[Ding! Centurion Renakins Galleon Price's Chest ×5 opened!]
The instant the cold system prompt sounded, just as the witcher had anticipated, dazzling, searing golden light flooded every corner of his vision.
Because the identities of the Aen Elle and the Wild Hunt might contain precious information, Allen did not, as he usually did, skip the opening animation of the golden-quality chest.
When all the golden light finally faded, his vision plunged completely into darkness, becoming a deep, heavy black. He held his breath and focused.
The next second—
Clop, clop, clop
The heavy, powerful sound of hooves rang out from the darkness, completely dispersing it.
What came into view was a desolate plain.
Rolling clouds of dust rose into the sky.
Amid the hazy dust, far in the distance, stood a slender palace of pure white, like a kingdom among the clouds, hidden within drifting, illusory white mist.
A soft, pristine-white magical radiance emanated from outside the palace in the clouds, restrained and understated.
"Tir ná Lia!" Without any need for speculation, the witcher immediately guessed the palace's name.
An elven style of elegant, exquisite beauty; entirely white like jade; and so vast that it could be seen from thousands of miles away.
It was a spectacle that left even Allen—who had seen forests of steel and countless man-made marvels—utterly stunned.
This was not something the human kingdoms could build.
Only the Aen Elle, at the height of their power, scouring countless worlds for rare treasures, could have created such a palace—both magnificent and ethereal, untouched by the mundane.
"No! Again!"
A sudden, emotionless rebuke sounded by his ear, snapping the witcher's thoughts back to the plain.
No—
Not a plain. It should be the Wild Hunt—more precisely, the training grounds of the Red Riders.
To his left and right were countless elves clad in the Wild Hunt's campaign armor, helmets removed, revealing faces that were handsome yet weary.
They panted heavily, clinging tightly to the skeletal horses beneath them, whose eye sockets burned with ghostly white soul-fire, as they galloped with all their strength.
Renakins Galleon Price, to whom Allen's vision was bound, was among them—but he was not at the front of the formation.
On the contrary, he was on the very edge.
And that cold, emotionless scolding came from the side.
Though the voice rang close to his ear, the one truly issuing the commands was not nearby, but on a distant high platform.
The witcher could not see that person's face, but he would never forget that voice.
It was Eredin Bréacc Glas.
The King of the Wild Hunt.
"Again!"
The galloping hooves thundered from one end of the training ground to the other.
Sweat dripped down his vision, splashing against the cold iron saddle and shattering into countless droplets.
Sometimes the view blurred; a hand would wipe it away, and the silent riding would continue.
The Aen Elle royal court of Tir ná Lia seemed to have neither day nor night. At least three or four hours passed, yet the sky shrouded in thick clouds showed no change at all.
Thus, this monotonous scene repeated again and again. Each time, it was that same cold again—to the point that Allen momentarily felt as though he had fallen into some kind of time loop.
"What are they doing?" the witcher wondered. "Training horsemanship? Practicing charges? What's the point of this?"
He was not belittling traditional cavalry tactics or military discipline.
But the Red Riders were the elite of the Aen Elle. Their horsemanship should already have been refined—and indeed, Renakins Galleon Price and the elves around him demonstrated precisely that.
There were no fancy maneuvers, just relentless charges, yet every rider seemed fused as one with the skeletal horse beneath them.
That harmonious rise and fall, that rhythmic breathing shared by all the riders as though they were a single body, was proof enough.
More importantly, this was the opening animation of a gold-quality chest.
Could it really be that the final reward was just Red Rider horsemanship? Or horsemanship limited only to charging?
The witcher grew increasingly puzzled, yet the Red Riders' charges continued unabated.
Until—at a moment that even made the witcher feel drowsy—
"Now!"
Eredin Bréacc Glas suddenly roared beside his ear. The voice was even mixed with an intense, surging emotion—this was unmistakably some kind of mental magic!
Following that roar, the rhythm of countless Red Riders changed in perfect unison.
"Scaoileadh (Release)!"
The Red Riders let out a furious shout.
A silver-white flash lit up from Renakins Galleon Price and from every Red Rider. It rapidly converged into a torrent, focusing onto the elf at the very front of the formation, making him blaze like a silver sun.
The next second—
The skeletal horses, their eye sockets burning with ghostly white fire, reared up. The Wild Hunt rider at the front roared and swung a blazing-white longsword forward.
