Hiss and rattle—
The knight Hayden, temporarily playing the role of coachman, pulled hard on the reins with his robust arms, and the carriage gradually came to a stop.
Four European-style columns supported the grand entrance, its top covered with a layer of pristine snow.
This was the front of a small theater in the East District of Chaniuka City.
At this moment, the Yili Knight Order of the King fully surrounded the location, with fully armed and vigilant knights standing not only outside the doors but also beneath every wall.
Wild stepped down from the carriage.
"Your Highness, Wild."
The heavily armored leader of the Yili Knight Order led Wild towards the inside of the theater.
Hayden closely followed by his side.
Ivan and Anthony followed behind them.
Stepping through the grand and spacious entrance hall, they were immediately met with a long and dimly lit corridor.
The towering figure of the Knight Order's leader nearly filled the entire passageway.
Wild, wearing a triangular crown, followed closely behind; his expression was calm, but there was a tinge of anxiousness in his eyes.
The Yili Kingdom had been established for five hundred years now, facing countless supernatural incidents, large and small. Just the archives alone held records of more than a hundred such events.
Still, even by those standards, the crazed and bizarre nature of this incident ranked near the top.
He cast an almost imperceptible glance back at Ivan and Anthony, who were closely following, and he silently sighed to himself.
"Your Majesty, we have arrived," the leader of the Knight Order said softly, turning his head back before pushing open the narrow yellow door at the end of the corridor.
What met their eyes was a spacious semicircular hall with rows of orderly red cushioned chairs, while wall-mounted butter candles in chandeliers emitted a dim yellow light.
Wild and his party stepped out from the passage.
"Lord Ivan, Lord Anthony, please look," Wild said, stepping aside to give room and gesturing toward Ivan and the others with his raised arm.
"This...?!"
Upon seeing the sight that Wild was pointing to, Ivan and Anthony's pupils constricted in unison.
On the broad, natural wood-colored stage at the front of the hall, a conical tower made of numerous twisted and entwined limbs and body parts was built up, its top covered with countless bloodied eyeballs.
"The Tower of Conor Reeves…" Ivan murmured, then instinctively asked Anthony beside him.
Though it had been a long time since he left the School, he still remembered most of his knowledge... Such distinctive characteristics of the tower of flesh and eyes before him allowed him to decisively determine it was indeed the Tower of Conor Reeves.
"It's not certain, let's check again carefully," Anthony said with a grave face.
Ivan nodded, and together with Anthony, they quickly stepped onto the stage.
The dim yellow light illuminated the stage as they took turns casting spells.
"Fine Vision," "Detect Evil," "Reveal Traces"...
The strange glimmers continually emanated from their hands, revolving around the Tower of Conor Reeves on the stage and flickering.
They also illuminated Wild's calm face, yet the bulging veins on his right hand clutching the ground with his scepter exposed his worried heart.
...
Snowflakes were swirling down.
In the Palace, there was a garden.
In the center of the white pentagonal pavilion, Connie, wrapped in a thick white cloak, was absentmindedly admiring the snow scene.
The garden that used to be vivid and colorful was now a sheer white as far as the eye could see. The flowers were white, the grass was white, and even the shrubs and she herself were white.
After a little while.
Suddenly.
Swish.
A figure abruptly descended from the sky.
Clang!
The female Knight behind Connie swiftly drew the sharp arrow from her waist, stepped forward quickly, and shielded her behind her own body.
Through the gap created by the female Knight's silhouette, a look of surprise flashed across Connie's eyes.
She stood up and gestured for the female knight to step back, asking the figure in suspicion,
"Sir Colin, why have you returned?"
"After bidding you farewell, I rode my horse toward the outskirts of the city, and just as I was about to leave, both mine and the maid's horses suddenly fell dead on the ground," Colin said succinctly, his voice grave.
"The horses... suddenly fell dead?" Connie asked, puzzled as she handed Colin a steaming cup of red tea, "But the horses from the Royal Horse Farm are regularly checked..."
Colin waved his hand, declining the red tea Connie offered, and didn't respond to her comment, but quickly said,
"Connie, I've come to ask you to prepare two more horses for me, and I can pay a reward."
"Of course," Connie answered without hesitation, then added with a smile, "but there's no need for a reward, Sir Colin."
"Hmm," Colin nodded, not wasting time with refusals.
Seeing him accept her offer, Connie smiled joyously and then asked, "So, Sir Colin, shall we go now to choose them?"
"No," Colin shook his head, "This time I won't pick them myself. Just choose two similar to the ones before."
"Then, right now..."
Colin didn't answer her question but instead fixed his gaze on Connie and asked in a deep voice, "Connie, do you know where that wizard we encountered in the stables today is now?"
At his words, a flicker of doubt and unease crossed the depths of Connie's eyes, but within a second, she managed to contain these emotions.
Matters between wizards ought to be handled amongst themselves. She was curious, indeed, but she also knew what was appropriate to ask and what wasn't.
"You mean Lord Anthony…," she pondered with a frown and then slowly surmised, "If I am not mistaken, he should be with my father in a small theater in the East District."
Then she described in detail the location of the theater.
"Hmm," Colin nodded, ready to turn and leave.
"Wait... Sir Colin."
It was then that Connie suddenly called out to him.
She quickly gave a few instructions to the female knight beside her and then turned to Colin, asking:
"May I accompany you?"
She hadn't asked anything, but she already had suspicions forming in her mind.
The sudden death of Colin's horse, as well as his urgent inquiry about Anthony's whereabouts... It was hard for her not to connect the two events.
The truth was as she suspected.
After the horse collapsed, Colin initially detected nothing out of the ordinary.
But later, under the influence of the Foolishness Scepter, he had still managed to reveal some traces.
The death of the horses was neither natural nor caused by poisoning; it seemed more like a witchcraft curse...
"You may," Colin glanced at Connie, seizing her arm.
"Be ready," he whispered.
Before the sound of his voice faded,
Whoosh!
He took off into the sky with Connie.
Air currents swept up and disturbed the fluttering snowflakes in the air.
In the sky.
Connie's eyes widened as she looked down at the grid-like buildings of Chaniuka City covered by white snow... These familiar structures, from a new perspective, offered her a wholly different feeling.
Perhaps it was because her blood was naturally filled with an adventurous spirit; in the sky, she felt not fear, but irrepressible excitement.
As for Colin beside her, such scenes were commonplace... Moreover, he was not in the mood to appreciate the view.
The biting cold wind struck his face, but his expression seemed even colder.
A moment later.
"Sir Colin, there's the theater!" Connie pointed toward a building below.
Colin looked in the direction of her pointing finger.
A modest-sized theater came into view.
He adjusted their course, diving swiftly downward.