Chapter 593: strategic shift (4,000 words)
From Nolan to the frosty country to the dark green basin at the border of the frosty country, the ice dragon only took three days to complete the journey that an ordinary person would take half a year to complete.
“I give five stars to this tricycle.”
When catarian landed on the periphery of the dark green basin, Joshua gave his due assessment of the journey.
“I’ve heard enough of your strange words.”
Catarian shook his back, indicating for Joshua and Hiri to leave his back.
Joshua jumped off the back of Catarian’s dragon and landed steadily on the grassland of the basin.
With the physical attributes of a chaos demon, Joshua could easily jump down from the back of a dragon that was almost four stories tall.
Hiri used a common method used by spell casters of the order system, which was to use a magic barrier to build a temporary staircase and then walk down the dragon’s back step by step.
“Where is the city of the Elves?”
Hiri had just landed on the ground when his gaze swept left and right. Then, he raised his head to look at the sky.
Because of the arrival of the Ice Dragon Catarian, all the magical beasts living in this basin had disappeared without a trace. The surroundings were so quiet that it was terrifying.
Nothing could be seen floating in the sky. Previously, when Hiri sat on the ice dragon, he was still in high spirits to find the legendary city.
But he could not see anything above the clouds.
“Maybe there is some kind of invisible magic.”
Josh took out the token of the world tree. The token had already reacted after entering the dark green basin.
“I forgot how to use it.”Josh handed the token to Hiri. “Hiri, try to inject your magic power into it.”
Hiri took the token and injected his magic power into it according to Josh’s instructions.
The light on the token became brighter. Josh put his hand on it and carefully injected the magic power of the Chaos Fiend into it.
A pure white light beam appeared beside Josh.
“This thing is… a portal?”
Hiri found a stone on the ground and threw it into the light beam. The stone instantly disappeared into the light beam.
“The receiving beam won’t last long.”
Suddenly, a translucent white bird appeared on Hiri’s shoulder. This white bird was the consciousness of the High Elf World Tree.
It tilted its head and glanced at catarian who was behind Hiri.
“Ladies First?”Jose made a gesture of invitation.
“Teleportation, HMM… as expected, I still can’t adapt to this kind of magic.”
However, Hiri actually showed some fear in the face of this light beam.
This spellcaster was a woman who could fight a bear with her bare hands, but the successive ‘teleportation’in the demon world had left Hiri with a psychological shadow.
“Alright, hold my hand.”
Joshua held Hiri’s somewhat cold hand and brought Hiri into the light pillar.
The sense of weightlessness swept over Joshua. After a short three seconds, Joshua opened his eyes again. The scenery in front of him had changed from a swamp to… a city that had become ruins.
“Is this Arthur Crow?”
Joshua looked around. The style of the surrounding buildings looked familiar to him. However, these buildings had become rotten ruins. Even the ground was covered in dust. It did not look like someone was living in them.
This was a street that had been dead for a long time. The only thing left here was its ruins.
Joshua looked up. There was a huge dome above him. The sunlight shone through the cracks in the dome, seemingly telling Joshua that this place was not far from the ground.
“Arthur Crow, isn’t this Nolan’s underground ruins?”
Hiri looked around. The architectural style here was almost exactly the same as Nolan’s underground ruins.
“So where are the people who welcome us?”
Joshua did not even see a wild high elf. Instead, he felt a powerful magic barrier outside this street.
Just as Josh was looking for a welcoming party, Hiri, who had the instincts of a wild beast, suddenly sensed something.
“Who is it?”
Hiri raised his magic staff high, and the light of the illusionary runes surrounded it. In the next second, the ruins were illuminated by a strong light, and a dark figure hiding in the corner of the ruins slowly walked out.
“It seems that you are not a welcoming party.”Josh looked at the person in front of him. The robe he was wearing was very similar to that of the Nolan spell caster, but his appearance could not be seen clearly with the mask on his face, however, the emblem on the shoulder of the robe revealed his identity.
The emblem that could only be found on the robe of the Nolan Seven Sages.
