While Ophelia's team was searching the castle, teams led by Dedeus and Kurala approached small villages. This is located to the east of the castle and is the only way to the safe zone.
There are fields, houses, and roads, but like everywhere else, it's deserted.
Dedeus activated a scouting spell. Balls of light like fireflies flew between the houses. If there are subtle traces of life activity, this spell will capture the clues.
After a few minutes, he shook his head:
"It's so quiet. Not to mention the villagers, there are no livestock or small animals."
"Disperse, occupy the commanding heights and establish an observation post. After confirming safety, contact other teams to follow." Kulala waved the order, and the officers and sergeants of the team spread out in a battle formation, advancing quickly along the roof and low walls.
This team is composed of elite soldiers who have just survived the battlefield. Although everyone was tired, they completed the task with impeccable speed and tactical movement. In a moment, they advanced to the small square in the center of the village.
On this land shrouded in haze, a circle of giant oval eggs stood impressively, with raised patterns like tentacles of meridians spreading on it. They are clustered together, and their lifeless appearance looks like fossils or some kind of bad-looking statues.
"What is this?" Deedius stared at these strange things for a while and asked Kurala next to him, "Would you like to break it open and take a look?"
"Huh?!" Korala raised her eyebrows, "In horror stories, people like you can't survive more than two chapters~
"I'll go to a higher place to check the situation. None of you are going to touch these things, just stay away."
She jumped up to the roof and looked into the distance. Under the vast gray sky, there were actually more than a dozen piles of such giant fossil eggs, stretching from the farmland outside the village to the forests and low hills to the east.
This is the exit of the mountains that cross from east to west. The gray and cold rocky slopes are dotted with small patches of green grass and bushes. The howling north wind passes through the mountain pass and penetrates into the collar.
The cold air was mixed with a faint smell, and Kulala's sensitive spirituality was suddenly touched.
"Look!" An Extraordinary in the team suddenly said, "Is that a dark cloud?"
Everyone looked up to the sky in the distance and saw a large black shadow approaching quickly.
"It's so fast!"
"It's too fast. It doesn't look like a dark cloud, but a flock of birds?"
"What is this?" Kurala narrowed her eyes and suddenly shouted in panic, "Hide! Everyone hide! Dedeus, distribute the scent potion to everyone and sprinkle it on your body, hurry up!"
The entire team swarmed into nearby haystacks, farmhouses and ravines. Deedius, who didn't know what was going on, also hurriedly took out the potion and threw it to everyone.
"What's wrong? What happened?"
He looked out from the gap in confusion, and suddenly an overwhelming scream came over him.
"Hiss--li-li-li!!!"
The earth-shattering sound was like the evil sound of a rattlesnake, coming from the distant sky towards the earth. An astonishing terrifying aura came overwhelmingly, like countless great beasts pouring out of their lairs.
"That...what is it?" Deedius was so shocked that he took two steps back. A huge black shadow swept across his field of vision, completely blocking even the sun's light.
Kurala had rolled to his side, covered him with her cloak, and said with a trembling voice:
"That is……
"A dragon."
Huge wings that could cover the entire village flew over the team's hidden village with a sky-breaking roar. The terrifying black shadow just passed through the gap above their heads, causing everyone to instinctively hold their heads and fall to the ground.
There was a strange and frightening aura in the air, and even people who knew nothing about it immediately guessed that this was the pressure of the dragon.
Kurala felt like she was wrapped in a blanket of terror and chaos, and she trembled on the ground involuntarily.
She almost lost control of her body and subconsciously screamed and ran away blindly.
The elite soldiers who survived on the battlefield were staggered by the terrifying aura, and those with particularly sensitive senses even vomited.
"boom!"
There was a loud bang on the ground. Something was thrown down.
"That's Viscount Varian?" Cruella put her hand on her forehead and carefully looked out from the gap in the wall of the farmhouse in a daze.
I saw Viscount Varian, the leader of Verona's local aristocratic officers who had been fighting together not long ago, being thrown to the ground along with his horse, causing the liquid to splash everywhere.
