Xiling Empire

Except for some islands located in the depths of the ocean, almost isolated from the world, and small lands that have almost never been involved in legend, the mother continent is the only known and vibrant continent on the planet. The irregular ellipse runs through the northern and southern hemispheres, and extends more toward the northern hemisphere—its northern part has penetrated into the icy and snowy oceans, but its southern part has only crossed the equator and has not even reached the temperate regions of the southern hemisphere. Therefore, for a long time in history, scholars from the mother continent believed that they lived in a hot and cold one-way world, getting more and more cold northward, until the sky froze, and getting hotter south, until the earth All are melted for it, so in the old myths of the motherland, there is also a legend of the king of the North Ice and the tyrant of the Nanyuan lava.

This is when I was idle and bored, Lillina told us.

We went to the northern part of the motherland, and it was almost close to the frozen wilderness. If it were n’t for the portal, ordinary people would come to this cold country, then they would cross the northern duchy, and then pass through the countless scattered settlements of the barbarians separated by the barbarians. The border line only works. There is a loose country called "Goodell". This is a country with almost no clear government. City states, large and small, and even towns and cities are standing on their own, but it is wonderful that this is not a long-term war. As a result, after a long process of civilization and mutual compromise, a delicate state of balance formed locally. Counties of cities and towns each pursue their own laws and have their own lords. "Ruling, this northern royal family does not seem to have the intention to strengthen their centralization. They are even happy to see the princes in their name form such a loose state of state. They only need their own people to do two things: worship, and Chongshen, in addition, is to fulfill the most basic obligation to protect the kingdom when foreign enemies strike, and then let it go. Such a ruling style and state structure are hard for outsiders to imagine. Anyway, I was almost surprised if there were no accidents. How could the Goodell family here have not been replaced for such a long time, but in fact, for a long time, the entire northern kingdom "Goodell" has been extremely stable, with almost no internal friction.

After reviewing the information collected by Lilina, I learned that it was all due to the "Giant of the Storm".

In the extreme north of the mainland, although there is no King of Ice, there is really a strong ancient spirit that is the Storm Giant. This mighty creature revered as the God of the North is considered to be one of the most powerful ancient spirits, and he is believed to have appeared before mortals when the mortals of the mother continent first reached the northern ice sheet and established a town on the border. , And its true existence will naturally only last longer than that. The Storm Giant is described as a cold creature without an entity. According to legend, he lives in the deepest part of the northern ice sheet, where the most advanced alchemy airboats on the mother mainland are. Where it is impossible to reach, the Storm Giant is an endless mass of male ancient spirits mixed with ice, snow, and clouds and lightning. Only before mortals reach him. And just when this ancient spirit is interested again, this storm will take on the appearance of a humanoid. When he stands up, he can step over the widest ice ridge and the highest mountain range on the Arctic Plain. When he is angry, he can All the mortal towns along the border are frozen in one breath, and the only way to communicate with the storm giant is in the hands of the Goodall.

This is the cornerstone to which the loose state of the extreme north of the mainland can survive to this day: The back of the Goodall family is the Storm Giant. In fact, the word "Goodell" means "servant" in the local language, which means the servant of the storm giant.

However, why the Goodell clan who has mastered such a powerful force will actively keep their kingdom in such a state of incompatibility and even seem to care less about their royal power, it is difficult to explain clearly. They are a group of very mysterious guys who live in their frozen castles and hardly eat human fireworks. The information about them on the mainland is nonsense, except for the legend ...

Well, basically nonsense.

The northern borders are trivial with hills and hills, which shows a very intense but short duration of geological activity. The towns with human settlements here are basically built on the mountain. Avoiding the mountains can effectively resist the cold wind from the northern ice field, and it is easier to get extra food from the mountain forest. Our destination is such a medium-sized town hiding in a valley at the foot of the mountain. The town has a particularly straightforward and strange name: the ice skate. The name is probably because its shape is long and narrow, and it is located on the boundary of the ice field. It looks exactly like an ice cutter that pierces the ice field's border. In such a cold and scarce place, it is a little bigger. Towns rarely expand or change their base address, and it seems conceivable to name towns.