Joshua had heard that Nolan currently only had five sages. The black-clothed man and the blue-clothed man had not appeared in the Sage Council for a long time.
Whether or not he was a black-clothed man had nothing to do with Joshua. Joshua only wanted to know where the High Elves lived.
“A human from Nolan? and A… Blasphemer, why are you here!”
His gaze under the mask swept across Joshua and Hiri. Finally, his gaze stopped on Joshua. His pupils contracted slightly.
“What kind of strange name is blasphemer? My name is Joshua Arnold. I’m a guest invited here by the consciousness of the World Tree.”Joshua introduced himself.
“The holy tree would never accept…”
Before he could finish his words, a white bird landed on Joshua’s shoulder. At that moment, he instantly shut his mouth and looked at Joshua as if he had seen a ghost.
“Are you a local? If so, can you take me to the gathering place of the High Elves? I have something to talk to them about.”
Joshua tentatively communicated with the man in black. This time, Joshua was purely here for mobile WIFI. Of course, he was also willing to create a few high elf idols.
“The place you are at is the forgotten land. This means that you have been rejected by the Elder Council,”he said.
“Rejected?”If Joshua remembered correctly, he should be considered a guest of the world tree.
He used a more direct way to answer Joshua’s question. The silver inscription appeared in his hand, and a reflection appeared in front of Joshua’s eyes.
“The council of elders will not allow the blasphemers to enter this city again. It may be because they are protected by the holy tree that they did not choose to kill you.”The image he summoned was in the forest outside the ruins.
Joshua could see a group of high elves waiting outside. Judging from their equipment, they did not look like they were here to welcome Joshua as a guest.
“We… seem to have become the bosses of the dungeon?”Hiri whispered to Joshua.
“It seems that we have been treated as enemies. I thought that all the Elves were a group of cat slaves…”Joshua did not expect that with the protection of the Holy Tree, these High Elves would not give him any face at all.
“There’s a bird on your shoulder,”Hiri reminded Joshua again.
”…”
“To the High Elves, the holy tree is only our symbiote.”
The Man in black glanced at the white bird on Joshua’s shoulder and bowed slightly to it in a strange manner.
“I don’t know why the Holy Tree invited you to Ascek, but please leave this city as soon as possible. Some elders will mercilessly execute any blasphemer,”the man in black advised Joshua.
“Go Back? Are you saying that I’ve been stood up by the High Elves? or Am I being pointed at by a bunch of pigeons with bows?”
Joshua did not expect the elves to have such a bad attitude.
The Man in black ignored Joshua’s words and went straight to the center of the street. In front of a building that looked like an altar, he reached out and brushed away the dust on one of the disks.
“This is a teleportation portal built by your defilers. With your magic power, you should be able to build a portal to Nolan,”he said.
“Although I also want to leave this dusty place as soon as possible, my answer is still that I refuse.”
“If you force your way out of the forgotten land, the council of Elders will not let you go,”the man in black warned Joshua.
“Is this how you treat your guests? If you are hostile to each other… I would be happy to lead an army to drag Arthur Crow into the Flames of war,”Joshua said with a smile.
“What did you say?”
This sentence clearly provoked the man in black. He gripped his magic staff tightly. Silver runes appeared around his body, but in the next moment, Gray magic power suddenly swept through the area.
His runes shattered like glass, and even he himself held his staff with both hands as if he was having difficulty breathing.
“It’s been so many years… you guys are still so dangerous.”
“I’m not too sure about the grudge between the High Elves and our race, but I was invited by your holy tree this time. It’s fine if you don’t bring some tea to entertain me, but you still want to stand me up.”
Joshua’s hand was surrounded by chaotic magic power as he slowly walked towards him. After brushing past him, he injected his own magic power into the teleportation portal.
The teleportation portal that had been abandoned for God knows how many years was activated again.
“You’re saying that this place can connect to Nolan?”
Joshua felt that this man in black was very… not vigilant, or rather, very kind?
If he had such a teleportation portal in his house, Joshua would never tell anyone.
