Roddy, who was speeding back to Elsen City, did not realize that Sodelor's team was doing the same thing two hundred kilometers away in another direction.
The team of twelve was already travel-worn. The continuous journey and lack of sleep made everyone look pale. At this moment, Sodelor was extremely glad that he had prepared fifteen horses for the team. Otherwise, they would not even have the most basic time to rest before the monsters behind them caught up.
"Let's hope it works this time."
Although Sodelor had let the team choose to retreat, it did not mean that he had been running for his life. Other than using the rechargeable lance to create traps, he had also purposely led his troops through the territories of several other powerful magical beasts. To these magical beasts, they might not care about humans passing by, but if they encountered other large magical beasts, they would definitely come out and fight them.
The method of "killing with a borrowed knife" was actually more effective against the Magical Beasts, because the fellows at the top of the food chain in every region were cruel by nature. The Cosworth Earth Dragon had no way of avoiding them.
But the reality was clearly beyond everyone's expectations. According to Nora and Natha's observation, when the Cosworth Earth Dragon barged into the territories of these "Area Overlords", intense battles quickly broke out with them. But the outcome was always the Cosworth Earth Dragon's victory!
Victory alone was not surprising to Sodelor and the others. After all, the "Cosworth Earth Dragon" was one of the most powerful Magical Beasts that Roddy had identified. If not for the terrain, Roddy would never have let them provoke such an existence. With such strength, they naturally had a high chance of winning if they encountered other lower-level Magical Beast Lords.
But fighting would inevitably consume physical strength, and even cause varying degrees of injuries. Once or twice might be fine, but in the course of the continuous raids, Sodelor had created similar "accidents" for the third time to force the Cosworth Earth Dragon into a bitter fight. But in the end, he found that the battle was ending faster and faster!
In the previous battle, Sodelor and the others could at least get close to a day's rest. But now, those Magical Beast Lords were killed in two or three moves as if they were food. Nora saw with her own eyes that Cosworth's Earth Dragon ate those Magical Beasts on the spot, and then its body would undergo all kinds of changes.
After eating the Steel Spike Tiger King, a large number of spikes had appeared on its originally burning body. After eating the Man-eating Vine, its recovery speed had become abnormally fast. After eating the Moon Lake Iron Crocodile, it was no longer afraid of water. It could even use its advantage in swimming to shorten the distance between it and Zordlor and the others.
In other words, the Cosworth Earth Dragon was no longer a normal creature, but a constantly evolving composite!
Now more than ten meters long, it was still chasing after Sodelor and the others. This group of humans that had almost burned it to death had obviously been labeled as its number one enemy. The Cosworth Earth Dragon had chased them for more than a hundred kilometers, clearly ready to fight to the death with Sodelor and the others!
At this moment, there was a "bang bang" sound of tremors and wails in the distance. A large number of startled birds flew across the sky. Sodelor knew that this was a fight between the Cosworth Earth Dragon and the powerful orangutan tribe.
"This fellow is invincible in a one-on-one fight. If it gets ganged up on by those orangutans … it'll take a while, right?"
He wiped his face. Because of the long journey, Sodelor's face was covered in sweat and mud.
"They're no match for it, Captain."
Beside him, Nora's leather armor was covered in dust. Perhaps she had long gotten used to the life of a "fugitive", she looked calmer than Sodelor. But she had a bad feeling about the situation due to the sensitivity of her bloodline. "That big fellow's abilities are constantly evolving. Even if we're surrounded, it'll be very difficult to deal with it. If we let it eat these orangutans again, I'm afraid it'll catch up very quickly … "
"There's no other choice. Either we'll be caught up immediately, or we'll catch up later."
Sodelor shook his head and handed her a white potion that emitted magical waves. "We're about to leave the forest. Once we're out, we'll speed up at full speed. Once we're within range of the road, this stamina potion should allow you to think of a way into the city. If that monster really catches up, we can at least stop it. "
"Captain …"
Nora was stunned. For the past three months, she and Sodelor had fought side by side, and it had always been smooth sailing. She had never thought that they would have to face a life and death situation at this time. And this potion was clearly the entire team entrusting their lives to her.
As a Tefling, Nora felt as if her throat was blocked.
"Don't make it sound like everyone's doomed. As long as we enter the attack range of the floating space tower, are you afraid that this thing can cause trouble? "
Sodelor was naturally uncertain, but at this time, he knew that he absolutely could not let their morale fall. The more positive everyone was, the faster they could escape, and the higher their chances of survival.
Nora took the potion and nodded heavily. But then Sodelor stopped speaking, which made Nora feel a little strange. "What else do you want me to do?"
"Uh …" Looking around, the soldiers in the camp were sleeping soundly due to exhaustion to recover their strength. Sodelor turned his gaze back and said in a very low voice, "If — I mean, if we're lucky, we can safely return to Elson, that …"
Nora seemed to know what he wanted to say. She pursed her lips, and her tail involuntarily curled around the branch next to her.
"When the time comes, I want to treat you to a meal, okay? After all — ha, you've done the most. "
Sodelor stuttered as he finished speaking. Seeing Nora nodding her head shyly, he heaved a sigh of relief. Regardless of whether he would live or die in the future, once he said these words … he would have no regrets.
*****
The next day, the "magic conference" finally ended the presentation of the preliminary contract and the work of soliciting contributions for the journal, and entered the second stage.
To put it bluntly, the first stage of the conference was for Elson City to present their "results" to the participating mages. Now, the position was changed, and it was changed to the mages showing their research level in their respective fields to Elson City. Of course, this did not mean that they would directly submit their papers. Camilla had modified the seven large laboratories in the Pasha Magic Tower, making them into stair-like conference rooms. The mages were divided according to their factions and levels, and from morning to night, they would each have a fixed "academic speech".
This way, the participants could save time and freely listen to the speeches of different mages according to their personal interests. Because the entire conference would last for a hundred days, even if they missed an important speech of a mage, the most popular mage could give a second or third speech according to the votes.
To encourage the mages to present as much "real stuff" as possible, Camilla had also set up a variety of rewards. She took out a so-called "contribution" formula that Roddy had originally designed: every mage who gave an academic speech on the stage would first receive a "guaranteed" "magic points", and then a comprehensive evaluation would be made based on the number of audience members, the popularity of the research topic, and the satisfaction of the audience after the speech. Those with high scores would not only be rewarded with hundreds or even thousands of "magic points", but would also be rewarded with rechargeable crystals, laboratory upgrades, and other generous conditions.
If the speech had too many bad comments, not only would there be no reward, but there would also be a "deduction of points". To ensure that the rules were not maliciously used, Camilla had the final right to interpret them. The reward and punishment system was written in the "participation agreement", and all the mages participating in the second stage of the conference had to sign it before they could apply to give a speech.
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