This town named Ice Skate should be considered as the larger "city" of this place. It is also close to the area where the Goodel family live, but the main reason we chose here as the destination was the request of Sagna and Sona. : They said they would come here to find someone.

"Huh, this is much cooler than the Dragon Kingdom." Looking at the entrance to the town in front of me, I exhaled and said that the warm air brought from another space disappeared with the portal, and was instantly caught by the cold here. The wind dissipated a clean. We were still in front of the portal of the Angel City in the last second. This second was already located in the sub-frigid zone. The temperature changed greatly, but for me, the temperature difference was lamented. What happened is two cold-blooded creatures next to him ...

"Sagina, are you all right?" I turned around and followed behind me, wearing a pair of heavy clothes and tightly wrapped in a tight look at Sakina and Sona. These two people claimed to be cold-blooded creatures more than once, and I I did touch Sakina's tail, and she was as cool as a snake. I really do n’t know if they could stand the low temperature here. How could they know any friends in such a place?

"Don't worry," Sona smiled faintly. "Although it belongs to the cold-blooded species, the half-dragons are not able to survive in the low temperature environment. It's so extreme, but it will be more mental if the weather is too cold. And I With Saina ... we could have lived here for a long time. We grew up on the northern border. Here ... it's our hometown. "

"Ah?" I froze suddenly. "Why are the two half-dragon men afraid of the cold living in a place that has been snow-capped for seven or eight months this year?"

"It's not something we can control." Sagina yawned. A listless expression, rubbing his eyes and muttering, "We were sold here by slave merchants. Half-Dragons will lose their spirits at low temperatures, and they will naturally be easier to control, so there are some wizards doing pharmacy experiments. They prefer to keep the half-dragon slaves in a low temperature environment. Anyway, they don't need much effort for half-dragon people. Half-dragon slaves are often sold to two places, the extreme north and the south, and the extreme northern half-dragon people. As a servant or a test material like ours. Because it is easy to control, and even at low temperatures, the half-dragons have more physical strength than ordinary races; the extremely southern half-dragons are considered hard work because of their strength and the weather is warm for a day Can work longer. "

Saina said these unfair things, her eyes were complicated, with sorrow and distress. She rarely raises these topics on her own initiative, but it may be that we already know each other. And the history of the humiliation of the Half-Dragons also saw the dawn of an end. She occasionally talks about these things in front of me. Listening to her bitter past again, I was not very comfortable in my heart, hesitant to ask, "Well ... wouldn't you come here to find the mage of the year? Revenge on him?"

"Ha, who has the spare time," Sakina sneered scornfully, and walked ahead in front of him. "At that time, he was already old and dying, and the life of the half-dragon was longer than that of humans. I am afraid that guy is even rotten. That ’s it. The other mage lived in another city at that time, far from here ... ”Saina said, looking in a certain direction in the wild:“ It ’s really far away, I ca n’t even imagine it now, We were able to escape from there, and have been so far away, in such a cold place. Alive ... "

"Then you come back here ..." I looked at Sakina a little bit, so this place is definitely not a land full of fond memories for her and Sona, can there be any people or things worth remembering? I remembered the experiences of these two half-dragon girls—slaves, drug trials, theft, jail, and wandering—there was almost no light in the first half of their lives.