In a flash—
The silver blade, like a crescent moon, cut through the air and slammed into a hundred-meter-tall stone mountain over a thousand meters away.
Boom!
With a deafening roar, the stone mountain exploded, collapsing into smoke, dust, and countless fragments of rock no larger than a clenched fist.
Witnessing this sudden scene, the witcher stood dumbstruck.
He had seen this before—not long ago, at Ban Ard.
He had been riding a black dragon, racing across the high heavens, yet he still hadn't been able to evade that blade of light.
Though the black dragon had only had the scales on its chest shattered—
That was a black dragon. One that, even under the self-destruction of the King of the Wild Hunt, Eredin Bréacc Glas, and the ensuing violent spatial fluctuations and jumps, had still safely delivered him to the ground.
A black dragon that, in the legends of the witcher world, was revered as a harbinger of calamity—the omen of the White Frost.
It was no exaggeration to say that across the entire Northern Continent, not even Hen Gedymdeith could have stood against it. Allen himself didn't know what merit he possessed to have summoned such a mighty existence.
In fact—
Ever since awakening, Allen had never dreamed again of that black dragon. The active effect of Beast Roar: Dragon Call had also fallen completely silent, with no telling when it might activate again.
He even had a premonition.
Beast Roar: Dragon Call was very likely an ability that required reaching the next tier to truly use. The first time it unlocked, the Beast Roar path itself seemed to have stored a great deal of energy, compensating for his expenditure.
Moreover—
This time, his injuries had been so severe—both soul and body nearly exhausted.
The bodily injuries were indeed caused by Eredin Bréacc Glas, but the damage to his soul might not have been unrelated to summoning the black dragon and maintaining the summoning for so long.
Back to the point.
If the one standing in front of that blade of light back then hadn't been the black dragon, but himself—
Well—there would have been no need for a clustered blade of light. A single casual strike from Renakins Galleon Price would have been enough to kill him.
In truth, even while using the black dragon's body—his Perception, Mystery, and other attributes vastly elevated—he still hadn't been able to dodge it.
The threat posed by the Wild Hunt's clustered blade of light was obvious.
And at that time, there had been fewer than a hundred Wild Hunt riders under Renakins Galleon Price.
Now, within Allen's field of vision alone, there were at least one or two thousand. The power of this blade of light far surpassed the one back then—by at least tenfold.
This implied an even more terrifying piece of information.
This Wild Hunt ability seemed to have no upper limit. The more Wild Hunt riders involved—and the stronger they were—the more terrifying its power became.
Moreover, these Wild Hunt riders before him were clearly not the entirety of the Red Riders. From their youthful faces, it was evident they were merely reserves—new recruits still in training, who had yet to see the battlefield.
"How many Red Riders are there, exactly?"
"And how many troops do the Aen Elle truly possess?"
When these two questions surfaced in his mind, the witcher couldn't stop his heart from sinking.
In the past, he had grown accustomed to focusing his attention on Eredin Bréacc Glas, who seemed to have ascended to godhood, and had subconsciously overlooked the Aen Elle's armies.
But perhaps—
Compared to well-known names like the "King of the Wild Hunt" Eredin Bréacc Glas, the "King of the Red Wood" King of the Alders, and the "Fox" Avallac'h, Crevan Espane aep Cormac—
The Red Riders and the other Aen Elle armies he had long neglected, due to the apparent decline of the Aen Seidhe, were not mere decorations or accessories to elven champions.
They were the Aen Elle's true killing blow.
Indeed.
Only vast numbers of powerful armies could possibly live up to the Aen Elle's reputation for conquering the worlds.
"How am I supposed to deal with this…?" the witcher murmured to himself.
When his thoughts turned to this newly surfaced major problem, the cutscene from Centurion Renakins Galleon Price's chests also came to an end amid that earth-shaking explosion.
The next several chests all followed the same visual style as well—each depicting Red Rider units training within an enormous drill ground.
The only difference was Renakins Galleon Price's position: sometimes at the very center, sometimes on either flank.
It was obvious that, to Renakins Galleon Price, the most precious things were all closely tied to the Red Riders.
Even though all the scenes appeared repetitive at a glance, Allen still watched each one carefully.
They were extremely monotonous—but the gains were immense.
Even Allen himself had to admit this.
