On both sides are rows of closely spaced building ruins, most of which have collapsed, with only a few retaining their original appearance.
From the few relatively well-preserved buildings, we can see that the architecture of this ruins is very different from that of the "Last Kingdom", with most of them being tall and thin towers.
It doesn't seem to be suitable for human habitation, and more like a symbolic or ceremonial building.
"This shouldn't be a residential area, but a district in the city with some special symbolic significance..."
Hill was in the back middle of the team. Protected by several soldiers wearing light armor and holding weapons, he carefully scanned the scene around him and made careful analysis and speculation in his mind.
Although she already possesses the strength of a wizard at the "apprentice" level, in theoretical terms her combat power is no worse than that of a Silent Soul Wizard at the "disciple" level.
But in the official archives of the "Last Kingdom" Church of Redemption, she is still a civilian member with no combat capability, responsible only for geological and mapping tasks during exploration and survey, so she still needs the protection of special combatants.
"I wonder if I can find an opportunity this time to sacrifice some of the spoils to the 'True Creator'..."
While thinking and analyzing, Hill would occasionally glance at a figure at the front of the team out of the corner of his eye, muttering in his heart without confidence.
Leading the entire vanguard expedition team at the front was a young woman wearing a gray-white robe and with long, thick silver-gray hair.
She looked to be in her twenties or thirties. Although her body was covered by a loose gray robe, one could still tell that she was rather thin. Her arms, which occasionally showed from under the robe, were thin and made her look a little fragile.
In addition, her skin color was the same as that of other residents of the "Last Country", so pale that it was almost bloodless, with pale blue blood vessels faintly visible, making her look particularly weak, as if she would fall down at the slightest touch.
That bright and pretty face, just like her temperament, had the corners of her mouth slightly turned down, filled with a melancholy and gloom that seemed to never go away.
This person is none other than the leader of this pioneer investigation expedition team, the senior deacon of the Seventh Parish Church of the "Last Kingdom", and the experienced "requiem master" - Ottilia.
No one in the team thought that this young woman was a fragile vase based on her appearance. Especially Hill, who knew Otilia better.
Because the parish where Hill lives is exactly the seventh parish where Ottilia serves!
Over the past decade or so, she had encountered the senior deacon several times on the street.
That rare long gray-white hair was quite eye-catching among humans. Hill remembered that when he was less than eight years old, he noticed it from a distance across the street and kept that unique figure firmly in his mind.
However... in this land dominated by gray, it has become a distracting color that confuses the enemy's attention and makes it difficult to distinguish.
"This is a senior deacon directly under the Final Church, a 'requiem master' with more than ten years of qualifications... converted into the mage system bestowed upon me by the 'True Creator', it is equivalent to a 'magician' at the peak level..."
Recalling all the information about this leader, Hill couldn't help but feel guilty:
"She is two realms higher than me... In front of such a strong person, do I really have a chance to avoid her attention... and secretly sacrifice the spoils to the 'True Creator'?"
Although the "True Creator" did not clearly state the deadline for repayment, Hill still hoped to pay off his "debt" as soon as possible...
But if there is really no chance...
Let's wait until next time. We can't force it and risk being exposed - after all, the "True Creator" has requested that outsiders not know of His existence, and we can't go against the will of this foreign god.
"……Um?"
At this moment, the leader of the front, the "Requiem Master" Otilia, suddenly stopped, and stretched out a hand in front of everyone, signaling everyone to stop.
The team members, including Hill, all stopped in tacit understanding, maintaining the highest level of vigilance. They did not ask any questions, but just looked at Ottilia with doubt.
Otilia turned her head slightly and looked at the team members behind her.
Her eyes were a clear and deep blue, appearing extremely pure and bright. In ancient mythology, that was the color the sky should have been before it was covered by lead-black clouds.
The team members immediately sensed danger in this quick glance - something was not right around here, there might be danger!
This kind of tacit understanding that requires no words and seems like a telepathic connection is not "trained" but "honed".
This relic is a strange area that has never been explored in depth before. The only thing everyone in the "Last Kingdom" knows about this place is that "it exists". As for what the structure inside is and what dangers lurk inside - everything is a vacuum.
The investigation team that Hill is in plays a pioneering role.
Responsible for roughly sweeping all parts of the ruins, clearing, marking or confirming existing threats, and drawing a rough map to facilitate subsequent professional surveying, research, and construction teams to carry out in-depth development, or to determine whether to abandon development directly based on actual conditions.
In other words, the risk their team took was extremely high, and it was normal for the whole team to be wiped out for no apparent reason.
But this does not mean that they are cannon fodder sent to die. On the contrary, every member of the team is a survivor who has experienced at least one group wipeout and is a veteran with sufficient practical experience.
