Chapter 770 v4c143
Icy Breath
Just as Brendel’s bet was going on, Duke Arreck and his men were being led through the central maze by Korfa. The road ahead opened up, forming a cavity-like long aisle that was as high as a few hundred feet, with pillars of more than 30 feet in diameter that were supporting the base like a beast’s rib. Looking up, these majestic pillars were embedded into the walls on both sides.
The hall was not empty, the prehistoric battle extended to this place as skeletons of all sizes could be seen around the aisle. These skeletons remained in the form of killing before death, as if a fierce battle was suddenly interrupted by a disaster, and everyone froze the moment they took their last breath. Skeletons filled the s.p.a.ce, so Arreck and his men had to look for actual ground to step on as they were advancing. As he walked around a skeleton with wings, that skeleton could be seen wearing a half armor covered in silver feathers still, but the former glory of the armor had lost its glow and had turned into just a pile of rusted iron.
This was a G.o.dly servant’s corpse, a Seraphine, a Golden Race that was completely wiped out in the Ebabel’s battle, leaving a scant few of its people to hide beyond the Elemental Frontier and disappear along with the G.o.ds. And today there were still some secondary G.o.ds in Vaunte, but they were not the best among the Silver Folk compared to these horrible yet beautiful creatures. Duke Arreck noticed the skeleton of the giant wolf that had fought this Seraphine. The skeleton’s third spine from the skull was visibly white, typical of the third generation of Dusk Wolves, Fenir’s descendants, who with their ancestors had been prisoners of the Divine Folk, and the chains had left permanent scars that ran deep into the marrow of their bones.
Arreck’s gaze withdrew from the skeletons and he narrowed his eyes.
“What is this place?”
“The Promenade of Meditation.”
“What place does it lead to?”
“The place where you all want to go.”
Arreck turned back. Beside Devard, the eldest daughter of Hati shrouded under a dark robe that had some red pattern on it; the dark fabric made her skin look so pale as if it shone like white snow, the hood was so deep that only her pointed chin was visible. But one could still feel the coldness from her red eyes glittering in the depths of the shadows. When Arreck did not speak, Korfa would remain in total silence. Ever since she absorbed the other half fragment of soul, she had become this way, no longer showing her pure and innocent side.
But when Arreck was not looking, the young girl would show an awful look on her face. She frowned.
Arreck could vaguely feel that the eldest daughter of Hati had not forgotten everything before. Those stinking demons from the Sulfur River gave him a fragment of her soul, telling him that this thing could make the unruly Korfa obedient, but she was neither unruly, nor did she show obedience. However, she did become quiet as she led them out of the maze.
“Lord Korfa.” Arreck thought for a moment and spoke with a somewhat hoa.r.s.e voice.
Korfa looked at him.
“Do you remember what happened in this war?”
“What does it have to do with you guys?”
“Just wanted to gain some insight into that great war.”
The girl looked up and around the hall with a cold gaze, “This is where Mayne’s subordinates, the descendants of Fenir, collided head-on with the seventh legion of the Seraphines when they attacked into the Promenade of Meditation, and they fought here, as you can see.”
“And then?”
“There was no then, the dying Milos activated the central core and the glow of death enveloped the entire battlefield. Me, the brothers Mayne and Mel, and the third column of Nohs and their commander, in an instant, were frozen forever at this moment in time. The Frost Giants lost their father forever, and the Twilight Legion suffered heavy losses.”
“The central core?”
“It should still be around here somewhere, only rest a.s.sured that that too should be too badly damaged to be a threat to you guys anymore.”
Arreck nodded and stopped speaking but his heart was stirred. He could imagine what kind of war it was, the Nohs, the descendants of Fenir, the Seraphines, the Frost Giants, all the most fearsome names of the ancient times, but were all turned into ashes in just an instant. Even a being like Korfa was not an exception, and this was the Twilight.
Thinking about this, he could not help but bow his head respectfully.
“I have offended before, Lord Korfa, please forgive me.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
No fluctuation was seen in Korfa’s blood-colored gaze under the hood. She looked at the human in front of her, without joy or sorrow. But deep in the bottom of her eyes, a fiery light stirred.
