In the north of Ansu Kingdom, frost and snow have covered the earth.

This mountainous land is the coldest place in the Ansu Kingdom. The strong northerners have taken root in the mountains and cold winds, guarding the northern gates of the kingdom, and have worked hard for seven hundred years to maintain a delicate balance with those difficult neighbors further north.

Whether it is the Violet Kingdom in the northwest or the Holy Dragon Principality in the northeast, it has never been an easy role to deal with.

But in this disturbing winter, new shadows emerged from the frost and snow, and in the eyes of Duchess Victoria Wilder, these new threats are even more worrying than those unpredictable northern neighbors because they emerged from the country.

"Duke of Ice and Snow" Victoria Wilder stood on the high terrace of Winter Fort, looking down at the city below. The snow began to fall before winter until last night. The town was covered with silver and white everywhere. Typical spire buildings in the northern region can effectively reduce snow coverage. The black spire pierced the silvery wraps of winter, standing on the plain below the castle like black pine trees on the heavy snow field. At first glance, they were full of lushness.

In most parts of the kingdom, the arrival of winter means the cessation of production. People hide in their houses and shivering. However, in this coldest northern border, the situation is different. People here have adapted to the cold and have to adapt to the long winter that accounts for half of the year in order to survive. Even on the day when heavy snow has stopped, countless people can be seen in the city. They must remove the snow as much as possible before the next round of snow destroys the city buildings, and by the way, drag the bodies of the homeless people who have frozen to death in the gutter to the outside of the city. In the central square facing the castle, the most crowds gather.

The snow in the square has been cleaned up, and the people gathered there to see the cultists burned to death.

The figures in black burqas were tied one by one to tall wooden stakes, heavy black steel chains and inscription shackles simultaneously bound their bodies and magic, but their distorted and terrifying faces by performing evil magic were still chilling.

The crowds of onlookers had gathered several floors in the square, and the soldiers separated the crowd from the cultists. The shaky swords prevented the overly excited leaders from getting closer to the dangerous blasphemers. In the process, firewood was piled up, and the heated and melted animal oil was poured on the decomposed haystack.

"Burn them to death!" Some of the onlookers finally couldn't help but yelled loudly.

This roar was full of response: "Burn them to death! They killed my children! Burn these cultists to death!"

A high-level priest from the Church of Holy Light walked towards the tent. He took the holy emblem from the church next to him and turned around to look at the excited people.

"The God of Light revealed the conspiracy of these cultists. Before more people were harmed, the Lord guided us to destroy the nests of these heretics!"

The high-level priest held up the holy emblem, and he turned around and used the holy emblem to inspire a powerful light, igniting the flammable oil and firewood, and shouted: "Praise the holy light! Praise my Lord!!"

Under the influence of holy light and oil, the stolen platform was instantly shrouded in golden and white flames. The cultists tied to the pillars twisted in the flames like wax, making various indescribable howls. The sound of mountains and tsunamis sounded in the square: "Praise the Holy Light! Praise the God of Holy Light!"

The blazing flames rushed straight into the sky, and the howlings of the cultists did not stop in the flame for a long time. Even until the flames burned out their bodies, their roars continued to come from the flames. The people around them finally realized that something was wrong. They looked at the abnormal flame in horror and listened to the abnormal roar. The roar finally became a human understandable word. The remaining spiritual power of more than a dozen cultists motivated in the air, making a terrible howling: "Smile and cry as much as you want! Everyone will die! You will die like domestic animals, and you will die like insects! When they come back, they will eat your flesh and suck your blood!!"

The flames suddenly turned black at this moment, and the flames of more than a dozen fires merged together in the air. A huge and indescribable deep purple mass rose from the flames, as if they were about to swallow everyone on the scene. Even the priest who had just shouted praises to the holy light in front of the tent platform was stunned at this moment, but at the moment when this terrifying vision came, a sharp white light column suddenly shot from the terrace of Winter Castle into the square.

Under the impact of the "Whip of Winter", the indescribable deep purple mass frozen instantly, and then shattered due to the lack of support for subsequent energy. Large tracts of ice crystal dust fell from the sky, covering most of the square again as if another blizzard had fallen. Whether it was the excited masses the moment before or the Holy Light Priest who shouted slogans, they all calmed down completely. Over the quiet square, Duke Victoria Wilder's cold voice came: "Clean clean and praise Ansu and your founding king."

The powerful magic power gradually dissipated on the terrace. Victoria waved her hand and let the magic book floating in the air return to her side, then turned around and left the terrace.

The terrace door inlaid with artificial crystals automatically closed behind her, isolating the sound from the square. The duchess returned to the warm lounge and showed a rare look of fatigue on his face.

The black-haired maid came forward, and she waved her hand and turned away the other servants, then pressed her hand near Victoria's temple and gently pressed: "You rarely show this expression last time I saw Duke Gowen Cecil return."

"This time it's still related to him. If it weren't for the warning from the founding hero from the extreme south, we would probably have to wait until the cultists do more damage before they realize that they have eroded to this level," Victoria sighed. "This is the fourth cult nest that has been destroyed since the beginning of winter. The previous three were the end of the world, and this time the Eternal Sleeper. I wouldn't be surprised if the Son of the Storm makes a comeback from the sea next time."

