Hello, is this a letter addressed to Demon Fortress?

The Ross family delegation consisted of eight people.

Their travel speed was very slow.

Their overall weakness made walking a tightrope in this forbidden area like walking a tightrope.

I took each step very carefully.

They dared not make the slightest sound.

The number of demons in the Deadwood Wasteland is generally much greater than in normal wilderness.

But the barren wasteland is too vast.

Even if there are many demons, they seem rather sparse on this vast wasteland.

But that doesn't mean it's not dangerous.

For the Ross family, which has only two extraordinary members and the rest are all high-ranking members.

Every step is a gamble.

They were betting that no demon would discover the flaws in their clumsy concealment magic.

They gambled that their route would just avoid those demons who were out for a stroll.

However, their glimmer of hope shattered on the second day of their journey.

the next day.

They were moving along a dry riverbed.

The riverbed is flanked by towering rock walls, and the wind howls as it blows in from above.

O'Brien walked at the front, his forehead covered in sweat.

His invisibility spell had lasted for the entire morning, and more than half of his magic power was used up.

Just as he was about to signal the team to stop and change shifts.

The ground trembled.

Gravel fell from the rock face with a soft patter.

Everyone stopped in their tracks at the same time.

Then they saw it.

A huge black shadow slowly moved across the riverbed.

That was a legendary demon.

Its size was so enormous that it almost covered half the sky.

The dark gray scales gleamed with a cold, metallic sheen in the sunlight.

Each of its claws is longer than a person.

Its tail dragged behind it, carving a deep furrow in the ground.

It crossed over the riverbed, less than two hundred meters away from them.

Some people in the group held their breath, while others closed their eyes.

Kyle bit his lip so hard that it bled, but he didn't even notice.

Josephine crouched on the ground, holding her head in her hands, trembling all over.

The youngest boy silently slid tears down his cheeks, wetting the collar of his school uniform.

The legendary demon's vertical pupils swept across the riverbed.

It paused for a moment.

Those blood-red eyes seemed to glance once more in the direction where they were hiding.

then.

It looked away.

Continuing forward, it slowly disappears behind the ridge at the end of the riverbed.

The tremors stopped, and the gravel ceased to fall.

The riverbed returned to its deathly stillness.

It took Kyle a long time to loosen his grip on his lips.

His back was soaked with cold sweat, and his robe clung to his skin, feeling icy cold.

He let out a long breath and collapsed to the ground as if his bones had been removed.

"It's gone...it's gone..."

He smiled, a smile tinged with the trembling of someone who had survived a catastrophe.

O'Brien stood there, his brow furrowed.

He stared in the direction where the legendary demon had disappeared, his lips moved, but he didn't say anything.

A legendary demon's perception shouldn't be this bad.

The thought flashed through his mind, but he quickly suppressed it.

The girl silently lowered her head.

Her dark eyes were fixed on the tip of her staff, and she didn't look at anyone.

But out of the corner of his eye, he would always inadvertently glance upwards.

I glanced at the empty sky.

This encounter was like a harbinger for the Ross family.

This foreshadows their departure into the desolate wasteland.

The situation we face afterward will become increasingly dangerous.

You will encounter even more terrifying legendary demons.

It's even like a moving natural disaster, an epic tale capable of destroying a city-state with a single blow.

The atmosphere in the group became heavy and pessimistic.

Even the usually hot-tempered Kyle fell silent.

He stopped complaining and stopped yelling at people by the collar.

He walked with his head down, his fingers gripping the staff so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

During his rest, he sat alone on the edge of the rock.

He gnawed on his dry rations, chewing mechanically, bite by bite.

It feels like I'll never be able to eat it again.

And the same is true for everyone else.

However, what followed was a three-day trek.

But nothing happened.

It wasn't that they didn't encounter danger.

They had seen a legendary desert sandworm crawl across the ground.

I've seen packs of extraordinary, carrion wolves run past my flank.

Their howls echoed in my ears.

I've seen the legendary withered branch demon guarding the entrance to the valley.

Its size is large enough to cover the entire valley.

The emitted gray toxic mist corroded the vegetation within a radius of several kilometers, turning it charred black.

But they simply weren't discovered.

The demons walked past them.

It flew over their heads.

They stopped less than a few hundred meters away from them, then turned and left.

