Chapter 1287

Compared to Xia De, who had been rushing about for an entire morning, the two ladies in the opera house were slightly more leisurely; after all, the opera house did not open early in the morning.

But the opera house in the early morning was not entirely empty; actors who did not have a performance last night had already begun to go on stage to practice their voices, or were reciting lines alone in the dressing rooms.

Because the entire Wang Erde Opera House now belonged to the Golden Dawn Opera Troupe, one could encounter actors practicing in the morning in all sorts of strange places.

In the stairwell, Xia De encountered two actresses holding wooden swords, swinging at each other in slow motion. The girls even greeted Xia De with smiles; Xia De was already very familiar with the members of the Golden Dawn now.

"I have already looked at the map provided by Sister Devlin. Although that Night Temple is in the mountains, if one finds the right path, it actually won't take an entire day."

The Witch had a unique sense of laziness when she spoke in the early morning, while Miss Lassus was bending over to look at the map nearby. Xia De held his teacup and said:

"If we can reach that ruin in half a day, we don't have to fly there."

After all, the current Randall Valley was in a time of trouble; it was better to be as low-key as possible.

"I recommend riding a horse."

Miss Benanice used a pen to draw the route on the map:

"If it weren't winter, taking a boat equipped with a steam engine upstream would actually be the most convenient; the ruin is in the mountains near the Eilong River. Fortunately, the ice is still frozen, and with the heavy snow finally stopping, walking along the river channel is still the best method for the short term."

"How long is it estimated to take to arrive?"

Xia De asked, also stretching his head to look at the map:

"Can we arrive before noon?"

"If we set off now, just about."

The Witch said. In that case, it would be about the same time as Xia De's journey from the ruined tower in the Sikar Mountains to the Red Water Camp located at a higher altitude.

"That's good, let's set off now and try to get back before dinner."

"No problem, I'll accompany you... to prevent you from encountering danger in the mountains."

As if afraid Xia De would misunderstand, she added another sentence, which instead made her blush a little.

Miss Lassus showed a smile and did not expose her thoughts:

"Then I will stay at the Wang Erde Opera House today to rest a bit. Rushing about all day these past few days has indeed been quite tiring. Speaking of which, Xia De, we did have some gains."

She looked at Xia De again:

"Some evidence indicates that the soul state of the Guardians is absolutely abnormal."

"That is of course; a normal soul, even if they were a sorcerer in life, would absolutely have no possibility of being this powerful."

The soul strength of the three Guardians Xia De encountered was quite terrifying; although they still could not compare to him, they were the strongest souls he had ever seen. Moreover, the soul strength of the three was exactly the same.

Thinking of this, and thinking back to the country wedding where Stone Osenfort had said that the Guardians' mortal souls were actually able to resist the corruption of ancient evil forces, now that he thought about it, he must have meant that the Guardians had clashed with demons more than once. Thinking this way, the truth about the Guardians was even more complex than all the current deductions combined.

Of course, they certainly were not tainted with divinity because they had come into contact with the legendary "Heart of the Earth"; Xia De's sensing of divinity could not be wrong.

Having had the experience of going to the forest stream to search for the "St. Perri Cemetery" last time, before setting off this time, Miss Benanice enchanted the horseshoes of the two horses to prevent them from slipping on the ice.

Afterward, the two set off from the city on horseback, followed the previous route to the Green Grass Farm, then arrived at the surface of the Eilong River from the small pier, and continued all the way toward the mountains in the east.

The Osenfort Manor was also located along the Eilong River; last time when Xia De and Stone Osenfort had a horse race, they had crossed the Eilong River via a bridge.

When they saw the manor from afar, which seemed to be shrouded in dark clouds, Xia De mentioned this to Miss Benanice. The Witch looked at the manor from a distance but mentioned another matter to Xia De:

"Margaret has been doing very well recently. After she received that original share document of the Guardian Fleming from you, she successfully made contact with the high-level members of the Stonemason Association. Coupled with the fact that she won over a small number of people in the association by assassinating Old Hack, who was Prince William's man, although it cannot be said yet that she has successfully completed my mission, at least everything is developing in a good direction."

With that, Xia De felt relieved.

Nothing blocked their journey along the way, and the further they walked away from the city, the more they could appreciate the scenery of Randall Valley. When they arrived near their destination, the time was even earlier than Miss Benanice had expected; it was only just past twelve-thirty.

A morning of rushing about made both of them somewhat tired, so they first camped by the river to rest. It just so happened that Xia De's "Fiona's Housekeeping Servant" still had two opportunities for kitchen service, so the two just built a fire to keep warm, and lunch was summoned directly.