——Yes, according to the standards of the "Last Kingdom", as long as you survive a group wipeout, you can be called a "veteran", and Hill is certainly among them.
The mission of the pioneer expedition investigation team is quite important. If due to their negligence, they fail to eliminate or confirm the risks and threats in the destination, then the follow-up troops will not be fully prepared, resulting in greater casualties.
Only those who have truly faced life and death and tragedy can be "honed" to have sufficiently sharp intuition and tacit understanding, thereby maximizing efficient cooperation with each other and avoiding pretentious and meaningless language disputes.
"Susu..."
Not long after the team members stopped moving, a series of sudden and fine friction sounds were heard around them.
It's a bit like the sound of glass rubbing against a hard surface. The volume is not loud but it is very torturous to the eardrums, making people shiver from the back of the neck to the whole body.
These disturbing sounds came from the ruins of a building not far away, which was overgrown with weeds and branches and leaning to one side or the other. They became louder and more frequent, as if some tiny but extremely large group of creatures were approaching quickly!
"shrink."
Otilia shouted sharply at the moment before those ominous things appeared from the shadows and cover of the ruins.
In stark contrast to her frail and thin appearance, her voice was powerful and firm, her pronunciation was crystal clear and full of energy, without any sign of weakness at all.
“Swish, swish, swish!…”
At the leader's command, all team members changed their positions quickly and in an orderly manner without any hesitation.
The ruins where the team is located are relatively wide, so the team members choose to disperse and form a relatively sparse but very orderly formation. When a sudden attack comes from any direction from the outside, there will be no problem of people blocking each other's vision and hindering support or retreat.
But now, their layout has shrunk dramatically, with most of the combat members blocking the periphery, and inside are technicians without extraordinary powers, like a snail shell guarding a soft body.
As the team leader, Otilia stood at the outermost edge of the team with one arm slightly raised. Her movements seemed slow and inconspicuous, but the inspiration of every extraordinary person present could detect that her spirituality was ready to go.
In a short time, this team of more than ten people achieved near-perfect cooperation in a very short communication, and many of them did not even know each other before this time.
“Crash!!!—”
The moment everyone formed a new formation, large patches of reddish-brown color swarmed out from the ruins on both sides, sticking to the ground and sweeping towards the team, like an ever-expanding dark brown carpet.
But if you look closely, you can find that this so-called "carpet" is not a whole at all, but a cluster composed of countless independent individuals the size of fingers!
They were tiny creatures with multiple limbs on their sides and pincer-like mouthparts on their heads. They were packed together so densely that it made one's scalp tingle.
The reddish-brown marks that covered every inch of their bodies, like mottled rust, blatantly and unabashedly revealed the true identities of these strange creatures.
"Evil ghost".
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Chapter 369 Adventure
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The so-called "filthy ghost" is not the scientific name of a certain type of creature or species, but a general term for all deformed monsters that have been infected by the eternal curse "Rust Plague", have lost most of their animal instincts, and are different from ordinary creatures.
Filthy ghosts will be born naturally in areas with a higher concentration of "Rust Plague", and then follow the breath of ordinary creatures to chase their prey to the ends of the earth until one of them dies.
But even if it is dismembered and killed, the evil ghost can suddenly emerge somewhere without warning and be resurrected in another form after a period of time, just like the bubbles popping on the surface of boiling water, never ending.
They do not need to eat to maintain a constant supply of physical strength and energy, so the so-called hunting is meaningless to their survival.
Monsters that have been completely infected by the "rust plague", which represents the absolute ultimate frenzy, have no reason, consciousness, or personality, so the purpose of their bloodthirsty slaughter is probably not for pleasure.
These cursed monsters... the reason why they roam the land and forests endlessly, destroying the lives of ordinary creatures, is probably... entirely due to some mechanical, established "rules".
Just like water flows to lower places and day and night alternate, the behavior of evil spirits may not harbor the slightest malice or murderous intent, but simply lazily follow a certain "law" that is extremely vicious to ordinary creatures.
"Zhizhizhizhi——"
Oval-shaped creatures swarmed out from the darkness between the ruins on both sides of the street and completely surrounded the team of more than a dozen people in an instant.
There were so many of them that even the wide streets could not accommodate them, so they could only be piled up layer by layer, vying to swim towards the crowd.
For a moment, their disgusting figures were everywhere, leaving no space at all.
At this moment, the sound made by these mini monsters no longer sounds like the rubbing of glass shards, but is more like the sound of large leaves falling.
And on this basis, there is the sound of the crawling of some sticky, wet, nauseating soft thing, making it extremely disgusting.