He did not answer Joshua. Joshua used the Lord Skeleton’s inscription to summon an unconscious undead. This undead walked into the teleportation portal, and the next second, it walked out of the portal again.
After the undead shattered into pieces, the last bit of its memory flooded into Joshua’s memory.
There were three stunned dwarves around him. Joshua even saw Frost Axe among the three dwarves.
So it was the teleportation portal to the Frost Axe Family?
Joshua instantly turned off the teleportation portal… and fell into deep thought.
“What exactly do you want to do?”The Man in black seemed to be a little impatient as he asked Joshua in a low voice.
“We can’t treat each other politely, so we can only exchange swords. In short, that’s what I mean… let me introduce myself again. I’m Joshua Arnold, the third Prince of the Demon World.”
Joshua’s pitch-black pupils stared intently at the blue eyes under the mask of the man in black. The domineering aura that he borrowed from the bone lord spread out wantonly.
“Perhaps I should lead an army here. That way, those high elves might be able to sit down and have a good talk with me.”
When Joshua made this suggestion, a dangerous look appeared in the eyes of the man in black.
“I will stop you,”he said.
When Josh was about to answer him, the white bird on his shoulder also knocked his head with its beak.
“It hurts…”before Josh could scare it, the white bird knocked his head with its beak again.
“Okay, okay, I’m just saying. I really don’t know anything about leading troops to war.”Josh covered the spot where the white bird knocked, indicating that he was just joking.
“What?”
On the contrary, Hiri showed a surprised expression. It seemed that the girl was ready to start a war.
“If we really want to force our way in, we can at most force our way into the core position of the world tree. But looking at the situation outside, ‘infiltrating’is not very likely.”
Jose did not think that forcing his way in would make the holy tree happy.
“Let me give you a hint. Your Chaos Magic is useless against the elders,”the man in black warned Jose again.
He seemed to be trying his best to avoid the battle, but the words and actions that Joshua had said were too dangerous.
“Can’t they be stopped from casting magic? That’s a bit tricky.”
Joshua fell into deep thought as well.
“Why don’t we just camp here for a while? We can use the portal to go back to Nolan anyway,”Hiri suggested.
“Stay here for a while?”
Jose turned his head to look at the portal leading to Nolan, and then turned back to look at the street that had been turned into ruins.
“Hiri, come with me.”
Jose walked quickly to a building on the street. Hiri followed behind Jose, and the man in black followed him.
The walls of these buildings were covered with all kinds of plants, but the interior of the buildings was surprisingly well-preserved. Only some places had accumulated dust.
“After so many years, there are still no signs of collapse. The quality of these buildings is quite good.”Josh reached out his hand and brushed the dust on an unknown long table.
The people living on this street left in a hurry. They didn’t take many things with them, but they seemed to have evacuated safely. Josh checked a few more buildings, but he didn’t find any human bones inside.
“What are you planning?”The Man in black couldn’t help but ask when he saw Joshua walking around like he was on an adventure.
“Are you really Nolan’s sage? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone as… straightforward as you. No, there’s a high elf named al who looks like you,”Joshua suddenly said.
“Straightforward? According to your human identity, I’m Nolan’s black-clothed person,”he said.
“It really is the black-clothed person who has been missing for three years.”Joshua was slightly surprised, then he turned around and suddenly stretched out his hand.
He instantly took a step back with vigilance. His magic power was still in the state of being confined by Joshua.
“I am quite familiar with the other sages. I am really sorry for scaring you just now,”said Joshua.
However, he did not accept this apology from Joshua. He continued to follow behind Joshua without saying a word.
Finally, after Joshua finished browsing through all the abandoned buildings on the street, he spoke again.
“If you’re hoping to find anything useful in the forgotten land, you’d better give up. There are only ruins left here.”
“I’m not looking for relics, I’m looking at the storefront.”Joshua gestured at the largest building in front of him and said.
“Storefront? !”
“Let me introduce myself. I’m the owner of a tavern in Nolan. I plan to open a branch here.”
At this moment, a smile that made him shiver appeared on Josh’s face.