35 - Chapter 35

As the two of them continued to descend, the fog around them became thicker and the color changed from white to gray. Roth used his decorative wings to fan the fog and expand his field of vision. The top of the cliff was very narrow and wider and wider below. At the bottom of the valley, there was a hidden forest.

The Skeleton King was right, there were indeed many corpses at the bottom of the valley, but… many of them couldn’t move. The canyon was too high, and many bodies were broken when they jumped down.

Burris cast a spell to disperse part of the thick fog. If he didn’t, they wouldn’t see anything at all, and the fog at the bottom of the valley was no longer white fog, but closer to dull black smoke. The Skeleton King was responsible for dealing with the corpses that could still attack, knocking them down one by one, breaking them or stepping on them… After tearing open the last corpse, he turned to a corner.

He closed his eyes and opened them again, staring into the black mist with his red eyes. It’s very close. Siegfried was there.

Burris followed Roth’s line of sight and cast a spell in that direction. Daylight covered the small area for a moment. In the corner of the forest at the bottom of the valley, there was a cave covered by weeds and vines.

“Burris, you’d better wait outside, I can go in.” Roth said.

Burris shook his head. “My lord, you didn’t allow me to help deal with those corpses before. I thought it was because you wanted me to save my strength. Now that we have found this place, you want me to wait outside… Then why did you want to bring me here?”

“Because taking risks together can increase mutual affection.” Roth said honestly.

Seeing the mage’s face in disbelief, Roth burst out laughing. “I’m joking. It’s actually because… If you come in, you may be poisoned.”

“Are the infernal elements so strong inside the cave?” Burris immediately understood what he meant.

Roth glanced at the dark entrance of the cave: “Yes. Even if you really cross into hell, it is difficult to encounter such a strong force. This is a matter of concentration ratio. Imagine that there are thousands of people along a river. If you pee in the river, you won’t feel anything when you swim; but if you pee in a bucket of water, the smell of it will be…”

Burris frowned and interrupted him. “My lord, can’t you give me some decent examples?”

“Is not decent but it’s vivid.” Roth shrugged. “Also, I really need you to stay outside to help. We encountered a lot of corpses just now; you should see that they are not all of them. The Red Vulture was already manipulating many local corpses, the situation has deteriorated in the recent days, and the elements of hell have directly resurrected the corpses in all nearby cemeteries… This number is definitely not small. After a while, probably many lucky corpses will be able to come over completely, they will no longer be under the control of the Red Vulture, and they will just want to absorb power. After I enter the cave, I must concentrate on dealing with what is inside. If there are any more corpses near here, you need to deal with them.”

Burris nodded sadly… If it were me, I might have regained control of all the corpses. It’s really hard to have this ability deterioration, and it’s really unbearable to progress slowly.

Thinking of this, he realized that the Skeleton King was in a degraded state like himself, and perhaps the things in the cave were indeed a big challenge.

In the end, Burris agreed to stay outside the cave. He lit up five spheres of light at the same time, spread out a handwritten note, placed several medicinal materials on the ground in order, and recited an incantation softly. A defensive array about ten yards in diameter spread around him, and then gradually disappeared into the ground and air.

Before entering the cave, Roth pressed Burris’s shoulders with both hands, and quickly kissed the top of the mage’s head from behind. Burris turned his head uncomfortably, but Roth had already escaped into the thick darkness of the cave entrance.

***

“Siegfried, wake up soon…”

After entering the cave, the Skeleton King abandoned his human appearance. His body became taller and stronger, his head returned to the shape of a skull covered with black scales, a pair of curved demon horns above, and bloody flames flashing in his eye sockets.

The thick black fog blocked the sound of the outside world, and he didn’t have to worry about his own voice spreading outside the cave.

“Siegfried…” He stretched out the dragon wings on his back, and they looked like tentacles in the fog. After moving inwards for a few minutes, he heard a faint groan of pain. The owner of the voice seemed to have fallen into a nightmare and was struggling to wake up.

“Child, wake up.” The Skeleton King went to the voice. “The daughter of the undead is awake. Son of hell, you should wake up too.”

