When looking up from the valley to Fort Aimao, the outer walls of this abandoned castle become extremely tall. The gray-white walls stand on the leaden cliffs, surrounded by dense vegetation, and the collapsed bricks and stones give the tower a strange shape.

The shape, the dark windows, and the rust-colored vines crawling underneath, layer by layer, silently tell the history of decline.

Fang Plover found a trail leading to the cliff. He asked Kuisu to divide his men into two groups, guarded by the big cat man and Siesta respectively, to search in the valley. The remaining people joined him.

Head to the castle above to find out.

Everyone agreed that they all have several flares in their hands, and flares of different colors represent different messages. If any team encounters an enemy that is difficult to deal with, red flares will be used to summon others to move closer to their direction.

Although there are means of communication between the teams, and there is a box left beside Red, the signal flare is to prevent emergencies. For example, there is no time to use the communication channel, or the ether turbulence in the valley interferes with communication.

Climbing halfway up the mountain along the mountain path, everyone made a discovery before they reached the castle. Ms. Kuisu discovered that there were several broken fir trees under the hillside, each one as thick as a person's arms. Jita's sharp eyes even saw one of them.

There seemed to be a shiny metal object stuck on a tree stump. "There's something there!" she pointed to the place and said to the others.

Fang Plover pulled down his goggles and released the Clockwork Fairy. The golden copper ball flew around the woods twice, and then he saw clearly that there was something else shining in the bushes behind a long sword stuck on a tree stump.

He then turned around. "Miss Alyssa, can you go down and have a look?"

"Call me Alyssa, captain." After Alyssa finished speaking, without saying much, she grabbed the tree trunk and slid down. She went down to the mountain stream in twos and twos, pulled off the sword, and was about to go around to the bushes behind.

.

"Be careful." Fang Plover looked at the lush vegetation in the snow below, always feeling that it was a little abnormally quiet, and reminded him subconsciously.

"Got it, Captain."

Alyssa felt a little funny in her heart. This captain was more worried about them than Gubai Zhiye. But it felt good to have someone caring about them.

She was about to check the bushes behind her, but at this moment, a gray 'hand' stretched out from the bushes, grabbed her ankle, and pulled down hard.

Alyssa didn't notice it at all and slipped into the bushes unprepared. Jita couldn't help but scream when she saw this. Fang Plover also subconsciously opened a blue light door.

But something unexpected happened, and a low hissing sound suddenly came from the bushes. After a while of shaking, the twin sister got out of it. Only then did everyone see clearly that the hand wrapped around her ankle was not something at all.

', but a gray vine.

Alyssa pulled off the vine, threw it to the ground, and then shook her head upward to show that she was fine.

But she still suffered some slight injuries. She checked her ankles before slowly standing up. The girl held a sword in one hand, picked up something from the bushes, and climbed up from below.

"What's going on?" Fang Pultru offered a hand, pulled Alyssa up, and asked her at the same time.

"It's a killer vine." Alyssa smiled helplessly. This time she was very embarrassed. "Fortunately, it's just a larvae, and its level is not high. It can be used against ordinary people. I didn't expect such a thing to exist in winter."

She glanced at Fang Yu, but he only said seriously: "Be careful next time, you scared Jita."

Alyssa breathed a sigh of relief. She turned back to look at Miss Naturalist, who turned pale and looked at her and said, "I was scared to death, Miss Alyssa, I thought something had happened to you."

"Thank you, Kitta."

Jita also looked relieved.

"But why are there killer vines in winter?" Fang Plover was also a little surprised. Killer vines are a special kind of plant monster. These monsters and their subspecies usually disguise themselves as withered vines or aerial roots of trees.

When the prey passes by, it stretches out its tentacles to reel it in, injects venom through the barbs, paralyzes the prey, and then digests it little by little.

They mostly appear at the turn of spring and summer. After autumn and winter, they will burrow back underground through "reverse growth", similar to hibernation. They wait for the ice and snow to melt before returning to the surface again, year after year, year after year.

Unlike most annual herbaceous plants, most long-lived killer vines can live for more than ten years. Although they are called killer vines, their main prey is not humans. They hunt humans mainly to absorb the energy from the stars.

Aether magic.

However, it is indeed strange to see killer vines appear in winter.

Alyssa then handed the thing in her hand to Fang Plover.

Fang Plover took the sword and glanced at it. The sword was very wide, had a cross guard, and a red stone inlaid on the cage handle. It seemed to be a very common standard sword, and it should belong to an adventurer.

But why would the adventurer's things appear in this place?

Adventurers' equipment will not be left behind for no reason. It will either be discarded voluntarily or dropped after death. However, if it is a battle between adventurers and adventurers, most of them will clean up the battlefield after the end, and it is unlikely to be left behind.

Magical device.

"There was a battle down there before?" he asked.

Alyssa nodded.

Fang Plover looked at the broken fir trees, and some of them flew away. At their level, fighting could not have this effect, unless it was the power of magic. He asked again: "Are there any traces of magic?"

"No." Alyssa replied.

"Purely physical destruction," Fang Yu frowned: "It is not easy to achieve this level."

"Unless it's a big guy." Luo Yu estimated: "At least three to four meters tall."

