The Glory of Noxus

Annie, Chapter 34

Noxus Empire.

The Iron Thorn Mountains, the northern border.

The endless mountains, like sleeping dragons, crawling on the earth.

The scattered snowflakes have not yet melted, decorating the mountains in the cold air.

Huo Jixing walked along the winding and rugged mountain road, looking at the ice and snow scene in front of him, feeling nostalgic.

After a few years, he returned to the place where he had fought at the beginning.

The snow-white Poro in his arms also popped up after arriving in a familiar environment, making an excited sound.

Huo Jixing's footsteps were light, and the terrain that was once difficult to walk on was now like flat ground.

When he left the capital this time, thinking that he was facing the Black Rose, he did not borrow [Noxtora] for fear of leaving any clues.

But relying on his own speed, he directly crossed a small part of the territory of the Noxus Empire.

On the way, he went to several marked locations based on the intelligence investigated by the Reiser Garrison Corps.

However, when Huo Jixing followed the trail, the scene he saw made him frown.

These places had long been reduced to ruins, and the former secret experimental base seemed to have suffered a devastating blow.

There was no trace of magic experiments in the ruins, as if all the secrets were completely wiped out by an invisible hand.

After several consecutive locations were like this.

Huo Jixing immediately decided to abandon all the places marked later and headed straight for the Iron Thorn Mountains.

In front of the empty village.

Huo Jixing exhaled a breath of cold air, looked up at the red flag dancing in the cold wind above his head, and walked in.

He walked on the stone road paved with earth and stone, looked around at the almost unchanged houses and buildings around, and came to the familiar location.

"Huh?"

Huo Jixing slowly stopped and stared at the dilapidated scene in front of him.

The two-story wooden building in his memory disappeared, leaving behind a ruin and ashes all over the ground.

Huo Jixing raised his eyebrows, and a touch of coldness appeared in his pupils.

The surrounding earth and stone walls had already collapsed, and the scattered stones were stained with some black marks, as if they had been baked by fire.

He took a deep breath, crossed the low wall, and entered the ruins of the small building, trying to find some clues.

But time had passed, and coupled with the erosion of wind and snow, there was almost no useful clue in this ruin.

Huo Jixing held the [Spiritual Wind] on his waist, half-crouched down, and picked up the soil on the ground, as if he was sensing something, but he found nothing.

He touched the earth and stone wall again, and could only feel the rough and hard texture, as well as the traces of burning on it.

In the end, he looked helpless.

Time erased too many details, and this ruin could no longer reveal more information.

Huo Jixing stood up, his eyes swept across the ruins on the ground, and turned to leave.

He was going to the village to ask other villagers what happened here?

Half an hour later.

Huo Jixing left the northern village with a solemn look and rushed to a nearby town.

He got the information he wanted to know, about Amorine and Gregory.

"Is she missing?"

He whispered softly, his eyes looked unusually cold, and he disappeared into the vast snow.

Huo Jixing's inquiries made some villagers recognize his identity, and then told him the news about Gregory and Amorine.

It also allowed him to piece together what happened after he left.

Gregory and Amorine lived a happy life in the village, and their love and tacit understanding made the surrounding villagers envious.

Mrs. Amorine was not only gentle and kind, but also gave birth to a lovely girl for Master Gregory.

The arrival of the little girl added some joy to the village, and Master Gregory was even more delighted.

He gave every villager a carefully prepared gift to celebrate the birth of his daughter.

However, just last year, a sudden change broke this tranquility.

Mrs. Amorine suddenly disappeared.

Master Gregory was extremely anxious, and he and the nearby villagers searched the mountains, but could not find any trace of Mrs. Amorine.

Such a strange thing, the villagers speculated that Mrs. Amorin might have met with misfortune or been kidnapped.

Later, the villagers often saw Anne playing alone in the wooden house, holding a teddy bear in her arms, looking lonely and silent.

However, something more shocking happened.

One night, the two-story wooden building suddenly caught fire, and the fire illuminated the village and burned everything.

The villagers had different opinions about the fire.

Some said that Gregory and Anne were buried in the sea of ​​fire and could not escape this sudden disaster.

Others said that in order to avoid being reminded of the past, Gregory took Anne away and went to a nearby town to start a new life.

"What happened that night? Or was everything caused by the thing in Amorin's body?"

Huo Jixing thought about it and remembered that he had come into contact with the thing in Amorin's body through [Nanli Fire].

Thinking of this, he understood that only after meeting Gregory could he understand everything that happened.

Yes, Huo Jixing did not believe that with Gregory's strength, he would fall in the sea of ​​fire with Anne.

He remembered the Noxian Calendar he had seen in Gregory's study.

An ordinary member of the secret society, but he had a book like the Noxian Calendar?

You must know that the [Noxian Calendar] records the major events of the Valoran continent in detail, which is definitely not available to ordinary secret society members.

"Now that I think about it, both Gregory and Amorin are not simple!" Huo Jixing shook his head gently.

Buzz! Buzz!

The wind and snow trembled, and Huo Jixing's forward speed suddenly accelerated, as if flying at a low altitude, ignoring the terrain, and rushed to the small town in the north.

Snow Ridge Town.

This is a newly established town on the northern border of the Noxus Empire.

It was once a large village with a population of a hundred households.

As the Northland was pacified, more and more colonists came here, eventually forming a prosperous small town.

In the center of the town, a tavern was opening its doors, and customers would come in from time to time.

As the owner of a tavern, if there is anything Malchin is good at, it must be how to keep his head down and retreat.

In front of him, noisy voices mixed with the sounds of large wine glasses clinking and beer spilling.

Every once in a while someone would yell for drinks.

As soon as their coins landed on the bar, Marcin slid a full glass in front of their waiting hands.

