It is easy to identify whether you are setting foot on the ancient salt railway, because the Suyong stone used to build the ancient salt railway is not the stone produced in the Kingdom of Savile, but the unique purple stone debris of the Kingdom of Maris.

The ancient Kingdom of Maris admired purple, and palaces and houses liked to be built with purple materials. They also respected purple gemstones, and a gemstone called purple stone was the most precious. Only a large piece of ordinary purple stone could produce it.

A piece of purple gold stone the size of a book is found, and its value far exceeds the value of ordinary stones. Generally speaking, as long as a piece of purple gold stone is found, the entire quarry will not suffer any loss.

Therefore, in many quarries occupied by nobles, the stones were mined not for building stones, but for purple gold stone.

As a result, the quarry will produce a large amount of waste rock. Some of the waste rock can be used in other places after being polished, but most of the waste rock will only be left in fragments.

Therefore, the ruler of the Kingdom of Maris at that time decided to use these scraps of postures to build a purple stone road that ran through the country. At that time, the Quinsis Snow Mountain Stone was controlled by the Kingdom of Maris, and the abandoned

The ancient castle was also the outpost of the Maris Kingdom. The ancient salt railway was also built at that time, and the purple stone debris was naturally used.

Entering the range of the Quinsis Snow Mountain, the surrounding plants quickly became denser, and the number of tall trees also increased a lot.

The trees here are mainly dry cypress, which is a special tree species in the Kingdom of Maris. The trees that appear here now should have been transplanted by people from the Kingdom of Maris.

This kind of dead cypress is a kind of fuel wood that is comparable to the charcoal tree. It has a long burning time and high temperature. These are the advantages of this wood. The only disadvantage is that the growth cycle is too long. A sapling needs at least three years.

It takes time to fully grow, and Cypress cypress is also the most famous tall tree in the world of Velen, which can reach a maximum height of more than two hundred meters.

However, the dead cypresses growing here are very, very strange. They do not grow taller and taller like the dead trees in other places. Instead, after they grow to a certain height, they seem to be suppressed by some force.

The top began to curve and grow, and eventually grew into a spiral shape, and the spiral tree tops of each tree would also be nested and intertwined with each other due to growth, and finally became the top surface like a tabletop now.

It's flat, with a weird forest lined with tree stumps below.

I don’t know if it’s due to the influence of the force that causes the growth and variation of the withered cypress. In short, all the plants growing in this forest grow extremely weird. In addition, the sun cannot shine into it all year round, making the forest dark and gloomy.

Even if the tribes in the nearby grassland are in urgent need of firewood, they will never come to this forest to look for it.

But one thing is strange. No matter how the trees in the forest grow, they will not destroy the ancient salt railway passing through the forest, as if this road contains unknown mysterious power.

When the caravan passed through the forest, everyone fell silent. Both the guards on the outside and other people in the caravan put their hands on their weapons. All the braziers on each pack car were lit, and the carriage was lit.

The surrounding area of ​​more than ten meters is illuminated.

Some of the beasts that have lived in the forest all year round were unable to adapt to such light, and quickly retreated into the darkness, revealing only pairs of ferocious gazes reflecting the eerie light, staring at the advancing caravan, looking for opportunities to strike.

At this time, the veterans in the caravan did not stay in the caravan tent. They all came out, walked back and forth from time to time, checked the situation, and loudly warned the newbies in the team not to get close to the forest.

In this tense atmosphere, the caravan passed through the forest without any danger and came to the other side. The destination of the trip, the castle, was at the exit of the forest road.

This is not so much an ancient castle as it is a pass. The three-story castle built against the mountain blocks the entire ancient salt railway. If you want to reach the other side, you must first pass through the bottom castle and go around.

A narrow passage that is easy to defend but difficult to attack reaches the second floor, then crosses the artificial river channel in the square on the second floor, passes through the artificial corridor below the third floor, and reaches the ancient salt railway on the opposite side.

