Half Elf Ranger

Chapter 502 The Way of the Lich
"He's dead?" Paladin Avar looked incredulously at the pile of corpses mixed with ice slag, reflecting the strange light in the sun, and couldn't help muttering to himself.

A hunter who was helpless to him was beheaded lightly by four professionals whose strength was only at the third level at most, and the enemy didn't even have a chance to resist.

After reconfirming that the enemy was really dead, Avar breathed a sigh of relief, put the sacred adamantine broadsword tightly in his hand into the scabbard, took off the steel mask that was slightly deformed by the ferocious lion bite, and tightened it His expression also slowly relaxed.

Then, he looked with interest at the few people who suddenly appeared in the valley.

As the paladin Avar's eyes kept wandering among these people, his calm and calm expression suddenly became a little restless.

Not to mention the evil creatures such as tauren and orcs that have turned the world's attention on the mainland.

Because he had known for a long time that there was indeed such a group of orcs living in Horn Town in the Emerald Field.

After all, in the battle of the Conferred Gods that spread all over the world three years ago, he also heard that a small number of orcs and tauren also joined the war against the hobgoblins.

And he also knew that the orcs in Horn Town were very different from the evil orcs in the northern wilderness.

What the paladin sees from their behavior is not bloodthirsty and madness full of evil, but a kind of wisdom that he can't even explain.

Yes, it is wisdom!
This kind of wisdom is not possessed by the civilians in the Huskan Kingdom, it seems to be some kind of inheritance.

Compared with the numbness to life of most of the lowest commoners, they are more like a group of orc races with extremely rich knowledge and experience.

Regardless of their identities, this group of orcs from Horn Town who claim to be simple-minded and well-developed limbs are even better than some small nobles to a certain extent.

As for the tauren race, he knew better.

It was because it was so clear that he became even more confused.

Not long ago, something happened about the Hornless Tauren clan.

This incident has spread to the ears of most residents throughout the peninsula.

That is, this group of evil races born from the demonic ritual, under the leadership of the leader, burned forests and opened up wasteland on the land of the Emerald Field, hoping to rely on grazing and cultivation to completely break away from the previous life habits of drinking blood.

However, this is not the most shocking.

What is even more unbelievable is that due to the tauren's move to establish a homeland, a woodland on the edge of the Silent Forest was severely damaged, which eventually attracted the druids of the Emerald Garden.

Just when most of the people who were secretly watching the fun thought that the wrath of nature of the druids would surely descend on this group of Horn-Breaking Tauren tribe with unbelievable behavior, another jaw-dropping thing happened up.

The priests of the Mother Earth Church in Pushang Town took the initiative to save this group of tauren who were about to face genocide.

The reason is that they are all the people of Chauntia, the mother of the earth, and they have dedicated their faith to this great mother of the earth.

A group of evil tauren born in the Underdark region and born in a demonic ritual believed in the oldest god, the Mother Earth. This matter spread like a storm across the entire peninsula and became known to the world.

People directly divide the evil race of the tauren into two categories, one is the tauren, and the other is the tauren who believes in the goddess of the earth.

At the same time, this interesting event that people talk about is also the most popular event since the goblin race appeared its own racial god.

There are even many merchants from the Huskan Kingdom who deliberately went to the newly established territory of the tauren as guests, trying to establish a cooperative relationship with these tall and burly races, or hire them as guards.

It is a pity that all these cooperations were rejected by the patriarch of the tauren.

Since the stories of orcs and tauren are often circulated in the territory of the Emerald Field, when the paladin Avar saw the sudden appearance of these two people to help them deal with Mara's hunters, he didn't think it was a big deal except for a little surprise. surprise.

It was another person who really made him untenable, and even wanted to do it directly: the mind flayer.

Mind flayers.

The scourge of a myriad of intelligent races, also called by the world: psionic tyrants, slave traders, masters of insidiousness, and voyagers across dimensions.

Their notorious identities, whether they are good, neutral or evil races, have changed their colors.

In Sept City, he personally led a team of Templar Knights in a fierce battle with a mind flayer hiding in the depths of the sewers.

This battle only eliminated a group of quite a few mind flayer servants, but did not capture this cunning mind flayer.

