Hello, is this a letter addressed to Demon Fortress?

Night falls.

The desert is unbearably hot during the day, but the nights are freezing cold.

The campfire flickered in the wind and sand, casting long shadows of the tents.

Lin Gui sat on a sand dune outside the camp, away from the firelight, gazing alone at the dark desert in the distance.

The night sky hangs low, filled with countless stars, like a multitude of silent eyes.

The daytime heat had faded, and the sand felt cool to the touch underfoot. A gentle breeze carrying sand swept across the ground, making a low, mournful sound.

He sat there, his hands on his knees, his gaze fixed on the blurry boundary where darkness met the sky in the distance.

In my mind, images appeared one by one, like shards of broken glass.

execution ground.

Towering wooden frames, rough ropes, rows of bowed heads.

Flames burned beneath the city walls, black smoke billowing into the greyish sky.

Hundreds of headless corpses were hung on the city walls, swaying gently in the wind.

Those faces are now blurred, but he still remembers how they looked when they fell.

He was standing in the crowd that day.

As the flames burned, the familiar faces screamed in agony.

Watching the executioner's axe fall, the corpse hung from the city wall.

He wanted to rescue them.

However, the flaw in the Night Veil prevented him from doing so.

The person who should have been in his place went to the Thousand Towers and left a prophecy for a girl.

Let her wait for Lin Gui's arrival.

What exactly are you planning to do, Sivir?

Footsteps came from behind the dunes, making a soft rustling sound as they stepped on the fine sand.

Elvia dragged a wooden crate over, followed by Lillian, who was hunched over.

She placed the wooden box next to Lin Gui and patted the dust off her hands.

"Everything's packed, we can go now."

Lin Gui did not get up immediately.

He looked at the dark desert in the distance, remained silent for a while, then stood up and patted the sand off his trousers.

He didn't turn around, but simply raised his hand and waved it into the storage space.

Lillian stood behind Elvia, watching the large wooden crate vanish into thin air, her eyes widening slightly.

She opened her mouth as if to ask something, but sensing Lin Gui's emotions, she swallowed her words back.

Lin Gui took out the flying boat from his storage space.

Elvia helped Lillian sit down.

Lin Gui activated his magic, and the flying boat slowly rose, gliding steadily forward in the night.

The desert below stretched out as a vast, silvery-gray plain under the moonlight.

The sand dunes stretch out in a continuous arc, like solidified ocean waves.

Ahead lies the last transit point in the Red Earth Desert: Red Earth Territory.

There, he will reach the final battle on the route.

They will also return to that desolate place covered by flames and gravel.

Just as the airship pierced the night sky, a system notification sounded in Lin Gui's mind.

[New weekly commission detected and nearing completion]

[The route assigned by Zhou Chang: Copper Gate City → Deadwood Town.]

[Acceptance rate: 10%]

[Acceptance rate: 13%]

【……】

[A new weekly commission has been detected and is in progress.]

[Weekly Commission Route: Copper Gate City → Deadwood Town.]

[Acceptance rate: 10%]

[Acceptance rate: 13%]

【…】

The system's weekly commissions appeared on the interface without warning.

Lin Gui's gaze paused slightly.

Hewittley and his team returned to Deadwood and began delivering mail.

This means they crossed the wilderness safely.

This also means that Lin Gui is one step closer to becoming extraordinary.

He subconsciously opened his personal panel, his gaze falling on the magic power section.

[Current mana reserves: 13000/18900.]

There are still 1,100 points needed to break through to the next level.

--------

-------

Red soil desert.

One of the ten most perilous places on the continent of Akara, located deep in the boundless desert in the southeastern part of the continent.

It is not just a single forbidden zone, but a complex predicament.

Enveloped by a vast red desert are several forbidden zones, each formed by powerful epic demons.

Those areas covered by red sand.

Each one conceals a demonic overlord, powerful enough to rival the military might of a nation.

Their territories are nested and intertwined.

It's like a giant net woven from death, covering the entire land.

The Sea of ​​Boiling Sands.

Bone Demon's Lair.

Mossy swamp.

The Hill of Weeping Blood.

Skull-Shattering Pass.

The corridor beneath the sand.

Thousand Needle Graveyard.

Blood Prison.

The Abyss of Worms.

Behind each name lies an epic demon overlord.

According to incomplete statistics, this applies only to the area of ​​the red soil desert.

There are at least fourteen officially named secondary forbidden zones.

Each forbidden area is guarded by at least one epic-ranked demon.

The rules within its territory were distorted, and reality was torn apart.

Those who venture in often die before they even know what happened.

But what's even more terrifying than those secondary forbidden zones is the entire desert itself.

The frequency of demon tides in the red soil desert is extremely high.

Every few weeks, tens of thousands of demons engage in a chaotic battle within it.

The scale of the demon tide that erupted was comparable to a tributary of the Black Tide.

Every major battle affected the nerves of the surrounding city-states.

Even the thousand towers, thousands of kilometers away, are filled with awe and fear of the red soil desert.

That is a black tide that could erupt at any moment.

It was precisely because of this devastating threat that the red-earth territory came into being.

It was the last human city-state in the boundless desert, and also an outpost for monitoring the movements of the red desert.

It stands alone on the edge of the desert.

Like a nail driven into the earth, it is firmly wedged into the very front of this land of death.

The city is garrisoned by a large number of reconnaissance mages and guards.

They monitored the magical fluctuations and demonic movements deep in the desert day and night.

If any abnormality is detected, Red Earth Collar will immediately send an alert to the rear.

This buys the alliance valuable time for evacuation and defense.

It's not a bustling place.

There were no exquisite buildings, no bustling markets, and no decent taverns.

All that remained were towering city walls and densely packed early warning arrays.

And a group of people who constantly brush with death.

But for Lin Gui, Red Earth Territory was what he experienced before entering the Red Earth Desert.

The last place where I could stop and catch my breath.