I rolled my eyes. “Well, that certainly sounds like a place we’d love.”
“We should probably ask Ijyela about the ruins before we head out,” Freya said.
“That would be a good idea,” the mermaid said. “Although it has been many centuries since the elf visited those parts.”
“Where exactly are the Hexel ruins?”
“Far east of the Dargonian empire and the Kingdom of Aingard. It is not an easy land to travel to.”
“Huh.” Freya’s eyes narrowed. “I have traveled quite a bit around the lands, and yet I have not heard a single mention of the Hexel ruins.”
“That makes sense.”
“It does? Why?”
The mermaid looked into the darkness. “Because, to speak of a land, one must first return from it alive.”
***
CHAPTER SIX
Well that definitely doesn’t sound ominous.
“What sort of dangers do the Hexel ruins present, Voora?” Freya asked.
The mermaid priestess shifted, and then spoke. “I am not entirely sure of what the place contains. I myself have not been there given it is so for from the oceans. However, I have heard many a thing about the dangers of entering the ruins. It would be best for you to be careful.”
“We will be on alert.”
“Additionally, it wouldn’t be wrong for you to contact Ijyela and ask her for her opinion.”
“I’ll contact her right after we reach the surface,” I said.
Voora nodded. “Very well. Is there anything else you need of me?”
I looked at Freya and the elf returned the gaze. It seemed we had used up all the questions we’d meant to ask. I turned to the mermaid. “Nothing more.”
“How will the two of you travel to the ruins?” she asked. “The place is quite a while away from here.”
I grinned. “We’ve got a way, don’t worry.”
“I presume you mean me?” Acnologia asked.
Of course.
“You seem prepared,” the mermaid smiled. “Either way, I would like you to have this.”
She opened her hand, and held her palm out. Beads of light flowed into it and formed two silver bracelets, one with a dark ruby in the center and another with a darker sapphire. “This is for you,” she said.
Freya reached out and picked the blue bracelet from the lady’s hand, and I picked the red one.
DING!
Congratulations! You have obtained: Flaming Jal Bracelet! Forged under the oceans, this bracelet grants great strength to the Fire Arts and Water Arts skills.
Nice! I tapped on the item name, bringing up the equipment info screen.
Equipment Title
Flaming Jal Bracelet
Grade
Four Stars
Special Effects
+5% Attack to all Fire Arts spells.
+5% Attack to all Water Arts spells.
+1% Agility while underwater.
Consumption of Underwater Merweed allows one to breathe underwater for 2 hours.
Durability
Unbreakable
Quality
Excellent
Rarity
Very Rare
Value
7,900,000 Sol
Whoa, I blinked. Those are some super neat boosts.
“And the value of the thing is crazy!” Nyx said.
I tapped on the ‘Equip’ button and a stream of lights flowed from the screen, covering my wrists. A second later the bracelet of silver was wrapped around it, and the gem of red in the middle glistened in the light.
I looked at Voora, who just floated there, smiling at us. “Thank you,” I bowed.
“It is a simple bond with the sea, that is all,” she said. “I wish you luck in your endeavors, Eternal.”
“We appreciate your help,” Freya said.
“I do not know what dangers you may face, but if you ever need to talk, do not hesitate to contact me.”
I smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“By the way,” Freya said. “Which way is the surface?”
“I will take you.” Alexio swam up to us, with a wide grin on his face
“Are you sure?” Voora asked, and the young one nodded. “Fine then,” she said. “Farewell, surface-dwellers.”
We nodded at her once again and then headed out, travelling through the tunnel.
DING!
Congratulations! Your relationship with the Priestess Voora has changed from ‘Stranger’ to ‘Ally’. She will fight beside you with her life for as long as your visions and motivations align with each other.
Might prove useful sometime.
“So.” I turned to Alexio. “You were in on the fish transformation thing all along.”
“Ah,” Alexio paused. “Well, she likes to do that from time to time. It freaks people out!”
I chuckled. “You don’t say.”
We moved forward, and in the span of a few minutes we travelled out the tunnel, up the trench and found ourselves back up at the cave we’d first woken up in.
“Where now?” Freya asked.
He pointed diagonally upwards. “That way.” He swam ahead, with the two of us following him.
It’s already been an hour since we ate the Merweed, I realized. Our breathing powers should have disappeared but they hadn’t. The bracelet was already working its charms, adding an extra hour to the breathing time the plant gave us.
The waters around us soon changed shade, turning from a dark blue to a light aqua. Alexio’s hair nearly merged with the colors, rendering the top of his head invisible. I looked further past him and saw the faint images of land shine through the waters.
In seconds we breached the surface, and floated above the water at a distance ten yards from the shore. I placed my legs on the ground and stood up. The water only came up to my neck now. I took a few steps with Freya beside me, and stopped when the water was beneath my chest and not restricting my breathing.
We turned around, looking to the little merman that waved gleefully at us.
“Thank you!” I yelled from where I was, and the little one waved with more gusto.
