Chapter 128: The Stage of Destiny

A week later, Roland Hill bid farewell to the Roentgen Chamber of Commerce, and left with the girl rescued from Viscount Moruo, and went to Longjiao Province, which is in the north of the southern border, near the middle of the empire.

"I didn't expect to part so soon." Shalin looked at the girl in front of her, and felt quite emotional. When she first met, she thought this was the eldest lady who ran away, but after getting along, she felt more and more This girl is not ordinary, not only in strength, but also in knowledge, far beyond ordinary people.

It's all because Messiah was too shy when they first met, which made me have these misunderstandings. Miss Charlene found a reason for herself in her heart.

"Is Messiah going to Longjiao Province this time?"

"Yes, I heard that Iyena's brother is there, so I have to send Iyena there." After purchasing food for the northern knights in the past two days, the girl began to investigate the rebels in the southern region. , and Iyena's brother happens to be a good entry point.

"Hey, I originally wanted to keep you here for a few more days in the battlement of Longxin. This is the capital of the southern border and the most prosperous place." Miss Shalin regretted that the general meeting of their Rontgen Chamber of Commerce was here, and she He also has his own residence in the city.

"Next time, Sister Charlene." Lorraine Hill still has a lot to do.

"Well, but you don't have to be restrained in the future, don't feel like bothering me or something. I'd really like to see how you look in a few years, maybe you'll become more powerful again, giggle." Charlene covered her mouth and smiled. , and then handed Roland Hill a metal nameplate.

"Take this. If you meet someone from the Roentgen Chamber of Commerce in the future, you can get some help and save a lot of trouble."

"thanks."

"That's it, bye."

"Goodbye, Sister Charlene." Yiena on the side also waved goodbye to the businesswoman who was good to her.

Standing under the tall city gate, Shalin watched the two leave in the carriage, and waved her hands. The warm orange sun shone on the cold mountains, and the snow-covered woods also covered a layer of warm colors.

——————

In Lionheart Province, Baijie's castle stands on a high cliff. Occasionally, winged griffins fly over and hover in the castle. This is a palace of the Salius family.

"Lord Jerain."

On the grass in the spacious courtyard, twenty or so maids dressed in black and white stood on both sides and bowed to the man who stepped off the griffin's back.

"Don't be so polite, get up."

Jerain said hello in an easy-going manner, and then asked his followers to lead the griffin to the nest not far away, while he led a group of knights to the mansion not far away.

"Has my father been waiting for me here?" This is not the place where the Salius family usually lives, but a mansion that is occasionally used for vacation.

"Yes, the Duke arrived yesterday, and is currently waiting for your return, young master." The butler on the side walked ahead to guide Jerain, talking about the recent situation.

"Now the cold wave in the north is gradually moving down, and some fiefs in our territory have also suffered snow disasters. Many lords have come to the main house to ask for help."

"Oh, is the situation serious?" Jerain asked as he walked, remembering that before he came back, he met a group of northern knights on the border. They seemed to have purchased a lot of food at the border market.

"It can still hold up. After all, there were a lot of grain reserves in the past, but it will be difficult to say if it takes a long time. Now all parts of the empire have started to hoard grain, and many great nobles have even ordered that the grain in their fiefs is strictly forbidden to go out. "

"Thanks for your hard work."

Speaking of which, the two entered the restaurant on the second floor, opened the door, and there were several familiar people sitting on the long dining table.

"Father, I'm back." Jerain wanted to bow to the gray-haired old man in the first seat, and then looked down at the next few people.

One of them is her sister Fantina, her husband and children, and two younger brothers who have just grown up. I heard that they will go to school in Emenas next year.

"Sit down." The old Duke Griffin nodded without saying much. He has always been so cold and solemn, making it difficult for people to get close.

The meal started, the two younger brothers looked at the elder brother curiously, then lowered their heads and ate quietly.

After lunch, the maids came to clear the table.

The old duke raised his gray pupils and looked at Jerain, "Let's go to Titania in three days, you understand."

"Yes, Father." Jerain lowered his head and responded, unable to see the expression on his face.

"Humph." The old duke stood up and led someone away.

After that, Valentina and her husband also got up to say goodbye and left quickly. Her attendance this time was just to do her duty and not want to be scolded by the old duke.

In the end, only Jalan and his two younger brothers were left in the room.

"Brother Jerain, you're finally back." After seeing the others leaving, the two of them couldn't help but be happy. They jumped up and surrounded Jerain, and then happily inquired about the situation in the south.

"Is it fun there?"

"Have you seen a dragon, or brought us dragon scales?"