"It is said that there are actually very few cult forces in the southern border. They only showed up twice in total, but each time they were noticed and extinguished by the duke..."

Victoria waved her hand gently, and the black-haired maid Maggie immediately stopped the movements in her hand.

"We have been at peace for too long, and the whole kingdom has been at peace for too long," Victoria stood up from the bench and quietly stared at the portraits of the founding heroes hanging on the wall ahead. The portrait of Gauvin Cecil had been taken off, but she still looked at the blank next to the founding king Charlie. "From the king to the local nobles, there is serious lack of vigilance, but the Grand Duke Cecil seven hundred years ago came from the most stormy era in the kingdom. What is more funny is that the incompetent people in the royal capital took the warnings about cultists sent by the founding duke as a nerve allergy, and as the fuss of the ancients in modern society... Humph, now they are panicked."

The black-haired maid stood quietly behind Victoria without any comments, and the Duchess seemed to be accustomed to this. She paused and ordered, "Is there any evidence to ask you to investigate?"

The black-haired maid lowered her head: "Yes. The priests of the Holy Light Church have indeed had more activities than before in recent times, and new missionaries have appeared everywhere, but all their activities are reasonable. They are fighting cultists, searching and clearing out cultists' nests. Missions are also promoting ways to identify cultists in various places and protect themselves in magic curses. The power of the Holy Light does have unique advantages in this regard. In addition, they have no extra activities, no conflicts with other sects or snatching faith resources, and no friction with lords from various places."

Victoria frowned: "Is that true..."

The black-haired maid asked curiously: "Vicky, do you doubt that there is anything wrong with those priests of the Holy Light?"

"No... I just care a little about their recent movements. They suddenly became active," Victoria shook her head, "but it should be my illusion. After all, cultists are suddenly in chaos now, and the only ones who can clear those cultists are the Church of the God of War and the Church of the Holy Light. Among them, the God of Light is the best in fighting against evil spirits," Victoria said lightly, "We have no reason to interfere with their activities within the legal scope. Keep paying more attention. If they have any inappropriate thoughts, they will always be exposed."

"yes."

...

After the beginning of winter, the circulation of news also became difficult and slower as the number of travel merchants decreased.

In this era when cutting-edge technologies are rare and not popular, and ordinary society still maintains a primitive and backward situation, the transmission of information is an embarrassing and inefficient thing. Although there are magic and props such as messaging and the Ring of Mithril, since people who master these communication technologies are extremely rare and do not have effective information sharing channels, these technologies cannot make people understand what is happening in a timely and comprehensive manner. For most civilians and even nobles, the main way to disseminate information is still traveling caravans and specialists who send letters.

For the remote location and low attraction to business travel, the slow information transmission is even more problematic.

In the territory, Gao Wen established a simple messenger team, and the current main population settlements of Cecil Territory are only towns, logging farm villages in the west, and mining villages in the east (it has almost developed into small towns), so internal information transmission is not a problem, but if you want to contact the outside world, you cannot form your own channel with the current human and material resources of the territory. The only ones you can rely on are extremely limited. Vendors who come from Tanzan to sell grain cloths or slaves, as well as expatriates sent to Kant and Leslie to collect intelligence.

So when Gao Wen learned that signs of cult activities were found everywhere in the kingdom, it was already a month after he warned the kingdom.

This was due to the help of Viscount Andrew Leslie's information channel. If there were no quick griffin messengers, they would have been fighting from the capital to the southern border for more than a month with their legs.

Looking at the information in front of him, Gao Wen frowned tightly.

Amber didn't know what was written in the letter sent from Tanzan Town early in the morning. She was boredly carving a piece of wood with a dagger next to her. When she looked up and saw Gao Wen's expression, she asked casually: "What's wrong? The rice price has risen?"

"No, it's a cult."

Amber immediately jumped up from the chair: "I'm going to beat the cult again?! Oh, I have time to have a stomachache now?"

"Not here," Gao Wen glanced at Amber, "It's apart from the Southern Territory, cultists are appearing everywhere in the Kingdom."

When Amber heard this, she felt relieved and sat down and continued to carve her own wood: "Oh, it's fine if it doesn't bother us."

Gao Wen looked at the shame of this elf helplessly, but he couldn't feel as relaxed as the other party.

The situation is as I expected at the beginning, cultists have penetrated into all aspects of the kingdom. Not only are they found traces of their activities in the territory of the border lords, but even the near the capital and the Holy Spirit Plain, there are signs of their troubles.

A large number of cultist nests were found and removed, but more of them were just found a little trace and then the clues were lost.

Either it was too late to discover it, and the cultists had already completed their evil sacrifices, and the local nobles discovered it only as bloody scenes after the ceremony.

In addition to this disturbing intelligence, another thing also made Gao Wen feel urgent and... cramped.

All the information is seriously outdated. The news from the royal capital was a month ago, and the situation in the northern border is still unavailable.

He needs to establish his own information channels, which must be in his own hands, and it must be more efficient and more reasonable than various contemporary information channels.

The spell model of communication has not been parsed yet, and the attempt to electromagnetic wave communication has also failed. From a technical perspective, it will be impossible to realize the "modern communication network" that Gao Wen envisioned. However, even if there is no cheap instant communication method, he can set up a framework first.
Chapter completed!