This castle can be said to guard the key point of the entire ancient salt railway. Anyone trying to cross the Quinsis Snow Mountain must either take a steeper and more dangerous road or pass through this castle.

However, such an ancient castle, which can be regarded as a key military and economic point, was abandoned thousands of years ago. Even the Saville tribe who occupied the castle at that time was unwilling to stay in this castle for a while.

The reason why the ancient castle was abandoned, and no one even took over the castle for thousands of years, leading to the complete abandonment of this ancient salt railway, was mainly because of a tragedy that happened in the ancient castle.

Although the relationship between the Kingdom of Savile and the Kingdom of Maris was very bad at that time, the relationship between the knight generals who were in charge of the ancient salt railway and stationed in the castle, the low-level soldiers and the tribes on the grasslands outside the castle were still very good, and it could even be said that

It's so close that many people in the castle have married women from the tribe, and even many of the knights stationed there have married local wives.

At that time, the grassland area was still very large, but the Gusi Desert was relatively smaller, and there was no distinction between large and small Gusi. Because of this, the tribes on the grassland were also very powerful, far from being comparable to the tribes on the small grasslands today.

In comparison, the leaders of the grassland tribes at that time were also more ambitious.

The leader of the grassland tribe at that time wanted to become the overlord of the western part of Savile, but this was not an easy task. Whether it was recruiting soldiers or army supplies, it required a lot of money. Although the grassland tribe at that time relied on the ancient salt railway

Earned a lot of profits, but in the face of the consumption of the war, it was still a drop in the bucket.

The leader of the grassland tribe at that time focused on the ancient castle. He wanted to occupy the ancient castle and monopolize the interests of the entire ancient salt railway. With the interests of the ancient salt railway, he would no longer worry about money.

So, when the leader of the grassland tribe was invited to visit the ancient castle, he led his tribe to cooperate inside and outside to capture the garrisoned knights and soldiers who invited them as guests.

If he just captured the castle and drove away the knights and soldiers, the leader of the prairie tribe would only be accused of betrayal and provoking a war. But then he did something that shocked everyone, and that was

Massacred everyone in the castle.

You know, there are not only knights and soldiers in the castle, but also their families, many of whom are from various tribes in the grassland.

And more importantly, he was a guest who was invited to the banquet, but the guest attacked the host at the invited banquet and massacred the host's family. This kind of thing is absolutely taboo in Savile.

However, there is no need for the people of the Savile tribe to blame them. After killing everyone in the castle, these people immediately relaxed and started eating and drinking. While eating and drinking, they accidentally lit a fire that was originally intended to be transported to Mary.

A batch of animal skins from the Kingdom of Sri Lanka. At that time, those people were either drunk or did not know how to use the fire prevention measures in the castle. As a result, the fire could not be suppressed and eventually covered the entire castle. Most people were burned to death in the castle.

Entering the castle, only a few people who were assigned to guard escaped.

After that, this burned-down castle became the most terrifying place in this area. Anyone who entered this castle, whether it was a person from the Kingdom of Maris or a person from the Kingdom of Savile, would do what they wanted to do as long as they stayed in the castle overnight.

In the same dream, in which they all returned to the night when the castle was destroyed, and were killed in the dream, they would also disappear in reality.

Yes, they disappeared as a whole, rather than leaving behind corpses after death.

After that, weird legends about the castle spread, and some people who were not afraid of death came to verify it. In the end, it just added to the legend.

Over time, the horrific legends here have affected this ancient salt railway. No caravans pass through here anymore. In addition, the Kingdom of Savile and the Kingdom of Maris have opened up a newer and more spacious trade road in the flat area to the south. Therefore,

The ancient castle and the trade routes were completely abandoned, and only legends about the castle were spread nearby.

Later, due to profit and other reasons, the smugglers of Maris and Saville began to reuse the ancient salt railway to smuggle contraband from the two countries.