"Are the noble ladies in the southern border better looking? I heard from Barbasa that the girls over there are popular in wearing black stockings."

"It's delicious, is there anything new? Didn't the emperor say before that those alchemists came up with a lot of new things?"

The two were chatting non-stop, like hungry birds, which made Jerain feel a big headache for a while.

"Come here one by one. Grace will find you something about gifts and so on. I did bring something back."

"Really, let's see...

.." As they said, the two crowded around the eldest brother to the door of the mansion.

Afterwards, the three of them went to the place where the luggage was kept, and later asked Jerain to tell them various things. It was not until a few hours later that the curiosity and enthusiasm of the two gradually subsided.

"I see, it's not as fun as I thought, hey."

"I'm still looking forward to going to Emenas in the future."

"Are there many beautiful girls there? I heard that there are still girls from the elves." The two younger brothers were young, and their interest in the opposite sex far surpassed their extraordinary strength.

"Elf? Yes, but it might belong to a girl your grandma's age." Jerain smiled and looked at the two boys before rubbing their hair.

"It's better to find a human girl who is about the same age as yourself. After all, we are griffins in the mountains, and we cannot marry elves like unicorns." Jerain said the hidden rules among nobles. For the king of the Western Realm, it would be a bit arrogant to marry the forest elves again. This is usually the privilege of the royal family, or the style of the aristocrats in the Eastern Realm.

"I'll test you this time to see how your sword practice is going." After sitting for a while at the side fence in the corridor, Jerain asked the maid to find three wooden swords and let the two younger brothers be his opponents.

"You can't beat Big Brother, but if Big Brother Jerain lets us go together, maybe we can give you a surprise." The two looked at each other with sly smiles.

"Then let's go together." After speaking, the three of them went back and forth on the grass, without using their extraordinary power, they purely relied on sword skills and physical combat.

"Haha..." An hour later, the three of them lay panting on the grass, looking up at the sky with a smile.

"Very good, your cooperation just now." Jerain commented.

"Of course, we are super powerful. Just wait, brother, in a few years, we will surpass you."

"Then I have to look forward to it, hehe."

After finishing speaking, the three of them quietly closed their eyes and rested their minds, feeling the warm breeze blowing on their bodies. Now the winter in the Western Region is almost over.

When the sun gradually went down and it was more than four o'clock in the afternoon, Jerain and his two younger brothers took a walk in this ancient courtyard.

"I heard that this is our family's very early mansion. It was at the beginning of the third era, and it didn't even have the Griffin Principality." The two talked about the records they recently found in the study.

"After the ancestors developed, the place was empty, and only a small part of the time would come to vacation and play."

"It's pretty mysterious anyway." The two walked ahead and looked at the wall on one side of the corridor, which was covered with green vines, covering up the weathered cracks on the wall, giving it a sense of remoteness and tranquility.

"But that's fine. I don't like the noisy appearance of the main house. There are many relatives and children, some of them are particularly stupid."

"It's more comfortable here, hehe." The two said and then started running forward together, seeming to be faster than whoever was, and climbed up the front of the mountain first.

"Hey." With one foot on the gray-white rock wall, the two jumped up the hill flexibly with their hands and feet, and then waved to Jellan below.

"Come up, Brother Jerain."

"These two guys." Jerain shook his head, then took a few steps to run, and kicked up directly, and then he heard the schadenfreude of the two of them.

It turned out that there was a big pit hidden behind the mountain wall, and the two of them just happened to be standing on the edge of the pit.

Seeing this figure move slightly, Jie Lann changed his relaxed posture before, but stepped down heavily, stepping on the soil at the bottom of the pit, and by the way, the two of them were shaken down by exclamations.

The two tumbled a few times on the dirt slope, and hurriedly slid to the bottom of the pit before they stopped.

"Bah." They spat out the mud they gnawed in their mouths, and the two showed bitterness on their faces.

"It hurts." Then one of them squatted down with sweat on his forehead and covered his ankle.

"Don't do this kind of prank, it's okay for me, if your sister sees it, I'm going to be beaten again." Seeing this, Jerain shook his head.

"No, I'm really hurt this time, eldest brother." The squatting younger brother raised his head, his eyes were a little wet.

"Really, let me see. It seems that he twisted his foot and was bleeding." Seeing the socks on his ankles gradually turning red, Jerain also reacted at this time.

"However, this place is full of dirt, how could I hit my foot." He looked at the slope above with a little doubt, only to find a corner of the stone exposed. It looked like it was part of a stone tablet.

After simply bandaging the wound on the younger brother's foot, Jerain climbed the hillside again, poked through the pile of dirt, and found the complete stone tablet.

