Age of Adepts

"Has there been any activity around here lately?"

Standing atop a date red high horse, Catherine was clad in a bright silver colored fine armor that increasingly set off her graceful lines and lithe physique.

Although from the looks of it Catherine's body was very slim, and even appeared a bit weak. However, when she wore a full set of steel armor and wielded a great sword to attack the enemy, she would immediately become a powerful lion, even stronger than the male knights in her boldness.

In the meantime, when she raised her curved eyebrows and her face was filled with sadness, the few trainee knights following her side became more and more puzzled.

"Lord Catherine, what exactly are you sorrowful about?" A young trainee knight asked with boldness, "Those witch remnants have been forced by us into the jungle near Black Mountain City, so if we search patiently, we will definitely find their hiding place. Seeing that the situation is good, why are you still worried?"

Catherine shook her head in confusion.

"You haven't seen the ferocity of the Otherworldly Wizards with your own eyes, you have no idea of the terrifying power they possess. I...I..." here, Catherine couldn't help but shiver lightly, as if she had remembered something terrible.

"You mean... the Battle of Harkans City!" The trainee knights asked probing questions.

As Catherine's close guards, they naturally knew something about the several brutal wars she had experienced.

According to legend, Catherine was originally a member of the Holy Light Chapel in Harkans City. When the place fell into the clutches of a sorcerer, Catherine, as a trainee knight, dared to step forward and save dozens of her companions from the hands of the dreadful sorcerer.

It was because of this experience that she was sent to the south by the high ranking Paladins to participate in the siege of the witch remnants after the destruction of Harkans city. And Catherine apparently was not intimidated by the witch's ferocity, but instead broke out with twelve thousand courage, and managed to survive to the end in a brutal war against a 2nd rank witch, and killed the 2nd rank witch.

And it was during that battle that she received a bountiful amount of holy light feedback, leaping to become a Black Iron Knight in one fell swoop!

Speaking of Catherine's experience, everyone present was familiar with her, and thus understood her sentimentality extraordinarily well. Anyone whose familiar partner and friend were buried in a battle would become as melancholy and hardened as she was.

"Don't talk about me..." said Kathryn, who quickly got over her sentimentality, "Tell us about the recent witchy developments! What has happened to the monsters that appeared in the north of the Empire now?"

Another young trainee knight, also full of young faces, argued, "I know that. That group of monsters is really terrifying, possessing a terrifying plague contagion effect, and the common people are simply unable to withstand their attacks. But fortunately, the two Holy Knights were near the infected area where the monsters broke out, and promptly took action to seal them off on Redundunda. I heard that the two holy knight lords had already slaughtered nearly half of the monsters in their turns, which is why the terrifying epidemic didn't spread!"

"What about...that...demon hiding underneath the volcano in Gonsas?" At this point, Catherine's body was trembling a little, as if she didn't even dare to mention that demon's name.

"I don't know! In order to find out how those demons fought, the Northern Division had lost another elite squad. Unfortunately, even then they hadn't found where those demons had gone. However, since that group of terrifying plague monsters had appeared in Red Cloud Land, I'm afraid those demons couldn't be far away. The reason why the two divine knight lords are keeping a close eye on that place is probably with that in mind."

Catherine shook her head in distress.

"Lord Holy Knight shouldn't have abandoned this place! I always had a feeling that the plague monster outbreak in the north causing chaos was just a tactic used by the other side. And their real target... is most likely us here!"

"Us here?" Several of the trainee knights looked at me and me at you, feeling a little incredulous, "You mean, that terrible demon will come here to join the witches?"

"I don't know, I really don't know. I'm so confused right now, and I always feel like I can vaguely sense some danger, but I can't tell where it's coming from. I..."

Kathryn was struggling in anguish when a tall mist of dust suddenly rose from the distant grey-white dirt road, and a few fast horses shouted all the way into the barracks and made their way to the central tent. It was impossible to hear what they were shouting from afar, but wherever they passed, a large number of Paladins and Imperial Warriors got out of the tent and looked like they were talking and rubbing their fists.

"It's the team that went to the north to scout the area!" A trainee knight took a closer look to identify it and said with steep arousal, "They must have come back with some valuable information if they suddenly ran back!"

No one spoke to him anymore, and a group of people galloped down the high slope and quickly made their way to the central tent.