Moreover, in that operation, what left the deepest impression on him, apart from the psychic spells that the opponent was unable to guard against, was the terrifying scene he witnessed with his own eyes.

While infiltrating the mind flayer's secret base in the sewers, he happened to see the evil mind flayer holding a tadpole-like pink larva on the face of a slave, and then following his eyes and burrowing into the slave's face. The brain, eventually successfully transformed into a new mind flayer.

So, that's why when he saw the mind flayer appearing for the first time, he couldn't help but prepare to make a move.

Fortunately, his years of military service allowed him to forcefully suppress this impulse, so that no tragedy happened.

Thinking of this, the paladin Avar couldn't help but fix his eyes on this mind flayer who was obviously different from the ones he had seen before, just in time to see the half-elf ranger who summoned these strange people here.

Finding that the two were talking, Avar turned his eyes away, concentrated, pricked up his ears curiously, and stood there quietly listening to their conversation.

After all, he is actually very interested in how the tower owner of the Emerald Tower gathered under the hands of these evil races and was able to guarantee that they would not do evil things.

On the other side, Thorne chatted with the mind flayer Vel'Koz briefly, and found that the other party seemed hesitant to speak. After a little thought, he quickly understood the general meaning, so he smiled and asked the question knowingly. the way:

"Do you have something to report to me? If you have something, don't ink it. Just say it. I don't know when I can come back after I leave."

"Brother Thorne, where are you going? It takes so long."

Just when Vel'Koz hesitated and didn't know what to say, Kefla, the elf banshee standing next to Thorne, asked first, with deep concern in her eyes.

"I don't really know exactly where to go." Thorn hesitated for a moment, then smiled perfunctorily to the banshee: "When the knot in my heart is untied, I will come back naturally. Don't worry, I won't go very soon." Long-term."

"Oh." The elf banshee nodded, not knowing whether she understood or not.

On the contrary, the little devil standing on her shoulder flickered a few times with treacherous little eyes after hearing Thorne's words, and shrank back again.

"Tower Master, I..." Vel'Koz hesitated, and finally plucked up the courage to speak to him: "I know that there must be a ritual spell on how to transform a lich in the wizard's tower. Inspired by it."

"That's right." Thorn readily admitted.

As long as this kind of question is not a fool, it is easy to figure it out after careful consideration, and there is no need for him to hide anything.

"I know that you did this out of good intentions, and you also let Ta Ling hint to me many times that you don't want me to step into the way of the lich. After all, when a wizard takes the way of the lich, it means that he has left The lost nature is getting closer and closer." Vel'Koz cast a grateful look at Thorn, and said with deep emotion.

Thorne couldn't help frowning due to the pain from the arrow wound on his back. He originally planned to ask the paladins to help him deal with it, but seeing Vel'Koz's appearance, he could only endure the pain first and choose to deal with it first. Ask things clearly.

So he looked up at Vel'Koz, who had the expression of a martyr, and said in confusion: "Since you know the end of walking this road, why do you insist on going on?"

No wizard would become a lich on a whim. They would either do it after careful consideration, or because they were seriously injured or their time was approaching, so they had to do it.

The reason for this is mainly because taking the lich's path of eternal life that escapes the shadow of death can easily lose one's mind and nature, and eventually become the insidious and insane known to the world.

At least, he has never heard of a kind lich appearing on the mainland.

As we all know, the way of wizards is to pursue the truth, but when a person becomes insane because of the pursuit of truth, he can see and care about nothing but magic.

In other words, what kind of truth is a lunatic who doesn't even have reason to talk about?
The way of the lich is more like a crooked way.

"My race is the mind flayer, and it comes from the dark underdark region. You don't need me to tell you about the living environment there." Seeing Thorn nodding slightly, Vel'Koz gave a wry smile and continued:

"So, every time I improve my strength, my progress is very low. Because of this, a year ago, when my strength rose to the level of a third-tier hero, I discovered that my system disappeared inexplicably. .No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find it.”

It turned out to be the reason, and Thorne took a deep look at the other party, revealing a dazed expression.

A player who does not have the convenience brought by the system he relies on for survival means that if he wants to improve his strength, he must go forward step by step like the original residents of this world.

Players who can't adapt to it are very likely to cause their own strength to stagnate for a lifetime.