"We're going to go back to something else." Sona whispered, and she poked her hand into her pocket to find a thick handwritten note, not knowing how many times she had read it. "Thirty years It's ... it's time to return it ... "

I looked at the crumpled note dumbly, time left vicissitudes on it, the surface of the notebook was covered with a layer of dirty oil, almost all the paper pages were uneven, and the spine was obvious. The traces of multiple repairs indicate that it has fallen apart more than once. Sona's hand holding the notebook slightly trembled. The expression on her face seemed to want to laugh but could not smile: "We almost forgot the name of this town, but Sajina accidentally heard your conversation before you set off, and we remembered this place where we fled 30 years ago ... this place is almost unchanged, just as it was when we left ... "

I blinked and remembered the origin of this note: Saina and Sona set off at the beginning of their careers as explorers, but it was a stolen thing.

The two former half-dragon girls, who had no skills after fleeing the terrible poison laboratory, survived wandering. In order to fill their stomachs and avoid the winter, they even had to be deliberately arrested in jail. It can even be said that they The only people I knew in the first half of my life were tramps and jailers who were also sheltering from the snow in prison. This note comes from a young jailer, which may be out of sympathy or just not polluted by real life. The young jailer showed too much softness to Saeina and even took the initiative to speak. From his father's experience as an explorer, he also took out this precious heirloom and displayed it in front of two half-dragon girls.

Sagina and Sona took this note when they were last released from prison, and then left the country and embarked on the path of an explorer.

This walk is ... thirty years? I didn't expect that the story told by Senna and Sona that day was already 30 years ago. For thirty years, it may not be too long for the half dragons, but for humans, it is almost half a life.

"I don't know if he is still an improper jailer," Sakina suddenly smiled on her face, as if expecting that she was about to unload her burden, and rejoiced. "When we left, he was still a hairy kid. This It should have been a long time since we started our family—it might even be a grandfather ... Huh. I hope he wo n’t cut us both with a knife, Sona, what do you say? ”

Sona carefully collected her notes and smiled, "No."

For these scattered cities on the northern border, foreigners must be very uncommon. The most eye-catching Alaya and Aurelia have entered the invisible state behind everyone, but that ’s it. The appearance of me, Qianchan, Lin Xue, and the half-dragon duo has attracted the attention of many passers-by. However, I soon discovered that their focus was more on two half-dragon girls. The eyes of passers-by were a little hesitant, and with vague ambiguity, I suddenly thought that this might be the result of the recent large-scale activities of the Half-Dragonists-we have been busy studying the remains and have never paid attention to ordinary people on the mother mainland Social movements, but if you think about it, you should know that the entire race of the half-dragons has suddenly become a dragon descendant, and the impact on this world must be quite large. The most direct impact is any half-dragon slaves in this world. Are free. Today, the vast majority of half-dragons in the world migrate south. No external force can stop their actions. But now there are two half-dragon girls who look so young in the remote cities of the North. It may be very curious.

However, Senna and Sona turned a blind eye to the eyes of the people around them. They just looked around the streets and houses passing by with a look of memories, and introduced us with a smile while smiling: the low temperature seemed to be unable to freeze this. The enthusiasm now burning between the two. Sakina's memory is really good, and she can even blurt out the name of a pub that is about to appear in the front corner-although the name is wrong, at least a pub did appear there.

"The owner of this tavern is a guy who is afraid of his wife. He is very nice," Saina said to us at the old but lively tavern on the side of the road. "He often prepares leftovers or something for the homeless man nearby. He also has a daughter, a beautiful girl ... Of course, I'm already a child's mother now."

In the introduction of Sagina (which made several mistakes, after all, time has changed, this place is not the same as Sagina's memory), we gradually walked to a highland at the end of the town. Here is A solid stone building. That's the prison facility in the border city called the ice skates. The distance from the city's downtown is closer than imagined, and it's just a two-story facility. The guard at the door is very spiritual, but it's clear that in such a remote area Poor places, even in prisons, I am afraid there are not many murderers. Most of the prisoners in this place are just sneaky dogs. The warden's office in this place may have the same function as the radiator in our police station.

Even Saen Kina, who is usually a little nervous, couldn't help showing a tense look at this time, and then pressed some hair blown by the cold wind, and went forward to negotiate with the guard soldiers. I I asked Sona casually: "You are very impressed with that jailer?"

