Chapter 749: Act 105 – Eternity VI
Duke Anlek’s voice was met only by an empty echo; the expression on his face resembled a stormy sea gathering clouds, as if it were brewing an unprecedented and dreadful tempest. Yet few noticed the frown on his brow and the hint of worry in his eyes. He suddenly started to fear that damned dragon was still here.
However, seeing that his question went unanswered, Anlek rather sighed in relief; he was not Brendel and had never heard of a dragon being timid to such an extent. In fact, Anlek had seen a giant dragon before; as a young man on the battlefield of the Holy War, he had witnessed Emperor Glantodi of Cruz riding his steed—a tradition of the Cruz royal family to contract with giant dragons since King Gilt of Flame, which was one of the reasons for the empire’s confidence.
He was deeply impressed by the arrogance of giant dragons and had no doubts that there was a treacherous and cunning dragon here waiting to ambush them. Once Anlek’s expression relaxed, the others around him dared to speak, a wizard stepping forward to say, “My lord, we suspect that dragon has taken advantage of our cognitive biases; it may have set a trap at the top of the cave. Please allow us to investigate it briefly.”
Anlek nodded, but still said, “Make it quick; that stupid dragon should be returning soon.”
The wizards nodded and obeyed. Before long, they found a massive magical circle at the top of the Ice Hall. As the wizards of the Everything Returns Society examined the circle, they couldn’t help but feel a mix of laughter and tears upon discovering it was a teleportation circle.
This meant that the unfortunate souls before had inadvertently entered this teleportation circle, unaware of which corner of the world they had been sent to.
“But the problem is, doesn’t the teleportation circle require the consent of the teleportees to activate? This violates the fundamental principles of magic!” The wizards immediately felt incredulous.
Above them, under the ice, Shi Ta was already laughing hard enough to ram his head against the ground; fortunately, the ice was thick enough, or those below in the hall would have certainly noticed something amiss.
The reason was simple; the circle’s coverage was a spherical space—when the circle activated, Shi Ta was also among the teleportees, so as long as it kept responding with “Yes! Accept! Good! Activate the circle!” it could watch helplessly as those unfortunate black knights were teleported away.
As for why it wasn’t teleported along with them, the reason was even simpler. It was well known that teleportation circles have limits; if it could only teleport objects weighing four pounds, it wouldn’t affect anything weighing six pounds. Within the limit, it would only act on the portion of ‘cargo’ that could be affected.
Considering the girth of a certain dragon, it was almost certainly overweight.
Shi Ta couldn’t quite remember where it had set up this circle. It scratched its head, seemingly forgetting; in any case, it was somewhere far away, a dull place, and Shi Ta had no desire to go there.
The wizards of the Everything Returns Society spent half the day researching under the circle but could not come up with a coherent understanding. They finally reached one conclusion: this was a dragon’s spell, ancient string magic, which naturally they could not comprehend. As for the mysterious patterns composed of modern magical runes on the circle, they chose to ignore them; after all, the current issue was not to study the circle but to calm Duke Anlek’s anger.
Anlek seemed to have realized that these fools were useless. The wizards were his assistants from the Privy Council, but sadly, even as the Privy Council Chairman, he could not mobilize the Chaos Cult alone, so besides the black knights, he could only find some junior members to fill the gap. Whether those people could be relied upon was already obvious.
He coldly huffed, interrupting their idle chatter, “Your task is not to understand how this spell works but to figure out how to destroy it. We don’t have much time, and you’d better not waste your precious lives—though that frost whelp is quite foolish, it is more than capable of turning you into popsicles.”
“My lord,” the wizards hurriedly responded, “Though figuring out how this circle operates is somewhat troublesome, destroying it is quite simple. The circle is actually very fragile and usually concealed; however, this one is engraved on the surface of the ice. With just a few spells to damage it, it will no longer function.”
“Indeed, that dragon seems quite foolish; if it had buried this circle under the ice, it would have been much more troublesome for us.” Someone echoed.
Anlek nodded but remained unimpressed. He felt that even if the other party was foolish, they wouldn’t be more foolish than these characters in front of him. Furthermore, he was growing impatient, waving his hand for the wizards to quickly deal with the circle.