From the darkness, a young man sleep-talking said: “This is their curse… I will never wake up.”

“Who cursed you?” the King asked.

“Mountains, moonlight and forests. I deceived them, and they punish me for sleeping here.”

“How did you deceive them?”

“Once upon a time, I lost my territory, my monarch, and my friends. I had no one to be loyal to, and no one to guard. I cast illusions on my dark soul and body and dyed myself into holy silver white. I became a false god, guarding the mountains for a hundred years…The life on the west side of the mountain worshipped me and hoped that I can give them luck and victory; the life on the east side of the mountains guards their homeland, and tears burst into my eyes whenever I see my miracles… When the war came, I didn’t even know which side to bless…In the face of the fight, in the face of blood, I cowardly stepped into the mountains, indifferent…”

Hearing what he said, the Skeleton King muttered to himself: “Um… the Battle of the Moonset Mountains. It seems that you had an accident at that time. No wonder the Red Vulture was normal before that…”

The young man’s voice continued to confess: “As far as I can see, every tear, every drop of blood, every withered leaf is a curse to me. I am a demon, how can I become a guardian of people? My silver-white coat fell apart, revealing the appearance of a black beast, the valley engulfed my body, the thorns entangled my heart, and I will never wake up from this dream…”

The Skeleton King sighed. “Siegfried, you really haven’t changed at all. You are still so fragile and poetic…Corpses and forests will not curse you, but your own guilt engulfed you. Wake up, you don’t know who I am?”

“Leave here, traveler.” Said the young man’s voice. “you are just a dream in my long, imprisoned life…”

The Skeleton King touched his forehead helplessly. “Oh, originally I wanted to wake you up gently…but it doesn’t seem to work. I’ll just wake you up.”

During his imprisonment, the King read a book of human health knowledge. The book said that if you want to wake up a sleeping child, it’s best to open the curtains, let the sunlight pour on him naturally, call him patiently with a soft voice, and wait for him to wake up from deep sleep… Don’t push him hard, don’t make violent noises, don’t force him to wake up. This is not good for your child’s health, and it may affect your parent-child relationship…

The Skeleton King had no children, but he had creations. He had never tried to wake up someone, but today he had a chance to try. It’s a pity that the gentle method didn’t work well. In the end, this child has to be woken up roughly.

He walked in the direction of the sound and touched a wall of thorns. The thorns of half-finger length were facing outwards, and mist was constantly overflowing from the gaps in the vines. This kind of defense was nothing to the Skeleton King. The black scales on his hand were as hard as dragon armor and would not be hurt by the spikes at all. So, he directly grabbed the vines, pulled them apart one by one and peeled them off layer by layer, and dug out a hole for himself to move on.

The more he dug in, the more erratic the touch in his hand felt. There were not only the elements of hell in the black mist deep in the thorns, but also the dreams of the sleeping ones.

The Skeleton King would not be harmed by infernal elements but was somewhat affected by the dreams. After all, this was not a spell or divine magic, but a sweet and stubborn lullaby…

Vaguely, he saw the situation when he created his first child.

In the interval between the killing of the demon army, he saw two human bodies. One was an adult, with a broken spear and a crude leather armor. The other was a pale baby girl with the teeth of an infernal terror bird embedded in her small head.

When the war was over and the gods separated the planes from each other, the Skeleton King used the power of necromancy to create a human girl. She did not have a name at that time, it was decided many years later.

The Skeleton King took his first creation and continued to kill the infernal creatures remaining in the world. Soon, he created a second child, because he witnessed a rare holy creature in the world, and it gave him inexplicable enthusiasm and inspiration…

***

Burris sat on a big rock and looked into the cave from time to time. The corpses that came afterwards fell into a fan shape along his magic circle, and occasionally a few particularly stubborn attempted to break through the line of defense and were awarded the ‘special care’ by him with spells.

It stands to reason that he didn’t need to worry about the Skeleton King. The King had strong power and an overbearing magic immunity. Even if he couldn’t beat the thing in the cave, it will definitely not hurt him… But Burris just couldn’t help but imagine all kinds of bad situations.