Although thousands of years have passed, when this castle surrounded by various things appeared in everyone's eyes, everyone still couldn't help but feel a little fear. They didn't know whether it was because of the cool weather in the mountain or because of the legend.

The impact of the story made me shiver with fear.

The wooden parts of the castle had been burned in the fire thousands of years ago, and the remaining parts that were not burned were all decayed. Most of the buildings in the castle had collapsed, some of which collapsed in the fire thousands of years ago.

But it's more due to the squeezing of some vines.

Nowadays, except for a few stone buildings leaning on the mountain wall, the other buildings in this castle are almost in ruins.

The caravan detoured from the lower castle, passed through a slope with gate defenses, and entered the large square of the middle castle.

Because this was an extremely prosperous business road, when the castle was built, the designers specially built a large square that could accommodate a large number of caravans. The square was so large that it was larger than the temporary market that we left yesterday.

A large number of taverns, shops, warehouses, and hotels were originally built around the square to serve caravans. However, most of the wooden structures were burned down a thousand years ago, leaving only neatly planned foundations.

It proves that something once existed here.

After arriving at the square, the caravan members quickly cleared an open space from the vines all over the ground, and then lit some bonfires around the open space. Following the guards, each holding a long sword and a shield, they fired vigorously around the open space.

Beating, making a lot of noise.

As the sound of knocking came out, some rustling noises immediately came from the shadows in various parts of the castle, accompanied by some threatening beasts roaring, and soon all kinds of beasts hiding in the castle were there.

Under the influence of this metallic noise, Qingrao was overwhelmed and escaped from the castle.

After clearing away the surrounding beasts, the caravan members began to formally set up the camp. Tents were erected one after another. Some people, accompanied by guards, began to search for some burning wood in the castle. Although they came

The wood had already been prepared at that time, but because it had to be repaired all day and night, the wood prepared was not enough.

It was already early in the morning, and everyone was extremely sleepy, but they still had strong energy and pulled up the camp. After eating something hastily, except for the group of guards responsible for the security of the camp, they still sat awake next to the campfire.

Except for that, everyone else got into the tent and fell asleep.

However, Leo did not fall asleep, but opened his mental net to check the situation inside and outside the castle.

Before the caravan decided to rest in the castle for a day and night, Leo had already discovered the anomaly in the castle, because at that time he happened to take out the survey instrument and was about to check the changes in the map above, but he unexpectedly discovered this

The ancient city and its surrounding areas cannot be displayed on the map, as if some force is interfering.

However, because he didn't want to get into trouble, he didn't plan to enter the castle alone to explore the secrets here. However, when he later learned that the caravan was going to rest in the castle, his previous thoughts resurfaced and he planned to rest in the caravan.

Time to see if you can find anything inside the castle.

In addition, while the Spiritual Network was searching the castle, it also carefully searched the caravan. He did this mainly because he wanted to know whether the caravan secretly transported the page of knowledge from the Thirteen Ancient Gods of Madman.

pages of the book.

However, before the investigation, he already knew the result, because whether he had just joined the caravan or when the caravan was stationed in the Xiaogusi Desert, he had repeatedly used the spiritual network to check the caravan's situation. If it was true,

It was impossible for him to find the pages containing the knowledge of the ancient gods, so it was obvious that the pages transported were not in this caravan, but in other caravans.

Just as his inspection of the caravan found no abnormalities, the nearly destroyed castle also found no abnormalities under his inspection of the spiritual network.

For this reason, he took out the survey instrument again and checked the map. This area on the map was still blank, and the same blank area was the top of Quinsis Snow Mountain.

Leo was not in a hurry to explore the castle now. He was resting in the tent while carefully recalling the past legends about this castle that Sanz had mentioned to him before.

Although in legends many people got into trouble because they stayed overnight in the castle, there is a loophole in these legends, that is, if accidents happened to everyone who stayed overnight in the castle, how did these legends spread?
Chapter completed!