After enjoying a lavish dinner and a comfortable night's rest, everyone boarded Ovelia's airship early the next morning and flew deep into the mountains.
Fortunately, the weather was good that day. There were no fierce winds or blizzards, and the sky was clear, making the flight quite smooth. Reaching their destination on foot would probably have taken at least half a month, but the airship carried them deep into the mountains in just a few hours.
"We're here, Mr. Li Wei."
Standing beside a window, Ovelia spoke, and the others gathered around curiously to look. Below them, not far ahead, lay a valley nestled among the mountains. Mountains enclosed it on three sides, leaving only an eastern entrance. Within the valley, Li Wei could just make out a building buried beneath the white snow.
In fact, if Ovelia hadn't specifically pointed it out, Li Wei would probably have struggled to spot the monastery amid all that white.
Incidentally, Li Wei and Annie had already examined the map Ovelia had seized from the Luddites. Unfortunately, it offered no information about this place. Someone had merely circled the monastery's location and scrawled a single word beside it-offering.
The map didn't say what was to be offered, and neither did the Luddites. Some who couldn't withstand the torture did reveal that, every so often, certain members of the organization would pack their bags and head deep into the mountains. They were never seen again.
No one knew where they had gone or what they had gone there to do.
Perhaps their leader alone had known, but before the guards and police could arrest him, he had set his house on fire and shot himself.
"Where are we landing?"
"Over there."
Ovelia pointed to a clearing a short distance outside the valley. Just then,