……
Even Brendel would not know that the central defense core of the Holy Cathedral of the Sleep had such a glorious past. In his memory, that was just one of the BOSS in the Holy Cathedral, and even its strength was not as strong as the Twins of the Dusk Wolves. The core was located in the central labyrinth in one of the halls. Before the player restarted it, it would have just sunk silently into the dust forever, and even in an activated state, the central core was nothing more than that.
And at this moment, Brendel was fulfilling his bet.
“Wait,” Aloz’s voice was sharp but pleasant to the ear. She glared at Brendel, “You are not allowed to use that thing you got earlier.”
So she still remembers the Elapsed Pointer. Brendel thought to himself, she was not so stupid after all. He spread his arms. He was not so crazy to burn Experience just for a bet.
“Other items cannot be used either,”Aloz added.
“You’re bossy, who bets like you do anyway?”
“You’re trying to cheat!” Aloz showed her sharp canine teeth, as if she was going to bite him if Brendel did not agree to her request. Brendel had to throw up his hands in surrender, “Okay, okay, you have the final say.”
The little female dragon was complacent and felt that she had prevented Brendel from being sneaky, with her own ability. She did not think that Brendel could get ahead of her, as she was a Dragon, and was still the strongest Golden Dragon among the Dragons. Although she was not as fast as the Blue Dragon, she would never lose to a human.
But immediately, she knew what a big mistake she had made.
It turned out that the core of this bet was to pa.s.s through the monsters, and not simply compare whose speed was faster. The little female dragon’s heart was full of despair as she realized this.
With thousands of Icy Breath, even a Giant Dragon would not dare test their limits, every time she tried to advance, Revitalizing Magic converged like a wall, blocking her way forward. Aloz naturally dared not dive right in, there was no choice but to go around them. Fortunately, Brendel pointed out six pillars to them that could be used to bypa.s.s these Revitalizing Magic, if not, the little female dragon would have gone crazy.
If she did not follow the route pointed out by Brendel, she would have realized that she would not be able to take half a step forward.
But that cunning human was able to pa.s.s through the gaps between the monsters every time, and even at that close range, only a few freeze rays. .h.i.t him. To be fair, each of them had Ciel’s cast to resist the Frost Boundary, so it was nothing to Brendel when the few freeze rays. .h.i.t him.
“Holy s.h.i.t, there’s a constant Dimensional Anchor in this place!”
Ciel’s strange shout came from out of nowhere.
In short, in addition to Scarlet, only one person and two Dragons remained with persistence, the young Mage attendant finally knew why his Lord was smirking at him. It turned out that he was looking for his own death.
Brendel was secretly laughing.
Aloz would never understand what the problem was. In fact, before someone invaded, the Icy Breath was naturally distributed across the entire Square, and since it was naturally distributed, the huge amount of Icy Breath could not lie evenly and flatly on every inch of the ground. It was also true that before being stimulated by external objects, most of these Revitalizing Magic actually gathered together in groups of three or five, but because there were so many that it looked as if they were everywhere across the Square.
That being said, there were actually still one or two fixed entry routes –
These cla.s.sic entry routes were summed up by previous players from time to time. A pattern was only found after a thousand failures, and no matter how intelligent or talented Aloz was, it was impossible to find out the correct path with just a glance among thousands of Icy Breaths. But Brendel could, and that was the benefit of being ahead of the information – or in other words, cheating.
He cut into the only correct route, and then broke into among the Icy Breaths, as if stirring a hornet’s nest. Although Brendel was not extremely quick, he was not too slow either. So to speak, he was exactly on point, jamming exactly the reaction speed and firing distance of the Icy Breaths, so these Revitalizing Magic could do nothing to this fly that pa.s.sed between them. But, have you ever seen a swarm of angry bees? These Icy Breaths were just like that, although their reaction was very slow, but once they moved, their overwhelming amount could make them extremely frightening. Especially when Brendel was trying to disrupt their pace, making them congregate behind him.
The Revitalizing Magic that spread across the place like countless stars behind Brendel was chaotic. Aloz, s.h.i.tah, and Ciel, who were behind Brendel could only clench their teeth at this moment. It was impossible for them to find the correct path after the Icy Breaths took action, not to mention that they could not even find the path before this. In front of them, the Icy Breaths were like a restless wave, and anyone who would jump in was expected to be left with nothing, not even bones.
