Avalanche and Eerie
The first team, leading the way, was personally led by the Stillwater Knight of Still Water.
As for the middle and rear teams that followed closely behind, they were respectively commanded by the Lantern Knight and the Morning Bell Knight.
The heavy carriage carrying Lu Yuan, Blanca, Harvey, Leon, and the tall new member Karin was currently positioned in the last two teams led by the Lantern Knight and the Morning Bell Knight.
The heavy wheels rolled over the snow-covered mountain road, making a series of dull, monotonous rumbling sounds. The entire convoy braved the wind and snow, traveling day and night for more than a day.
By the second night, it was completely dark outside. The wind whipped up snowflakes that lashed against the tightly closed windows. After more than a day of bumpy travel, everyone in the carriage was exhausted, both physically and mentally. They wrapped their coats tightly around themselves and leaned against the wooden walls of the carriage, closing their eyes to rest.
Lu Yuan also leaned back on the soft cushion in the corner, pretending to doze off. After more than a day of marching at full speed, the entire convoy had now entered the valley area flanked by towering snow-capped peaks. Directly ahead was the vital crossroads leading to Watch City and the other major cities in the Northern Territory.
Just as the Stillwater Knight led the first caravan through that crucial fork in the road, Oden, who had been silent all the way in Lu Yuan's left leg, suddenly sensed something, and a slightly grave voice suddenly rang in Lu Yuan's mind:
"Be careful, something seems to have been activated beneath the snow nearby. Something's not right!"
Lu Yuan suddenly opened his eyes, his right hand instinctively pressing against the Flame at his waist, and turned his head to look out through the crack in the car window.
Almost at the same instant Oden finished speaking, strange dark red Formation Patterns lit up without warning on the snow-covered ground at the fork in the road ahead and beneath the towering snow cliffs on both sides.
Immediately afterwards, the snow on the mountain peaks above the entire canyon collapsed with a deafening roar. The terrifying avalanche, carrying countless frozen soil and boulders, crashed down from the sky like the sky itself collapsing!
The deafening roar instantly swallowed the howling of the wind and snow. The cascading, massive snow wave completely buried and blocked the main road ahead of the fork in the road in the blink of an eye, creating a thick snow wall more than ten meters high, cutting off the first team of Stillwater Knight who had just passed the intersection from the two teams of Lantern Knight and Morning Bell Knight behind them!
The sudden avalanche forced the two leading Northern Territory warhorses at the rear to rear up, neighing in panic. The entire long caravan was forced to stop behind the snow wall, accompanied by the screeching of brakes.
Before the intercepted convoy could catch its breath, a series of mournful wolf howls suddenly rang out from the deep, dark snow-capped Snow Mountain on both sides. The sound pierced through the billowing snow and echoed endlessly in the valley. Immediately afterwards, a group of eyes with red and green glows rushed down the dark Snow Mountain- capped mountain slopes like madmen, heading straight for the heavy convoy stopped on the road!
"Enemy attack! All personnel on alert! Turn all vehicle lights to maximum brightness!"
A chorus of decisive shouts and warnings immediately rang out outside the convoy. Blanca, Harvey, Leon, and Karin, who had been resting with their eyes closed in exhaustion inside the carriage, were instantly awakened and grabbed their weapons to stand up.
Blanca immediately pushed open a crack in the window and looked outside, her expression slightly grim as she spoke:
"The main road ahead is blocked by an avalanche, and the Stillwater Knight's team is now separated from us!"
Just as Blanca spoke, all the Alchemy Lamp embedded in the exterior of the carriages of the entire convoy were simultaneously activated to their brightest point. The dazzling white beams of light pierced the darkness, illuminating the snow-covered slopes and mountain roads ravaged by the blizzard as if it were daytime.
Looking through the sudden burst of bright light, one could see a large pack of Snow-faced Wolf, starving for who knows how long, charging down the slopes of the Snow Mountain on both sides.
These strange beasts, originally belonging to the low-danger, cosmopolitan group in the Northern Territory, now had sunken bellies, exuded a nauseating stench and a frenzied hunger, and each Snow-faced Wolf bore a chilling, grotesque mark of mutation.
Some of the Snow-faced Wolf had tiny, wriggling, dark red fleshy tentacles emerging from their red-green, ferocious eye sockets, which swung wildly in the cold wind as they ran.
Some of the Snow-faced Wolf had large, rotten, torn pieces of flesh on their bodies, with their white ribs and frozen, purple internal organs exposed beneath the rolled-up, blackened skin. Even though their bodies were in such a state of disarray, they seemed to feel no pain, opening their fangs dripping with foul-smelling black saliva and lunging at the nearest carriage!
Faced with this pack of hungry Snow-faced Wolf that charged ahead, the regular knights and trainees in the carriage didn't even need to rush out to fight. All the attendants sitting on the carriage shafts and the accompanying support staff immediately drew their long swords.
It should be noted that the attendants who were included in the logistics and horse-riding teams of the North Campus were all first or second-tier Transcendence beings with solid foundations. At this moment, dozens of long swords were drawn simultaneously under the bright lights, and the sharp blades slashed down fiercely at the oncoming wolf pack.
With a muffled thud as flesh was pierced and a shrill wail followed, the first wave of mutated Snow-faced Wolf charging at the forefront were cleanly and swiftly cut down in pools of blood by the servants and support personnel.
However, just as the servants outside had dealt with the Snow-faced Wolf, the dark red Formation Patterns pattern remaining beneath the canyon floor suddenly surged again, and a strong, pungent, gray-black Contamination odor spread through the cracks in the snow. Immediately afterward, a second wave of highly dangerous and eerie phenomena poured out from Fang Yuan!
Suddenly, the thick snowdrift on the side of the caravan exploded with a loud bang, and several slender, gray-white figures leaped out from under the snow and glided towards the roof of the carriage. Lu Yuan recognized them at a glance as the Ice Skull, whom he had emphasized in the Frostcrow Knight's Eerie Ecology class.
These Ice Skull that emerge from the snow are not numerous. They retain Human Form silhouette, are half a head taller than an average adult, and have shriveled, grayish-white skin that clings tightly to their bones. Their oval feet have forked, sharp claws at the front, and the nails on their slender fingers reveal a deadly, venomous black bone beneath.
What's most striking is their Gray-White Skull, which are a size larger than normal and whose facial Flesh is completely frozen.
A Second Order attendant standing guard beside the carriage reacted swiftly, slashing his sword at the chest of Ice Skull that was lunging at him. However, the heavily wounded Ice Skull did not die immediately upon landing. Instead, the frozen flesh at its neck emitted a teeth-grinding tearing sound. Its larger, Gray-White Skull abandoned its tattered torso, and a terrifyingly large jaw split open from its lower jaw, launching itself into the air like a cannonball, heading straight for the attendant's head.