"There is something in the dream. It came out of our hearts …" Morian scratched his chin and repeated the words in confusion.
Morian scratched his chin and repeated the words in confusion. He had never heard of such knowledge before. The old knight turned his head and looked at Veronica. "Your Royal Highness, this seems to be the work of a wizard."
"You mean the psychic illusion?" Veronica frowned. "These soldiers seemed to have suffered great fear before they died, and the commander showed signs of madness. It does look like a psychic illusion of a wizard, but I have never heard of any illusion with such a strong effect and such a wide range. Those stationed at the border of Chaos are veterans, and everyone has received at least a year of willpower training. Their resistance to illusion is very strong."
Hao Ren looked on and did not comment. In fact, he knew far more than Veronica and Morian. He had seen the most powerful soul power in the universe and faced the psychic storm that could drive an entire city crazy. He knew that there were many powerful extraordinary minds in the world that could do what he was seeing, such as the whisper of the First Born and the nightmare of the guardian giants. But these things were difficult to explain to the local natives.
And he could not be sure what the soldiers in this outpost had encountered because he did not see any traces of the tentacles of the First Born inside or outside the outpost, nor did he sense the presence of the guardian giants. Perhaps there had been a psychic storm here, but the culprit had not appeared.
After thinking for a while, Hao Ren asked, "Have you encountered any monsters of Chaos that are good at psychic attacks?"
"The existence of the Servants of Chaos itself can interfere with the human mind." Veronica shook her head. "They don't need to master the skills of psychic attacks. Wait, could it be that a new breed of monsters has been born in the Chaos?"
The princess's speculation suddenly made the old knight nervous. Although Hao Ren just asked casually, it had made the two of them think too deeply. Morian immediately got to his feet. "We must return to the civilized world as soon as possible. I'm afraid that what happened here has not been transmitted back yet."
Veronica nodded. "Let's follow the path. There are a few outposts along the way. Maybe we can find something."
The Path of Thorns was a path that existed in the Shadowy Forest before it was completely corrupted. It was originally a path that the elves and humans used to communicate, but as the forest became a land of chaos, the path was swallowed by Chaos. Poisonous plants and activated shrubs grew on the roadside, and the softened soil made the path difficult to walk. For ordinary travelers, there was no way to survive in this forest.
But for the knights of the kingdom, the Bramble Road was still a passageway. Although it was blocked by the power of corruption, the crystal dust that the Elven Kingdom had buried in the stone slabs of the road was still working. The Bramble Road was still a little less dangerous than the surrounding wild forest. At least on this road, man-eating shrubs were nowhere to be seen.
Under Veronica's lead, the team soon found the second outpost deep in the forest.
Although they had prepared for the worst, after seeing the corpses in the outpost, everyone inevitably felt a deeper shadow cast over their hearts. The soldiers here were all dead, and the way they died was almost exactly the same as the first outpost. The dead seemed to have experienced an extremely terrible scene before they died. Their faces were distorted, their bodies were full of self-inflicted wounds, and their bodies had begun to rot. Other than that, there were no signs of battle inside or outside the outpost.
The enemy did not attack from the physical plane. The battle was completed in the spiritual world, and it was obvious that the minds of the mortals had been defeated.
It was the same for the third outpost, but Morian found a wizard near a small furnace in the center of the outpost.
The wizard also committed suicide in a frenzy, but before he died, he had set up a large number of defensive runes around him. At the same time, the fragments of his grimoire were also found scattered on the ground around the furnace. Sacrificing one's grimoire was the ultimate trump card of a wizard, and it was only used when facing a life-and-death enemy. Obviously, the wizard who died near the furnace, like the commander of the first outpost, had also fought a desperate battle in the illusion.
But the mysterious magic power could not save the wizard. He sat in the center of his own defensive circle and ended his life. There was a hole where his heart should be. That was the result of detonating his own magic power.
Based on the death scene of the commander of the first outpost and the wizard of the third outpost, Hao Ren made a speculation: although the two were also in a frenzy, there were no signs of great shock. This could be the effect of the furnace. Although the furnace could not completely protect their minds, at least it allowed them to hold on longer than the soldiers who died in other parts of the camp.
