Throne Steps

Because "killing the lone wolf" and "news about the dragon" are the two parallel lines that the black swans are most concerned about, so as soon as the black swans come into contact with the clues of the dragon, they immediately enter a state of first-level combat readiness.The message transmission is secretive, complicated, channel-independent, and direction-oriented. The most direct manifestation is that the message is not shared with Saenz's intelligence team at all. Li Chen did not respond after receiving it, but set off directly to the scene.

Saenz doesn't know the truth yet, he's just very annoyed at the child's low EQ behavior of deducting impression points, but Li Chen's decision is not arbitrary.After all, the location appeared in the clues this time. Although the members of the Black Swan are considered as careful, Li Chen always feels that it is impossible not to go to the scene in person.

Speaking rationally, he once "studied" with a necromancer anyway, and he can use much more weird formations than others, and he can check for gaps from different angles; speaking emotionally, Saenz restricted him from chasing dragons. After all these years, he let go when he was beating the lone wolf back then, and now he has finally caught the "tail" for himself, and he has to get involved in this matter no matter what-it's a dragon after all!

Whether in Retia or in his previous life, Li Chen didn't have many opportunities to come into contact with fantasy books, and he didn't know much about the "dragon" set by the lizard species, let alone indulge in it.However, in the limited works he has come into contact with, the image of the dragon is always powerful, mighty, invincible, and mysterious to the extreme.Now that he has the opportunity to get close to this legendary creature, Li Chen feels that any man can understand his emotional impulse.

Li Chen walked quietly, and only brought Akye with him when he came out of the temple.However, the further you go to the southeast coast, the more members of the "Black Swan" gather.Li Chen originally just notified people who felt that they would be useful—he didn’t explain why they were gathered together, he just called people to come—but this group of people seemed to smell a strange beast, and they all followed without stopping.

It's funny to say that when the temple was completed, except for the members who were originally stationed in the temple, most of the other "black swans" flew to the southeast coast quietly.

This group of people can add up to twenty or so, no matter what gender, appearance, posture and personality, gathering together always makes people feel chilling and bloody.Of course, this is no wonder to them, after all, the "Black Swan" is used to pave such a road.However, since it was too conspicuous for everyone to gather together, Li Chen still asked Akeye to arrange for them to be separated, and they would gather after leaving the city.

There is a vast forest near the southeast coast, one end extends to the mangroves on the coast beach, and the other end almost extends into the Central Plains of Retia.Although Li Chen had been in Samir for many years, he felt even more intimate with this forest on the southeast coast.There is no other reason, but after he separated from the necromancer, he was thrown into this forest.

However, the seat where he landed should be closer to the middle, that is, near Bolton.And the place where the black swan wants to explore is in the opposite direction from Bolton's direction. From the map, this place is in the southern hinterland of the forest.

A notebook searched from the remnants of the Lone Wolf clearly recorded this location.

This force had taken over a task of "clearing the list" before, and the name of the local rich businessman Lawrence was impressively listed on the list, with a "Complete" mark for lone wolves beside it.Even though Lawrence has been dead for many years, his wealth is still a local legend.It is not surprising that such a prominent person was regarded as a thorn in the side, and it is not surprising that he was murdered; yet he is only one of a series of characters, which means that the people on this list are all involved in the same thing , and this event was the reason for their removal.

This notebook became a clue to the cause of the "clearing".

"Black Swan" has a unique sense of smell, and immediately calls out two groups of people, one group traces the people on the death list, and the other group investigates the reaction of the "Lone Wolf" to this transaction.At that time, Akye's old department was already in place, and it was really easy for the "lone wolf" to track down the "lone wolf".When the news of the return of the two groups of people met, the biggest secret in the notebook was revealed.

All phenomena show that the people on the list were all involved in the actions related to "Dragon's News" at that time, and they were murdered and silenced afterwards.The "lone wolf" who was the executor of the murder was involved, and he also smelled the dragon.But they found nothing except one spot of unknown purpose, and the news of the so-called dragon was interrupted.

In view of the suspicion that Yan Ying went to harass the lone wolf because of the news of the dragon, Li Chen decided to reveal a little bit about the content of this operation to Xia Luo, in order to try to hear the news of the dragon from Ka Jia, the deputy head of Yan Ying.

But these are things for the future, what Li Chen should do now is to lead people into the forest for field investigation.

After traveling for about a week and a half from the city on the southeast coast, the black swans arrived at their destination.Unlike the north where the cold wind is still blowing in the spring, the southern forest is in the rainy season, and the moss, fallen leaves, and mud make human movement inconvenient.In addition, it was almost evening when we arrived at the place, so Akeye did not follow Li Chen to investigate immediately, but directed everyone to set up camping equipment on the side.

This place is a small open space in the woods, with obvious signs of man-made turning, and some stones that are suspected to be construction residues.Li Chen was disliked by other black swans that "helping to build will only get in the way", and he happily walked around in the open space with the short stick that Saenz gave him.

As soon as Akye was sure that things were arranged, he immediately followed Li Chen, not caring what others thought of him.However, the people of the black swan have been shocked by this scene many times, and they have long been used to it, and they are also infected.Several of the magicians didn't have much to contribute when building the camp. After helping to light the fire and boil the water, they withdrew from the front line and consciously walked to the side of Akye and Li Chen.

Li Chen tilted his feet, rolled the heel of his boots on the bare soil surface, poked the ground with the tail of his staff, and said, "This place should have been dug up."

"I'm afraid it was dug more than once." The magician stood beside him, and also poked into the ground with his staff.However, his poke was much more effective than Li Chen's. After two or three seconds, he added: "Ten meters down, we have already dug."

