Chapter 214 The Extreme North and the Extreme South

In the northern part of Anzu Kingdom, frost and snow have covered the earth.

This mountainous land is the coldest place in the Ansu Kingdom. The northerners with strong folk customs took root in the mountains and cold winds, guarded the northern gate of the kingdom, and worked hard to maintain and update the kingdom for 700 years. A delicate balance between those tough neighbors to the north.

Whether it is the Violet Kingdom in the northwest or the Holy Dragon Principality in the northeast, it has never been an easy role to deal with.

But new shadows have emerged from the frost and snow in this unsettling winter, and in the eyes of Duchess Victoria Wild, these new threats are even more worrisome than those of their elusive northern neighbours -Because the threat is coming from within.

"Duke of Snow" Victoria Wilder stood on the high terrace of Winter Castle, looking down at the city below. The snow that began to fall before winter didn't stop until last night, and the town was all silver, while the north The typical spire buildings in the area can effectively reduce the snow cover. The black spires pierce the silver cladding in winter, just like the black pine trees standing on the snowfield, standing on the plain below the castle. Lin Li.

In most parts of the kingdom, the arrival of winter means that production stops and people are shivering in their houses. However, in this coldest northern region, the situation is different. The people here have adapted to the cold, and in order to survive It also has to adapt to the long and cold winter that takes up half of the year. Even on this day when the snow first stops, you can see countless people on the move in the city - they must try their best before the next snowfall destroys the city's buildings. Clear the snow, clear the road, and drag the corpses of homeless people who had frozen to death in the gutter outside the city, and in the central square facing the castle, the largest crowd gathered— —

The snow has been cleared from the square, where people gathered to watch cultists burn to death.

Those figures in black burqas were tied to high wooden stakes one by one, and heavy black steel chains and inscription shackles bound their bodies and magic power at the same time, but their terrifying twisted and terrifying magical powers. The face is still chilling.

The crowd of onlookers had gathered on the square for several floors. The soldiers separated the crowd from the cultists. The bright swords prevented the overly excited subjects from getting closer to the dangerous blasphemers. In the process,

Firewood was piled up, and the heated and melted animal fat was poured on the haystacks.

"Burn them to death!" Someone among the onlookers finally shouted loudly.

The roar echoed: "Burn them!" "They killed my children!" "Burn these cultists!"

A high-ranking priest of the Church of the Holy Light walked to the stake. He took the holy emblem from the believers next to him and turned to look at the excited crowd.

"The God of Light exposed the conspiracy of these cultists, and before more people were victimized, the Lord directed us to destroy the lair of these heretics!"

The high-ranking priest raised the holy emblem high, he turned around, used the holy emblem to excite a powerful light, ignited those flammable grease and firewood, and shouted: "Praise the holy light! Praise my Lord! !"

Under the action of holy light and grease, the burning platform was instantly enveloped in golden white flames, and the cultists tied to the pillars were twisted in the flames like wax, giving out all kinds of indescribable howls. A tsunami-like voice then sounded in the square: "Praise the Holy Light!" "Praise the God of Holy Light!"

The raging flames shot up to the sky, and the howls of the cultists continued in the flames for a long time, even until the flames burned their bodies, their roars continued to come from the flames, and the surrounding people finally realized that the situation was wrong , they looked at the abnormal flame in horror, listened to the abnormal roar, and the roar finally became human-comprehensible words, and the residual spiritual power of more than a dozen cultists stirred in the air, giving a terrible Whistling: "Laugh all you want! Cry all you want! Everyone will die! You will die like livestock, you will die like worms!! When they come back, they will eat your flesh and drain your blood. !!"

The flame suddenly turned black at this moment, the flames of more than a dozen fires merged together in the air, and a huge and indescribable dark purple mass rose from the flame, as if it was going to swallow everyone on the scene violently. Swelling, even the priest who had just shouted praises to the Holy Light in front of the stake was stunned at the moment, but at the moment when this terrifying vision descended, a piercing white beam of light suddenly emerged from Winter Castle. Terraces lasing into the square.

Under the impact of the "whip of winter", the indescribable dark purple mass froze instantly, and then shattered due to the lack of follow-up energy support, and large swathes of ice crystal dust fell from the sky, as if another blizzard had fallen. Like covering most of the square again, whether it was the excited crowd or the priest of the Holy Light who was chanting slogans, they were completely quiet, and above the silent square, Duchess Victoria Wilder's cold voice came: "Clean up. Clean - then praise Ansu and your founding father."

The powerful magic power gradually dissipated on the terrace. Victoria waved her hand to return the magic book floating in the air to her side, then turned and left the terrace.

The patio door inlaid with artificial crystal closed automatically behind her, blocking the sound from the square. The duchess returned to the warm lounge with a rare look of exhaustion on her face.

The black maid stepped forward, she waved her hand to screen away the other servants, then pressed her hand near Victoria's temple and pressed gently: "You rarely show this kind of expression - the last time I saw Gawain Sethi After the Duke returns."

"It's still about him this time. If it weren't for the warning from the founding hero from the extreme south, we're afraid we won't realize that they have eroded to this extent until the cultists have done more damage," Victoria said. Sighing, "This is the fourth cult's lair that has been destroyed since the beginning of the winter - the first three are the Confederacy of the End of Everything, this time is the Eternal Sleeper, the next time even if the Son of the Storm makes a comeback from the sea, I won't. would be surprised."

