Soul of Burning Steel

Averting his eyes from the map, Joshua shook his head.

In any case, the current dragon calamity only threatens Yuannan for the time being. Although he is reminded of the past, the current soldier is a northern lord who lives on the other side of the world. This war has nothing to do with him for the time being. relation.

For Joshua at present, the most important thing is to prepare to participate in the celebration banquet in the imperial capital that will start in early April. The celebration of all nobles and powerful people in the empire undoubtedly has a deeper meaning.

But before setting off, he needs to finish all the affairs in the territory.

Looking out of the city from a height, the black and green plains, the snow-melt earth and the new-born grass stretch endlessly towards the surroundings. There are farmers farming in the fields not far away, and at the end of the field of vision, You can see the hunting group in full gear riding fast horses on the avenue, galloping towards the distant Black Forest.

"ready to go."

Standing on the top floor of the lord's mansion, Joshua looked into the distance for a while, and then he asked Ying, who was standing by the side, to activate the solidified teleportation circle. With the rapid fluctuation of magic power, a piece of magic power crystal placed at the power supply place It became dim, and the warrior and Ying and Rin standing behind him disappeared in the faint blue halo brought by the teleportation array amidst the buzzing sound of magic activation.

The destination of this teleportation is the Black Forest Fortress, and Joshua's purpose is to explore the mysterious area in the Great Ajax Volcano.

No. 3 told him not long ago that the expedition team of Paladin Lolanda discovered a mysterious area in the depths of the Great Ajax Volcano, where the concentration of magic energy is extremely thick, and there is a serious disorder of elements. Phenomena, ordinary fighters can't even go deep, and only the periphery has been corroded by elements, leading to signs of initial muscle melting.

With Loranda's strength, he can naturally investigate in depth, but his exploration experience is far from mature, and he is not worthy of entrusting such a task at all, not to mention that he is easy to get lost and enters the dense lava tunnel inside the volcano. Can the guy come out.

In fact, not only No. 3 is very concerned about this, but even Moria and Countess Verdani from afar have come to ask whether the news is true, even if it is the other two lords of the four Northern Territories, Both the Wilsons and the Tepes were extremely concerned.

Because that is the Great Ajax Volcano, the source of life in the entire Northland—nature is also the source of destruction.

The heat brought by the lava from the veins, as well as the nutrient-rich volcanic ash, gave birth to the largest mountain range in the north, the Black Forest. This forest once covered all human activity areas today, and it has a territory comparable to that of a small country. In this way, part of the Black Forest was emptied, and the Northlanders who built their homes on it also enjoyed the benefits of this fertile land, and never really worried about food.

But this is based on the fact that the Great Ajax Volcano does not erupt.

According to the report of the detection team, the amount of magical energy contained in the mysterious area is so large and the density is so thick that even if it is not enough to detonate the volcano, it can still cause an explosion comparable to that of the ancient dragon [Huang Black Dragon Albatrien] four hundred years ago. huge damage.

"Ah, my lord!"

After the teleportation ended, Joshua and the others felt a slight dizziness, then shook their heads habitually and regained consciousness. The soldiers guarding the teleportation array realized that the person walking from the teleportation array was actually their lord, so they hurriedly saluted.

After hearing the news of Joshua and others' arrival, Zorgen, Keeley, and Feng Fortress's three-person team also quickly arrived at the teleportation array in the central tower, and the three who were communicating The soldier was a little pleasantly surprised to find that among the three, Zorgen seemed to have made a certain breakthrough after recovering from the previous serious injury, and now there is a sign of advanced gold, while the strength of the other two is gradually increasing.

"That's right, you're advancing so fast." He didn't hesitate to praise his subordinates for their progress.

In fact, this is also natural. You must know that since the last Kuroshio, the Black Forest Fortress has been resting and recuperating. Until recently, because Joshua continuously sent new troops to replenish new blood, this was considered completely. has returned to its full strength—but in fact, the strength of the Black Forest Fortress is stronger than before, especially when a large number of soldiers survived the battle between humans and monsters. Many of them have been promoted once, and many of them have become new silver ranks.

Not to mention silver-level knights, these powerful people will only gain more if they survive.

Accompanied by everyone, Joshua roughly inspected the entire Black Forest Fortress. He inspected the city walls, towers, and material warehouses. After confirming that everything was in order, he smiled and encouraged his soldiers. Then he left the Black Forest Fortress with Ying and Rin, and headed directly towards the volcano in the Black Forest.

