dark sludge" flowing in Salem City, but also need to deal with the waves of riots and impacts launched by the residents of the city.

As a special city that needs to hold peace celebrations every year in the past, Salem City's emergency reserves are naturally extremely abundant. In fact, both the Kingdom of Votel and the Kingdom of Deland will deliberately make tilts in this aspect. , with their support, Salem City has never been affected by famine, disease, or other problems in the past two hundred years. And because of the peace celebrations, merchants and wealthy families in the city will also appropriately store daily necessities and some Easy-to-preserve grains.

Now, however, the problems facing Salem City have far exceeded the limits of the city and its residents.

The food will be gone.

Clean water will run out.

The weapons used to protect themselves and their families will also be exhausted.

And when these things used to sustain people's lives are exhausted, all the hope in the past will turn into despair.

Not to mention, there is such a strange and terrifying existence in the city now.

In the past period, many residents have discovered that their neighbors will disappear without a trace overnight, whether they are the elderly, children or strong young people... As long as the bodies of the missing people are not found at all, No trace could be found.

Everyone knows that the sludge is launching new attacks every day, and its appetite is getting bigger and bigger, so more and more people are missing, but the soldiers and mages in the city are helpless - ever since what happened in the square before After the failure, the monster completely hid in the sewers of the city. In this case, let alone actively pursue it, even some defensive strongholds with slightly weaker personnel and force would be completely swallowed up due to a moment of negligence. Almost exhausted.

Under such circumstances, it is almost impossible to completely eliminate the hidden dangers in the city.

A young mage in the team swung the magic path pendulum in his hand, his eyes constantly scanning the city wall of Salem City not far away and the translucent ritual venue that shrouded the surface of the city wall.

After confirming that the ceremony venue was intact, he put away the magic tools in his hands, looked at the various emergency items that had been delivered, and asked in a low voice: "So, in addition to delivering these things every day, what else can we do?" What?"

"What else?"

Another mage who was also in the team turned around and glanced at his companion: "We can't do anything other than what is ordered. Valery, don't have too many impulsive thoughts."

"I just feel that these weapons should not be the only ones we need to send in. In fact, they...may not solve any problems."

Valery said with great embarrassment. This young mage from the Kingdom of St. Steele has short hair and a resolute face. His eyes and hair are dark brown. His body is strong. He does not look like an ordinary magic scholar at all. More like a soldier, warrior or even farmer.

He had served at the Legal Committee branch of Salem City for two years, so he had a very deep affection for this city.

What happened before him made him feel extremely sad.

The team stopped at the gate of the south city gate.

Through the translucent ceremony venue, people can completely see the scene inside the city gate. In the past few days, at this time, there will be soldiers responsible for the surveillance and defense of the city gate appearing on the opposite side of the ceremony venue. At that time, the convoy members will transfer the supplies to large lifeless carts, and directly send these carts filled with supplies into the city of Salem.

Naturally, people will not go in.

Because once you enter, you will definitely be restricted by the ritual venue and will never be able to get out.

But today, the soldiers responsible for receiving the supplies have not yet appeared.

Even across the thick ceremony venue, everyone could feel the deathly silence and depression that hit their faces.

While waiting uneasily, someone finally appeared in their field of vision.

That's a soldier.

He was wearing a military uniform belonging to the independent government of Salem City. The hat was missing, and the scabbard of the standard dagger hung crookedly in front of him, but the dagger was missing.

The soldier's face was covered with black ash and blood stains. Perhaps because he had cried before, the tears washed away several shallow traces among the dirt on his face. He just dragged his short-tube crystal gun, Step by step, he walked to the place near the city gate ceremony, and stared blankly at the mages "separated by a wall".

"Unloading and loading."

A mage gave an order in a low voice, but before the workers following the convoy could start their work, Valery bumped into him gently: "Hey..."

The mage turned his head in confusion, and then he saw that the soldier standing in the city gate was shaking his head at him and others.

He was rejecting the supplies.

So far, except for this soldier, no one else has appeared at the city gate.

Valery saw something, so he took a step forward to communicate with the other party, but the soldier slowly walked to the city gate and sat down against the wall bricks that had been blackened by the fire at an unknown time.

He opened his bullet bag, selected a crystal bullet made by Merlinle and the Law Committee's workshop, and filled it into his crystal gun tremblingly.

In this silent morning, under the gaze of the mages, this lone soldier bathed in the falling snowflakes in the sky, turned the old short-tube crystal gun upside down, and pressed the muzzle firmly against it. own chin.

The trigger was pulled.

In the isolation of the ceremony venue, no gunshots were heard at all, which was exactly the same as the cannonballs that had fallen in the city before.

Valery, who witnessed this moment with his own eyes, couldn't help but tremble. He looked at his companions who were also stunned beside him and wanted to say something, but in the end he swallowed all the words back.