It was as if they were invisible.

One time it was an accident...

And it went undetected all these times.

That's their ability.

The young masters finally regained their color.

They started talking and laughing.

Someone patted Obryan on the shoulder, praising his invisibility magic.

This is a foreigner whom the family has always looked down upon, but now they have to rely on.

At this time, their status continued to rise in their hearts.

O'Brien smiled but did not respond.

But he walked faster than before, urging the team to speed up their advance.

His voice carried a fear that even he himself was unaware of.

The girl's expression grew increasingly strange.

She walked at the very back of the group, barely speaking the entire way.

Only the hand gripping the staff was tightening its grip.

The knuckles were white, and the nails were almost embedded in the flesh of the palm.

On the fourth night, O'Brien changed his plans at the last minute.

He increased the team's pace and halved their daily rest time.

No one objected; everyone gritted their teeth and followed suit.

Day .

They entered a mountainous area.

The jagged gray rocks rise from the ground, forming narrow canyons and steep slopes.

The roads here are much more difficult to travel than those in the wilderness.

The rocks are loose, and you could slip at any step.

Magic was being used up faster, so Obrien had to frequently switch shifts with the girl.

Both of their faces began to turn pale.

All of their robes were worn through by the rocks.

The soles of everyone's boots were almost worn through.

The youngest boy's ankle was swollen, and he walked with a limp.

But he dared not stop, dared not fall behind.

Josephine's face was covered in dust and dried sweat.

Leaning on her cane, she limped along, and finally couldn't help but speak.

His voice was hoarse, with a hint of crying in it.

"How much longer do we have to walk?"

O'Brien stopped and took out a communication stone from his pocket.

The stone was a cloudy grayish-white when it was first taken out.

Now, it has become almost completely transparent, with pale golden light flowing inside.

He stared at the stone for a long time.

Then he raised his head and looked at the endless gray rocky mountains in front of him.

"Soon."

"The esteemed tower master has shown us the way."

O'Brien looked at the almost completely transparent sound transmission stone in his hand.

"When the communication stone rings, it means we have arrived at the hunting area."

"At that time..."

He didn't say much.

But the gazes of the young men around them had become intense.

Josephine responded excitedly.

"Now we can go back!"

Her voice was filled with undisguised anticipation.

Kyle scoffed and added.

"That's not all."

He licked his chapped lips.

"If we catch even one of them, we'll be valued by the family."

"They deserve the same treatment as those damn bastards."

His words were like a spark that ignited a dry pile of firewood.

The once lifeless team suddenly came to life.

The young men's faces flushed, not from exhaustion, but from greed.

"Just one, as long as we catch one."

A tall, thin man next to him repeated the same thing, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the patterns on the staff.

"I'll be able to move back to the inner ring dormitory. I've had enough of those broken beds on the outer ring."

"Look at your pathetic self."

Another short, stocky young man chuckled, then changed the subject.

"I'm waiting to use my contribution points to exchange for the second volume of 'Analysis of Advanced Elements,' which is being sold for an astronomical price on the black market."

As Kyle listened to their conversation, his fists clenched tighter and tighter.

"If I had known that lowly thing was so valuable..."

He forced the sound through his teeth.

"We should have caught it back when we were in college."

The person next to him echoed.

"Who can argue with that? The deportation agreement actually saved their lives."

"If I had known, I would have done it sooner, and I wouldn't have had to come all the way here."

Their words were filled with regret and remorse.

It's as if they're not talking about living things, but rather a batch of goods that weren't stockpiled in time, or an investment that was missed.

The black-haired girl didn't say a word from beginning to end.

She watched their conversation coldly.

Watch them gesticulate wildly as they calculate their contribution points, watch them discuss the so-called "goods" with great enthusiasm.

There was no emotion in his black eyes.

It's like watching a pack of wild beasts surrounding a not-quite-dead corpse, discussing how to divide it up.

The short break is over.

The group continued forward, slowly advancing along the rugged gray rocks into the depths of the hunting enclosure.

The journey ahead remained silent and oppressive.

O'Brien was still walking at the front, his forehead increasingly covered in sweat.

The frequency with which he and the girl switched shifts changed from once every half day to once every two hours.

But I don't know when it started.

The duration of the girl's invisibility spell was gradually decreasing.

O'Brien noticed this change.