This powerful Beyonder became prey along with his mount.
The giant beast fell from the sky and landed on the hill outside the village. It opened its big mouth, and Dragon Scale's chest immediately became red and swollen.
"Hiss--li-li-li!!!"
Hot dragon breath spurted out. The flames and air waves rushed down the mountain, burning the bushes and grass along the way, and even swept near the village where everyone was hiding.
The crowd suddenly became commotion, and several sergeants who were as firm as steel actually shouted and jumped up, scrambling to escape out of the village.
"Oops! You're going to kill us!" Dedeus, who still had his sense, exclaimed, and the arcane radiance immediately condensed on his body.
He waved his wand and chanted a spell, then tore open the scroll he carried with him and threw a spell combination at the deserters.
"Secondary groups become invisible."
"Aura blocked."
At the same time, Kulala also opened her strong bow. She didn't nock the arrow, but she condensed a powerful cyclone between the bowstrings.
"Hurricane Impact."
Their skills took effect almost at the same time. The first two spells blocked the soldiers' shouts and hid their shapes; the latter hurricane blast rolled them up with a powerful shock wave and threw them far away.
The running soldiers suddenly found that their feet were dangling in the air, and their bodies were swept up by a hurricane, rolling in circles like leaves. If their aura hadn't been blocked and invisibility applied, they would have been spotted by the dragon the moment they rushed out of the village.
"What are you doing?" Dedeus was surprised to find that the soldiers were thrown to the ground far away by Kulala's impact.
"In front of Longwei, magic can't save them," Kurala said coldly, "At least we can keep them away from our hiding place."
"Then they are not bound to die?"
"From the moment they lost control due to fear, their death was doomed," Kurala replied, "We can send them away quietly in a short time, but there is no way to last long in front of mythical creatures like dragons.
"They are destined to die and we...
"Still trying to survive."
The giant dragon that was devouring the Viscount suddenly raised its head. It noticed something and swept the land below the hill with its golden vertical pupils.
The invisibility and breath blocking magic that enveloped the soldiers disintegrated the moment they encountered the dragon's sight, revealing several panicked humans.
Everyone heard a nasal sound that sounded like human speech.
"Heh, humans."
The sound that seemed to penetrate all barriers echoed in everyone's minds, as if a dragon was whispering in their ears.
A huge fireball roared out, hitting the fleeing crowd.
"Boom!" The sergeants were instantly ignited by the dragon's breath, rolling and burning in the flames.
After the giant dragon spit out the fireball, it no longer looked at the tiny creatures that were destroyed in ashes, and just continued to devour the flesh and blood in front of it.
When it had eaten and drank enough, the giant dragon spread its wings that covered the sky and roared down from the top of the mountain, flying towards the castle.
All those who survived fell into a state of extreme depression and panic. The terror of the dragon seemed to turn into reality, firmly occupying everyone's mind. The dragon's roar is like a curse, lingering in everyone's mind, making everyone feel confused and their steps become heavier.
They slowly left the hiding place. The team, which was already down to a few people, lost half of its companions.
"Hurry up and contact others," Kurala held her hand and forced herself to calm down, "Let everyone evacuate. Dedeus, do you hear me? Hurry up...what are you looking at?"
She patted her lord. The young wizard who had always been brave and impulsive actually started to tremble as if he had dysentery. He raised his hand and pointed forward:
"Kulala, look, am I dreaming?"
Miss Shutoral felt a throbbing feeling. She hadn't yet seen the sight that frightened Feng Jun, but she was already trembling like a scream deep in her heart.
It was extreme fear, despair, unreasonable, a vision that should not appear in this world, and a vision that exceeded the limits of human physiology.
She turned around and saw that the giant rock egg was glowing with flesh and blood.
It is divided into four petals, splitting like petals, opening and closing up and down, greedily sucking in the surrounding air. The originally gray rock surface was crawling like skin.
Thick, red-black mucus continuously gushes out from the giant egg. Some weird shadows peeked between light and dark.
"What is this--!"
"Attack, attack!"
