After all, it was just a city-wide move—Annan only sat on the subway for more than 20 minutes before being taken off the subway by the teacher.
When you exit the subway station here, you are already at the gate of the Grand Duke's Palace.
This actually surprised Annan...
The Grand Duke of Winter... would actually allow the subway station to open one of its platforms in front of his home like this?
Doesn't he mind the noise? There are so many people coming and going from the subway station. Even though it is still some distance away from the entrance of the Grand Duke's Palace, it is already very noisy.
Moreover, with so many people coming and going, safety cannot be guaranteed...
Annan noticed that the residence where the Duke of Winter lived was much smaller than the palace of Noah.
The entire Grand Duke's Palace looks like a square rectangle. From the outside, it is only about as wide as a street, with only about forty or fifty windows on each floor.
It is only three stories high, and there is a fourth story at the far end, forming a white spire.
There are many circular columns arranged outside. There is a column about every three or four windows. Each column rotates the wall about five degrees. Therefore, the overall shape is a flat arc that bulges outward.
Annan followed the teacher towards a narrow door on the right.
The old man stretched out his right hand and gently knocked on the heavy black iron door with a ring exuding cold air.
With a muffled sound, the narrow metal door, which was no more than two people wide, automatically opened inward.
"Enter."
The old man replied briefly, and then walked in with Annan.
Annan followed closely behind the old man - she didn't see any movement from the old man, but after she passed by, the door automatically closed again.
...Excellent, the automatic door is okay.
Annan muttered something in his mind.
After passing through a narrow corridor with relief murals on the walls and ceiling and metal soldier statues on both sides, Annan followed the old man and walked out of the side door in front.
Here is a small garden.
Annan could see that there was a small fountain in the middle. From the fountain, a white trace extended to the east, west, north and south, dividing the ground into four rectangles.
This place is relatively wide, roughly like an ordinary-sized city square. It is much larger than it looks from the outside... and there are even ten gates on all four sides, which is not a partial gate.
The innermost building should be the residence of Duke Winter.
Where is the old grandmother sleeping?
Is it at the back of that building?
Or underground?
Annan remembered that when his grandmother hibernated, she slept in the form of a giant dragon... But the residence of the Duke of Winter was too small. He even doubted whether a dragon could be crammed into it.
That is, it is slightly larger than the Viscount's Palace in Rossburg - just a little bit, and that's still counting the office area.
Of course, Annan also understood the Duke of Winter...after all, the natural conditions of winter were different from Noah's.
The city of the Principality of Winter is built based on the constant temperature barrier. The area that can be lived in is not large. If too much area is occupied by the Duke of Winter and his family, the number of civilians that can be accommodated will be even less.
In order to allow more people to survive.
Even the residences of the nobles were very cramped.
Annan could even see the desk inside from the window - obviously, even if it is the Grand Duke's Palace, the three buildings outside are obviously common to government office buildings.
The only place where Grand Duke Winter can really live is this four-story, one-street-long area. And this is probably the only residence of the Coldong family...
Now it seems that maybe the "Hands of Winter" also live here.
For the ruler's family, this is too cramped. The Grand Duke's residence is so cramped that it is even less spacious than a viscount's.
Travelers from other countries can't help but compare their own country's royal palaces with it, and are complacent, thinking that their country is bigger than the Principality of Winter.
But the people in Winter are not ashamed of it - on the contrary, they are proud of it.
Because they have leaders who truly love their people like sons.
This is the most proud thing.
"——Stand up, Annan."
At this moment, Annan suddenly heard someone calling his name.
She reflexively looked over there.
Only to find that there were two people standing there.
One of them is Dmitri, whom Annan had met in "Nightmare: The Great Hunt"... and the other person is the young Annan.
He looks very similar to Maria, except that his hair is very short, only reaching his shoulders. Maria's hair hangs down to her waist...other than that, there is almost no difference between them.
