172: Chapter 172 Could there really be fellow villagers in this godforsaken place?

Xie Feng was riding on the back of a Noph-Keh, walking along the edge of the permafrost fissure towards the ridge, and Contact Nophke sensed that these giant beasts were gradually increasing in number.

After crossing the first ridge, the perception of spiritual power suddenly touched dense and chaotic fluctuations, which seemed not to be magic, but a Jiuzhou Cultivation Technique.

Xie Feng suddenly reined in the giant horns of the Noph-Keh and shouted back, "Someone is fighting ahead. The spiritual power fluctuations look like Jiuzhou people."

Everyone poked their heads out to look towards the mountain col, seeing nothing but dense forests and permafrost, but everyone firmly believed in Xie Feng's perception.

Xu Liujing took a glance.

"Jiuzhou people? Where would Jiuzhou people come from in the Northern Continent? Aside from our expedition and the royal expedition team back then, are there other Jiuzhou people running to this lousy place?"

"I don't know, but they are being besieged and won't last much longer."

Xie Feng flipped down from the back of the Noph-Keh, slammed the cold crystal blind staff onto the ground, and charged towards the mountain col first.

Tu Ziguan responded and also rushed out.

"Let's go, we saw our fellow countrymen, let's go over and lend a hand."

Deep within the mountain col on a permafrost terrace, dozens of Voormis and a few dwarfs were frantically attacking a small team of people wearing Jiuzhou attire.

The Voormis brandished stone axes and bone hammers, while the dwarfs continuously harassed them from the flanks with slender javelins and blowdarts.

The team surrounded in the middle wore worn-out but recognizable Jiuzhou-style martial attire, their cuffs and collars worn almost beyond recognition. Their cultivation was mostly between the Third Realm and the Fourth Realm. The leader was a middle-aged man with Fourth Realm cultivation, holding a broadsword with several chipped notches, standing right at the front of the team to hard-resist the stone axe charges of the Voormis.

Several young people stood behind him, among whom a young woman was holding a few talisman papers that were almost exhausted.

Xie Feng rushed out.

Take a look, oh my! Aren't these Hilichurls? (Picture included)

A hideous half-human, half-alien race in the cthulhu mythos, they are a short, hairless, and bizarre human-like race who particularly worship the wind-attribute twin Great Old Ones, Lloigor and Zhar.

The Voormis and Hilichurls had not yet reacted.

Xie Feng's Barrier of Nak-Titer spread out from the end of his staff, and the grayish-green light curtain pulled into a barrier on the outer periphery of that Jiuzhou team.

Several Voormis who were charging up brandishing stone axes were bounced back by the light curtain, the blade of their axes chopping onto the light curtain and bursting with several magic sparks.

"Tu Wu! Leave the Hilichurls on the left wing to you!"

"Received!" Tu Ziguan mounted the maxim on a protruding frozen rock and pulled the trigger.

Spiritual bullets swept out from the left wing, and those Hilichurls in the very front row who were raising blowdarts to aim were swept down onto the permafrost before they could react, their blowdart tubes flying far out of their hands.

The Imperial Guards surged out simultaneously from both sides of the dense forest.

Xie Feng crossed the barrier and walked up to the middle-aged man holding the broadsword, speaking in jiuzhou mandarin: "Where are you from? How could you be in the Northern Continent?"

The middle-aged man propped himself up with the broadsword, kneeling on one knee on the permafrost and taking several heavy breaths, then looked up and saw the jade plaque on Xie Feng's body, his eyes suddenly widening.

Although they were not from the same era, one could tell at a glance that it was a royal item.

The few young people behind him also looked over uniformly, their faces filled with identical shock. Hearing a hometown accent suddenly on this desolate and ancient continent made people feel even more dazed than encountering any reinforcements anywhere else.

He wiped the blood and filth from his face, his voice hoarse and hurried: "Qingzhou! We are people from a Qingzhou Sect. We came with the expedition team over a hundred years ago and couldn't go back. We've been trapped here for several generations."

He used an ancient Qingzhou dialect; many vocabulary words and sentence structures were different from the mandarin Xie Feng was familiar with, but they could still barely be understood.

They really were fellow countrymen? You guys are actually from Qingzhou? Besides, more than a hundred years have passed? How long did the ancestors live anyway?

Xie Feng didn't expect that these people were actually somewhat related to him.

The middle-aged man shook his head, as if trying to shake off these old matters, and then looked up at Xie Feng, "Why did you come here? Did the imperial court dispatch another expedition team?"

Before Xie Feng could reply, the Voormis and Hilichurls outside the barrier regrouped and pressed over towards this side again.

"People are chatting here, and you guys come over to fight, isn't this just making trouble?"

Having said that, silver-white magic threads surged from his fingertips, and he turned around to face the group of Voormis assaulting the barrier once more.

On this permafrost land countless tens of thousands of miles away from Jiuzhou, two Jiuzhou teams separated by an unknown number of years stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the exact same defense line.

This kind of scene was a piece of cake. Although Hilichurls and Voormis could also innately comprehend some Spells, compared to a legendary mad wizard like Xie Feng, they were far inferior. Moreover, Spells required a certain amount of output to Break through Spiritual Qi.

Therefore, the scene was as cruel as bullying a bald child.

Xie Feng and Tu Ziguan went back and forth beating this group of evil dwarfs under four feet tall.

Eventually, after leaving behind a few corpses, this group of little dwarfs and Voormis finally retreated.

"So are you an expedition team? Or what is the situation?"

Zhou Jinglan leaned over and asked curiously, "These people look at a glance like Jiuzhou's subjects abroad." In all fairness, in this regard, Zhou Jinglan was still very much like his dad.

The middle-aged Cultivator was silent for a moment, his eye sockets beginning to turn red, saying that they were descendants of the royal expedition team. Their fathers had stayed behind to guard this area when they came to the Northern Continent with the expedition team. Later, after the expedition team returned to their country, there was no news from them ever again, and they waited for several generations without waiting for the flying boat to pick them up and take them home.

Xie Feng and Tu Ziguan silently exchanged a look with the Third Princess.

"No! What does this have to do with this princess? Who knows which generation's business this even is!"

Looking at their condemning gazes, the Third Princess stomped her feet in anger.

"Oh oh, right, right, your previous emperor was quite a scoundrel."

Xie Feng and Tu Ziguan remembered the situation in Fengle City previously.

After all, this obviously happened ten generations of emperors ago, and the emperor at that time was merely a Puppet to begin with. Even if the Third Princess were to acknowledge her ancestors and return to her clan, she would have to flip through the family tree and search for half a day to find this ancestor.

"Regardless of which generation's ancestor was irresponsible, we descendants have the obligation to bear it."

Zhou Jinglan stepped forward and helped the middle-aged man up with both hands, starting to express his apologies.

"Come with us. We are this expedition team, and we will take you back to Jiuzhou."

Xie Feng leaned over and silently dealt a finishing blow.

"They will also turn into doggy biscuits."

The Third Princess and Zhou Jinglan turned back, speechless.

"Back to this Jiuzhou! Which Jiuzhou are you talking about?!"

Xie Feng suddenly realized.

"Oh oh, sorry, I thought it was our Jiuzhou. You mean back to the Jiuzhou here?"

The middle-aged man listened to this bizarre conversation with a puzzled look on his face.