"Master is leaving too fast..."

Following behind Joshua, Ying, who was almost running in small steps, glanced sideways at her younger brother, as if she could communicate only by looking at her eyes: "I didn't even eat, so I just left."

"There is nothing else. Do you want the master to inspect them all? Without so much time, the master's purpose is not here at all."

Rin shrugged his shoulders and narrowed his eyes slightly. He understood Joshua's thoughts: "The things that are on the way will be dealt with earlier, and the master will also go to work earlier."

In fact, the distance from the Black Forest Fortress to the Great Ajax Volcano was not far. Before evening, they arrived at their destination while Joshua's weapons were quietly chatting behind him.

An active volcano located in the core area of ​​the mountain range, the Great Ajax Volcano is very spectacular and beautiful. The majestic and powerful mountain towers above the world like a giant towering above the sky, billowing thick smoke gushing out into the sky In the endless dark clouds, there is a red halo visible to the naked eye flickering on the top of the mountain.

On the hills around the volcano, there is a simple camp surrounded by wooden walls, and this is where Lolanda's expedition team is stationed.

Joshua naturally didn't hesitate, he simply walked into the camp, and at the gate of the expedition team's camp, he saw the paladin and other members of the expedition team who were about to set off to investigate.

Everyone was stunned when they saw Joshua again. They seemed to have no idea that Joshua would come, and Loranda was no exception. He heard footsteps outside and thought It was other exploration teams who also came here. When the other exploration team members saluted their lord, he greeted him very happily: "Long time no see, my friend."

"Long time no see, how do you feel in the exploration team?"

The soldier also said hello, and Joshua could tell that after the past few months of polishing at the bottom, Lolanda's character had improved to a new level, and it seemed that he had initially explored his personal fighting skills—but today He came here not for a discussion. After exchanging pleasantries, Joshua began to ask about the specific situation of the mysterious area in the volcano.

"The situation is like this..."

Lolanda knew everything, said everything in detail, and directly told everything she had seen and heard.

It turned out that they discovered that mysterious place by accident.

At that time, Lolanda's exploration team was looking for open-pit mines around the volcano. This kind of mine is extremely difficult to mine, even if it only produces iron, it is not a bad deal, not to mention that most of it contains precious materials, such as Say Mithril, Yanjing Iron, etc.

When several people passed through the jungle and passed a hill, a sharp-eyed archer noticed that there was a layer of dark red rock on the ground at the foot of the volcano in the distance. sense of coercion.

The whole team, including Lolanda, felt that this thing was extraordinary. You know, it is definitely not a simple thing to make a group of experienced fighters feel intimidated, so they decided to take some samples and take a look at this red color by the way. The size of the rock reserves.

But at the foot of the mountain, following the traces of the red rock on the surface, they quickly discovered a huge tunnel leading to the depths of the volcano.

No one can resist this kind of curiosity. After Loranda released the light, the exploration team sent half of the people down the tunnel. The tunnel was extremely dry and filled with the smell of sulfur. Surprisingly, there is no poisonous gas, and the surrounding rock walls are also very smooth. An experienced old explorer believes that this is not a naturally formed cave, and everyone agrees with this conjecture.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, the expedition team came to a huge cave inside a volcano, which was full of lava, extremely rich in elements, but extremely messy.

What happened next, Joshua already knew most of it. Due to the excessive concentration of elements, ordinary people are easily burned or even killed by energy radiation, so the exploration team hurriedly withdrew and reported the matter to the main city .

"Red, rock-like substance?"

He muttered to himself, but Joshua's mind was not on that strange and mysterious area. Instead, he thought of the red blood rock at the bottom of Nissie Snow Mountain Lake. He nodded and said, "Show me those sample."

After the archer standing aside heard these words, he immediately presented the sample hanging on his waist.

"This smell...is very familiar! As expected, this red rock..."

Joshua opened this common specimen bag and saw the red rock in it. He rubbed a little powder off with his fingers, and then licked it. After closing his eyes and thinking for a while, he was sure that it was the blood of an ancient dragon. smell.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help showing an excited smile: "That red mark is probably the blood mark left by an ancient dragon's injury! And that strange smooth cave is the passage it walked in!"