Why did the lord rebel

Chapter 196 The First Hour of the Lord's Absence
Cousins, who hurried into Frost Maple Ridge with Chris Mann, was not even in the mood to pay attention to the Fenghuangtai camp that had changed drastically after being gone for dozens of days, and had no time to pay attention to the new faces in the territory;
But Eldridge, who came all the way from Rose City, was really shocked.

In the vision of this Rosario confidant and the commander of the Eastern Territory, the Grand Duke sent himself to the remote southern wilderness to perform a task of poverty alleviation. ;

But what he saw and heard after entering the gate of Fenghuang Terrace in Shuangfengling completely broke Eldridge's preconceived ideas:

This aristocratic territory built on the platform is indeed, as the Grand Duke said, still in a stage of hard work. The materials piled up everywhere, the unfinished buildings and the slightly messy layout make the platform look like A complex mix of construction sites, residential areas and military forts;
However, in the eyes of a sharp-eyed person like Eldridge, every detail of the Phoenix Terrace seems to shine with the light of wealth and order!

——For example, the territorial soldiers passing by them in a hurry, all of them have big arms and round waists, and are full of vigor, and there is not a single fat or weak guy among them. The imperial central army with few redundant personnel is stronger;
——For example, perhaps because these soldiers were still fully armed after the war: just a simple glance, Eldridge noticed the elite standard armor of the Imperial Confederate Army, high-quality armor with obvious demon characteristics, and countless There are no seals, but extremely sharp swords, and even some strange short swords that seem to belong to the ancient elves;

——For another example, although the area around the platform is still filled with the smell of blood and gunpowder smoke, none of the civilians of the Igor family who shuttled through the camp showed fear or panic in their eyes, and they were all full of confidence , as if it was not affected by the sudden war at all.

After seeing a group of Frost Maple Ridge soldiers walk by with the standard demon regular army steps, Eldridge even mistakenly thought that he had entered the enemy's den, and couldn't resist pulling out his saber "Darkness" from behind.

Is this really a wasteland territory that has just been established a few days ago? !

Now, following Cousins ​​step by step in the camp, Eldridge felt more and more wrong——

What I saw on the road just now, the bandits who were frightened and ran away broke down;

The burning catapult, the countless blood under the corner of the terrace;

The little officer who opened the door said, "I just finished a fight with the Bandit Alliance Army"...

Many clues were connected in Eldridge's mind, leading to an extremely absurd but irrefutable conclusion...

"Damn it!" Eldridge yelled—

The guys from the Igor family didn't just have a fierce fight with the bandits on the wasteland, and then drove these bloodthirsty gangsters crazy, right? !
Cousins ​​looked back at Eldridge inexplicably. Seeing that the northern warrior fell into deep thought and kept silent, he shrugged and continued to follow Chris to the central square of Phoenix Terrace next to Horned Eagle Manor.

He saw his lord at a glance.

The young patriarch of the Igor family was sitting cross-legged in the shadow of Horned Eagle Manor at this moment, motionless;
At first glance, Cousins ​​thought the lord was taking a nap;

But immediately, he found Alice Comstock surrounded by the lord with a sad face, Karen Leperg, the owner of the Luna Village, Tom Lawrence and others;
And Miss Katerina, already supported by the maid An Jie, was standing aside, covering her face with a handkerchief, sobbing softly;

Several doctors from the former Eagle's Rest Castle were discussing something quietly together, and turned their heads from time to time to observe the state of the lord.

When everyone saw Cousins ​​showing up, most of them nodded in greeting after a brief surprise;
But judging from their expressions, they were obviously still in the same bad mood, and they didn't feel any joy at the return of their knight commander.

"Fuck..." Cousins ​​looked at the gloomy scene, and quickly kicked Chris, "This...what's the matter, my lord?"

Chris reached out and loosened the neckline, and answered with difficulty:
"My lord... he... seems to be... in a coma..."

"It's numb..." Eldridge said in astonishment, "Why did the boss, ah, fall into a coma just after I arrived?!"

Chris glanced at this strange stranger, not daring to answer casually, so he could only whisper to Cousins:

"Knight Commander Cousins, after you left, a lot of things happened here..."