"That's right," Sona said with a smile. "It's not easy to meet a good guy in this kind of place, not to mention that good guy is still a jailer. He's a guy who doesn't fit in with the surrounding environment. Just a few days when he was a jailer, it was completely different from his rude and irritable colleagues. At that time, he was even a little naive. "Sona said with a shrug." He even said that his future dream is to become a judge and defend the ice skates. The order of the city. At that time, he was particularly fond of laughing, and often talked to me and Saeena, and even secretly brought his lunch to us. If it was not what happened later, maybe he would become me and Saeina. A true friend. "

Lin Xue prolonged his tone: "Oh ... the second middle school boy in his youthful period."

At this time Sakina had completed her negotiations and came over. It seemed that she had obtained permission to enter, but her face looked a bit weird. Sona could not help but asked, "What's wrong? The guard is embarrassing you?"

"No," Sagina shook her head, and led us across the suspension bridge in front of the prison. "These soldiers think we are the bribe of the prisoner who is going to bribe the warden-Will is already the warden here."

Well, it seems that this is the name of the second best boy of that year.

"Prisoner?" Sona's tone rose slightly. "He's not easy. It's a step closer to his dream."

Sagina shook her head indiscriminately: "Who knows, I always feel uncomfortable ... probably because it's too cold here."

After passing the suspension bridge in front of the prison and the narrow stone passageway, there is an inner court surrounded by a circle of high stone walls. This is the place where the light criminals usually let out the wind. Led by a veteran soldier, our group was beaten. The specially labeled "Visitors" entered the guard area next to the inner court. The light inside the stone building was a bit gloomy, and cold white light spewed in from the tall and narrow windows. The brightness is not even as good as the torches in the corridor on both sides. There was a slight musty smell in the air, and the warm brazier was burning quietly around the corner of the corridor. The veteran took us to a heavy studded wooden door and left without a word. Sona and Sakina stared at the door for a moment, before the latter carefully approached the door and knocked.

"Bang-bang-" The iron ring hit the heavy wooden door, and the muffled sound echoed in the long dark corridor, the sound was much louder than expected, and she was able to spit out her tongue. After a while, From the back of the wooden door came a thick, somewhat hoarse man's voice: "Come in. Is that **** open?"

Saina took a moment to push the door open, and a strong smell of inferior tobacco immediately came from the inside. We fished into the room and saw the scene inside: a small room of about ten square meters, the walls were roughly carved. Passed stones were built directly, large strings of keys and outdated locks no longer visible on the wall, and two lanterns for night patrols. In the center of the room was a large, heavy table. The table was filled with mess and miscellaneous dossiers, and I knew anyone had read it seriously. Behind the table was a bald middle-aged man, looking like fifty, wearing a crumpled prison uniform with no face on his face. The beard, however, seems a bit sloppy.

The middle-aged prison director was surprised when he saw a group of people coming in, and they were not the prisoners who came to report work. He shook Liang Jingjing's head, and said rudely, "Who is it? Visiting the prison? Why isn't anyone reporting?"

He didn't recognize the two half-dragon girls in front of him-although I think that half-dragons have a relatively long life, the appearance of Sagina and Sona should be limited from the changes of thirty years ago, but the other is still not. Recognize them.

"We ... are here to find you." Sahina didn't know how to speak, her expression was stiff, and she only stuttered in the end. Obviously, even after all kinds of mental preparation. The bald middle-aged man who appeared in front of him now was so far away from her impression that the naive and somewhat naive jailer boy was so useless that all the lines prepared before were useless at this time.