Aloz went further in distance, only to stop and say, “Brendel, you d.a.m.n cunning human!” The little female dragon waved her claws and roared at Brendel’s back from afar.
Brendel pretended not to hear her. He was going around the last pillar, while backhandedly throwing two stones into the two piles of Icy Breath not far behind the swarm. This action was not much different from stabbing a hornet’s nest, the Revitalizing Magic over there immediately dived into a frenzy of rage, chasing him in his direction. He looked back again, the Revitalizing Magic in the middle and front of the hall had lost him for a good distance, except for a few who were attracted to attention by Aloz and Ciel, most of them were led by him in this direction.
If he remembered correctly, there were two exits to the north of the Eternal Extinction Square; the eastern exit led to the central maze, which was where he was planning to lead these Icy Breaths to. But there was a problem here, one was that based on his current speed, it would be hard to dodge the opponent’s attack and guard the two giant Revitalizing Magics; the second one was he did not know how to retreat after attracting these Revitalizing Magics. It is not that there was no way to do so in the game, but he was a Warrior, not a Night Swallow known for its agility. In fact, this was the difficulty of attracting monsters. But Brendel knew that most of the techniques of that era were somewhat flawed, for example, he himself had modified a number of meaningless action paths. For himself, he was still very confident, after all, he had a pure profession as a Warrior with more than a hundred levels.
If one was not sensitive enough, one could make up for it by experience.
As he looked back, those cl.u.s.ters of Icy Breaths could be seen to be closer, but their huge number rather limited their advancing speed. Brendel estimated and found that the left and right side of the Revitalizing Magic was more threatening to him. In fact, this time the two sides have started to shoot several freeze rays at him, but Brendel easily dodged them all. He pa.s.sed through the hall horizontally, came near to the last pillar, raised his head and saw that the eastern exit was already close at hand. And indeed, there were two gigantic Revitalizing Curses guarding in the direction near the exit.
Those things looked like an enlarged model of an Icy Breath, with each having a height of at least 60 or 70 feet in diameter, with dazzling blue light spots around their bodies, surrounding them like orbiting satellites. Brendel knew that that was their means of attack, so he deliberately avoided some of them. However, no matter what, he would eventually have to go through the middle of those two Icy Breaths. It was something he could not pull tricks on, so he could only rely on Ciel.
He immediately sank his consciousness into the world of his mind and commanded, “Ciel.”
……
The long queue of people in black robes stopped before an ancient gate, which was also made of the same kind of obsidian material found everywhere in this place, but covered with star-like textures, and in the center of the gate, stars wrapped around a sun, and where that sun was, only a groove remained. Everyone looked up at the huge door, which was a hundred and twenty feet high, with two skeletons clinging to the side of the door, each holding a giant ice-blue axe, with their heads hanging down and their helmets splitting in two.
“This is the Frost Giant Forbidden Guard?” Devard hissed.
Arreck nodded.
“We’ve arrived?”
“The Spiral Hall is behind this.” Korfa replied coldly.
The Duke turned back, and the black robed knights of All For One came into his field of vision, “Find a way to open this door, and the others, guard this hall.”
He took a breath, his heart finally stirred up a little. His plan had finally reached the final step, success was just around the corner. But Arreck suddenly narrowed his eyes and noticed the dark walkway leading in one direction from the Promenade of Meditation, he glanced over there and asked, “Where does that lead to?”
There was silence in the hall and no one answered him, so he had to turn back to the eldest daughter of Hati. The latter gave him a silent look.
“The Eternal Extinction Square.”
“What is that place?”
“I don’t know.” Korfa shook her head as if she really didn’t know.
“You don’t know?”
“But I know that the Mayne brothers escaped in that direction. What, you don’t believe me?” Korfa’s b.l.o.o.d.y red eyes met with Arreck’s, which were so calm that there was no hint of fluctuation.
Arreck frowned.
“Devard,” he instructed, “you take someone over there.”
As if unconcerned by the other’s order, Korfa looked back and quietly stared at the huge obsidian door in front of her.