In their hands, one of them holds a sharpened sword - yes, it is not a wooden sword or a training sword, but a metal sword that has been sharpened and can be used in actual combat. The only difference is that Annan holds the sword with both hands.
Dmitry only held the sword in his right hand, with his left hand in his pocket.
The young Annan coughed softly once or twice, stared closely at Dmitri, and quickly got up from the ground.
"Come again!"
"Young Annan" did not look back at her, but just made a cold voice.
That voice put Annan in a daze for a moment... He vaguely even thought it was Maria from "Nightmare: The White Tower".
After all, Annan hears his own voice differently from hearing the voices of others speaking.
The next moment, what surprised Annan was——
I saw a burst of crystal-colored cold light shining from the tip of Dmitri's sword.
As the sword blade circulated, a trace of frost was left in the air that was visible to the naked eye. The crystal-colored traces dragged in the air, creating elegant traces.
——That’s frost swordsmanship!
Annan recognized him instantly.
It is completely different from the frost sword technique used by Annan himself——
Dmitri's steps were like fencing, moving back and forth rhythmically.
The blade of young Annan's sword was soon stained with pale white traces of frost swordsmanship...but it was only at level 1, and only shallow traces of frost could be seen that were almost invisible to the naked eye.
As if using a giant sword, the young Annan rotated the sword over his head like a helicopter while lowering his body and lunging forward calmly.
This is the [Guard Swordsmanship] that Annan is good at!
But Dmitri's steps flickered like a phantom in front of Annan's eyes.
As he took a step back, he stretched out his long sword and pointed it at young Annan's sword.
The frost marks stuck the two swords together. While retreating, Dmitri easily broke the balance of Annan's steps, causing young Annan to fall forward. The long sword that was originally protecting his head was stuck to him.
, and threw it to his waist.
And then, Dmitri took a step forward with his backhand and pointed the shimmering sword blade at the neck of young Annan!
——This is absolutely unavoidable!
The young Annan was in an unbalanced state, and even seemed to take the initiative to meet him... How could he avoid this blow?
At this moment, Annan subconsciously took a step forward.
It’s not that I want to “save myself”.
It's just subconscious, I don't want to see a child die during training...
But the old man reached out to hold her shoulders down.
"...?"
Don't wait for Annan to ask.
Then he saw that young Annan was like a cunning young wolf, and then he instantly crouched down with unbalanced strength and stood still on both feet. At the same time, he spread out a hand and slapped Dmitri on the inner wrist of his right hand from bottom to top.
.
The mysterious technique of pressing the weight of his body up made Dmitri's grip on the sword somewhat looser.
At the same time, young Annan suddenly spun his whole body in a circle - it was more like throwing away than cutting.
A blow with full spiral force caused Annan's sword body to collide with Dmitri's sword body, and the sword in Dmitri's hand was instantly knocked away!
——This is [Disarm]!
Annan realized it immediately.
This is one of the initial skills that Annan mastered.
But for Annan, "disarming" is just a technique of using skill to force the opponent to release his weapon when the opponent reveals a flaw...it doesn't have to be so fancy at all.
...absolutely amazing!
Did I have so much combat experience in my young form?
But just when Annan thought "he" was going to win.
Dmitri suddenly turned sideways and took a step forward.
Frost marks spread silently from Dmitry's feet to the ground. His slender legs penetrated the knee socket of Annan's right leg, and he hooked Annan to stagger forward and stepped on the ice.
It was just an extremely light and seemingly effortless side kick, and the young Annan, who was holding a long sword, was "flying" up - Annan was directly stuck to the knee socket by Dmitri's leg, and the whole person was lifted off the ground.
More than half a meter.
Then the young Annan fell to the ground in great embarrassment.
And the frost marks on the ground returned to Dmitri's feet again.
He lightly kicked his sword blade and held it in his hand again.
"Stand up, Annan."
He spoke again.
Young Annan took a few breaths and climbed up again.
Zhen Annan next to him was dumbfounded.
No wonder Annan fell to the ground during the swordsmanship competition...