Elisa's gaze patrolled through a hillside at twilight, then over a spruce forest, finally spotting the Invokers guarded by the undead on the clearing. After a moment, she saw a troll pacing back and forth at the edge of the forest in another direction.

She then withdrew her gaze, quietly returned to the bushes, picked up the Communication Crystal, and reported, "Captain, I've reached the location."

"Proceed with the original plan, he's already entered the mine, be cautious." Fang Hong's voice came from the other side.

"Got it."

Elisa looked around to both sides, then cautiously arched her body like a lynx, leaping down the side of a low slope. Between two massive rocks, she hid, disappearing into the dark shrubbery behind.

The process was silent, and the distant spruce forest was quiet and still.

The entrance to the mine—

Snow had almost buried most of the entrance, but someone had recently dug a hole, the edge overgrown with weeds, leading into a yawning darkness.

The 'Messenger' stood at the entrance edge, instructing the Undead Guard to raise the resin torch in hand—undead creatures might have Dark Vision, but the Undead Wizard did not—and the Illumination Crystal, being an Alchemy tool, was unusable for the undead.

The torch fire illuminated a small area, but it was enough to outline the entrance's contours, and the 'Messenger' looked up at the decades-old wooden beams sagging under the strain, collapsed. The iron hooks above, once where mine lamps hung, now lay bare.

Several rusty rails buried in the snow stretched into the dark depths.

He looked at those rails, inwardly musing that his judgment wasn't wrong, this entrance even when intact was impossible for Mountain Kou Ke to get through.

But the Undead Wizard himself was weak, and his summons too clumsy, Mountain Kou Ke was a great help to him, he was well aware of this. However, previous testing yielded no results, the obtained information was vague—the only certainty was that letting those people go in wouldn't provide any results, only wasting his precious Magic Power in vain.

Dusk was approaching, he didn't have time to dawdle here, and at the thought of things that might appear under the moonlight, he had to personally investigate—aiming to finish before the Silver Moon rises.

Four Black Swordsmen guarded him on all sides.

He also had a tall ghoul—Corpse Devourer, an Advanced undead, Level twenty-three, one of his strongest forces besides Mountain Kou Ke.

Of course, keeping a distance, the Undead Wizard himself wasn't weak, plus he held the power of 'that lord.' After carefully considering his hand, the 'Messenger' felt a little settled, then ordered the Black Swordsmen to move forward.

As they delved deeper into the mine, the temperature seemed to get colder, though this had no effect on the undead and the Undead Wizard, they faintly sensed a perpetual chill pervading the mine over the years.

The 'Messenger' turned back, looking around. The Undead Wizard was very sensitive to the Dark Aura of Necromancy Spells, and this aura somewhat eased his mind—it was indeed the aura left by Undead Spells, and not just any ordinary spell...

Ordinary Undead Spells were hardly capable of creating such effects.

As an Undead Wizard, he knew his colleagues well, only strong spells could leave traces like this.

Only then was he somewhat convinced. It seemed that annoying Little Fatty was right, the Sorcerer-Ghoul really hid below. And he knew a bit about Aimumu Fortress, just as he knew about this mine.

This gold mine once dominated the rise of Masongke, which was roughly decades after Aimumu Fortress was abandoned, when gold seekers discovered this vein—drawing in adventurers and a gold rush.

But thirty or forty years ago, the vein gradually dried up, and as people dug deeper, rumors spread of opening a path to hell.

After that, strange events occurred frequently, rumors of haunting came from the mine, and inviting adventurers proved futile, with many even disappearing or dying. Later, the notoriety of the Blood Thistle Woods and the castle above it spread, and it became as it is today—

However, he inwardly sneered at these rumors, dismissing them, knowing that what people unearthed was no path to hell, but the castle's large underground passages.

He knew all too well what lay beneath those passages.

If that Sorcerer-Ghoul was really down here, that item likely fell into its hands. The 'Messenger' was clear about the other party's true identity and felt no excessive tension, only taking out a silver snuffbox from his robe to hold in hand.

Though Dolifen's group failed to achieve their goals, they didn't leave empty-handed.

"It's a pity the Scepter of Pride fell into the hands of those Tabopolis people, what a waste..." the 'Messenger' thought to himself.

Due to the slow transmission of information, especially for those like them who returned to the civilized world only once every few months, many were unaware that the real orchestrator in the Dolifen Fantasy back then was an obscure young man.

Therefore, they only blamed the Tabopolis Knights Order.

Of course, he was even less aware.

In the uncertain torchlight, not far below a crack in the rock wall, a pair of lifeless eyes from a Construct were watching him pass through this section of the mine.

Deep inside the mine.

The light from the Illumination Crystal had long extinguished.

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