Hello, is this a letter addressed to Demon Fortress?

The nights in Tongmen City are colder than the days.

After the selection meeting, the city-state, like a giant beast that had been unloaded of its heavy burden, lay panting slowly in the night.

The streets were deserted.

The merchants, adventurers, and onlookers who crowded every corner during the day receded like the tide, leaving behind the wet stone slabs and a few scattered lights that had not yet gone out.

The tavern waiter carried a long bench inside, the blacksmith's furnace had been shut off, and the windows of the inn went dark one after another.

The heatwave subsided, travelers departed, and commerce remained sluggish.

The entire Tongmen City cooled down from boiling point to normal temperature, like a pot of water that had been taken off the fire, with even the heat dissipating completely in the night breeze.

Late at night.

The city-state slept soundly.

Then--

"boom--!!"

A deafening roar came from the far distance, deep and heavy, carrying a force that made the earth tremble.

It was as if some enormous thing had crashed down from a great height and slammed into the ground.

The city of Tongmen was awakened by the tremor.

The last customer at the tavern shook his glass, spilling ale onto the table.

The people who had just lain down in the hotel suddenly opened their eyes, thinking the building was about to collapse.

Someone in the residential area opened a window, peered up at the sky, and muttered, "Is it thundering?"

The people around them also looked up.

The night sky was clear, the stars twinkled, and there wasn't a single dark cloud.

"There aren't even clouds, so where would the thunder come from..."

The voice gradually faded.

More people closed their windows.

Although some doubts remained, it was too late, and sleepiness overcame curiosity.

No one thought about it anymore.

Tongmen City fell silent once again.

An hour later.

Less than two hundred miles west of Tongmen City, there is a dense forest.

A straight path was carved out of the middle of the forest.

The trees were uprooted or broken in the middle, falling crookedly to either side.

The soil churned up, stones flew everywhere, and a deep ditch, tens of meters wide and hundreds of meters long, was left on the ground.

At the end of the ravine was a huge pit.

The pit is over 100 meters in diameter, with charred edges and soil that has been hardened and brittle by the high temperature, resembling a layer of black pottery shards.

Scattered at the bottom of the pit were metal fragments, twisted iron plates, broken beams, and some charred, unrecognizable parts.

The air was filled with the smell of burnt meat and the rusty smell of steel after being baked by high temperatures.

Around the pit, there were more than a dozen demon corpses scattered around.

Some were smashed to pieces, with incomplete limbs.

Some were curled up in a ball due to the high temperature.

Some were crushed into the soil by the enormous impact, leaving only blurry outlines.

Further away, several burning dead trees crackled and popped, their flames leaping in the night wind and illuminating the weary face at the edge of the pit.

Lin Gui emerged from the pit.

He was covered in blood, his robe was torn in several places, and there was a deep cut on his left arm, with drops of blood dripping down his wrist.

His face was covered in dust and blood, but his black eyes remained calm.

Behind him, Morgan leaned on his staff, his steps a little unsteady, but he was still able to stand.

Hewlett carried a twisted shield, its surface pitted and uneven, yet it remained intact on his arm.

He carried something on his back, wrapped in rags, which was huge, with half of its head showing dark blue scales.

Cedric and Freeman supported each other, their leather armor torn in several places, revealing the wounds underneath.

Turan walked along the edge of the group with his arms crossed.

He was unharmed, his clothes barely wrinkled, but looking at the plowed-out forest behind him, his expression was more complicated than ever.

The group walked to the open space at the edge of the pit.

There were a few people standing there.

Aldrick stood at the very front.

He was followed by Tobias and several recorders in transport guild uniforms.

They had clearly come from Tongmen City, their boots still dusty from the night journey.

Lin Gui walked up to Aldrick and stopped.

He bowed slightly, placed his right hand on his chest, and performed a standard Buddhist salute.

"Deputy Chief of Staff."

His voice wasn't loud, and it was a little hoarse, but every word was clear.

"The transportation contract has been completed."

"The goods have arrived at their destination and have been signed for by the local chapter president."

He raised his hand, took out a neatly folded receipt from his pocket, and handed it over.

Aldrick took the receipt, glanced at it, and remained silent for a few moments.

He raised his head and looked at the young mage covered in blood.

He had expected the other party to be fast, but he hadn't anticipated it to be this fast.

In less than a day, they traversed three forbidden areas, arrived at Dongti Fort more than a thousand kilometers away, and then turned back to Tongmen City.

I never expected to come back in this way.

His gaze passed over Lin Gui and landed on the huge pit behind him.

The twisted, shattered metal wreckage at the bottom of the pit was no longer recognizable as the original shape of the transport vehicle. Only the broken helix at the front of the vehicle was still stuck diagonally in the soil, like a tattered flag.

Aldrick's lips moved, but he didn't speak.

He looked at Turan.

Turan remained silent for a long time.

His gaze swept over Lin Gui and his group before finally settling on Aldrick's face.

"After departing from Tongmen City, the train's direction has never changed."

"It went straight through the three forbidden areas without detours, constantly accelerating."

"After arriving near Fort Dongtei, we stopped, then flew to Fort Dongtei, unloaded the cargo, and immediately turned back."

His voice was flat, as if he were reading a report.

"Twenty-nine legendary demons and one low-epic demon were killed along the way."

Turan's gaze shifted to the tattered cloth on Hewlett's shoulder.

Hewlett raised his hand and lifted a corner of the rag.

A dark blue scale was revealed, the scales were huge and thick, and gleamed with a metallic luster in the firelight.

Turan glanced at it.

"Sulka, the hornless dragon of Howling Bloodwood."

His voice remained calm, but when he spoke that name, there was something indescribable in his tone.

Aldrick's brow twitched slightly.

Tobias stood behind him, mouth agape, eyes wide open.

His gaze swept back and forth over the corpse of the hornless dragon twice, then abruptly shifted to the plowed-out forest, and then to the pile of twisted train wreckage.

He opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a single word.

Turan withdrew his gaze and looked at Tobias.

"Notify all transport teams whose routes pass through those three forbidden areas to take a detour."

His tone was very calm, as if he were talking about a routine matter.

"The demons of the three forbidden areas have all gone berserk."

"When this kid went over there, he used the demons of the forbidden area as a speed bump in order to slow down the runaway train."

"On the way back, I ran over and killed a bunch of demons."

Turan originally thought that when the Forest Ghost returned, it would be the same as when it left, using demons as speed bumps again.

But it didn't.

On the way back, Lin Gui kept working on the scrolls provided by the legendary mage, and his speed was twice as fast as on the way there.

In the blink of an eye, they arrived at Copper Gate City from the nearest forbidden area, and then crashed directly to the ground.

Although the 10,000 tons of heavy cargo had already been unloaded at Dongtei Fort.

But the train itself weighed tens of thousands of tons, and with that absurdly high speed, the impact was even more powerful than a forbidden spell.