"The handwriting is a little unclear, and the corrosion is severe. It seems to be something from a long time ago." The three looked at the stone tablet with a little curiosity.

"Is there anything else in the back? It always feels like it's not just this."

"Indeed." After saying that, Jerain's eyes narrowed, and then he swung his palm diagonally down, bringing up a white sky-breaking blade, and sank into the mountain wall, slicing away a lot of dirt.

After repeating this several times, the things in the back slowly revealed, the dark as ink color, even if it was buried deep for so many years, it did not rot.

The last three people dragged the cuboid object out of the soil, and then took a closer look.

It looks like it is made of some rare and extraordinary hardwood, with a golden pattern on the edges, the symbol of the Salius family in the middle, a gilded griffin pattern, and an unknown white flower surrounded by the pattern, which is very beautiful.

"This is something from our family, but it looks like a coffin?" A younger brother stepped forward and tapped, but it felt like a solid rock, and there was no echo.

"Could it be the treasure buried by the ancestors." Another also expressed his own thoughts, a little eager to try.

"I think it's better to ask my father." Jerain looked at the black hardwood cube in front of him and frowned slightly. Even with his extraordinary strength, he couldn't detect what was hidden in it, which was a bit dangerous.

"Blood, yes, blood." One of the younger brothers seemed to remember something, and happily wiped a little blood on his ankle, and then pressed it in the middle of the griffin pattern.

"Don't, how can it be opened so easily..." One of them smiled and shook his head, but suddenly his mouth was stuck and he stared blankly ahead.

The originally tightly sealed cube suddenly made a slight noise, and the original bird calls and insects in the surrounding forests also suddenly quieted down, as if an invisible creature was choking on the throat.

The world has become extremely quiet.

In Jerain's extraordinary perception, an icy aura mixed with rotten dust overflowed from the coffin, stunned him, like some kind of giant beast lying in front of him, making him not dare to act rashly.

Then the three of them watched as the coffin opened a tiny slit, and strands of white hair came out of it. These hairs, like life, spread to the surroundings, gradually covering the earth, wrapping around tree trunks, and covering the sky. hanging down above.

The originally bright mud pit became extremely dim, as if it was getting dark, and in the shocked eyes of the three, the coffin gradually opened and slipped down, revealing the sleeping figure inside.

With pure white hair, pure white dress, pure white eyebrows, and pure white eyelashes, this sleeping girl looks only about 15 years old, thin and weak, and the skin on her body is also pure white, like flawless marble.

When she slowly opened her eyes, Jerain seemed to have seen a phantom. The pure white hair in her field of vision fell off and turned into pure white rocks, and the messy and ordinary dirt pits also became solemn and elegant. A beautiful marble hall, neat and holy.

An arc-shaped staircase was formed step by step, surrounding the black coffin. After that, the pure white girl slowly floated up and then fell gently. The naked feet stepped on the white staircase, and its color seemed to match the environment. .

"I am the imitation Huaslin, the witch carved from the holy white stone, are you the descendants of Oslin?"

Oslin the Lion of the Brave, a hero from a thousand years ago, led the mountain people in the chaotic disaster, guarded the dangerous fortress, saved countless people, and died of exhaustion after exhaustion. It is also the ancestor of the Salius family, the origin of the Griffin Principality.

"Exactly."

The three of them slowly crouched down and half-squatted in front of the girl, and the sound from the holy and rock came down and wrapped around them.

‘May you be like a carved holy white lion, not afraid of swords, spears, swords, halberds, cold, wind and fire, until the victory of glory. ’

The ancient witch's power, like a blessing and a curse, was slowly added to her body.

————————

The far north, the wilderness where thousands of snowflakes flutter.

The undulating sea of ​​reeds and grass is covered with white snow, swaying in the continuous cold wind, and the place where the lake was once rippling has turned into a piece of ice.

Figures in black clothes and black robes marched forward on the ground, and they gradually formed a huge circular array, like a complex and mysterious ancient pattern, surrounding this open space, and then a high staff straightened. Refers to the sky.

Under the gray sky, snowflakes fell into the eyes of these people, melted into cold water trails, and flowed into the warm necks.

"Following the ancient oath, the Black Feather Prophet who roams the heavens and the earth, I wait for the Greywings to call again here, and the appointed time has come."

Accompanied by the silent cry of thousands of necromancers, the tremor from the soul resounded through the earth, and the violent undead magic power wandered and converged in the cold wind, forming a violent eye of the storm.

Immediately, hoarse calls came from all directions, and a pair of black feathered wings covered the sky.