The black swans are full of human beings, and they know no less "wrong ways" than Li Chen, so Li Chen doesn't care what kind of magic the other party used to detect this, but just looks thoughtfully at the center of the open space, where there are rubble Bian: "It seems that there is nothing at least ten meters down."

Who knows, maybe Longzheng is sleeping [-] meters below the ground.

Another magician made a few inconspicuous gestures back and forth while they were talking, and then said: "I detected a few layers of inductive magic circles, and I have fixed them. There is no other more valuable magic. formation."

Li Chen nodded.He walked slowly into the center of the remnants of the building, squatted down to look at the stones covered with signs of time, and a thought flashed through his mind.

"Claremont." Li Chen stood up and looked to the northwest, "How far is it from Bolton? A straight line distance."

Akye recalled the length on the map, and answered a number after deliberation.

Li Chen's face became more and more serious.He walked out a strange route in the open space, then turned a few steps left and right and stood in the open space, shouting to the magicians: "Sound-proof spells, anti-peeping spells, low-light spells, centered on me, 100 meters in diameter spherical!"

Several magicians glanced at each other, and opened several covers respectively according to the words.Especially the mage in charge of the low-light technique. Looking at the still bright evening sky, he felt that if something was too conspicuous in this situation, it must be a blinding thing, so he took out the level of snow blindness control To release the low light technique.

Immediately, it was dark within a radius of [-] meters, and a voice came from the camp: "Who turned off the lights!"

Li Chen smiled, confirmed that all the required spells had been released, lightly grasped the left hand hanging by his side, and a tube of reagent appeared in his hand.He stood there closing his eyes for a moment, then opened them and took a deep breath.

Standing not far away, Akeye and a few magicians watched him quietly, and even the people in the camp realized that this was a flashy thing, and they all waited for the result.

Li Chen picked up the cork of the reagent bottle with his left thumb, and poured it on the ground around him; then he threw the empty reagent bottle away, changed the staff from his right hand to his left, and the empty His right hand immediately slid towards the ground quickly, and a slender light path formed a certain pattern behind his fingertips—although others could not see it, it was obviously a magic circle.

The milky white magic crystal at the top of the staff was emitting the flowing light of magic power. The wooden stick body was extremely conductive, and almost all the magic power mobilized from the magic crystal flowed into Li Chen's body.Even though his hand speed and speech speed are among the best in the whole of Retia, even though he has made great progress in magic power, he still can't support the magic circle drawing that is going on now.

When the light path of the right hand stopped, the magic crystal on the top of the staff was still shining brightly. Li Chen grabbed the staff and poked it into the ground, whispering: "Time reappears!"

Suddenly, colorful lights flashed in the open space, and they quickly gathered into the shape of a formation.

——A magic circle that fixes the fluctuation of the existing magic circle is the masterpiece of the magician just now.

The magic circle disappeared quickly, and the magic elements scattered into sparse spots of light. After a while, they gathered again and changed three patterns in a row—this is the sensory magic circle that was detected just now.

The dots of light representing magic elements began to come alive, constantly changing patterns and formations, at a speed as fast as a child's flash card sliding, fleeting.This colorful picture is too beautiful to behold, but no one has time to feel emotional. The eyes of the soldiers follow the light representing the formations that appear everywhere, and the magicians are running their brains quickly to understand the meaning of all the patterns.

When the pattern changes to the extreme, there will almost be delayed light and shadow, even under the cover of low light technique, it is still very conspicuous.Fortunately, most of these formations are used for exploration, and occasionally a few offensive or life magic are interspersed with them, the repetition rate is quite high, and they are easy to identify.

Li Chen was obviously tired, but he couldn't stop.When this big wave of magic circle flashed by and the light spots of magic elements calmed down again, the main event was coming.

Holding the staff, he gritted his teeth and increased the output of magic power.

Time flies, yesterday reappears.

"What is this..." The magician standing on the side suddenly exclaimed in a low voice.

A three-dimensional light and shadow suddenly appeared in the open space. It was glowing with a faint blue color, and the light waves were rippling. Li Chen was standing inside.From fuzzy to clear, the most clear can make people see its structure - this is actually a building!a house!

In this ghost house that seemed to appear out of nowhere, two magic circles glowing with white light soon appeared - one of them was still under Li Chen's feet - and then disappeared, and a green magic circle the size of a half-length mirror appeared on the wall array.The light is constantly changing, the magic marks within the building have hardly dimmed, and all kinds of magic circles that have never been seen before are dizzying.The magicians originally tried their best to recognize a few, but on the one hand, they could recognize very few, and on the other hand, the patterns changed too fast for the eyes to distinguish, so they gave up.Li Chen stood in the room of light and shadow that appeared and disappeared at that time, all kinds of magical light almost engulfed his figure, only the magic crystal light on the top of the staff was the most eye-catching.

The scene in the room lasted for quite a while, almost longer than the total time before the room appeared, and there was no sign of it going away.The magic crystal rolling with magic power becomes the most conspicuous luminous point in the radiance. No matter how gorgeous the surrounding changes, it still stands firm, as if it is the support of all the dream scenes in front of it-to a certain extent, it is indeed a support.

When the building of light has existed for twice as long as before, the magical color in the house finally gradually weakened.At the same time, the brightness of the magic crystal on the top of Lichen's staff also decreased, and the degree of turbulence was much slower than before, obviously because most of the magic power contained in it had been consumed.

Akye stared at the brilliant color that was no longer dazzling, and suddenly said: "Stop."

However, the magic scene did not disappear immediately.The magical structure that was still flashing continued for a while, and finally stopped abruptly when the light dimmed, the color lost and the light spots disappeared.The sudden disappearance of the picture seems to be very reluctant.

Li Chen stood in the middle of the open space with a cane, the magic crystal was almost dim, and his pale face could be seen even under the low light spell.