…
The sound of a previous avalanche still lingered in the quiet passageway as Brendel and his group made their way through the crevices of the glacier, even feeling the hum resonating beneath the deep blue ice on both sides. The young prince walked in front of everyone, gripping the Lion’s Tooth tightly, vigilant as a rabbit in this enclosed environment; if he had ears, they would have surely been perked up by now.
“Teacher, Lady Commander, do you hear anything?” Haruz suddenly turned back to ask.
“Sounds? No, are you talking about the earlier avalanche?” Scholar Miss paused in surprise, asking back. “That wasn’t an avalanche; it was the sound of the glacier collapsing leading to some place—definitely that coward making noise; frost whelps inherently have the ability to manipulate glaciers.” A cold voice interrupted, belonging to Alorze, this young lady who had flown back from the battlefield, reportedly finding it dull there and hurriedly returning.
Brendel had inquired about the situation on her side, and indeed, everything was as expected; Freya had performed even better than anticipated. The only unexpected event was the sudden snowstorm, but Nemeses and Freya reacted in time, getting everyone to retreat to a sheltered area. In fact, Brendel very much suspected that this young female dragon had flown back because she was afraid of the cold.
Like gold dragons, red dragons also preferred warm environments and were naturally unadaptable to such glaciers, let alone the snowstorm that often dropped below freezing. However, storms rarely occurred on this glacier; Brendel suspected it might be due to magical tides.
As Alorze spoke up, the others fell silent; now everyone knew this young girl was, in fact, a fearsome giant dragon. Meanwhile, the ambassador Gregor lay on a stretcher.
Alorze’s eyes gleamed with gold, and only Haruz had slightly accustomed himself to this dragon lady’s nature, quietly explaining, “I—I wasn’t talking about that; Mister Brendel, did you hear it?”
Brendel nodded; he heard it more clearly than others. In the buzzing noise caused by the avalanche, there was another sound. He turned back to look at Veronika, who wore a focused and intent expression. “It seems to be a spell.” After listening for a moment, she replied.
“Yes, a spell,” Brendel nodded. “The sound of pure magical energy striking; I feel I can hear the dark magic flames rising from the Sea of Magic. Only cultist wizards are adept at using such spells.”
“Black magic? Have Anlek’s people and that dragon crossed paths?” Veronika asked.
Brendel gazed forward, shaking his head. “That’s doubtful; I didn’t feel the vibrations of string magic. The ancient string magic of dragons is one of the most terrifying types of spells. It directly manipulates the lines of law to constrain energy strikes. Once someone casts string magic, the resulting shockwaves could be felt miles away. If you have a chance, you will definitely experience that sensation in your mind.”
Upon hearing this, Alorze lightly snorted, unable to resist adding, “Oh, you seem quite familiar with our magic.”
For such a question, Brendel had long been prepared, casually replying, “All wizards are trying to study your magic; ancient string magic, along with ancient rune magic, is the source of all magic.”
“They are all fools; our ancient magic originates from the memories within our blood. Mere mortals cannot learn it no matter what.” Alorze said dismissively.
Brendel did not argue; the Minren had undoubtedly created the current magical system and could not be as hopeless as Alorze suggested. This was the age of mortals, and even dragons had to admit this point. However, he skipped that topic and directly addressed Veronika, “I think perhaps Anlek is dealing with the subglacial troglodytes of this glacier—”
“Let’s find out.” Veronika replied.
The group continued forward, traversing the original path taken by Anlek. They encountered no resistance along the way, and after half an hour, they found Shi Ta’s lair, but it had already become unrecognizable. When Brendel entered this naturally formed ice hall, he saw a pockmarked floor, shattered ice walls, and bodies scattered haphazardly.
However, he looked around and saw neither a dragon’s body nor one belonging to Anlek. It was as if both sides had engaged in a fierce battle, yet neither could gain the upper hand.
Everyone was stunned, unsure of what had happened here, but only Alorze reacted the earliest. Her golden eyes turning, she rushed over to flip a body, checking some small trinkets the corpse was carrying, then frowned.
In a flash, she disappeared from the hall.
Just then, as everyone was left somewhat dazed by her action, a resounding scream echoed through the cave:
“Ahhhh, Sister Alorze, I was wrong, please let go…”
… (To be continued. If you enjoyed this work, please visit Qidian (qidian.com) to cast your recommendations and monthly votes; your support is my greatest motivation.)