This is the so-called transition from frugality to extravagance is easy, but from extravagance to frugality is difficult.

When they adapt to the convenience given to them by the system and treat it as an instinct, if they suddenly disappear one day, it will cause a huge gap in most people's hearts.

Therefore, Vel'Koz, who is a mind flayer in front of him, resolutely wants to embark on the path of eternal lich and live in another way after knowing his own situation.

He tried to get rid of the shadow of death, use the accumulation of countless hours to improve his strength, and pursue the truth of wizards.

In the blue sky, the bright sunshine was blocked by a large group of white clouds at some point, and the valley baked by the scorching sun seemed to be covered with a layer of shadow and began to cool down.

Thorn glanced at the tauren Alistar who was chatting and laughing with the orc swordsman Kutaig not far away. Under Vel'Koz's uncomfortable gaze, he was silent for a long time, and then asked him abruptly:

"Have you heard of Archbishop Aleena from the Black Pearl Forest?"

"I've heard of it a little bit." Velkoz was taken aback by Thorne's sudden question.

He gently twisted the four snake-shaped tentacles under the octopus's head, pondered for a moment, but couldn't figure out what the other party really meant when he asked him this sentence, so he said in a puzzled way:

"The news about this archbishop is almost all from what happened three years ago. As for the last few years, I don't know."

Since he followed Thorne to Fallstown, he lived in the tower most of the time and rarely went out.

Sometimes he didn't even know what happened in Fallstown, let alone the Black Pearl Forest, which was far away on the other side of the Shadowmoon Sea.

"She is a priest whose strength reached the fourth level of the Paradigm three years ago. Like you, her system also disappeared inexplicably." Thorn didn't expect the other party to know about the archbishop at all, so Patiently told him:

"The disappearance of the system, in the eyes of most people, means that Aleena has almost no chance of becoming a Legend of Destiny, but she did not give up, but made a very decisive thing that everyone couldn't believe.

She directly abandoned the power of the Black Pearl Forest and all the hard work she had put in, and traveled around the world alone, with the purpose of finding her own legendary path of destiny.

Because she firmly believes that everyone can advance to the Legend of Destiny, and those who voluntarily give up are just because they didn't find the right way. "

After Thorne finished speaking, he couldn't help but sigh slightly inwardly.

It was precisely because of the disappearance of the leader of the players in the Black Pearl Forest, Aleena, that the new city they had just established fell into a very chaotic situation due to the lack of a leader.

Although it has now been integrated and unified by other player priests of the God of War, it is the radicals who advocate war who lead this force.

Relying on the power they have finally grown in recent years, they have waged wars with the nomadic Turami people on the Silver Pine Plain, and they have not stopped until now.

Seeing that Vel'Koz kept silent after listening to his story, bowing his head in silence, it could be seen from his twisted and tangled tentacles that he seemed to be struggling to make a difficult decision.

Thorne didn't bother him.

Because he knew very well that as a bystander, it was best not to get involved in the choice of deciding a person's fate. It was the best way to let them make their own decisions, and he was just trying to help him state his interests.

Thinking of this, Thorne pondered for a while, pretending not to care, and said, "No matter what choice you make, I will respect you. Well, you can think about it again until I return to Waterfall Town."

After finishing speaking, he was about to leave. After thinking for a while, he looked at Vel'Koz who was still struggling, chuckled lightly, then reached out and patted his shoulder, and said to him in a sincere tone:

"Actually, on the road of our life, what makes us tired is not the hardships of the long journey, but a grain of sand in the shoes. Therefore, it is necessary for us to learn to pour out the small sand in the shoes at any time .Only in this way can we go further.”

Thorne believes that practice is actually the same as life.

In our lives, we often encounter many negative emotions or wrong cognitions.

These bad thoughts are like gravel in one shoe, which will wear down the 'feet', impede the movement, and make every step a person takes unbearably painful.

At this time, the correct approach should be not to rush on the road, stop, sort out your thinking and cognition in stages, pour out the 'sand' in the 'shoes', and make your mood grow steadily.

Because the price of growing up with psychological problems is really high.

This is also the real reason why it is difficult for most people to cultivate to perfection.

And he understood this truth, so he didn't give up this perfect opportunity to advance in order to rush to improve his strength.

(End of this chapter)