He told Cousins ​​all the bullshit stories about the Pride of the South raid, the Dragon Hunting operation, the treasury robbery, and the bandit coalition.

"Ah? According to you, didn't we win today's battle?" Cousins ​​was surprised after listening to Chris's narration, "Then... how did the lord fall into a coma?"

"We thought the battle was over at the time!" Chris said with a sad face, "but now that you think about it carefully, the bandit alliance should be purely pawns used by the Duke of Houston, including the swordsman Sirius. A blindfold to delay time!"

"Blindfolded?" Eldridge raised his eyebrows.

This professional military person was obviously delighted to see Lie, and became interested in topics related to tactics and strategies.

"Yes... blindfold." Chris glanced at Eldridge cautiously, seeing Cousins ​​waving his hand to signal it was okay, and continued, "Since the bandit coalition has no signs of dividing troops, since the start of the war today, we All my attention was focused on the battlefield in the east, but a mage sent by Rock Creek City approached the Phoenix Terrace from the west and launched a sneak attack..."

"Is this the mage who made the lord like this?" Cousins ​​asked hastily.

Chris nodded grimly.

Eldridge, who was listening carefully, was a little dumbfounded:

According to what Chris said just now, Frost Maple Ridge achieved targeted strikes and beheading operations by attracting the attention of the enemy and sending people to lurk into the coalition camp;

Unexpectedly, the enemy had the same plan!

Shuangfengling, who had won a complete victory in the frontal battlefield, still inevitably took a sap and took his own lord into it.

In a sense, Frost Maple Ridge and Grand Duke Houston are really evenly matched opponents...

Cousins ​​looked to the west of Phoenix Terrace, frowned and said:

"So... the lord is not dead yet, but was attacked by magic and fell into a coma? What kind of bullshit magic effect is this?"

"That's the strange thing, anyway, I don't understand the situation..." Chris smiled wryly, "Hey, our cavalry team just captured that bastard mage who made a sneak attack, and Master Laurie is interrogating ..."

caught? !Cousins ​​and Eldridge looked at each other and hurriedly followed Chris' instructions.

Sure enough, on the other side of the square, they found a skinny mage tied up and hung in the air by a thick hemp rope, and Master Victor Laurie standing on the ground, waving a crowbar and blowing his beard and staring.

For some reason, this scene is quite magical.

"Say!" Victor Laurie swung the crowbar aggressively, and was almost sprained by the heavy iron, "What did you do to our honorable lord?!"

"I don't know anything!" the mage prisoner in the air wailed, "I just ran over and cast a spell according to the instructions of the Duke of Houston!"

"Curse?! Is that the dark shadow that spread over just now?!" Master Laurie hissed, "Please tell me the truth, I, Victor Laurie, am a civilized person, don't force me to use my energy Magic, let me show you what it means to live or die!"

The onlookers shuddered in unison.

"It's...it's 'Shadow Craze'!" The mage prisoner seemed to have heard of Master Laurie's reputation, and without hesitation came a bamboo tube to pour beans, "I, I cast such a shadow system with the scroll Spells, nothing else!"

"Hey, he's still a shadow-type magician, a rare species..." Lena Leslie who was on the side spat bitterly.

This hot girl, a fire mage, now has an extremely unfriendly expression, and her whole body is filled with a sense of danger that is about to explode.

The fact that her senior brother was attacked unfortunately made Miss Lina very angry.

"Shadow mages are okay..." Eldridge muttered, "It's a necromancer again, ah, it's a shadow mage again, under the Duke of Houston, ah, there are quite a lot of taboo talents... ..."

Cousins ​​and Chris, who have been working for a certain super "taboo talent", collectively remained silent.

"Master..." Lena turned her head to look at Master Laurie, "What is the effect of 'Shadow Frenzy'?"

In fact, Master Laurie doesn't know much about shadow spells, not to mention the "Shadow Frenzy" cast by the rock creek mage using a scroll, which is an extremely unpopular spell;

Therefore, the master directly faced the mage captive in the air, and began to chant the most notorious spell of the spiritual system, the "Feast of Pain" known as "the most suitable for torturing a single target".