“Good luck!” He leapt into the air once, and with that he was gone, diving into the waters and heading back home. I watched the ripples he left on the ocean surface, and the miniature waves moved toward us before disappearing a second later.
“Well,” Freya said as we lifted ourselves back onto land. “That was certainly an odd adventure.”
“Certainly was.”
“What do we do now?” she asked. “Acnologia?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. Are you ready?
“I am,” the Dragon said.
A stream of lights surged out of the ground, as if they had been hiding in there all along. They lined up over the surface in the shape of a Dragon head. The lights flashed brightly, and in an instant the image disappeared, leaving a dragon of midnight black to take its place on the ground.
Acnologia grunted and lowered himself. He let one wing unfold and dip to the ground, acting as a ramp for us.
“Come on,” I gestured to Freya and climbed onto the Dragon’s back, seating myself at is neck, while Freya sat right behind me.
“Where to?” Acnologia asked. “East of the Empire?”
Yeah. How fast can you get us there?
“Will depend on how many foes we find on the way.”
I smiled. With our luck I’m guessing ‘zero’ isn’t a likely answer.
“It never is.”
The Dragon raised its wings and flapped effortlessly as he eased us into the air. He rose for a minute, pushing up higher and higher, till we had left the lower sky and had gone above the clouds. A serene calmness greeted us, and rays of orange light illuminated the clouds all around.
The sunrise of course, had long been over, and the afternoon rays were heating up the skies, combatting the chill that lingered this high up above the clouds.
“Do you want to contact Ijyela?” Freya ask
ed. “Or should I do it?”
‘You do it,” I said. “Ask her about the Hexel Ruins and anything else she might know about it.”
“You should also ask her what she looked like when she was younger,” Nyx chuckled. “Just to pull her leg.”
I smiled. As great as that sounds, we don’t want her getting annoyed with us.
The spirit sighed. “Fine.”
“Done,” Freya said.
“Wow, that was fast,” I blinked.
“Doesn’t take long to type out a short image.”
“I’m pulling up the map for you by the way,” Nyx said. “So we can figure out where we’re going and how long it’ll take.”
DING!
A translucent screen emerged before me, and I could see a zoomed-out image of a map on it. The Kingdom of Aingard lay to the north, and the Dargonian Empire to the south, with a wide stretch of forest bordering the two lands. To the west was a desert land and a small speck on it—my village Ikarius. To the right of the Empire and the Kingdom, however, was blank space—not empty space but space that hadn’t been explored yet.
“That’s where we have to go.” I put my hand on the border between the Dargonian empire and the empty space.
“Looks like a day’s journey at the very least,” Acnologia said.
Yeah.
DING!
A prompt opened in front of Freya.
Ijyela’s reply? I wondered. “What did she say?”
Freya quickly scanned through the message. “Uhhh, she says she’s not entirely sure.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“She says it’s been a very long time since she went there, and that she doesn’t recall much.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate.”
“Sounds like this isn’t going to get us any insight into what the Hexel Ruins are like.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re just going to have to wing it.”
“Isn’t that what we always do?” she chuckled.
I grinned. “Yeah.”
We passed the next hour in silence, with my eyes watching the clouds thin and the sun rays brighten. Acnologia flew smoothly through the air, gliding over the puffs of white. I leaned forward, resting my forehead on the back of the Dragon’s head and looking down at the scenery beneath us.
Patches of open air found their way in between the clouds, and gave me a clear look at everything on the land below. I kept my gaze in the same direction, with my eyes unfocused and in a daze.
All of a sudden, an object hit my vision, like electricity into my eyes. I straightened, and tugged on the Dragon’s neck.
Head down.
“Eh?” Acnologia asked. “Are you sure, Eternal? We’re still in Dark Alliance territory.”
Exactly. The muscles in my neck tensed.
The Dragon looked back at me, and one of his eyes stared into mine.
“Very well.” He dived down. A half-asleep Freya yelped, and grabbed onto my shoulders, steadying herself as we descended from above the clouds.
Structures and buildings came into my vision. And then, on closer look, emerged a tall tower about a mile ahead of us.
I looked down. Head to the grove right below us.
Acnologia plummeted even sharper, and opened his wings up at the last second, landing onto the ground before a small grove of trees.
Freya let go of my shoulders. “Okay, why are we doing this?” she asked. “This is the Dark Alliance’s territory, right?”
“Exactly,” I said, and pointed to the tower before us. “I sense something in there. Something strong.”
“I sense it too,” Nyx said.
“Strong? Strong as in strong person?” she asked.
I shook my head. “There doesn’t seem to be life around it,” I said. “This is most likely a weapon.”
Freya’s eyes widened. “And you’re trying to get it away from them.”
I grinned. “Plus, I found help.”
“Help? What help?”
Acnologia, stay here. I walked into the grove. Call out if you find trouble.
“Understood,” the Dragon said.