Kulala heard a series of delirious cries. Before she could even see clearly what was happening, her ears were filled with a shrill scream, and some kind of creature she had never seen before ejected in pieces like a black shadow and rushed towards the team.
…
"It's time to gather, why haven't the teams come back yet?"
Joshua, who was caring for the wounded, had just finished a round of care and stood up wiping the fine sweat on his forehead.
His team stayed in the open space at the intersection, waiting for the teams that collected supplies to return before continuing their operations.
"Brother, did you hear that?" a wounded man said.
"What did you hear?" Joshua shook his head helplessly, "My inspiration is not high."
"Like a rattlesnake..."
"Idiot, the rattlesnake doesn't bark, it just shakes that disgusting tail."
"That's pretty much what it means. I vaguely heard some movement."
Some of the wounded who had rested for a while started talking. Just then, they heard footsteps, everyone heard them clearly.
Joshua hurriedly became alert. He vaguely felt that something was wrong, so he threw down the medicine box, picked up the war hammer and holy shield, and faced the direction of the footsteps, on high alert.
"who!?"
At this command, a man in black robe appeared from among the trees. There is a copper coin hanging on his chest, engraved with rising stairs, hanging spheres and twisted and ferocious lines.
This is the emblem of the "Deathrattle" cult that roams Verona and everywhere!
Joshua lowered his posture and prepared to attack. He is a monk who has participated in many battles with Griffith. He wears heavy armor and is wrapped in holy light. He is fearless even when facing a war elephant.
The man in black robe paused for a moment, then turned to this side and slowly opened his hood:
"Long time no see, Joshua, my friend."
Under the hood is the former member of the Storm Squadron, Gil de Ace, who attacked King Aurelius and then disappeared. His originally handsome face had been distorted by an indescribable ferocity, and his eyes were bulging, as if they would burst from their sockets at any time:
"You're here, it'll be easy.
"Tell me quickly, where is the half body of the savior? Tell me quickly, tell me quickly?"
what? What? What savior? What kind of bust... Joshua didn't understand, but he was even more alert:
"I don't understand you, Jill."
"That's it, that one!" Gil said vaguely, grabbing his face with both hands restlessly and tearing open the blood seals, "That's the Son of our Lord, the eternal one who saves the world, it's Him The other half of the container walking in the world!
"Hey, this lord has lost such an important container. Lord Horus will be in chaos!
"Quick, Joshua, tell me, the other half of the vessel, the other half of the body, where is where where where where where where where where where where where-! Why don't you tell me, fool Joshua, Idiot, idiot, idiot, why why why why!”
Team Joshua watched in horror as the traitor from Beyelan swayed in front of everyone, shaking like a crazy seaweed. This out-of-control chaos was truly worthy of the madness of the traitor who assassinated the king.
Suddenly, Jill stopped shaking.
His twisted body tilted ninety degrees to the right side, and then bounced back like a spring clown:
"Oops, it's too late."
"What's too late?" Joshua asked.
All the wounded had been armed during this time and surrounded the crazy Gill.
"You're too late, hehe," Jill grinned, "it's started."
"What started it?"
"The imitator, the failure, the futile ritual has started, hee hee hee," Gill answered all questions, "He is about to offer a sacrifice."
"What sacrifice?" Joshua and everyone asked in unison.
Bloody mucus oozed from the ground, like blood or swamp mud, red and black, pouring in from all directions, soaking everyone's ankles in the blink of an eye. To everyone's horror.
Joshua, he followed Griffith to attack the orcs' gun array, blocked the roaring sea of people in Odessa, and witnessed all kinds of mystery and chaos.
He considered himself fearless, and if the fateful moment came, he believed he would be ready.
However, at this moment, his whole body was shrouded in indescribable fear. Every premonition reminded him of how cheap and insignificant human beings are in the face of the ultimate mystery.
"Hehehehe," Gill stared at his former comrades with bulging eyes, and whispered as if he was whispering, as if he was talking to someone else, "Look, they are still in the dark!
"They still don't know what -
"Sacrifice."