By the time they arrived at the center of the camp, a large number of Paladins had already gathered around the tent. First there was much talk, then they asked around, and soon Catherine figured out the reason why they were so excited.

The lair of the witch's remnants had been found!

The witch's lair was hidden deep within the Poisoned Swamp as expected.

The Paladin team that was sent to investigate near the Poison Swamp was lucky enough to catch a rank 1 witch who was trying to escape from another region and found out the exact location of the witch's lair from her.

What's more, the remnants of the witches seemed to have the intention of abandoning that lair, and were desperately gathering nearby witches to rush to join them. It was said that they were planning to abandon it and abscond to the north to join forces with the plague monsters that were causing trouble there.

Hearing such important information, the three golden knights sitting in the central tent didn't dare to delay, sending someone to Blackwater City to get the four golden knights there to rush over to support them, while quickly gathering and dispatching holy knights, preparing to gather the strongest team to give the enemy a plowing.

The enemy's attempt to escape from the Poisoned Swamp, huh, is delusional!

Somehow, seeing the many companions around her looking like they were shaking their fists and preparing to make it through, Catherine's heart was inexplicably very terrified.

The first thing you need to do is to take a look at the newest version of the newest version of the newest version.

The Poisoned Swamp was also a relatively well-known and dangerous place near Black Mountain City!

It was located in a low basin, about seven or eight miles wide from north to south and eleven or twelve miles long from east to west, filled with foul-smelling mud and puddles of terrible swamp.

Mist pine flowers grew everywhere in the basin, producing a large amount of poisonous gas in the humid environment.

It was precisely because it was so terrifying that the locals around Black Mountain City almost never dared to take a step near the poisonous swamp. Only for a few days in June every year, the sun shines brightly through the forest and sea into the poisonous swamp to disperse the poisonous fog there.

Taking advantage of such a good opportunity, the local mountain dwellers dare to break into it to pick some exotic flowers and plants that are not found outside. Therefore, only the older mountain folk could know a little bit about the terrain inside.

Therefore, the assembled Holy Knight team then sent a message to Black Mountain City, even more so, asking them to try their best to recruit those old medicine farmers who had gone inside the Poisoned Land Swamp.

.............

The Poisoned Earth Swamp.

Even on a bright daylight day, the basin where the Poison Land Swamp was located was still filled with a dense mist that was invisible to the eye.

There was no wind.

The mist was like a thick layer of gauze that firmly covered the sky above the basin, hiding everything within in the darkness that no one knew about.

Walking into the poisonous swamp, the place is full of gurgling and bubbling mud ponds and swamps, fishy and loose sludge with a thin layer of water plants growing on top, making it hard to tell where the solid mud is and where the soft mud is.

The forested mountainous terrain was difficult to navigate, and while a large number of Imperial soldiers were still trudging through the majestic mountains, the elite Paladins who had changed their light lock armor had already blocked off the few necessary places where the poisonous swamps led to the outside world.

Standing on a high mountain depression, looking down through the leafy forest, everyone was excited and nervous, not knowing which way the battle would develop next.

As long as the defenses of the Witch's Lair were broken, what could the remnants of the Witch, who were less than ten fingers in number, do?

A temporary battle camp was set up near the entrance to the basin.

A group of Paladins numbering up to three hundred and seventy gathered here, quietly waiting for the high ranking commanders to give their battle orders. As for the remaining four hundred or so trainee knights, they were leading the imperial warriors to keep a firm grip on the several dangerous terrains around them.

The poisonous fog inside the Poisonous Ground Swamp was simply not something ordinary people could resist, so the Imperial Warriors and Trainee Knights were left outside. The nearly four hundred Paladins, on the other hand, were assigned into more than twenty combat teams, led by the local medicine farmers who had been summoned to go deep within the swamp and clear out this last witch's lair.

Catherine's squad of fifteen people in total, led by two Silver Knights, lit torches and followed an old, but sturdy Medicine Farmer to the edge of the swamp slowly.

Before entering, the old medicine farmer used some red beans rolled in cloth from nowhere and tied under his nose, before carrying a long wooden stick and paused step by step into the swamp.

The poisonous swamp did not have any fixed lines at all, so every step needed to be taken with a wooden stick to probe the water and grass underneath, so it was extremely slow.