The grove was only about a hundred yards long and we passed through it quickly. Behind it was a thick row of tall shrubs, and behind them stood twenty Knights in white armor, all facing the other way.
Freya gasped. “The Alliance of Light.”
“Yeah,” I grinned. “An enemy of an enemy is a friend.”
“That doesn’t really work well you know.”
“We’ll see.” I leapt forward. In an instant, I was smack in the center of all the men, with a wide grin on my face. “Hi!”
They all froze, and raised their swords. I quickly pulled out Dawnbreaker, and pushed the weapons all away. I used my Analyze skill and noted that the men were all high Level 500s. Quite an elite squad even by Alliance of Light standards.
“We will never surrender!” one of them yelled. “I will—”
Idiot. I sighed. “Osulier!”
A shadow sprung from the ground, wrapping around the man and sinking him back into the floor, with not a squeak coming out of him as he disappeared forever.
“Now,” I looked at everyone else, “let’s be nice, shall we?”
They all trembled in their armor. “What do you want?” one of them asked, this one the highest leveled, and probably their leader.
“You’re heading into that tower, aren’t you?”
They hesitated but all nodded.
“Good, and why are you doing that?”
They hesitated more, but gave in anyway. “We were told there is an important weapon in there.”
Looks like I was right, I grinned. I wonder how the Alliance of Light found out about it though. I smiled at the men. “How would you like to team up?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“You’ve obviously come prepared to break into that place,” I said. “Let me piggyback your breakthrough. I promise I won’t take anything. I just need to see what this weapon is.”
The leader scoffed. “Trust the Phantom Lord?” he said. “I’d rather die!”
“That can be arranged.” I snapped my fingers. “Osulier.”
Two more shadows rose from the ground, wrapping around the men on either side of the leader, and pulling them to the mud. He looked at me, frozen, his eyes darting between the ground and my face as the men sunk into the surface and disappeared, with their whimpering cries now just an after echo in the wind.
“F-fine.” He puffed out his chest. “You can come.”
I smirked. “Splendid.”
Nyx, let Freya know she should stay put where she is. It’s best we have an additional lookout here.
“Done,” the spirit said a second later. He was getting faster and faster with those messages now.
“So.” I looked at the man. “What’s the plan?”
“We got a duplicate key to the place from a spy,” he said. “We will unlock the door and head to the top. It’s supposed to be a long staircase up. Not anything serious. But we highly doubt that will actually remain the case.”
“I doubt it as well,” I said. “And remember, any tricks from your men, and the shadows will come to get you. By the way, I can’t promise there won’t be any pain this time.”
The man shivered and the trembling forms of the men behind him told me I had them wrapped around my finger.
I chuckled, this is actually pretty fun.
“Sure, you’re not an Evil Overlord,” Nyx sighed, in a tone that sounded both serious and joking at once.
I frowned. Shut up. This is necessary.
“Maybe.”
We moved forward, with me following the Knights. They looked around, scoping for enemy guards, but I knew there was none from the aerial scan I’d made of the place. In a minute, we reached the tower. Still no guards around us.
At this point I was getting suspicious, but I didn’t really care. What was the worst that could happen? I might have to use my stronger skil
ls and be okay with the Dark Alliance finding out I was here. That definitely wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, so it was fine.
“Go, go, go!” the Knight Leader pushed his men forward, and they all charged to the tower, to the metal door out front. I glanced up as I ran behind them, trying to scope out anything in the air.
“I sense the weapon a lot clearer now,” Nyx said. “It seems to hold a lot of power.”
Good, I smiled. All this won’t be for nothing then.
Whatever the weapon was, it seemed a good idea to get it away from the Dark Alliance’s hands if it was something that was being kept in a tower like this.
Although the lack of security bothered me. My only way of justifying its simplicity was that there was maybe a protection barrier or something covering the weapon. Else it seemed stupid to leave something like that out in the open.
“I sense something like a barrier,” Nyx said. “But not entirely sure.”
We can take it down if there is one. That’s fine.
The Knights unlocked the door and headed up the stairs. I glanced around one last time, still amused there were no enemy Knights, and then followed them. We climbed fast, running up the winding steps of the tower as we headed up.
I kept my mental self on alert, and tried to pick out anything odd, but there was nothing. I sighed, confused. I was missing something important. I could feel it.
Either way we climbed up fast, and in a few seconds, we reached another door, this one at the top end of the staircase.
The Knights produced another set of keys and used that on the door, unlocking it easily. Wow, this spy was good. The Dark Alliance is slacking.
Darkness moved through the room that we had opened, and the Knights up front brought out fire torches as we headed in. I quickly activated my Night Vision skill, and looked around the place. It was closed off completely—no windows anywhere—and smack in the center was a crystal pillar, with something hovering right above it.
I walked up to the pillar, and looked closer. A gold-colored helmet floated in the air, and my Analyze skill quickly brought up its info screen.
The Eternal: Infinity - A LitRPG Saga (The World of Ga'em Book 4) Page 6
