Chapter 254 Snow Calamity
“Finally out of the desert!”
When the scene in front of him was no longer monotonous yellow sand but a rotting poplar forest, Roy knew that he had already reached the edge of the Desert of Death.
As expected, not long after crossing this poplar forest, a touch of green began to appear on the horizon. Farther ahead, towering mountains appeared. The terrain was different from the desert, making Roy feel relaxed and happy.
Although they had only traveled at night, Roy and the others still pa.s.sed through the Desert of Death very quickly. It only took them ten-odd days to cross thousands of kilometers.
The number of undead troops under Ca.s.sandra’s control increased a little. On the way, they found the tombs of two ancient warriors and gathered some skeleton soldiers and ghosts. There should have been more, but unfortunately, some low-level undead accidentally fell into quicksand and could not get out.
What appeared in front of Roy and the others now was a humongous mountain range, and they could see some white snow marks on the top of the tall mountains in the distance. Vampire Count Giovanni pointed at the mountain range and said to Roy, “Your Excellency Osiris, after crossing this mountain range, you can enter Eeofol. Earthquakes are frequent in Eeofol, and there are many active volcanoes. The demons that came to the surface detonated these volcanoes and built cities on them. There were originally some humans and other races living in Eeofol, but after the demons ruled here, the natives either escaped or turned into demon believers. Therefore, if you see humans in Eeofol, don’t be surprised.”
Roy noddedm, not finding it strange. In fact, he had already come into contact with these so-called demon believers a long time ago. It could be said that these people who wors.h.i.+pped demons were often the initial ways for demons to enter other worlds. If they had not tried to summon demons, demons would not have discovered their worlds…
“In addition, you have to take note that there are outposts and fortresses of the other races along the way!” Giovanni continued. “Four years ago, during the sudden lunar eclipse, Sheogh’s demon army poured out and almost destroyed the world. Therefore, after temporarily repelling the demons, the various races on the continent were very vigilant against the demons in Eeofol. They built solid fortresses near the borders of their territories. First is to monitor the movements of the demons and guard against a sudden invasion of the demons. Second is to provide support for the possibility of counterattacking in the future…” “In other words, there’s a lot of troops in these fortresses?” Roy asked.
“Yes!” Giovanni nodded solemnly. “Apart from the dark elves of the Dungeon and the necromancers of our Heresh, the other races have built fortresses in almost every direction along the border of Eeofol. The reason for the dark elves is that they have formed an alliance with the demons, and for Heresh, the demons have no interest in the undead!”
Speaking of this, Giovanni shrugged his shoulders. His expression… was really indescribable.
In fact, the various races of this world have never been fond of the undead. For many races, death was sacred, but necromancers resurrected the dead. In their opinion, this was a form of blasphemy. It was not that the necromancers of the kingdom of Heresh did not want to build fortresses on the border to monitor the demons, but the problem was that the other races did not allow them to do so and constantly suppressed and ostracized them.
The reason why Giovanni did not agree with Arantir’s ideas was here. He was not a fanatical believer of Asha, so he was puzzled. Since the undead were so unwelcome, he could not understand why Arantir would still stick with the other races and ‘please’ them by destroying demons. Demons were not interested in undead, so couldn’t the kingdom of Heresh just sit back and watch the other races and the demons fight?
Julia was listening to Giovanni’s narration from the side. At this time, she interrupted, “You mean that we might encounter fortresses of other races along the way?”
“It’s not a possibility but a certainty!” Giovanni said. “Because each fortress will send out patrols regularly to check every route to prevent the demons from running out. These patrols are very orderly. Not only do they have ground troops but also air troops. It’s impossible to get past them.” “If I can’t get past them, I’ll just fight them!” Roy said calmly. “Do you think I brought these undead troops to be bystanders?”.
Giovanni was stunned for a moment. He did not get all of Roy’s words, but he still understood. He nodded, took out a rolled-up map from his waist, and opened it. He carefully looked at it for a while before saying, “From the map, if we continue in the direction we’re going, the first thing we’ll encounter is the fortress of the kingdom of Bracada. If we head toward the west, we’ll encounter the fortress of the elves. It’s not easy to resupply in this place with the Desert of Death at the back, so the two fortresses of these two races have always been supporting and trading with each other.”
Roy took the map and looked at it. He found that the two fortress cities on the map were actually hundreds of kilometers apart. In other words, Roy could take down these fortresses one by one. But since the two fortresses were looking after one another, Roy guessed that these cities might set up spatial portals with one another. Once attacked, the troops of the other city could quickly arrive through the portal and resist the attack together.
Therefore, if he really wanted to attack one of the cities, he should immediately control the portal as soon as possible.
However, the location of the portal definitely required investigation. Roy turned to look at the people around him and found that there were no good candidates. Needless to say, Roy was a demon. Once he appeared, he would probably be discovered from afar, and then the alarm bell would ring. Julia was a fallen angel, and the black flame wings on her back were visible at a glance. It was impossible for her to pretend to be an angel and sneak in. As for the native Giovanni, it might be possible, but the nearest fortress was Bracada’s. The vigilance of the mages against undead was no different from their vigilance against demons.
After thinking about it, Roy raised his hand, and many big eyes with little demon wings appeared in it!
