Chapter 21 Forest of Sand

"Are you a girl?" Ashford looked at Ziyue and said. Although they look the same, Ziyue's voice makes it easy to confirm her gender.

"Is there a boy as beautiful as me..." Ziyue originally wanted to say, is there a boy as beautiful as me, but she suddenly remembered that I am one. "Even if Ziri is a special case, under normal circumstances when you see me like this, you should think of girls first, right?"

"I'm sorry, I was rude!" Ashford apologized quickly. "Reintroducing me, I am Ashford, President of the Iron Cross."

"My name is Ziyue, deputy military commander of the Frost Rose Alliance."

After the introduction, Ashford looked towards a messy beach. "What's going on? Why did it hit so hard?"

"It's all the fault of that idiot Ziri. He asked people to refit the warship without checking it. In the end, he forgot to install the deceleration lever. We just drove all the way from China at super speed. We were still in China yesterday morning, and we arrived in just 24 hours. We’re in Europe, we’re about to catch the plane!”

Ashford was shocked when he heard this. "You guys just rush ashore and slow down?"

"Then what else can be done?"

"This is true." Ashford looked at the beach and said, "What to do with these fragments? Did you bring something here? I'm afraid they will be smashed at such a speed!"

"The things we transported are in the carry-on space and have not been damaged. However, I still need your help to clean up the wreckage of the battleship. There are many technologies on the battleship that are shared by our two guilds, such as propeller technology. You don't want a third party Will the guild also get it?"

"Of course." Ashford quickly turned around and ordered his men to pick up the pieces. Ziyue and the others followed suit.

Back to one day ago, the Bi Ling had just left China.

The Bi Ling left the port, and we couldn't catch up with it at that speed. We knew there was a problem and we couldn't help, so we had to pray for them. According to the plan, I left Essinger with the rose and headed towards the northwest. Riding on Yeying, he pulled Rose up and sat across in front of me. Bailang followed us on the left, with Xiaochun and Jingjing riding on his back. Xiaoxue walked on the other side of us, and Ling and Amynis sat on it together. Xiaofeng turned into a dancing form and stood on my shoulders, while birds circled above our heads to conduct high-altitude reconnaissance. At the very back were 10 bell knights riding war horses following us. This lineup is quite large.

With such a team entering the teleportation array, our goal is a place called Luji City. Yesterday, when I was studying the map, I spent a long time looking for only this city that was relatively close to my destination. The game map also takes into account real-life situations. The distance between cities in the northwest region is relatively large, and there are only sporadic small cities in the desert area. This roadbed city is one of these cities. There are no cities around for hundreds of kilometers.

When we appeared in Luji City, Zhuo Shi made the surrounding players stunned for a moment. Such a glamorous team does not often appear in places like this. After walking out of the teleportation array, I discovered that the buildings here were all made of loess. There was more than an inch of yellow sand on the streets, which looked very dilapidated. A super-big sun was shining overhead, causing heat waves to billow all around. We had already brought enough dry food and drinking water before we came out this time, so we headed straight out of the city without replenishing anything.

Standing at the gate of the city, we were stunned.

"Did we go to the wrong place?" Rose asked.

I looked around and saw that outside the city was an endless desert. Even if I opened the Star Eyes, my field of vision was still full of yellow sand. "There won't be a forest in a place like this, right?"

"Look at the map."

I quickly raised my left hand and faced forward, and a holographic map appeared in front of us. "This is where we are now. The forest should be somewhere in front. There is nothing wrong!"

"Then let's take a walk and take a look. Maybe there's something like an illusion covering the forest."

"Excuse me, are you looking for the Forest of Sand?" A player wearing strange clothes appeared in front of us. Judging from his clothing, he is definitely not a warrior. If he is not an assassin, he should be a mage.

"Forest of Sand?" I opened the map again, which startled the guy. "Is this the Sand Forest you are talking about?" I pointed at the point on the map with the tip of my spear.

"It's here, but the road there is very difficult. Take me with you and I can save you some detours."

Rose said to me: "Shall we let him be the guide? He always takes the wrong path and gets a headache."

"Then it's up to you." I raised my head and said to the player: "What reward do you need?"

"Five crystal coins." The guy said with his hands down.

"Deal. My name is Ziri, and this is Rose. What's your name?"

"My name is Flower Buryer."

"Do you have a mount?" Rose asked.

"Yes, I have a sand lizard."

"Sand lizard?"

The flower buryer immediately pulled out a monster from the alley next to it. This thing looked like a giant chameleon. Seeing our suspicious eyes, the flower buryer shouted: "Don't underestimate my sand lizards, they are much faster than those useless horses in the desert." As he said this, he looked at our mounts with contempt. .

