Suddenly, chaos erupted near the Green Forest Gate. The Black Sword Knights who had come galloping on horseback had clearly not communicated with the sentries near the gate beforehand, so the latter's reaction was noticeably half a beat slower – which gave Hao Ren and his party an opportunity to break through.

The "magic-powered wagon," which was just a fake shell, instantly burst out with a strong power that defied common sense. The three wagons accelerated violently and crashed into the rising roadblocks and the hastily gathered gate guards in front of them. The guards disguised as caravan escorts on the three wagons also drew their weapons at the first moment and began to meet the spears and swords that were stabbing from all directions.

With a loud bang, the roadblock in front of the convoy was smashed to pieces by the wagon, and the imperial soldiers guarding both sides of the roadblock were thrown out in all directions, screaming.

"Close the gate! Lower the barrier!"

The imperial officer in charge of guarding the gate shouted loudly. As his voice fell, the mages activated the magic-powered devices controlling the gate. Accompanied by a series of ground vibrations and the creaking of mechanical devices, the green gate, which was dozens of meters high, began to slowly close. At the same time, a light green energy barrier appeared out of thin air as the rune-etched bricks near the gate lit up, and it quickly descended from the sky.

"Leave no one alive!" A Black Sword Knight roared loudly. Seeing that the target was about to pass through the Green Forest Gate, he jumped directly from his warhorse. Complex gold and red patterns appeared on the surface of his black steel armor, and two faint magic-powered wings seemed to lift him into an aerial glide like wings. The knight raised the black sword in his hand high in mid-air and slashed fiercely at the third wagon. "This is His Majesty the Emperor's order!"

The mechanical sword roared as it operated at full power. A strong thermal energy converged into a red crescent-shaped shockwave, cutting straight towards the roof of the wagon!

However, the shockwave was blocked by a suddenly appearing translucent barrier. Some kind of shield device hidden in the vehicle activated automatically, blocking the powerful thermal shockwave and guiding it to both sides of the carriage. The solid bluestone ground quickly turned red and shattered in the blink of an eye, with scorching rubble flying everywhere!

Under the action of the deformable mechanical device, the carriage cover of the third wagon quickly folded and contracted, turning into a circle of low defensive parapets. Hao Ren held Gungnir and switched it to photon missile mode, Lily held a mouthful of water, her lips and teeth overflowing with light, and Vivian summoned lightning. The three stood behind the parapets, and after a little aiming, they threw all kinds of ranged attacks at the Black Sword Knights who were chasing closely behind.

The three Black Sword Knights were instantly defeated in the face of such attacks, turning into raging fireballs or fragments on the road of charge. However, the remaining Black Sword Knights did not seem to have any fear at all. They all jumped from their warhorses, activated the "Dragon Mark" at the same time, and in a blink of an eye, they burst out with a hundred times the strength and speed of ordinary people and outflanked them in two wings.

At that moment, the three wagons finally arrived at the foot of the Green Forest Gate, which was working hard to close. A close guard shouted loudly while fighting with his sword, "My lord! There is a magic barrier ahead! We are about to crash into..."

Lia looked up at the barrier blocking the convoy and raised her hand to flick out a small energy arrow: "Don't disturb my studies!"

The magic protection system, which was painstakingly built by thousands of elven craftsmen and tens of thousands of ordinary spellcasters, and condensed the magical essence of both elves and humans, shattered silently into a sky full of light particles.

A Black Sword Knight who had burst out with amazing speed actually caught up with the accelerating wagon. He waved his mechanical sword and pounced on Charlemagne, who was guarding Awenna with his sword. A layer of cold sweat instantly appeared on the latter's forehead. He knew the power of that mechanical sword. The blade, which was as high as a thousand degrees, was enough to melt gold and forge iron, and the ultra-high-speed oscillating blade could split any solid city wall and armor in half as easily as butter. However, in this situation where he could not retreat, he still gritted his teeth and raised his ancestral sword to meet the steel-armored knight who exuded an astonishing sense of oppression!

The next second, he saw the terrifying knight crash headfirst into the vehicle-mounted shield. The armor and bones all over his body made a teeth-aching twisting and breaking sound. The whole person slowly slid down along the translucent shield. The entire wagon produced a violent tremor under such a violent impact. The vibration was so great that it made people suspect that the wagon would be smashed to pieces in the next second – but this strange vehicle still resolved the collision very well in the end, and rushed all the way into the depths of the Black Pine Forest.

The Black Sword Knights in charge of the pursuit and the imperial soldiers guarding the gate watched as the three magic-powered wagons, which should have been "clumsy and slow," burst out with unbelievable speed and rushed through all the checkpoints and roadblocks into the dark dense forest in the blink of an eye. For a time, they looked at each other in dismay.