"Two stories high," Ms. Kusu took over their words. She was an old lumberjack and was very sensitive to the density of the woods. She could distinguish the general shape of the creatures passing through the trees at a glance through the fallen trees. "About two stories high."

When it reaches 2.5 meters wide, it is very powerful."

Fang Plover turned around and asked her: "So what are the creatures that meet this standard in this area?"

"Generally speaking, it's an old dire bear," Ms. Kuisu thought for a moment: "Ithurian giant deer, or dwarf giant."

Fang Yu silently made a calculation. He thought that the adventurer would not attack a giant deer for no reason. Through the dwarf giant, he thought of another thing, but he did not say this guess out loud. After all, there was no evidence.

He opened the system again and checked. The attack of this sword is 44-61. The attribute plug-in increases strength and agility. It also comes with an actively activated shield. The shield value is 220 points. Although it is not the best, the quality is quite good.

.

This also proves the previous view

It seems that only one side of this battle is the adventurer, because only beasts and monsters are not interested in these magic tools. Moreover, the adventurers should have been defeated and retreated, and they did not even have time to clean up the battlefield, otherwise they would not have left these things.

.

The sword requires a level 5 nightingale and a level 7 warrior. It can be estimated that its owner is at least level nine. Of course, this is the lower limit, not the upper limit.

The other thing is a pocket watch, which is also a magic guide. This small magic guide is mainly used to expand the plug-in slot of the magic furnace. There are two universal plug-in interfaces on it, and two +5, +

A secondary agile plugin for 7.

This thing is more intuitive. It requires an 11th level character level. Fang Piao estimated the level of this or these selectors, and it should be around level 10.

It can be seen that one aspect of the battle is not the murderous vine that Alisa encountered earlier. The larval murderous vine is only level five and is not an opponent of adventurers of this level at all. To say the least, the murderous vine cannot cause such a problem.

Movement comes.

However, it is indeed strange for the larvae of killer vine to appear on such a battlefield.

Everyone checked the mountain stream below again, but there was nothing else in the bushes in the snow except the larvae of the murderous vine that had been killed by Alyssa earlier, and nothing related to Ms. Kuisu's son was found.

.

Alyssa believed that the adventurers in this battle might be related to the previously discovered Chosen Camp. She had no reason, it was just an intuition. However, Fang Plover also agreed with this view.

There are not many outsiders in this place, so it is unlikely that new adventurers will appear one after another. And the traces left by this battle are still very new. They only happened a day or two ago at most. It is unlikely that Kuisu

There were no traces left by the team that the lady's son was in. Moreover, no relevant clues were found at the scene.

Everyone can only follow the traces all the way up.

The broken trees should have come all the way up from the valley below, and the huge thing seemed to have finally gone to the castle above.

Fang Plover put away the sword as a trophy and gave the pocket watch to Alyssa. However, they are now a formal team. The distribution of these things will have to be agreed upon by everyone after they return and given to those who really need it. Right now

But it's just to let it play a little role in advance.

After walking along the fallen grass and trees for a while, they found that they had arrived at the west side of Elmau Castle. The collapsed wall was also located in this direction, and the collapsed rubble formed a slope and submerged the original mountain.

Fang Yu raised his head and looked at the gap. "It looks like it entered the castle." Luo Yu said from the side.

"Be careful." Fang Yu reminded.

He released several clockwork goblins and summoned an angel to follow him. The others also drew their weapons and walked along the slope formed by the rubble towards the gap in the city wall.

Everyone crossed the gap and saw that the courtyard behind was quiet and empty. There were only a few bare strange trees, the courtyard was covered with snow, and some weeds were sparsely growing.

The thick snow buried the traces, and the traces they had followed disappeared here. Fang Plover glanced at the courtyard, and there seemed to be a temple on one side, next to the dark holes and windows of the incomplete tower on the side, with growths growing on it.

There was a tree that had lost all its leaves in the harsh winter, and its branches were motionless.

On the other side is the main building, which is five stories high. Except for the layers of rust-colored vines on the mottled walls, the building is relatively well preserved. The sharpened black roof points directly to the lead-grey sky. Inside the building

There was total silence, and the grand scene of the past was no longer there.

As everyone walked through the courtyard, there was only the sound of footsteps clicking in the snow, and the silence was eerie.

And Jita always felt that there seemed to be a pair of eyes spying on them through those dark windows. That feeling was really chilling.

There were several crows standing on the roof, watching them condescendingly. When the group passed the ancient well in the center of the courtyard, these black gods of death flew up, scaring the naturalist lady to tremble.

Fang Yu supported her from behind and comforted her with a gentle words: "Don't be afraid."

There is actually nothing in the courtyard, and this place does not look like it can hide anything huge. This abandoned castle looks very large from the outside, but its internal structure is very compact. The courtyard formed by the main building is actually

Not too big.

You can see through it at a glance.

He looked to the left and right, and to be honest, the atmosphere here was indeed a bit mind-numbing. Especially surrounded by this silent forest and the various legends about its past, it was even more so.

However, someone has to explore the inside of those dark buildings, which is what he and Ms. Kuisu agreed upon. If the chosen one doesn't even have the courage, then why take the risk?
To be continued...