From the scale and methods of the Red Rider training, to the presence or absence of the King of the Wild Hunt, Eredin Bréacc Glas, to the distance and position of the cloud-like fairy city Tir ná Lia—all of it was exceptionally valuable intelligence.
For example, just one point alone:
If one day he were to actively or passively trigger the set effect of "Wild Hunt's Warlord Armor" — Rebirth (when a fatal attack strikes, the wearer may actively or passively sacrifice the Wild Hunt's Warlord Armor, spirally teleporting the wearer to a preset target location; current recorded target location: Tir ná Lia), then merely knowing the distance and bearing between the drill ground and Tir ná Lia could be of enormous help to any escape or sabotage operation.
Furthermore, although the military might of the Aen Elle was terrifying and difficult to contend with, if one were to overlook this fact—then when the flaming hooves of skeletal horses set foot upon the lands of the Northern Continent, what they would bring would no longer be fear, but despair.
After a fairly long stretch of time—
[Ding!
Obtained: Alchemy Formula — Wild Hunt Skeleton Horse ×1,
Red Rider Standard Synchronized Breathing Method ×1,
Red Rider Temporary Training Ground Blueprint ×1,
Red Rider Standard Synchronized Legion Combat Spell: Blade ×1,
Red Rider Standard Synchronized Legion Defensive Spell: Shield ×1]
[Name: Wild Hunt Skeleton Horse]
[Type: Crafting Blueprint]
[Crafting Requirement: Alchemy LV5]
[Formula: Complete Horse Bones ×1, Spectral Essence ×5, Mercury Solution ×10, Moon Fragments ×3, Horse Lime ×10, Optimal Base Medium ×3, Enchanted Dust ×5]
[Effects: Skeleton Horse: Uses a skeletal, supernatural form to intimidate non-supernatural creatures, with a chance to intimidate supernatural creatures as well.
Air-Treading: Ignores all negative effects caused by terrain (including the sky).
Coordination: Reduces the difficulty of synchronization when riding mounts of the same series.]
[Note: The finest mount in the history of alchemy! Aside from being expensive, it has no other flaws!]
[Name: Red Rider Standard Synchronized Breathing Method]
[Type: General Technique]
[Learning Requirements: Strength 10, Agility 10, Constitution 20, Perception 30, Mysticism 20]
[Effect: Breathe at a fixed rhythm to promote synchronization and coordination.]
[Note: This is the foundation of everything—the pinnacle military achievement of a certain race over thousands of years!]
[Name: Red Rider Temporary Training Ground Blueprint]
[Type: Crafting Blueprint]
[Crafting Requirements: Ritual Studies LV4, Enchantment LV5, Alchemy LV6]
[Formula: Magic Wood ×3n, Mercury Solution ×n, Optimal Base Medium ×n, Enchanted Dust ×2n, Light Essence ×n,
Water Essence ×n, Earth Essence ×n]
[Effect: Conduct synchronized training within this area, greatly increasing training efficiency.]
[Note: You're asking me what "n" is? Of course, the bigger you want to build it, the greater the consumption!]
[Name: Red Rider Standard Synchronized Legion Combat Spell: Blade]
[Type: Fire Element Novice Spell]
[Learning Requirements: Fire Affinity 5, Mysticism 20]
[Effect: Through synchronization, you absorb/transfer external or personal power and mana to yourself or a target, allowing you to summon a light blade of extremely high temperature, tremendous explosive force, and extremely high flight speed, whose power is limited only by the number of synchronized participants.]
[Note: What else is there to say? Of course—start training immediately!]
[Name: Red Rider Standard Synchronized Legion Combat Spell: Shield]
[Type: Earth Element Novice Spell]
[Learning Requirements: Earth Affinity 5, Mysticism 20]
[Effect: Through synchronization, you absorb/transfer external or personal power and mana to yourself or a target, allowing you to summon a magic barrier with extremely fast casting speed, extremely high defensive power, capable of offloading a large amount of damage through the ground, and whose strength is limited only by the number of synchronized participants.]
[Note: What else is there to say? Of course—start training immediately!]
Unfortunately, no advancement method had been obtained—but drawing these five items instead seemed… not bad.
Allen looked at the five panels projected onto his retina and raised an eyebrow.
No.
It would be more accurate to say—it was extremely good.
Especially right now, after he had personally experienced the strength of the Red Riders—
....
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