"Disgusting……"
Seeing so many tiny creatures densely packed together, Hilton felt a chill down her spine and a strong spasm in her stomach. If she was still a novice during her first mission, she would definitely vomit now.
In the end, she managed to hold back the sour feeling rising in her throat and did not let her teammates down at such a critical moment. Instead, she quickly observed all aspects of these small groups of evil spirits.
"This is……"
There are many different opinions about where the original evil ghosts came from and why most of the evil ghosts have certain characteristics of ordinary creatures in appearance, and it is difficult to reach a consensus.
However, the most common and most widely spread statement is that the "prototypes" of all the current evil spirits were created in ancient times when the "Rust Plague" curse had not yet descended on this land, and those originally normal species were affected by the curse.
Therefore, these tiny but numerous arthropods that surrounded the team now, even though their bodies were covered with dirty traces of rust, and even though their body structures had undergone quite obvious changes...
However, Hill, who had read many documents describing and examining the conditions and appearances of ancient times in the library of the "training ground" when he was young, was able to identify the prototypes of these monsters in normal conditions in ancient times before the curse fell as soon as he saw their appearance...
"Periplaneta", or "cockroach".
A dirty, flexible, highly fertile, vigorous scavenger that is extremely difficult to deal with, but timid, sensitive, and weak, and therefore can hardly pose a direct threat to creatures of human size.
But now, these low-level species that were originally disgusting, dirty and disease-spreading were swarming towards the team in groups and with great momentum.
It was as if what was before them was not a group of warriors with powerful extraordinary strength, but a large piece of maggoty and rotten meat with no resistance at all.
"many!"
"Lady Otilia, what should we do!?"
Faced with such a large number of enemy attacks, the team members seemed a little panicked, but they did not lose their composure. They maintained basic composure and stayed at their posts without wavering.
"Clean up what I missed."
The cockroach-shaped monsters moved very quickly, and everyone had less than five seconds to react. If they failed to respond in time, most of the members would be eaten by these crazy monsters until not even a bone was left. The situation was extremely critical.
In response to the team members' questions, Deacon Otilia, as the leader, immediately gave a cold order, and then without further explanation, she raised her slightly raised arm suddenly -
"Brush it!"
The wide sleeves of her robe were whipped in the air by the swift and fierce force, making a sharp and crisp sound, and an invisible indigo ripple quickly spread out in all directions with her body as the center.
“Shh!——”
This layer of indigo ripples is so faint and dim that it is almost impossible to distinguish it from the dim environment with the naked eye.
But the moment it touched the cockroaches and evil spirits that were pouring in like a tide, blinding white light burst out from the intersection of the two, flashing the team behind her into a trance.
"Squeak squeak squeak!!!"
“Swish, swish, swish!——”
And in this bright white flash, the evaporation and gasification of matter continued, accompanied by howling like the screaming of a mouse and the rustling sound of hard wings flapping wildly.
"Very impressive, you are worthy of being the butler..."
When his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the light, Hill saw that the densely packed layers of cockroaches and demons were all shattered at the touch of a button under the burning of the indigo ripples and white flashes.
Colorful sticky body fluids and tiny internal organs were splashed everywhere, seeping into the cracks between the broken road stones and soaking the barren and dry soil.
Even though Otilia's attack did not cause any damage to the surrounding environment and did not make much noise, there are very few Soul-Lords who can do this. Except for the high priests of the Holy See, there are probably only a handful of them.
Unlike spells in the wizard system, most offensive skills will cause obvious damage to the material environment. The abilities of the Soul Wizard are mostly directly aimed at the physical or spiritual bodies of life.
Many of the Soul-Silencing Sorcery techniques that were extremely difficult and of extremely high levels, produced effects that... in the eyes of ordinary onlookers, were mostly just dazzling, flashy but seemingly useless visual tricks.
Of course, that assumes that these bystanders are not the targets of witchcraft.
Only an extraordinary person with a sharp enough inspiration could glimpse the depth and skill hidden in the indigo ripples in Ottilia's every move.
Hill, who had just successfully been promoted to an "apprentice" mage a few days ago, was naturally among them.
In the few short seconds that she was feeling emotional, the rippling indigo waves and the dazzling white flashes had washed away all the black swarms of cockroaches and evil spirits.
The once powerful group of foul ghosts was now reduced to a pile of sticky body fluids, internal organs and shell fragments, like burnt food, emitting a pungent stench that could almost cause a person to temporarily lose their sense of smell. It was extremely disgusting.
Several soldiers hiding behind Ottilia were on high alert, keeping a close eye on the evil spirits that might break through the ripple defense line and attack the team members, but at this moment they were completely useless.
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