“Go!” Roy waved his hand. The Demon Eyes he created immediately flapped their wings and spread out like bats. They gradually turned invisible as they flew and headed toward the fortress.
After releasing the Demon Eyes to scout, Roy waved his hand. “Let’s keep going!”
The next step was to cross the mountains. Ca.s.sandra’s undead army had an advantage here. He would not have to worry about their morale nor their fatigue, and there would be no delays when marching in the mountains.
When he crossed the summit of a mountain and was about to go down, Giovanni saw a large forest at the foot of the mountain, so he reminded, “Your Excellency Osiris, you have to take note! There may be many animals and plants in the forest. They are the eyes of the elves. Moreover, such forests are often where the long-eared elven rangers like to patrol. I’m certain that there are elves in this forest because those physically weak mages hate traveling through mountains and rivers. They prefer to let the elven rangers patrol these forests in their place. If the elven rangers discover us while we’re pa.s.sing through the forest, they’ll quickly spread the news to the fortresses. At that time, they might send an army to attack us first…”
“But we can’t avoid it…” Julia looked at the forest below. “Unless we detour hundreds of kilometers!”
Indeed, the forest was so large that they could not see the end of it even from a long distance. Not only were all kinds of bug and bird cries coming from the forest, but they could also vaguely see a few large flying creatures above the forest. They might be young green dragons, pegasi, or firebird. These were all common creatures living in elven territories.
“No need to go through so much trouble!” Roy grinned. “I can use some methods after leaving the desert!”
Roy led the troops down and stopped when they were about two kilometers away from the edge of the forest.
Giovanni looked at Roy in confusion, not knowing what he was planning to do. But at this moment, Roy took out Frostmourne and stabbed the tip of the sword into the ground, holding the hilt and half-kneeling.
Seeing his posture, Julia immediately knew what he was going to do, so she quickly called Fat Tiger and Ca.s.sandra to retreat.
Although Giovanni did not understand what was going on, out of vigilance, he retreated a little.
Roy half-knelt on the ground, and surging magic power poured into Frostmourne. The runes on the sword began to light up gradually, and the eyes of the skull at the sword hilt gradually emitted blue light. A powerful cold aura flow began to form slowly with Roy’s body as the center and continuously spread out.
A large patch of black frost appeared on the ground where Roy was, and the ground condensed into smooth ice. But the ice did not spread out too far, only hundreds of meters away from Roy. Giovanni, who was watching from a distance, was inexplicably shocked. He looked up at the sky because he could feel that the cold aura emanating from Roy was continuously pouring into the sky!
After the powerful cold aura entered high in the sky, the weather above the forest immediately changed drastically. Under the influence of the cold aura, countless water molecules began to condense and gradually formed an enormous thick layer of clouds. The coverage of these clouds was so large that it almost covered the entire forest.
With Frostmourne’s magic power amplification effect, Roy did not even need to make the temperature drop too low to affect the climate within a radius of hundreds of kilometers. The animals in the forest quickly noticed this abnormal weather…
At this moment, three patrol units of elven rangers were in this forest. There were not many in each team, but they were agile. While they were doing a routine patrol in the forest, they found that the animals in the forest were suddenly panicking, and they were either escaping or hiding. Even the emotions transmitted by plants were full of uneasiness.
“What’s going on?”
The patrols carrying longbows looked up in confusion and saw the black clouds hanging low above.
“It seems… it’s going to snow?” an elven ranger said with uncertainty.
“Are you kidding me? It’s snowing?!” another elven ranger said in disbelief. “It’s still summer!”
“But these clouds are like the clouds when it snows!” someone replied.
However, seemingly confirming their guess, a black, translucent snowflake fell from the sky. An elven ranger subconsciously reached out and caught this snowflake. Under the temperature of his hand, the snow quickly melted and turned into a black dewdrop.
“d.a.m.n it! It’s really snowing!” Seeing the continuous black snowflakes falling, the elven rangers s.h.i.+vered.
These black snowflakes showed strangeness everywhere. When the snow fell, the green plants and gra.s.s rapidly withered at a visible speed. The elven rangers realized that something was wrong because no matter how they looked at it, this was not a normal weather phenomenon!
“We’re under attack. Run away from here immediately!” A ranger captain made a prompt decision. “Go back to the fortress of Bradaca and report the situation here to them!”
However, it was already too late. The elves could not even tell where the attack came from, let alone who the attacker was. No matter how agile and fast they were, it was impossible for them to escape from the entire forest in a short time.
The black snow grew bigger and heavier, and it became more and more urgent. In just five minutes, a thin layer of snow had already gathered on top of the forest, and the remaining snow fell on the ground through the gaps between the trees, causing disorderly black spots to appear in the forest!
The rangers running in the forest were constantly moving in the black snow, but they were losing their strength as they ran. The black snowflakes on their bodies gradually made them feel itchy and painful. Once they could not help but scratch, it was very likely that their skin would bleed.
Under the effect of the Desolate Virus, the skin of the elven rangers began to fester. They began to vomit and could no longer run.
An elven ranger fell in despair. Before closing his eyes and dying, he shouted unwillingly, “The enemy… Where is…”
After twenty more minutes, Roy pulled out Frostmourne and stood up. What appeared in front of everyone was a withered forest covered in black ice and snow…