"Fuck!" The prisoner of the mage recognized the syllables of the spell in an instant, twisted in the air, and screamed, "Master! Don't do this! I say! I say it all! Darkness, shadow tide is a long-lost The effect of a master-level spell is... to temporarily exile a person's soul to another world!"

Master Laurie's mantra chants stuck in his throat.

His old eyes burst out with a dangerous blade-like light.

"So..." the master hissed, "Your lord, his soul...was exiled to another world by you?"

"No, I don't know!" The shadow mage in the air was about to cry, "The effect of this spell... seems to be a problem!"

"Something went wrong?" Master Laurie imitated the Lord Lord's habitual movements, turning the crowbar in his hand, and almost smashed his toe by mistake.

"Shadow Craze is a spell that targets groups!" shouted the shadow mage, "Theoretically, it should be able to exile all the lives it comes into contact with, that is, the souls of all of you in Frost Maple Ridge... ... But, but I don't know why, once the 'Shadow Frenzy' spread to your lord, it, it only had an effect on him, and then it was suddenly absorbed and disappeared!"

Master Laurie turned around and stared at the lord who was sitting cross-legged and meditating not far away, as if he had fallen into a deep sleep, with an uncertain expression on his face.

"Master..." Lina asked softly, "So Senior Elliott...what happened to him?"

"It seems that his soul was indeed temporarily exiled to another world..." Master Laurie frowned, "Whether it is falling into a deep sleep, no response, or the body losing its natural magic fluctuations, these are typical symptoms of an exiled soul! "

"Ah?" Lina's originally pale pretty face suddenly returned to blood, "So the senior will return to normal, right!"

Master Laurie nodded hesitantly.

For magicians who study the soul, especially spiritual magicians, "exile of the soul" is not a particularly distant concept;

It is a very difficult subject to transmit creatures from the main plane to another world, because it inevitably involves the trans-plane transmission of matter - only such as the "Dragon Summoning" technique of the frost dragon Cristiano Only advanced spells like this can break open a space-time rift that allows creatures to pass through;
However, it is much simpler to teleport a disembodied soul.

Although the act of "exiling the soul" has long been listed as a taboo by the Magic Association, many other types of magic have exclusive methods for doing such immoral things—even Master Laurie himself "accidentally" exiled the soul when he was young. Some bastard souls.

Generally speaking, the exile of the soul to another world is not an irreversible permanent state:
Different planes naturally have a tendency to reject foreign objects from other worlds, and this effect is particularly evident in the ethereal soul:
According to the statistics of Xuecheng, more than 60% of the exiled souls can return to normal within an hour;
And if magical means are used to ensure the survival of their bodies, within a year at the latest, the unlucky souls whose souls have been exiled can also return to normal people.

Everyone can guess that Master Laurie, who was born in the study of spiritual magic, must have some experience in how to call back people's souls.

Therefore, everyone couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when they heard that the lord's soul was exiled.

"But..." Lina frowned, "Why did the 'Shadow Tide' spell only have an effect on the senior?"

"I don't know either!!!" The shadow mage in the air wailed, "The shadow frenzy I summoned, the power of shadow banishment contained in it, let alone get rid of the mortals in one of your camps, exile three big There are more than enough mages! Who the hell knows what's going on in your bullshit territory, such a raging frenzy has been sucked up by your lord alone!"

Eldridge finally understood what was going on, and exclaimed:

"Stop, friend! You don't mean that enough to exile the souls of three archmages, ah, the 'power of shadow exile', is all poured into our lord, right? Is this reasonable?"

Silent.

"No way..." The shadow mage was also frightened by this inference, "What magic class are you, your lord? No, no way? No one's soul is so strong, even more than three years old. A great mage added together?"

Master Laurie was about to answer "the third-level intermediate mage", and then came to a sudden stop when the words came to his lips.

He sneaked a glance at the zombie Dave in the cage, and the remains of the skeleton soldiers outside the door.

The master vaguely remembered that a long time ago, he seemed to have said something to the lord, and his tone was similar to "no one's soul is so strong."

In the end, Master Laurie could only say:
"Damn! You are a fucking prisoner, don't ask what you shouldn't ask!"

(End of this chapter)