They passed through the icy cold wind and clouds, and layers of frost gradually condensed on their wings, but they still did not stop, and they continued to move upwards, as if they were about to break through the thick clouds that covered the sky, circling upwards in the sky.

As the terrifying magic power gathered in the gale, the necromancers stared ahead in the cold wind, their hoodies fluttering.

That special and icy magic power is colder than the north wind, colder than the frost, and it constantly swept the open space in the center.

There, the originally dry and cold ice began to crack, making a crisp tearing sound, and then collapsed piece by piece, and a huge pit with a diameter of several kilometers gradually formed on the ground.

The rock-hard ice cubes and soil were swept up by the storm and flew into the sky continuously, and the ice cubes and frozen soil below gradually turned into debris.

cracked ice

cracked ice

I don't know how much time passed, these necromancers looked at the hollow below like statues, and a giant hollow with an inverted cone gradually formed below.

Finally, the last piece of frozen soil and ice was also torn apart, revealing the incomparably dark blue crystal below, and a woman in a blue and black robe lay twisted in it.

In the tickling sound, the dark blue ice crystals turned into powder and dissipated in the cold wind.

The slumbering prophetess gradually opened her eyes, and then slowly floated up amid thousands of jackdaws.

"Congratulations on your return, the witch of the Raven-eyed Crow, His Highness Ggared."

Under the gray-white sky, the circling gray crows finally tore apart the dense dark clouds, and the sunlight passed through the clouds and shone on the white land, and the cold wind finally stopped.

Rest, the world gradually becomes warmer.

In the afterglow of the setting sun, the hooded prophetess sat on a tree stump, staring at the world like a raven, and below it, black-robed wizards bent over and saluted, obeying her guidance.

——————

The eastern border of the empire, the snowy night.

Elio walked through the mountains with heavy footsteps. From time to time, he tripped over the gravel under his feet, and then slowly climbed up. Although his body was covered with scars and bloodshots kept oozing out, he could no longer feel any pain. .

where is sister anna

I really want to eat cake again

so cold

Mom, no, mom's gone

I'm alone

why

Why is that, I don't know

Why does the kind-hearted sister Anna do this?

So sad

why did not you tell me

I'm too weak

Yeah, I am so humble, why should I live?

Yeah, why live

Just make everyone hate it

the dirty kid

The ignorant child

the child without a family

it's me

The last time he stumbles in the snow, Elio can't get up again.

In the vast snow, he curled up in the grass, his body trembled, and his eyelashes were covered with heavy frost, and it was difficult to open it again.

It all ends here.

Some kind of final enlightenment rose in my heart, my consciousness gradually blurred, and my clenched hands slowly spread out, waiting for the last moment to come. If it all ends like this.

I don't know when, a petite figure walked out of the snowy mountains and forests. She was surrounded by goats, purple snakes, elk, and snowy owls. These intelligent animals in the mountains followed her quietly.

Silently, these animals lifted the boy up and slowly walked into the secluded forest behind him.

After an unknown time, the boy woke up in a hazy orange halo. He felt warmth around his body, and he was still lying on something soft.

Is it heaven or the underworld, Elio's mind floated for a while, and then a snowy owl's birdsong woke him up and slowly sat up.

"Are you awake?" A nice voice came from behind.

The boy turned around immediately and looked at the environment like a fairy tale.

This open space is surrounded by fine branches and leaves of frozen green, filtering out the cold outside like a windproof wall, and above the head, small berries are exposed among the frozen green, emitting a warm halo of orange to embellish the night.

A girl with long silver and purple hair is sitting on a thick tree stump at the moment. She seems to have woken up from her lap just now. Behind her, goats and elk are quietly crouching, and a snowy owl is parked on her shoulders. , and a snake with purple scales wrapped around its arms.

"Are you a fairy in the forest?" Elio remembered the old fairy tales he heard in the tavern, the eternal girl holding a frozen blue wreath.

"Probably so, do you have any wish to come true?" the mysterious silver-purple girl asked.

"Any wishes? I, I want to resurrect Sister Anna."

Elio looked at this unreal girl, feeling that everything was like a dream.

"Yes, because I am the eternally frozen witch, Kerros."

"But in exchange for making a wish, you will ascend to the icy throne and renew this thousand-year-old empire with ice and blood."

The girl's eyes closed slightly and then opened again, and in those beautiful eyes, the young man fell into a deep sleep again.

Putting the boy on his knees again, the girl's hand gently stroked his eyes.

"Finally found you, Prince Ansroy's child, Elio Cang Jusserberg."

"According to the agreement, you will become the emperor of the empire. Since you are retrieved in the beautiful smog winter scenery, in the future, I will call you the king of smog."