For example: What if the creature in the cave doesn’t cast spells and is better at physical attacks than the King? What if the cave is like a maze, and the King loses his way and can’t go back? If the King and the creature in the cave have known each other for a long time, what if the creature persuade him to conquer humans? What if the King and the creature are enemies and they haven’t met for a long time, and their endless battles cause landslides and earthquakes? What if the creature in the cave doesn’t have a mouth at all, and the King wants to kill it himself?

You think too much, does your intelligence decline with age…? Burris scolded himself inwardly and decided to do something to dispel these unnecessary worries.

He took out a crystal ball like a lollipop and recited a short spell. The sphere shimmered and said in a slightly dull voice: “At your service, master.”

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“Do you know the past of the Moonset Mountains?” Burris held the ball to his mouth, which made it look more like a lollipop.

This is an ‘anecdote crystal’, which can tell all kinds of anecdotes for the holder. All the anecdotal crystals in the world follow different masters everywhere. The crystal will automatically absorb the conversation and story with some key words and phrases and share it with other crystal transmission. It was invented by a travel-loving mage in the Arcane Federation and Burris participated in the follow-up optimization research. It will not reveal confidential information, but only collect short stories between the countryside and the city.

The crystal was silent for a moment and replied: “There are few anecdotes, master.”

“Talk about it. Remove the official history of the Battle of the Moonset Mountains, remove the orcs and goblins related, and remove the human nobles. Mainly look for anecdotes about mysterious creatures.”

“All right, Master. Many, many years ago, there was an old grandfather who lived in the Moonset Mountains. He had lived by picking mushrooms for more than eighty years. One day, a unicorn appeared. The moment he saw the grandfather, the unicorn shed tears of sympathy and excitement, because he turned out to be a virgin…”

“…Remove the vulgar and funny elements.”

“All right, Master. Looking at the lonely grandfather, the unicorn cried because the unicorn was also alone. The grandfather was separated from his family when he was very young, and the unicorn said he was the same.The unicorn gave the grandfather a lot of meat delicacies and wept and sent him down the mountain. It did not retain the grandfather, because it knew that human life spans are very short…”

At this time, the surrounding mist suddenly dissipated, and the black fog in the cave became much thinner. Burris looked around in surprise, and the entire valley forest began to return to its original appearance.

He extinguished the crystal with a short spell because there was some movement in the cave…maybe the Skeleton King came back. He didn’t want him to find this crystal because the King would probably indulge in it all day.

The sound in the cave was getting closer and closer. It sounded like the heavy footsteps of large animals.

Burris drove a sphere of light into the cave and saw Roth walking out yawning. Now he had a human appearance, and judging from the loose buttons on his clothes, he had returned to his original appearance just now.

“Is everything going well?” Burris asked a little nervously.

“Sure, but I almost fell asleep…”

“What?”

Roth didn’t answer, he just smiled and glanced behind him. “It’s all right now, I found that creature. The infernal elements on his body will no longer go out. He didn’t mean it before, he just had a minor accident, his body broke down… By the way, I rescued him, so he… he decided to be loyal to me.”

Burris looked into the cave vigilantly, a little worried that he would really see the unicorn in the anecdote… but it should be impossible. Unicorns are not infernal creatures, they are fictional, fairy tale creatures.

Every spellcaster knows that there are really dragons in this world, but there are no unicorns. That anecdote is just a story.

Roth continued. “Dear Burris, I introduce you to our new friend. His name is Siegfried.”

With the ending of this sentence, an amazing, rare and strong creature with a horn on its head came out.

Burris stared at the creature blankly… Thanks to the God of The Arcane, my common sense is not wrong, it is indeed not a unicorn.

Siegfried had a pair of infernal eyes, with fiery red irises and black sclera…Now, there were a few tears in these eyes that should have been fierce, making his temperament a bit like the unicorn in the story crying at every turn. Moreover, he really had a spiral sharp horn on his forehead.

But his body was not horse shaped. He was a huge dark red griffin.