"It is said that there are actually very few cultists in the southern border. They only showed up twice in total, but each time they were detected by the duke and smothered..."

Victoria waved her hand gently, and Maggie, the black maid, immediately stopped her movements.

"We've been at ease for too long, the whole kingdom has been at ease for too long," Victoria stood up from the bench and quietly stared at the portraits of the founding heroes hanging on the wall ahead, Gawain Cecil's The portrait had been taken down, but she still stared at the blank space beside the founding king, Charles, "Everyone from the king to the local nobles was seriously lacking vigilance, but the Archduke Cecil 700 years ago was the most precarious from the kingdom. Over the years, he is more alert than all of us - it's ridiculous that the incompetent people in the capital took the warning from the founding duke about the cultists as nervous at first, and regarded it as the fuss of the ancients in modern society Hmph, now they're panicking."

The black maid stood silently behind Victoria and did not express any opinion, while the Duchess seemed to be accustomed to this. She paused and said, "Have you been investigating anything?"

The black maid bowed her head: "Yes. The priests of the Church of the Holy Light have indeed been more active than before in the recent period, and new missionary teams have appeared everywhere, but all their activities are reasonable - they are fighting against cultists , search and clear the lair of the cultists, and the missionaries are also promoting the methods of screening the cultists and protecting themselves from the curse of sorcery. The power of the Holy Light does have a unique advantage in this regard. Besides, they have no extra There is no conflict with other sects or robbing of religious resources, and there is no friction with the lords of various places.”

Victoria frowned: "Is that so..."

The black maid asked curiously: "Vicky, do you suspect that there is something wrong with those Holy Light priests?"

"No... I'm just a little concerned about their recent movements, they suddenly became active," Victoria shook her head, "but it should be my delusion, after all, the cultists are suddenly making troubles everywhere, and those who can eliminate those cultists head on. There are only the Church of God of War and the Church of Holy Light, of which the Holy Light is the most effective against sorcery," Victoria said lightly, "We have no reason to interfere with their activities within the legal scope - just continue to pay more attention, If they have any unreasonable ideas, they will always reveal their faults."

"Yes."

...

After the winter, the circulation of news also became difficult and slow with the reduction of traveling merchants.

In this era when cutting-edge technology is scarce but not popular, and ordinary society still maintains a primitive and backward situation, the transmission of information is an embarrassing and inefficient thing. Although there are magics and props such as communication techniques and the ring of mithril, because the people who master these communication techniques are extremely rare and there is no effective way to share information with each other, these technologies cannot make people fully understand the distance in a timely manner. As a matter of fact, for most commoners and even nobles, the main way of information dissemination is still traveling caravans and commissioners who send letters.

For the new Cecil Land, which is located in a remote location and is not very attractive to business travel, the slow transmission of information is even more of a problem.

In the territory, Gawain established a simple messenger team, and the main population settlements in the Cecil territory are currently only towns, western logging farm villages, and eastern mining villages (already developed into small towns). This is a place, so the transmission of internal information is not a problem, but if you want to communicate with the outside world, you cannot form your own channel with the current human and material resources in the territory. You can only rely on an extremely limited number of people who come from Tanzania to sell food and cloth. Or slave traders, as well as expatriates specially sent to Kant and Leslie to collect intelligence.

Therefore, when Gawain learned that there were signs of cult activities all over the kingdom, it was already a month after he warned the capital.

This was the result of relying on Viscount Andrew Leslie's information channel—if there were no quick gryphon messengers, it would take more than a month to travel back and forth from the capital to the southern border with just a pair of legs.

Looking at the information in front of him, Gawain frowned tightly.

Amber didn't know what was written in the letter sent from Tanzang Town early in the morning. She was boredly carving a piece of wood with a dagger beside her. When she looked up and saw Gawain's expression, she asked casually: "What's the matter? The price of rice has gone up?"

"No, it's a cult."

Amber suddenly jumped up from the chair: "You want to beat the cultists again?! Hey, can I have a stomachache now?"

"It's not here," Gawain glanced at Amber, "Except for the southern border, there are cultists all over the kingdom."

Amber felt relieved when he heard this, lowered his head and sat back to continue carving his own wood: "Oh, it doesn't get in our way."

Gawain reluctantly looked at the shame of this elf, but he couldn't be as relaxed as the other party.

The situation was exactly as I expected - the cultists have infiltrated all aspects of the kingdom, not only the border lords' territories have found traces of their activities, but even near the capital, on the Holy Spirit Plain, there are signs of their troubles.

A large number of cult dens have been discovered and removed, but more have just found a trace, and then lost the clue.

Either it is too late, the cultists have already completed their evil sacrifices, and the local nobles are nothing more than the bloody scene after the ceremony.

In addition to these disturbing information, another thing also made Gawain feel urgent and... cramped.

All the information is seriously outdated, the news from the capital is a month ago, and the situation in the northern border is still not available.

He needs to establish his own information channels, which must be in his own hands, and which are more efficient and more reasonable than contemporary information channels.

At present, the spell model of communication has not been parsed, and the attempt of electromagnetic wave communication has also failed. It is technically impossible to realize the "modern communication network" envisaged by Gao Wen for a while, but even if there is no cheap instant communication way, he can also come up with a framework first.

Those potions in the alchemy factory made him think of a way.

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