Yeying neighed, and the sharp horn on his head immediately flashed with a compressed electric ball. I understood what Yeying meant: "I'm not a horse."

Unexpectedly, the flower burial man said: "It's all the same. Anyway, everything you encounter in quicksand is trash. Follow my footsteps and don't run outside. If you fall into the quicksand, you'll be finished."

"Just go ahead and don't worry about us."

"Okay, follow me."

The Flower Burial Man rode on the sand lizard and rushed out to the desert outside the city, and we immediately followed. The Flower Burial Man was very confident in his mount. It was only after we left the city that we found out that he was indeed confident. The sand lizard is simply flying above the yellow sand, and its speed is far faster than ordinary creatures. War horses that rely on four hooves to move forward are really at a disadvantage. The horses' hooves are too small and they will sink in when they step on the sand and cannot run at full speed. Finally we had to get off the ground and fly up and walk. The mounts of the Bell Knight were all equipped with the Dark Floating Cloud Technique by Ling, Bailang was given the Wings of Light, and Yeying and Xiaoxue were already able to fly.

Flower Burial Man was also surprised when he saw us all flying. He didn't expect that we could all fly. In fact, if I hadn't heard that there were a lot of monsters in the sand forest, I wouldn't have had to recruit such a large team to protect them.

The sand lizard was fast, and we were flying, so we didn’t waste much time on the road. While running, the sand lizard suddenly stopped, and the flower buryer jumped down from the sand lizard.

We followed the landing. "Why stop?"

"arrive."

"Are we here?" Rose and I looked around but saw nothing. "where?"

The flower buryer pointed to the ground. "We are now standing on top of the Sand Forest. The Sand Forest is a rare underground forest, right under your feet."

"What about the entrance?"

The Flower Buryer commanded his mount to sniff the ground for a while, and finally the sand lizard found a place and started digging. Within a few minutes, a huge stone slab appeared on the ground. "This is the entrance. Open the stone slab and you can go in. Our agreement is to send you to the Sand Forest. Now that we have arrived, can you pay me?"

I waved my hand forward, and Scot led several Ring Knights over, grabbed the buckle on the stone slab, and pulled it back violently. The entire stone slab flew up. It seemed that the stone slab was not as heavy as I thought. Ringtone The knight obviously exerted too much force. Scott stretched his head in, took a look and said, "There is a forest."

I took out the crystal coin and handed it to the flower buryer. "How big is the area inside?"

The flower buryer said: "I don't know how big it is exactly, but no one has ever walked it all. You'd better prepare a scroll to return to the city before going in. Getting lost is no joke. Or you can continue to hire me as a guide."

"Okay." I answered without hesitation.

"Let me say it first, the cost this time is crystal coins."

"Why so many?"

"Because there are so many people who know about the Sand Forest, the competition is fierce. But I am the only one who knows the way in this forest. Of course, the monopoly economy is more expensive."

Rose shook my arm a little angrily and said, "We'll go alone. There's a map anyway."

"Okay." I said to the flower buryer, "We don't need you to lead the way. Goodbye."

"Then be careful. Don't blame me for not warning you. The monsters and traps here are very scary." After saying that, he turned around and rode on the sand lizard and left. I didn't notice a strange look in his eyes.

After the sand lizard disappeared into the sand dunes with the flower buryer, we began to enter the forest. There is not a passage under this stone slab, but a large hole directly leading to the space where the Sand Forest is located. Stretching your head down from the entrance of the cave, you can see the lush canopy at the top of the forest. There seems to be bright lighting in the cave. I don't know what the source of the light is. The bottom of the cave was completely obscured by trees, and the ground could not be seen. But the top of the tree alone is nearly a hundred meters below the ground. Such a large space can only appear in the magical world!

I put away my magic pet, jumped into the hole with the rose in my arms. With the help of our wings, we slowly fell to the bottom of the cave, but when we touched the canopy of the tree, it suddenly darkened above us, and someone sealed the entrance to the cave. Rose held my shoulders and said, "Don't worry about it. Let's look for the ore first. Anyway, if you want to go out, just teleport directly."

I wasn't worried if Rose didn't say anything, but when she said that, I felt wrong. Even if the other party doesn't know that I have a teleportation ring, he should know that there is a scroll to return to the city. There is no need for him to seal the hole! I quickly tried the teleportation ring, and it was just as I expected.

Rose asked nervously: "What's wrong?"

"Teleportation is restricted here!"

"That doesn't matter. With our destructive power, it's not a problem to open a hole in it. The top layer above is only seven or eight meters thick."

"That's right."