…

Shuge put down the newspaper in his hand.

In today's Bolden Daily News, there is still no news related to Salem City.

The meeting of the alliance countries chaired by Princess Sophia has ended perfectly at the Adlon Hotel. During this period, the envoys and officials of the Kingdom of Deland who also stayed at the Adlon Hotel have wanted to negotiate with the Kingdom of Votel more than once. The responsible persons held talks, but these demands were ignored.

During the meeting, the mountain elf mage Fenn Asalel, who was the steward of the Walter royal family, briefly appeared. He directly used magic to give an extremely severe warning to the visitors from the Kingdom of Deland, and claimed that if Delan If visitors from the Kingdom of Lan continue to offend the dignity of the Kingdom of Walter and the royal family, they will be deprived of all courtesy as foreign guests and be directly expelled from Bolden.

In the pages of the newspaper, reporters even took pictures of Steward Fenn reprimanding the officials of Delan. In the moving magic images, the arrogance of the elf royal steward was clearly revealed, while opposite him, he suffered The Delan people who were treated like this could only swallow their anger, and every one of them had twisted and ferocious faces...

"The Voltel people must like this news very much..."

Shuge put down the newspaper in his hand.

It snowed heavily all night, and the entire Ernst Manor turned into a silvery white world. Standing at the window, he could see the servants in the manor pushing a small "snow melting cart" on the road. This special and ingenious alchemical gadget can quickly melt nearby snow, which is very suitable for clearing roads.

The drink in hand is still refreshing herbal tea.

Just when Shuge thought that the classic "Blizzard Villa" model was about to unfold in Ernst's manor, all the abnormal phenomena stopped.

In the second half of the night that just passed, no strange events happened again.

However, Shuge still maintained a high degree of vigilance. In the second half of the night, Snitch, the running rat, was ruthlessly squeezed by Shuge. Under his order, Snitch almost ran up and down several floors. , in order to confirm as much as possible what the so-called "family will" in the Manor Hotel is, Shuge even ordered Snicki to drill into the sewers again, and successfully entered Room 410, where the previous accident occurred. .

As Zeke Ernst previously revealed, the Ernst family did not interfere too much with what happened in the Manor Hotel. After the accident, what they did was just take away the victims. Miss Elena, who was the victim, and used magic rituals to seal the broken windows and the door to the room.

As for the messy room, they didn't do any cleaning at all.

Therefore, in Room 410, Shuge relied on Snicki's eyes and the traces left at the scene to roughly restore Elena's experience in the room.

"When the accident happened, Miss Elena should not have fallen asleep. Judging from the books dropped on the bed, she was reading before going to bed... Elena is also a literature lover, and her preference should be There are military themes, and there are several hot-selling books on the market on the bedside, which is very consistent with Miss Walter's style."

Shuge gently turned the magic ink pen and reviewed and sorted out last night's findings in his mind: "Like most people, Miss Elena only used the bedside table lamp when reading before going to bed. The one who was thrown out of the window, which is why after that lamp flew out of the window, the whole room fell into darkness."

He put down his ink pen and looked at his untouched soft bed while holding the tea cup: "There was no sign of the attack on Elena... When the attack happened, the lamp hanging above suffered some kind of impact first. And it shattered, and then the attack officially started... Elena was knocked off the bed by something unknown. In the process, she may have accidentally knocked the lamp to the ground, or maybe she was in the confusion. The lieutenant general took it in his hand.”

"The things on the desk were in a mess. Miss Elena obviously experienced a violent struggle, but then the window was broken open, and the force tried to push Miss Elena out of the window, and then what I saw with my own eyes matter."

Shuge raised his head and looked at the ceiling.

"The first metal bullet hit the head of 'that thing', but in the end the bullet was embedded in the ceiling. Obviously, the body that made up 'that thing' was probably not an entity. What caused interference to it was not the impact of the bullet, but the impact of the bullet. It’s those magic crystals embedded in the bullet.”

"Then there were the second and third shots... traces were left on the two walls of the room. The traces left by the second magic bullet were limited. The main reason should be that most of the magic bullets were in contact with the target. depleted upon contact.”

After taking the last sip of tea, Xiuge put down the teacup in his hand and tied his already long hair back on his head.

"In this way, we can draw a preliminary rough conclusion, that is, the unknown force existing in the Manor Hotel may not be a particularly powerful existence, regardless of whether its previous behavior was a test or something, but judging from the results, the magic bullet is This level of magic might be enough to hinder it."

"However, there are still doubts here. What is the purpose of its attack? If it is to kill Elena, then judging from the traces in the room, it does not need to be so grand. This behavior looks more like It was a deliberate demonstration, just like those murderers who deliberately provoke."