Chapter 231 : Chapter 231
Chapter 231. Running into a ‘Fellow Elf’ on the Road
The black horse struggled onward through the forest, and even Fulan had to admit that the road was in truly terrible condition.
Something seemed to have happened recently on the road leading to the mine. In any case, when Fulan had covered about half the distance, she discovered that the road had actually been cut off.
The entire road was buried beneath heavy snow. Even after clearing away a stretch twenty meters long, she still could not find the proper road.
Moreover, Fulan could tell that the road had been deliberately destroyed by someone else. There were clear traces of digging tools.
With no other choice, she could only head in the direction of the mine, guiding the black horse forward according to the map and the coordinates obtained through her Observation Spell.
The black horse was not afraid of steep ground, but Fulan had not added any modifications that would let it move through narrow terrain.
As a result, it could only endure the branches scraping and pressing against it.
All kinds of wild, overgrown trees also blocked the path so tightly that whenever they reached such a point, Fulan would simply throw out a Wind Blade and cut the trees down, clearing enough space to keep moving.
This method of travel ensured that she would not lose her sense of direction, but her current speed was still far below what she had expected.
Besides, even if she followed the exact direction all the way there, once she arrived near the destination, she would still have to search for the mine itself.
At this point, Fulan was already planning to find a somewhat open area, rest there for the night, and then deal with that Undead Creature tomorrow.
Just as she rode the black horse through the forest, a faint sound of fighting suddenly came from her left. Judging by how frequently it rang out, the battle was extremely intense.
At the moment, two paths that were at least somewhat passable lay before her. One led left, where there were fewer branches in the way.
The other led right, and Fulan could tell at a glance that it would be far more difficult to traverse.
The left side might lead her into other people. The right side was harder to travel...
Fulan hesitated for a moment, then still directed the black horse onto the easier path to the left. If she ran into someone, then so be it. She was not afraid of meeting people anyway.
The sounds of battle grew louder and louder. Mixed in with them were the noises of heavy objects crashing to the ground and dull thuds from something snapping apart.
Neither Fulan nor the black horse had any intention of approaching quietly. The sound of the horse’s hooves breaking branches on the ground was especially conspicuous.
The people fighting over there seemed to hear the disturbance as well. The clash of battle paused for a moment, then very quickly resumed.
After advancing a little farther, Fulan finally saw a relatively open patch of land amid the dense forest, covered with grass.
A battle was taking place on that open ground. One side consisted of skeletons Fulan had once seen during her battle with Richter, while the other side surprised her a little.
Fulan had arrived at the battlefield from the side, so she could clearly see a woman gripping a longsword and trading blows against five or six skeletons.
She could also clearly see the long ‘elf ears’ on the woman’s profile, and in that instant she recognized that this was definitely an elf.
When the female elf noticed Fulan’s arrival, she only glanced at her once before returning her full attention to the fight against the skeletons. She did not say a single word to Fulan.
As for the skeletons, they seemed almost intelligent. After noticing Fulan’s arrival, their bodies paused slightly, and then two skeletons broke straight out of the group and rushed toward her.
These skeletons looked rather different from the cannon-fodder skeletons Fulan had seen before. Their exposed bones gleamed with a metallic sheen, as if their bodies themselves had been forged from metal.
Their equipment was also different. The weapons in their hands did not appear chipped in the slightest, nothing like something that had been buried in the earth for ages without use.
Even the leather armor on their bodies bore little dirt on it. Fulan could barely see any dust on them at all.
Judging from the strength the elf displayed while fighting the skeletons, Fulan could tell that the elf was absolutely a First-Tier Professional.
Although these skeletons could not quite be considered opponents capable of trading blows head-on with a First-Tier Professional, each of them could still be called a First-Tier Skeleton.
After all, if someone else’s summons were all first-tier, how were other professionals supposed to fight them?
Anything capable of even slightly restraining a First-Tier Professional could already be considered a First-Tier Skeleton.
Creatures like these were far weaker overall than a normal First-Tier Professional in terms of attributes, but they were still far beyond apprentices.
Fulan did not immediately move to destroy the two skeletons. Instead, from the corner of her eye, she watched the elf retaliate under the skeletons’ encirclement.
The skeletons’ attacks were astonishingly fast. In what was almost an instant, they viciously hacked their weapons down toward the elf, while the elf used the technique that Fulan herself also knew: 【Elven Swordsmanship.】
That elf did not leap three meters into the air the way Fulan did. Instead, her jump was very low, no higher than an ordinary person’s.
However, if the force on the Z-axis was reduced, then naturally the force on the other axes would increase. The elf shot straight into the skeleton group like a cannonball.
At a razor-sharp angle, she spun through the air, evaded the skeletons’ attacks, and moved behind the group. Then, before they could react—
She twisted around at an almost unbelievable angle and slashed horizontally across a skeleton’s waist, shaking several bones loose.
Fulan raised a brow. As for that flashy style of attacking, weaving back and forth through a crowd of enemies, she figured she could probably do it too if she practiced for a while.
But the difference between Fulan and that elf lay in the gap between their attributes and their skill.
Against skeletons like these, Fulan only needed a side slash with a change in direction to shatter one apart with a single blow.
Even if she simply stood there and traded attacks with them on the ground, she could probably finish them off in two or three strikes.
More often than not, she would rather just throw out a few fireballs and burn the skeletons into white ash with Dragon Flame. Why rush forward and risk close combat with the enemy?
Still, none of that was what mattered most. What concerned Fulan more was why she had encountered an elf in a place like this. She had never heard that the Northern Frontier was somewhere elves were active.
Even White Dragon Harbor was not a place where elves were active, so where exactly had this elf come from?
Fulan’s eyes shifted slightly, as if she had thought of something. She pulled the longsword from her waist, then sprang up directly from the horse and leaped into the air.
It seemed that she had put a little too much force into the jump, and the place where she would land looked to be behind those two skeletons. But Fulan immediately used Elven Swordsmanship.
Her longsword traced an unbelievable arc through the air as it came down behind the two skeletons.
The elf still fighting caught that impossible scene from the corner of her eye. Her pupils contracted, and she almost failed to dodge a skeleton’s attack because of that brief distraction.