That afternoon, Roland was ready to go to the snow mountain.
Among them were camping tents, plenty of dry food, and a concrete paddle steamer. Since Devil's Town was located near the sea, he had to set off from Shoal Beach. According to the previous practice, Hummingbird was responsible for the transportation.
Roland had to admit that when Hummingbird, who was as big as Nana, grabbed the side of the boat and lifted the whole concrete boat over her head, the scene looked very strange. It was like an ant moving a grain of rice several times bigger than itself. If she put the boat on her side and looked from the other side, she would see a "ghost ship" sliding silently on the land.
As long as her hands did not leave the boat, she could always maintain this state. Compared with the original method of removing the weight of the object, this method of enchantment was much faster and consumed a lot less magic power. The only drawback was that Hummingbird had to follow the enchanted object, so she could only carry two goods at the same time.
The paddle steamer went all the way west along the mountain and arrived at Stony Beach two days later.
Last time, Roland had a bird's eye view of this land from the Cloud Gazer. Now that he stepped on the stony beach for the first time, he immediately felt a sense of desolation.
The scenery here was completely different from Shoal Beach. It was only a few dozen miles, but it was like two different worlds.
The stony beach was covered with the carcasses of various animals, which were embedded in layers of gravel. Some of them had been weathered, while others were gradually turning into new stones. Some of the bones looked very thick, almost as thick as the torso of an adult. Roland did not know what kind of creature left them.
The steep rock wall was also very strange.
There were countless sharp stalagmites growing on the surface of the rock. Different from the natural shape of the stalagmites in the karst cave, they were all hanging horizontally, and their ends were tilted upward, looking like countless barbs at first glance. This kind of gravity-defying landscape was incredible. He could not see it clearly from the balloon last time, but now that he was on the stony beach, he only felt creeped out.
There was no sign of life on the long beach. There were no seabirds, algae, or sea mussels. Even behind the stone wall, there was nothing but emptiness, as if the Red Mist of the Devil had taken away all the vitality here.
According to the marks left by Lotus, Roland and his team found the narrow crack leading to the camp. It was more like a fault than a slit. The slender opening almost split the entire cliff, and it was so deep that the bottom could not be seen. It was precisely in this steep fracture that Lotus extended a narrow path that was half a meter wide.
Nightingale couldn't help but exclaim as she walked along the stone steps into the One-Line Sky.
"What's wrong?" Roland could not help but ask.
"Look over there." She pointed to the depths of the crevice. "There's a hole in the rock wall!"
The team stopped in their tracks and craned their necks to look. Near the dark bottom, Roland saw a few circular holes, as if they had been carved out by something. "What is this?"
"I don't know. I've seen this kind of hole in the Impassable Mountain Range, but it's bigger there." She hesitated for a moment. "And the deeper I go, the more I feel like something is watching me."
"There's … something?" Roland was startled.
"There's more than one," Nightingale nodded. "It's in the valley leading to the Witch Cooperation Association's camp. There's also a path leading deeper into the ground, but I've never gone down there."
"When Sylvie comes back, we'll take her to the Impassable Mountain Range." He looked at the bottom of the fault again and suppressed the urge to send someone to climb down and explore. Then he ordered the team to continue moving forward.
Although this continent was part of the Land of Dawn, and there were records of human settlement thousands of years ago, their understanding of the world remained in a very primitive state, as if they had deliberately neglected to expand outwards. Roland had once mentioned the map of the continent to Agatha, but was told that the Union had only made a detailed description of the Fertile Plains, and only a rough outline of the Land of Dawn. As for the areas beyond the Land of Dawn, nothing was known.
This was also the reason why he decided to strongly support Thunder's overseas exploration. Roland had thought that sooner or later he would understand the whole picture of this world, but now he found that he didn't even know much about the Western Region of Graycastle.
Unfortunately, the war with the church was imminent, so he could only put these distracting thoughts to the back of his mind for the time being.
After passing through the gap, the view suddenly became clear. The soldiers of the First Army immediately welcomed them into the camp, and then Roland saw Agatha and Soroya.
"Where's Lightning and Summer?"
"She's flying around with Summer." Agatha sighed. "She can't stop flying these days. Devil's Town has almost become her playground."
"If it were in the future, this would definitely be a national nature park that you'd have to buy a ticket to enter," Roland sighed.
"What did you say?"
"No … nothing," Roland coughed twice. "I'll call her back with the Sigil of Listening. Now let's go to the collapsed stone tower and have a look first."
When they arrived at the center of the camp ruins, Lightning, Maggie, and Summer had just arrived.
"Lightning, we're about to land!"
The golden-haired girl raised her hands and slowly landed on the ground. Then she turned around and gave Roland a big hug.
Roland did not know whether to laugh or cry. In terms of age, Lightning had also reached that special stage.
"Ow —!" Then it was Maggie's turn. She also raised her wings flat and smashed her head on the ground, almost knocking Summer off her back.
Lightning's reaction was understandable, but Maggie was obviously an adult witch. Roland thought helplessly, "It seems that this disease is contagious."
"Since you're all here, let's start," he said to Summer, whose legs had turned to jelly.
"Yes … Your Majesty." Summer limped to the edge of the pit and closed her eyes.
In an instant, the big pit on the ground suddenly disappeared, and a huge black stone tower appeared in front of everyone. At the same time, the air was filled with a red mist that was as thick as blood.
Roland subconsciously took a step back and held his breath at the same time.
"This is the scene before the change was about to happen. It happened 26 days ago," Agatha explained. "If Summer only used the Backtrack ability once, she could maintain the illusion for nearly an hour, so we could observe everything that happened."
"What about the Eye Demon that you said had eyes all over her body and could attract the attention of demons as long as she was stared at?" Tilly asked curiously.
"At the top of this stone tower." Agatha pointed above her head. "But the height of the stone tower is beyond the range of Summer's ability, so we can't see it for the time being."
Roland looked up and saw that the top of the tower was blank, as if it had been completely shaved off. It seemed that magic could only reproduce the scene within five meters of Summer.
Just then, the ground seemed to tremble.
"It's coming!" Agatha said in a low voice.
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