Swords, magic, and martial arts

For three days straight, the thick fog did not dissipate. Rhodes practiced the White Rainbow Sword Technique in the open space in front of the cabin. While he was practicing the White Rainbow Sword Technique, his proficiency in the basic sword technique was also constantly increasing. The White Rainbow Sword Technique did not level up, but the basic sword technique did level up to level 3. However, it did not gain any additional effects as Rhodes had previously thought.

It is estimated that the basic sword technique, like the Taizu Long Fist, is only at level 5 at its highest level, and additional effects can only be obtained at the highest level.

After the three people had eaten for three days, there wasn't much food left in the cabin. Rod and Ella both felt they couldn't just sit idly by and wait for their fate; they needed to find out the cause of the anomaly.

A few days ago, the lord hired some adventurers to search for his ancestor's tomb in the forest and dispel the magic circle inside to eliminate the abnormality of the wild beasts in the forest.

In the past few days, not a single adventurer had passed by the cabin, which made Rhodes feel very uneasy. If they were searching in the forest, there should have been at least a few people who would have taken this path.

After taking all the remaining food from the cabin, Ella led Rod and the others into the deepest part of the forest.

The deeper we went, the thinner the fog became; I couldn't tell if it was because the thick fog was dissipating or because we were getting closer to the depths of the forest.

"Let's head in the direction where the fog is thinning," Ella said.

Rhodes agreed with her idea. He used the Mageball from time to time along the way and found that as the fog thinned, the magic contained within it also decreased. It was only after Ella said that the dense fog was actually magic that he used the Mageball to discover that every tiny droplet inside it truly contained magic, and it was this magic that blocked the view.

They set off from the cabin in the morning and headed deeper into the forest without resting along the way. They ate pancakes prepared by Rod as they walked. By the time the sun was about to set, the fog around them had thinned, small animals began to appear, and there were sporadic bird calls in the trees.

Rhodes' unease lessened somewhat, and before they knew it, the most dangerous night had arrived. After a day of travel, all three of them were exhausted. Rhodes had been receiving messages all the way about his increasing proficiency with the Snow-Treading Without a Trace technique.

He and Ella were still on night watch, and the order remained unchanged: he kept watch for the first half of the night, and Ella kept watch for the second half.

The night passed peacefully; it was the most peaceful night Rod had ever had in the forest, aside from staying in the cabin.

When he woke up in the morning and found that the thick fog had completely dissipated, he breathed a sigh of relief and his unease disappeared. After discussing it, they decided to go back to the cabin first.

On their way back, they encountered thick fog ahead but not behind. A squad of fully armed infantrymen emerged from behind the trees and stopped them.

"You can't go this way now," the leading soldier said.

"What happened over there?" Ella asked.

"The fog is all converging in that direction; it's too dangerous for ordinary people like you to go there," the soldier explained.

"Okay, we'll go around there," Ella said.

Just then, the thick fog seemed to beat like a heartbeat, first spreading outwards to envelop them, then pulling them inwards.

Whether it was the infantry or Rhodes, they all floated in the air, like floating objects in a toilet bowl, being sucked to the center at a very fast speed, almost like riding a horse.

"Ah...!" The people floating in the air screamed, and one soldier even peed himself in fright. Yellow liquid flew everywhere and almost fell into his mouth, which was wide open from screaming.

Rhodes, who frequently rides roller coasters and pendulum rides, remained completely unfazed and even felt a sense of exhilaration.

They floated for almost ten minutes before they stopped and fell from a height of half a meter.

Rhodes, with his thick skin, quickly got up from the ground, while the soldiers wearing heavy steel armor suffered a terrible fall. Several of them broke their bones, and one soldier was the worst off, landing headfirst and having his neck crushed.

Besides Rhodes and his group of soldiers, there were other adventurers and Lord Foss's other soldiers around them.

"Don't panic, assemble!" a middle-aged man dressed as a knight shouted.

The soldiers who could still move got up from the ground and jogged to him. Even those soldiers with broken legs hopped and skipped to assemble. Those who were uninjured and those with minor injuries stood together, while those who were seriously injured stood on the other side.

Despite this, the team still looked very well-organized.

Rhodes was somewhat surprised to see how disciplined this unit was. He had seen the guards and soldiers in Ice River City before, and they were all lazy and slow to assemble when the instructors called for them to assemble. He had originally thought that all the armies in this world were like them.

"And you adventurers, you have accepted Lord Foss's employment, and now you must obey my orders," the knight shouted again.

The adventurers reluctantly walked slowly to the knight, standing awkwardly in stark contrast to the soldiers.

Rhodes had read about this in that very explicit knightly novel before. The knight said that an ordinary adventurer could easily defeat an ordinary Roman Empire soldier, five adventurers could fight five soldiers to a standstill, and ten soldiers could easily defeat ten adventurers.

The knight, seeing Rhodes and the others still standing there, shouted, "Why aren't you three coming over here?!"

"We're just ordinary hunters who got caught up in this mess by accident, Sir," Rhodes replied loudly.

The knight didn't intend to make things difficult for them, and said, "Alright, you can stay here until we've resolved the issue, then you can leave. Don't worry, we'll protect your safety."

"Thank you so much," Ella said gratefully.

Rhodes observed his surroundings. There was no white mist here, but a wall of white mist had formed not far away. Adventurers had tried to get out of it before, but no matter what they did, they would be bounced back into the wall formed by the mist.

Does this mean the poison circle is shrinking?

Under the knight's command, soldiers and adventurers began searching for a way to escape from this circle.

After a while, some adventurers seemed to realize something, and their eyes began to look strange, as if they were thinking of finding an opportunity to kill the knight.

But it makes sense, they're all trapped in this circle, and might even die here. How could those unruly adventurers be willing to obey his orders in their final moments? Several adventurers kept glancing at Ella beside them; although she wasn't pretty, it didn't matter to these indiscriminate adventurers. Even though Aya had disguised herself as a little boy before entering, she wasn't safe either if chaos broke out.

Besides Rhodes and his two companions, and the knights, there were about twenty soldiers still capable of fighting within the circle, while the number of adventurers was much greater, almost twice that of the soldiers.

If he found an exit or a way out, then chaos shouldn't happen. He used a magic ball to scout the surroundings. There was nothing noteworthy on the ground, so he began to probe the ground.

He continued probing three meters underground and discovered something resembling a dome.

"Sir, I know how to get out!" Rod shouted.

……