Of course, they could not tolerate all this. An imperial officer rushed over in a fit of pique, looking at the direction in which the wagon disappeared and flew into a rage: "Organize the cavalry! Notify the forest rangers! Release the blockade signal! We can't let them leave the Black Pine Forest alive!"

The soldiers immediately acted under the officer's orders, rushing to their respective posts. But just as they had just started to act, a Black Sword Knight suddenly raised a hand. The invisible pressure caused everyone around him to stop and look in confusion at the direction of the knight's gaze.

The knight did not speak, but simply pointed to the dark dense forest outside the Green Forest Gate, shrouded in shadows.

At some point, a cloud of gray-white mist shrouded the originally open entrance to the dense forest, and such mist was still appearing and rolling everywhere in the forest, and in the blink of an eye, it blocked all known forest roads. Between the continuous trees, the mist had formed a continuous barrier like a wall.

An imperial soldier who had been stationed at the entrance of the Black Pine Forest all year round couldn't help but murmur to himself when he saw this scene: "What...what is this thing?"

"When the world falls into disorder, the Black Pine Forest will fall into the mist realm, and the shadows of reality and illusion will devour all who stray into it," one of the Black Sword Knights said in a hoarse and low voice from under his mask, but what he said was so obscure and vague that he sounded like a mumbling old witch. "They can't come out alive."

An officer hesitated and said, "Those mists..."

The knight glanced at the officer. "Seal off the Green Forest Gate and notify all the development outposts that no one is allowed to enter the forest again. We will report what happened here to His Majesty the Emperor. Those who escaped are extremely dangerous. Even the Black Sword Knights can't stop them, so you don't have to worry about being punished."

Lower-level commanders in the Imperial Regular Army are on par with ordinary Black Sword Knights, but in general, knights who directly obey the Emperor himself are naturally more respected than all military personnel of the same level. Therefore, the "Gate Officer" did not show any doubt in the face of the knight's almost imperious attitude. Instead, he nodded with an expression that was four parts doubt and six parts gratitude.

He didn't need to know what had happened in the Black Pine Forest – this strange and ancient forest had always hidden countless secrets, and even the long-lived elves might not know those secrets. Exploring these secrets was a matter for those scholars in long robes in the imperial capital and that Emperor on the throne.

That immortal and undying emperor possessed knowledge that mortals could hardly imagine, so the little officer firmly believed that the changes in the Black Pine Forest were not worth mentioning in front of His Majesty Berrentin.

The Black Sword Knight, who had finished giving instructions, withdrew his gaze from the Black Pine Forest and looked at the Green Forest Gate, which was already in a mess.

The three comrades who had been killed by magic and strange light bullets were lying on the road of charge. Their corpses had been burned out, and it was impossible to tell what they originally looked like from the twisted fragments of their armor. The three intact black mechanical swords fell not far from the corpses. Several attendants carefully picked up the three mechanical swords, and now they were storing the swords in special magic-powered containers with serious expressions.

The sword is the most important thing for the Black Sword Knights, and its value is even higher than that of the knight himself – these three swords will be sent back to the "Holy Armory" in Black Steel Fort. When new qualified knights are selected, they will once again have the opportunity to go to the battlefield.

The Black Sword Knight who had fractured all his bones after hitting the rigid shield with his face was also struggling to get up from the ground at the moment. The armor on his body was deformed in many places, and many of his bones were broken, but he was not dead. He had only lost his ability to move temporarily after sliding down from the vehicle-mounted shield.

After a series of "joint resets" that ordinary people would find impossible to do, the seriously injured Black Sword Knight regained his standing position in a strange posture and limped back to his knight companion.

"Did you figure out that shield?" The knight who had just given the order asked in a low voice.

"An energy shield that has never been seen before, different from any known magic shield. It is very powerful, and has excellent protection against both magic attacks and direct physical impact," the knight who had just personally "tested" the shield replied. "The mechanical sword cannot directly pierce and cut it either – the anti-magic attribute attached to the blade has no effect on that shield."

The questioning knight was clearly not satisfied with this answer: "Are there any weaknesses?"

"Perhaps there are. That shield has a vibration frequency. I have recorded it. Using oscillations of the corresponding frequency can weaken it more effectively, and a sufficiently powerful and sustained attack can exhaust the shield – it is not impossible to penetrate, but the power required to penetrate it is particularly strong."

The questioning knight nodded, turned to look in the direction of the forest, and said in a tone as cold as steel: "They can't leave the Black Pine Forest alive, but that strange shield and attack method are probably not just this one. The Knights may encounter the same enemies as them... and we must be prepared."

"For the will of the Dragon Soul."

"For the will of the Dragon Soul."

The knights spoke the solemn oath, which was a sentence that every Black Sword Knight had to engrave in their hearts after passing the trial. However, in the solemn oaths of several knights, there seemed to be a mixture of metallic and fleshly noises...