And if the furnace could work on the 'invisible enemy', the culprit of this matter would naturally fall on the head of the Chaos.
On the way to the fourth outpost, Veronica's face was gloomy. The princess was not an introverted person. In fact, the 'Battlefield Rose of Taros' had always been known for her careless temper and behavior that did not have the temperament of a princess. When she passed by an old tree, she punched the trunk and said, "One hundred of the best veterans! How could they die in the camp like this! We don't even know what the enemy looks like! "
The old tree woke up in an instant. An angry and evil face appeared on the bumpy trunk. The branches turned into sharp wood and stabbed at Veronica. "I'll eat you!"
Veronica drew out her sword and drew an arc in the air. The scorching flame instantly cut off all the branches that came at her. "Shut up and go back to sleep!"
The old tree shuddered and retracted all the branches. "Oh."
Hao Ren was speechless.
Veronica was depressed because of exhaustion and stress along the way. He only saw the fiery side of the knight princess now.
"There is a new enemy in the Chaos." Morian raised his eyebrows and quietly glanced at Veronica. "Your Highness, stay calm. The most important thing for us now is to survive in the forest so that we can report what we see truthfully to the general of the Western Region."
The rest of the journey was even more depressing. After finding the fourth outpost that had lost its vitality, the atmosphere reached its peak.
Although no one said it explicitly, the fact was already in front of Veronica: all the outposts set up by the kingdom on the west side of the Shadowy Forest had probably been uprooted.
The Bramble Road was a road that traversed the west side of the forest. It passed through every line of defense in the forest. If all the outposts along the way had been destroyed, then the possibility of the same thing happening in other areas was very high. More importantly, along the way, the attacked outposts had not been investigated, which meant that the nearby outposts had not sent anyone to check on the abnormal situation.
The furnace outpost in the Shadowy Forest would exchange information with the nearby outposts every day. So once something went wrong in one outpost, the other outposts would quickly notice it. According to the decomposition of the corpses found by Hao Ren, the first outpost had been attacked many days ago. Under such circumstances, no one came to investigate. There was only one possibility.
All the outposts had been destroyed.
The foundation of the kingdom's defense system that took two centuries to build was gone. This made Veronica silent throughout the second half of the journey. Even the knights were silent. This depressing atmosphere also affected Hao Ren. He could not find anyone to talk to, so he continued to study how to restore communication in the spiritual world alone.
Until they finally reached the border of the Shadowy Forest.
The trees in front of them became sparse, and the unpleasant and oppressive atmosphere in the air suddenly reduced a lot. It was as if they had suddenly crossed a certain boundary. After crossing two intertwining towering trees, Hao Ren suddenly felt his body lighten.
He saw slightly undulating hills in front of him, and in the distance, there were two majestic mountains. Between the mountains, a pillar of light pierced the sky, even tearing the dark masses in the sky apart, revealing the bright white sky.
Under the pillar of light, Hao Ren vaguely saw a magnificent wall made of stone. Behind the wall, there seemed to be a towering fortress and arrow tower. There were also some man-made buildings built along the mountain on both sides of the mountain. These buildings on the entire mountain were all bathed in the Light of Order. The intensity of the light was far greater than the furnace light that Hao Ren saw before.
Standing on the edge of the dark forest and looking at the bright mountains in the distance, it was as shocking as standing in hell and seeing heaven.
If Hao Ren was a local, he would know that it was because of this magnificent scenery that the mountain people of the Kingdom of Taros called the two mountains in the distance the "Gate of Heaven." But even if he did not know the name, he could still imagine how touched people who had been trekking in the realm of Chaos for many days would be when they saw a bright world. The knights around him were already cheering.
"It's the fortress in the west!" When Veronica saw the dazzling Light of Order, she finally swept away the depression that she had been feeling for the past few days. The Light of Order was so powerful that ordinary people could see through the fog of Chaos when they looked at the western mountains. As long as she saw the intensity of the Light of Order, she knew that the western fortress had not fallen yet. "Great! Our fortress is still here!"
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