He stopped and turned around.

I was going to ask.

But seeing the sweat on the girl's fair face and her slightly rapid breathing, he had no choice but to give up.

"Just hang in there a little longer, we'll be there soon."

He muttered something under his breath, then turned around and continued walking at the front of the line.

After he turned around.

The girl silently suppressed the deliberately made panting sounds.

She gripped her staff tightly, her eyes unconsciously glancing towards the sky.

That empty sky, devoid of anything.

Then, she turned her gaze away and silently followed the group deeper into the mountains.

The tedious long journey will eventually come to an end.

They crossed a dry stream and passed through a narrow crevice in the rocks.

The view ahead suddenly opened up.

A vast valley stretches out under a gray-white sky.

The area was filled with withered shrubs and jagged rocks.

At first glance, it looks no different from the rest of the barren wasteland.

O'Brien stopped and looked up.

The girl stopped and looked up.

Their gazes were both fixed on the sky.

There was a very faint, almost imperceptible magical fluctuation in the air.

It's like there's an extremely thin, transparent veil hanging high in the sky.

It is almost invisible to the naked eye, but when the wind blows...

A tiny ripple would appear at the edge of that sky, like a pebble gently touching the surface of water.

That was a magic curtain.

Its scope is so vast that it covers almost the entire mountainous area.

O'Brien knew they were about to reach the hunting grounds.

He quickened his pace and walked at the front of the group.

The boots made a rapid rustling sound as they stepped on the gravel.

The other young men, unaware of what was going on, also quickened their pace.

They walked through a patch of dead bushes and climbed a low hill.

At the top of the hill, O'Brien finally stopped.

The sound transmission stone he had been holding tightly emitted a noisy hissing sound.

Like the sound of wind blowing through cracks in the rocks, intermittent, mixed with subtle electrical noises.

Everyone noticed.

They all stopped in their tracks, their eyes fixed on the rock.

O'Brien quickly brought the communication stone to his lips, his fingers trembling slightly.

"We are the Ross family! We have arrived at the designated location!"

His voice cracked slightly from excitement.

Everyone was waiting for the other's response.

The young men held their breath, Josephine gripped her cuffs tightly, and even Kyle unconsciously took a half-step forward.

for a long time.

Only hissing noise could be heard from the sound transmission stone.

Just when they thought there was a problem with the communication stone, a male voice came from inside.

The voice was young, with a hint of languor and an undisguised doubt.

"Ross? The Roth family?"

There was a pause.

"...Is Ross among the families participating in the hunt?"

O'Brien's expression froze for a moment.

He quickly moved closer to the communication stone and rattled off his family background, license number, and the name of his introducer in a rapid-fire manner.

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the communication stone, and then the male voice sounded again.

His tone carried a hint of oddness and an undisguised annoyance.

"You guys didn't die on the way."

O'Brien didn't respond to that, but simply gripped the communication stone tightly.

"Excuse me, should the magic pillar be activated and the sensory node connected as planned?"

The other party remained silent for a while.

Then he replied lazily.

"Go ahead, lucky lower-class family."

As soon as the words were spoken, the light on the sound transmission stone dimmed somewhat.

Communication was interrupted.

O'Brien held the now-dull stone and stood there for a moment.

Then he turned around and put the stone into his pocket.

"Begin assembly."

The components of the magic pillar were taken out of backpacks one by one.

They were silver-white metal rods, each as thick as an arm, their surfaces covered with densely packed runes.

The pole is divided into several sections, which need to be spliced ​​together one by one.

Aubryn crouched down, ran his fingers over the runes on the pole, and began to assemble it.

The girl also squatted down beside him and began to assemble the silver-white metal rod section by section.

Her movements were steady, and each engagement of the tenons was crisp and clean.

The other young masters stood around, wanting to help but unable to get a hand in the matter.

Soon, the five magical pillars were assembled.

They were inserted into the ground at five different locations, forming a regular pentagram.

Obrien walked to the center, placed his hands on the tallest pillar, and poured magic into it.

The silver-white runes lit up one by one.

A very thin beam of light shot out from the top of the pillar and soared into the sky.

Then, the thin veil in the sky began to move.

From the point where the beam of light touched the ground, a visible ripple spread outwards.

It went further and further away, wider and wider, stretching to the very edge of the field of vision.