Chapter 1 Internal Dispute

The head wolf insisted on going to that ominous place contaminated by chaos, which caused a dispute among the mixed team behind her.

This kind of internal dispute was not surprising: the team accompanying her came from three forces. One was the Black Crow Fortress knights, who were ordered by Governor Ulysses of the Southern Territory to serve as the head wolf's guides and guards, while their main mission was to establish a line of communication with White City. The second force was the Holy See investigation team brought by Karasuss, whose purpose was to cross the Taros Kingdom to find the Karsuan Temple located in the hinterland of the desolate wilderness. Being with the head wolf was just a coincidence. The third force was the personal guard composed of fierce beasts such as magic wolves, ogres, and bear monsters. The army of the beast tide had stayed on the southern border. Lily selected a group of guys who were good at fighting to follow her as lackeys. This group was the head wolf's loyal supporters, and they unconditionally supported almost anything the head wolf announced.

If the three parties were just on their way, they would work together, but at this time, the conflict emerged.

The leader of the Black Crow Knights was a dark-skinned, red-haired female knight named翠迪丝 (Cui Di Si). Female knight commanders were rare in the Black Crow Fortress, but no one dared to underestimate this tall, mature woman who was good at using two two-handed greatswords and had natural brute force. She was the first to object to the head wolf's opinion: "The Chaos Rift Point is very dangerous, head wolf. You don't understand this thing. The inside is much more bizarre than it looks from the outside. We don't need to waste time here. We must go to White City as soon as possible. This is the top priority."

Karasuss also raised his opinion: "The Chaos Rift Point is not a rare thing. Head wolf, you can see more spectacular rift points than this one within the Taros Kingdom. After arriving at the destination, you can explore as much as you like."

He was somewhat familiar with Lily, and at this time, he thought that the other party wanted to explore the purple-black mist out of curiosity.

The magic wolves in the monster guard began to howl, their unanimous opinion was that the head wolf was right, and humans should shut up.

Lily circled around in place, sniffed, and stubbornly pointed to the hill in front of her: "No, there's nothing wrong with my nose. I smelled a familiar scent here just now. Maybe the landlord is in front!"

Karasuss and Cui Di Si looked at each other. They knew that the head wolf's sense of smell was far beyond that of humans. If it was really as the head wolf said... then no one could stop her from exploring the rift point.

Everyone knew that the only reason the head wolf went to White City was to find her "landlord".

"You can choose for yourselves," Lily said, looking at the two groups of humans in front of her, "Anyway, I'm going in to see the situation, but you can leave—after all, you are not my subordinates, so there is no need to follow me to take risks."

Karasuss frowned, his gaze swept over his team members—the Holy See warriors had been recuperating in the Black Crow Fortress, and now their mental and physical strength had fully recovered, but they were still wearing those somewhat tattered church uniforms. The once glorious investigation team now looked as embarrassed as a wandering legion.

Facing the gaze of the high-level monk, the Papal knights and monks straightened their chests, and no one flinched.

"Fighting against chaos is our mission. No matter where we are, we cannot avoid chaos, but the mission is equally important..." Karasuss said, raising his hand and selecting several knights and monks from the investigation team, "Karl, Hubert, Vanessa, Wertheran, Ryan, the five of you stay outside. If the head wolf and I haven't come out after a day, you will leave directly, continue the mission, and never stay. Hubert, you will keep my seal and sacred artifacts."

The high-level monk handed over a few things that looked very important to his deputy: a church knight who looked simple and steady. Cui Di Si also nodded to Lily after a short thought: "Lord Ulysses ordered me to serve as the head wolf's guard and guide until I arrive at White City. Knights cannot disgrace their mission—I will take half of the people in with you, and the rest will wait outside, just like the monk's arrangement, let them wait outside for a day." Saying that, she turned around: "Now I will start calling names, and those whose names are called will follow me!"

Lily thanked her and looked back. She pointed to the big iron cage being carried by the bear monster: "Then what about this smoked meat?"

"This 'monster' still holds important secrets..." Karasuss frowned, "At least it must be taken to White City and handed over to the Taros royal family. But the one guarding the monster must be a bear monster that will not fall into a dream..."

"Simple, you guys stay too," Lily waved her hand and let a few bear monsters stay, and by the way, she also left a lizard man shaman who could speak human common language, otherwise the stupid bear monsters would have no way to communicate with the humans who stayed, "You, you, you, and you... Okay, in this way, there will also be someone responsible for escorting the smoked meat. Is the arrangement properly arranged? Let's go to that rift point!"