His quick and quiet service didn't draw him any attention.

Therefore, it is rare to get into any trouble.

But there are always troubles.

Compared to the one at the door, there was a belligerent boxer who felt itchy without a fight.

A conversation between the hooded people turned into a dagger stuck in the throat.

Or, the most unexpected thing, a little girl pushed open the heavy wooden door of the pub and walked in.

Malchin watched the little girl humming and jumping all the way to the bar.

The wooden door slammed shut behind her, and the last ray of cool winter air blew through the room. The loud banging sound made several pairs of eyes that had not noticed her look over, and they all expressed doubts about her appearance.

The little girl climbed onto a high stool, her eyes barely above the bar.

Marcin saw her flaming red hair, a tattered doll in her hand, a broken bag on her back, a ragged skirt with strangely short sleeves.

"What to drink?"

Marcin would never let go of any business, even to a little girl.

The little girl was a little too petite, so she could only stand up on the stool, put the toy down on the bar with a pop, and glanced at the bottles on the shelf.

Marcin could tell it was a stuffed bear, sewn with care and attention.

The stitches at the seams of the limbs have been exposed after years of pulling. I don’t know when and where a button eye was lost.

"Excuse me, can you give me a glass of milk?"

Mal Qin raised his eyebrows when he heard this, but said nothing.

He walked to the end of the bar to get the porcelain jug of milk.

"It's so late at night, it's not good to go out alone, huh?" came a rich voice.

Marcin sighed, one trouble always leads to more trouble.

He took the milk bottle off the shelf and looked back at the bar.

A huge man stood next to the little girl, looking down at her with his only good eye.

The little girl sitting directly in front of him was now like a small stone at the foot of a big mountain.

This man is simply a pile of muscle and scar tissue, with nooses, chains, and iron hooks hanging around his waist, and a sharp knife slung across his back.

Everything he saw loudly announced that he was a bounty hunter.

The little girl looked up at him, a smile flashing across her face.

"I'm not alone. Tibbers is with me."

She raised the stuffed teddy bear in her hand and smiled.

"Right, Tibbers?"

"Um?"

The bounty hunter paused and suddenly laughed loudly.

"Your parents must miss you."

The little girl's hands dropped to her sides, her eyes looking downward.

"No!"

"Oh, sure. And I think they'd be willing to pay a pretty penny just to get you home safely."

Malchin could almost hear the clatter of coins falling into the bounty hunter's mind.

This guy, who was full of evil, had already begun to figure out the price for escorting her home.

"It's impossible. My mother is missing and my father is busy with something."

The little girl plopped back on the barstool and looked into the teddy bear's single remaining button eye.

The bounty hunter was about to speak again, when Marcin put the milk jug on the bar and deliberately made a heavy sound.

"The milk is here," he said.

The little girl smiled happily at him, breaking the gloom just now.

"Thank you, sir!"

She put the bear on the table and reached into the backpack behind her.

Marcin waited patiently, planning to silently accept no matter how many coins she put on the bar, treating it as a discount.

However, he didn't expect that what fell down was a big bag full of money.

Several gold coins engraved with the symbol of the Noxus Empire fell to the counter, and one of them was rolling towards the edge.

Malchin subconsciously reached out his hand and pressed the escaping gold coin with one finger.

He slowly picked up the gold coin from the bar. The weight and texture showed that it was a genuine Noxian coin.

"It fell!" the little girl said with a smile.

Marcin swallowed, his mouth suddenly going dry.

He stretched out his hand, trying to stuff the gold coins and money bag back into the little girl's backpack, so that no one else could see -

"Such a big girl actually carries such a big money bag." The bounty hunter's low voice was a little too loud.

"Tibbers found it."

The little girl didn't care at all, as if she had no concept of money at all.

The bounty hunter sneered and looked at the tattered teddy bear.

"Really?"

The little girl took a sip of milk and began to look at her teddy bear again.

"I found it on an uncle who stopped me on the road. He's a big bad guy."

"That's too bad."

The bounty hunter leaned over on the stool and slid one hand towards the money bag.

The little girl looked up at him, and a sly and naughty smile jumped across her face.

"Tibbers ate him."

For a moment, everything in the tavern seemed to press the pause button and stopped.

Then, the bounty hunter's laughter spread throughout the room.

"He can really eat,"

He laughed and suddenly stretched out a huge hand, grabbed the teddy bear's head, and snatched it from the little girl.

"This ferocious monster."

"Let go of Tibers!"

The little girl yelled, reaching out to grab the little bear.

"He doesn't like being pulled hard."

"Haha! Haha!"

The bounty hunter laughed even louder, his fat muscles shaking.

Marcin put the gold coin in his pocket, avoided the attention of others, and stepped back.

He hoped he could help, but he survived until today thanks to his ability to get out in time.

But the little girl's voice froze him in place.

"I said. Let go."

"Tibers!"

In the corner of the tavern.

Huo Jixing put away his eyes watching the show, just about to get up, but stood there in surprise.

"I remember that Amorin always had to suppress the things in her body, but Annie."

"She is completely unaffected by the things in her body and can control the fire magic power at will?"

He still remembers the scene when Amorin lost control and assisted Gregory in suppressing the things in Amorin's body.

As for meeting Annie here, it was indeed a coincidence.

Huo Jixing originally came to the tavern to get information, hoping to get some clues and find Gregory's whereabouts, but he didn't expect to encounter what happened in front of him.

He noticed that Anne's behavior and personality seemed a little weird, not like an ordinary little girl.

What happened in the tavern seemed to be caused by the little girl's innocence.

But he knew that all this was developing in a predetermined direction under Anne's every move and every word.

"The Daughter of Darkness, the name is indeed not wrong!"