No longer worrying about getting out, we slowly landed on the top of the tree. Because our wings were in the way and it was inconvenient to fly in the forest, we landed on the top of a tree and climbed down. Let the rose rest on my back, then hang the dragon tendon rope on a tree fork that can bear our weight, and jump directly. As the dragon's tendon rope was slowly released, we also descended at a constant speed. We soon discovered that this forest was not as simple as we imagined. We have descended more than 100 meters from the top of the tree, but we still haven't reached the ground, and we don't even know where the ground is. Continuing to descend, the surrounding branches and leaves were obviously getting denser and thicker. Later, I had to use eternity to clear the way while descending. After finally landing, I looked at the length record of the dragon tendons on my arms. Oh my God! '1 meter! Is this a tree?

Retracting the dragon's tendon rope we began to explore the surrounding environment. The ground here is black soil, which is very soft and moist. The trees here only start growing branches at a height of more than six meters, so the ground is very open and not crowded with branches. Next to us is the tree we just landed on. It is extremely thick where it connects to the ground, and its trunk is about 19 to 10 meters in diameter. If a tree in reality grew to such a big size, it would probably be broken by its own weight without being blown by the wind.

I don’t know why, but there is fog everywhere in the forest, and the visibility is only a dozen meters. I quickly summoned my men for help. The environment here is not suitable for flying pets and mounts, so Xiaofeng, Yeying and others did not summon them. The space in the forest is not very big, and I have not summoned any large magic pets. However, the land here is quite suitable for rose vines and pioneer activities.

Rose was a little nervous due to the gloomy environment here, and she grabbed my arm tightly and followed me. The ring knights formed a protective circle on our sides and behind to guard against any unexpected events, and I was at the front. Rose Vine and Pioneer are underground for us to detect whether there are any abnormal vibrations in the nearby ground. As long as there is anything approaching, they will know immediately.

After the defensive circle was laid out, I opened the map and looked at the green dots representing myself, and then at the mineral burial spots. "Over there." I pointed to the left. Take back the map and start moving toward the goal.

As we moved forward, the fog in the forest became heavier and the visibility became lower and lower. There were small water droplets on the edges of Rose and I's armor. Ling and Xiaochun in the back were even worse. Their tulle skirts had long become a piece of transparent gauze clinging to their bodies. The two former goddesses realized that their image was somewhat bad, and quickly summoned their armor, which made it much better.

Bailang continued walking for some distance and suddenly stopped. "There's a smell of blood ahead."

"Can you smell the blood?"

"No, the smell is too weak."

"Everyone stop." A silver feather fell from my wing and turned into a steel silver bee in the air. The little guy immediately started flying forward and I could see everything it saw. Looking at the visual images sent back by Silver Bee, I felt like I was flying. The screen continued to advance, and the target was quickly discovered. A large animal skeleton with no shape was lying on the ground. Its body had been chewed into a mess, and it was impossible to tell what it was.

I directed Silver Bee to circle around a few times, but saw nothing, so I had no choice but to move on. When he was about to reach the pile of corpses, the ground suddenly moved, and the tentacles of the rose vine emerged. The Phantom began to relay the meaning of the Rose Vine.

"There are footsteps approaching."

"Everyone, be careful." I said to the ring knights around me.

Phantom kept translating: "The target is coming towards us, and the distance is getting closer."

"What direction?"

"There are them all around. There are 11 of them in total. They are moving very fast and are approaching us."

"Type, size."

"A bipedal creature weighing about 150 kilograms."

"Now the distance?"

"700 meters... 600 meters... 500 meters... 400 meters... 300 meters... 0 meters... 100 meters... still getting closer."

Suddenly Phantom said nervously: "The target disappeared."

"disappear?"

"Suddenly there was no signal!" Phantom explained: "That's what the rose vine said. It suddenly disappeared and there was no sense of vibration. It may be that the other party left the ground, or it may have stopped."

We all looked around nervously, but we couldn't see anything. I asked Bailang, "Do you smell anything unusual?"

"No."

Rose whispered: "Shouldn't there be no smell if we are so close?"

But Bailang said: "There is no other smell around except our familiar smells."

"Ling. Are there any magic fluctuations?"

"No, there is no magic fluctuation around."

I said strangely: "This is strange. The other party is only 100 meters away from us. When we walk, we will be felt by the rose vines. When we fly with our wings, Bailang will hear the sound of the airflow. If we fly with magic, there will be magic fluctuations!"

After hearing my analysis, Rose suddenly said: "No! They must have climbed a tree."

Almost as soon as Rose finished shouting, the branches above her head shook, and 11 black figures pounced down at the same time.