"Looking for me?" The middle-aged man who had been blessed came out from behind the table. "Hah, which prisoner did you plead with? I've seen more of this set, it depends on your sincerity and the amount you can take out-well, Half-Dragon? "He seemed to finally notice the restless tails behind Sagina and Sona, and raised her eyebrows." You have been moving a lot lately ... wait! "

The middle-aged man finally stopped, and a look of surprise appeared on his face. His eyes stared at Sagina's face, and then quickly turned to Sona, as if she finally broke the barrier of memory and came out of her throat. A strange voice: It is a strange subconscious sound when many words are blocked together.

"You think of it," Sagina smirked and waved, holding Sona's arm, "Will, it's us ..."

"You ... you!" The middle-aged man named Weil shook violently, raising his arms slowly, pointing here, and the voice was intermittent, "It's you ?!"

"We want to ..." As soon as Saina had said three words, she was interrupted aloud: "Why are you here ?!"

Will's voice was loud, and a bad smell of bad tobacco spewed out of his mouth. His emotions were obviously so excited that the horizontal meat on his face trembled, and his eyes swelled with intense emotions, but this expression It didn't last long, he suddenly walked back to his place and sat down heavily: "Say!"

"Let's ... come back to you ..." Sona seemed to have the courage for a long time, then struck out the thick note from her master, who had been away from the master for thirty years, and put it on the warden's desk, Will Suddenly his eyes widened, and he stared at the black book in front of him, as if he couldn't believe his eyes. He slowly picked up the book and carefully opened it.

Inside was a small piece of paper that was yellowed and brittle.

"Look, the bookmarks were all there," Saina said quickly. "We have been very well protected. We have not lost a page, and the leaves you picked are made of cloud wax and palm oil. On the last page ... "

Will flipped through the notes quickly. On the last page, he found the leaf that had lost its original color and had been made into a specimen. At this moment, his movement was fixed. He remained silent for a long time, his head lowered into a stone sculpture. Sagina looked at us uneasily, and moved forward two steps: "That ... right ..."

"Let's go." A low, hoarse voice came from across.

"Ah?" Sagina didn't understand and asked.

"Let's go!" Will lifted his head suddenly and said aloud, "Here you get something, go quickly!"

"We haven't said yet ..." Senna was always a bit thick. She took a half step forward, but was dragged by Sona, who looked deeply at the middle age. Will, who turned into an old, rude smoker, whispered, "Will, good-bye." Then she took Sagna and left the room.

As I walked towards the end, as I was about to step out of the door, I heard a hoarse voice behind me: "Wait."

I looked at Will in puzzlement, the other man opened his mouth, and finally forced a weird smile. It seemed that he was not used to this expression: "Help close the door, and by the way give them a word, these years ... Actually I It's been good. "

The heavy studded wooden door made a "squeak" sound and slowly closed. I deliberately paused at the door for a while before keeping up with the others. Lin Xue also deliberately lags behind, after I catch up, he said without looking back, "Cry in it."

"You're right ~ www.readwn.com ~ What's wrong with him?" I'm afraid that the people who are present are the least acquainted with similar things. Of course, the questions they ask are not very acquainted. To be honest, I sometimes get quite Envy her simple head.

"Mourn my youth," Lin Xue glanced back at the door of the warden's room that had been hidden in the dark, and looked at the two half-dragon girls who walked in front. First love-I guess he absolutely secretly loved one of Senna and Sona, the woman's instinct. "

After coming to the bright outdoors from the dark prison corridor, Sajina and Sona couldn't help but take a deep breath. In any case, they may really let go of this thirty-year burden. The words conveyed by them told them that Sona finally smiled a little, and faced the wind blowing from a distance: "It seems ... the wind is warmer."

Sakina looked at her friend for unknown reasons, and narrowed her neck after blowing the gust of wind: "Why, it's so cold, maybe it will freeze like this, maybe I will really hibernate."

"Your Majesty," Aurelia, who was in stealth, followed the way and suddenly interrupted the thoughts of everyone. She pointed at the icefield in the distance. "I sensed that Odemius was calling, his condition ... ... is weird. "