This time, no one raised any objections.

Everyone checked the equipment they carried with them. Just in case, Lily also asked them to put a pinch of her tail hair in their pockets. After making all the preparations, she, the head wolf, took the lead and stepped into the swirling purple-black mist like flowing water.

The moment she crossed the mist, she felt that she had stepped into a completely different "field". The air was filled with a cold and corrupt atmosphere, and the field of vision was affected by the purple-black mist. The land under her feet became soft and corrupt, and even the sky above her head was covered with a layer of purple-black gauze. The sun became a dim round spot, precarious, as if it would be driven away by the darkness at any time.

And all these changes happened the moment she stepped into the mist. Before crossing the mist, looking at the "Chaos Rift Point" from the outside, it was just a gloomy hill, far from being as strange as it is now.

Lily sniffed. The corrupt smell in the air made her a little awkward. She lowered her head and looked at her hand, and found that she had indeed started to glow again.

It's just that this light is much weaker than when it was in the Black Forest and the Great Wilderness, and the scope of action is also much smaller—the Chaos Rift Point is after all surrounded by the land of order, and the ubiquitous power of order suppresses the dark original magic energy, and the conflict between order and chaos is naturally much weaker.

"This place is much wider than when looking at it from the outside," Lily shook her head and looked around, "When I looked at it from the outside just now, it was clearly a pile of dirt, but here it looks like a small mountain."

Karasuss is a senior person in this regard: "The space and optical phenomena near the Chaos Rift Point will be distorted, and it is normal for the environment inside and outside the rift point to be different. Everyone be vigilant, we have entered the Chaos Realm, and the evil forces of this land have noticed the approach of the invaders, and they will launch attacks at any time."

Lily oh-ed and walked ahead, leading the team to climb the hill.

The hill is not big. Although it is several times larger than when observed from the outside, it is only a small mountain of several hundred meters high at this time. Lily looked up at the top of the hill and saw a dilapidated big house standing quietly in the darkness.

It was a two-story foreign house, which may have been gorgeous and imposing, but now its outer walls are mottled and dilapidated, the roof has several large holes, and the windows and doors have become dark holes. Around the foreign house, twisted and poisonous thorns grow wantonly under the stimulation of dark magic, as if to devour the entire building and climb to the second floor of the foreign house.

"That is 'Hogus's Cabin'," Karasuss knew every Chaos Rift Point in the 科洛 (Ke Luo) world like the back of his hand. In the Holy See's library, he had consulted the history of every Chaos nest, "Four centuries ago, when the Taros Kingdom had not yet been established, this hilly area was once the territory of the Eagle Empire. In a certain year, a plague with cursed characteristics broke out here. A powerful shadow mage was ordered to come here to investigate the traces of shadow magic behind the plague—but the shadow mage named Hogus was actually a believer in Oblivion. He planned everything in order to collect the dark original magic energy here so that the ordered world could open a portal to chaos. Later, his plan was exposed, and he was chased all the way to this place by the emperor's knights. This was his last magic laboratory—that madman used himself as energy and opened the Chaos channel here."

"After that, this place became a rift point," the female knight Cui Di Si shook her head, "Its power once shrouded one-third of the Southern Territory hills, and later, through the efforts of many generations of Holy See monks and mystics, the rift point was compressed to such a small range. So the cult madmen are the most hateful things in this world, and they must be killed one by one."

At this time, the team had reached the top of the mountain, and the dilapidated foreign house was close in front of them. Lily had sharp eyes and saw some anomalies at a glance: "Someone has indeed been here recently!"

Because the area around the foreign house was filled with dark magic, it was originally covered with poisonous thorns, but the thorns in front of the door were obviously cleaned up.

Lily lowered her body and sniffed hard—although the fishy smell in the corrupted soil made her very upset, there was indeed a little familiar smell mixed in the fishy smell.

But this time, the happy expression on her face gradually faded away.

Karasuss was the first to see something was wrong: "Head wolf, what's wrong?"

"There are other smells," Lily's eyes flickered with a strange light. People who are familiar with the head wolf know that this is her instinct as a predator awakening, "An unpleasant smell... I want to bite people..."

Strands of dark magic began to seep out of the foreign house.

As a warrior for many years, Cui Di Si's life-and-death intuition made her react immediately. The female knight immediately raised her double swords: "Be careful, there are enemies!"