While eating, Xia De held the note with the stick-figure smiley face and complained to Miss Benanice:

"It clearly corresponds to the 【Laziness】 spirit rune, but in reality, this miracle doesn't make me lazy at all. To use the miracle, one has to spend a large amount of gemstones. Therefore, in order to be lazy, I must work hard to earn money. Why on earth is this kind of miracle related to 【Laziness】?"

The Witch just listened to his complaints with a smile, thinking that this feeling of camping in the snow was really quite nice.

And Xia De also realized that, in fact, all of his Seven Deadly Sins spirit rune miracles conflicted with the spirit runes themselves. The insatiable desire of Gluttony corresponded to the feeling of being bloated; the Greed sin that craved everything required only loving one type of item; the desire of Laziness that didn't even want to move a finger required working hard to earn money to afford a housekeeping servant; the most outrageous was the Wrath sin of hating others, with a heart forever burning in flames, yet the miracle name was "Calm" posture.

Xia De was quite curious about what kind of miracle he would choose to learn if he could obtain another "Seven Deadly Sins spirit rune" next.

After lunch, Miss Benanice calibrated their direction with a compass, and the two left the river channel together and walked toward the dense forest.

This vicinity was already a mountainous area; not to mention riding, the horses themselves found it difficult to walk. Therefore, the two horses were left in the forest by them, tied to trees, and spells to repel wild animals were set to prevent them from being eaten by wolves in the mountains that were starving.

This was not an unnecessary worry, because the two soon encountered a brown bear in the forest that for some reason had not hibernated.

That brown bear was at least two heads taller than Xia De; after seeing the two from afar in the forest, it immediately charged over in a hunting posture.

"Moonlight Wheel!"

Xia De raised his palm, and a silver light wheel rotated and formed in his palm, then was thrown out directly by him. Inheriting the high attack power of 【Moonlight Slash】 and the tracking ability of 【Imprisonment Halo】, the rotating light wheel cut horizontally across the brown bear's neck. As the bear's body continued to charge forward, its head had already fallen onto the snow.

"Oh!"

From the brown bear's neck, blood sprayed out like a fountain, staining a large patch of snow red.

"That really is a bit cruel."

Xia De said, but in fact, he didn't feel anything was wrong. The bear wanted to eat him, and then was killed by him in return; this was also part of the natural cycle.

"In the autumn, I also encountered a bear in the Sikar Mountains, and later I brought the bear's carcass back to Tobesk... that was the first time I tasted bear meat."

Xia De said, but this time he didn't take the bear's carcass, because there was simply too much blood.

The two sorcerers walked quickly; although neither of them had ever been here before, Sister Devlin's map was barely accurate, and soon the two found the cave marked on the map.

The Randall Valley region itself had many caves and underground tunnels, so the huge cave appearing in the mountains was not abrupt at all. However, this cave did not lead underground, but rather pierced through the mountain and went upward.

The interior of the cave was extremely spacious, even more spacious than St. Deran Plaza; the uneven surroundings of the cave were rugged with strange rocks, and stalactites and cracked boulders could be seen everywhere, but it was enough to prove that this was indeed a naturally formed mountain cave.

The terrain in the cave went upward as a whole; when Xia De and Miss Benanice walked in side by side and lit up their fingertips at the cave entrance, they actually couldn't see where the top of this cave was for a moment.

The snow surface disappeared at the entrance of the cave, and there was a damp, rotten smell inside the cave. The extremely remote "Night Temple" ruin they were about to reach was almost forgotten by anyone, so many wild animals had made their homes in the huge cave. Xia De's moonlight first disturbed a group of bats, and then several snakes passed under their feet:

"Do these animals not hibernate?"

Xia De muttered again, wanting to walk forward with Miss Benanice, but suddenly grabbed the Witch's wrist:

"Wait a moment? This place is not right."

He pulled the Witch behind him, and the blonde lady looked around:

"What is not right... Mad Earth?"

As the words fell, those animals living in this huge dark cave had already appeared at the edge of the light. The rabbits had rotten mouse heads growing on them; the bats, besides their own wings, also had the sticky wings of birds and moths; the tigers had the poisonous hooks of scorpions on their buttocks; and the two-headed snakes were colorful like rainbows.

"Yes, Mad Earth. In such a place where human footprints are rare, it is indeed difficult to discover the problem; the scope is this cave. As for the characteristics of this place, it looks like a combination of biological species... or it has broken some biological reproductive isolation."

Miss Benanice also understood the term "reproductive isolation"; she raised her eyebrows:

"Meaning it allows both sides that were originally unable to reproduce to be able to reproduce, is that it?"