Pillar of Yita

But Tata shook her head: ”Judging from the tone it used when it spoke to you, it doesn’t seem so, unless it intended to mislead you. It knows Tantance, and they should be from the same era; it might even be older than Tantance.”

”But that doesn’t make sense,” Fang Hong scratched his head, ”There are red circles around both Chris and Maryland’s names, they are from two different generations, so what connection could they possibly have? Considering Chris’s age, Maryland might not even have been born when she was alive.”

Miss Fairy was about to turn back when she suddenly heard a sharp brass whistle from afar.

Fang Hong looked in that direction and realized that he had already delayed too much time here, and the City Defense Force was very close. He quickly packed up his notes and immediately said to Miss Fairy beside him, ”We need to pack this up and leave this place first.”

”Wait a moment, Mr. Knight.” But Tata called out to him.

Fang Hong was startled, and his hand naturally stopped.

Tata flew up and pushed aside the notebook in his hand, flipping straight to the last few pages. Fang Hong saw the text recorded on those pages, involuntarily stunned for a moment — those pages contained scrawled symbols that didn’t form any characters:

He initially thought these were mistakes made by the official in a fright before being attacked, meaningless. But Miss Fairy pointed at these symbols, calmly saying to him, ”Mr. Knight, these are shorthand symbols used in the Underground World; I can translate them—”

”Miss Tata?”

”This is a brief note indicating that the other party hid something somewhere.” Miss Fairy said after one glance.

Fang Hong hadn’t expected such a discovery in the end, and couldn’t help but be grateful he brought Miss Tata along. Given the careful record of this information, the hidden thing must be extraordinary. He couldn’t help but ask, ”Where is that thing hidden?”

Miss Tata’s gaze fell on the bookshelf.

Fang Hong understood her intent, took a step to the bookshelf, counted down from the top to the third level, counted from the left to the seventh book, and pulled out a book from there without time to look at it, because the shrill whistle was already echoing on Cold Raven Street. He just stuffed the book into his arms, glanced back once — the silhouettes of the City Defense Force had already appeared at the other end of the street.

Seizing the moment before they noticed him, he forcefully blew on the bookshelf, raising dust to prevent leaving fingerprints and not letting them discover any clues. As for footprints, he couldn’t be bothered anymore; he had wrapped a layer of cloth before coming, presumably leaving no traces.

After doing all this, Fang Hong leapt into the stairwell, swung with a grappling hook, and deftly crashed through a window, rolling out the back door. He hurriedly rushed through several remaining structures, preparing to recall the Clockwork Fairy from the sky, and turn into a nearby block.

But just at that moment, he unexpectedly ran into two people head-on.

And when Fang Hong looked, who else could it be but Sophie and Xi.

Only Xi was still behind, while Sophie saw him first — this Princess of the Silver Weslan, her face pale, showed a relieved expression upon seeing him, almost fainting with a sway.

Fang Hong quickly stepped forward to support her, then saw the mountain girl holding a cyan long spear with a cold face walking up from behind — she glared at him coldly, and he hurriedly handed the Little Princess in his arms to the latter, whose face relaxed a little.

”What happened?” Fang Hong couldn’t help but ask.

Previously, they diverted those Undead Vultures, theoretically posing no threat to them, so how did it come to this?

Then Sophie slowly opened her eyes: ”Encountered some mysterious people in black robes; if I’m not mistaken, they were Dragon Worshippers.”

”Dragon Worshippers!?” Fang Hong exclaimed in shock: ”You happened to bump into them while leaving?”

”No,” Sophie weakly shook her head: ”We ran into their arrival, fortunately I had some skills, otherwise Xi and I would have been done for.”

”Arrival?”

Fang Hong didn’t quite understand, but he realized that being pursued by the City Defense Force from behind and blocked by Dragon Worshippers ahead was not a time to discuss these matters. He glanced at Sophie and asked, ”Are you okay?”

”I’m fine,” Sophie smiled, a little joyfully: ”Just a bit exhausted.”

What’s there to be happy about? Fang Hong looked at her somewhat puzzled.

But the Little Princess of Silver Weslan winked at him: ”I caught someone from the Shadow Throne, this time I got proof with a screenshot. It’s solid evidence.”

So that’s why. Fang Hong was also delighted in his heart; no wonder the Princess was so happy. They’ve been trying to catch the Shadow Throne in a mistake along the way, and to find irrefutable proof under such circumstances was unexpected. It was a case of ”searching high and low only to find it with little effort,” and if they can prove those in black are truly Dragon Worshippers, then the Shadow Throne would be thoroughly finished.

But Fang Hong suddenly remembered the dealings of the Dragonfire Guild and the Rain Listener, and couldn’t help but remind: ”By the way, Miss Sophie — don’t reveal anything yet.” They had to prevent the other party from pulling a similar move; if they couldn’t uproot the New Southern Border Alliance in one go, given the opponent’s underground capability,

it would still be a catastrophe—

And Sophie, of course, understood this, only rolling her eyes at him: ”Do I need you to tell me? I already considered it.” But she still nodded.