Nali took out the temple’s stone token, speaking matter-of-factly: “Aquin has too many suspicious points. I want to explore the treasury again tonight.” She lowered her eyelashes, “You’re very familiar with Aquin. If you could lend a hand… this is the price I’m offering for these stone tokens.”
The wizard stepped forward, curling his right index finger and drawing strange curves along the seat’s edge. The curves glowed faintly under his gaze.
A light click was heard, and the high seat retreated backward, revealing a hidden passage.
Gerald applied a bit of force, exposing the darkness beyond.
After wandering in darkness, Nelly and Gerald arrived at the vault door.
The green-haired wizard took out a handkerchief and wiped away sweat. “I don’t have full confidence in opening this door.”
Nelly said, “If we can’t open it, we’ll just blow it up.”
Gerald grimaced at her proposal, complaining, “Being involved with you is truly dangerous.” Despite his words, his hands didn’t stop moving. Golden threads driven by his will wandered back and forth in the door’s recesses, analyzing its structure.
In terms of the ability to read an object’s structure through magic, Gerald indeed had the right to be proud.
Nelly wasn’t idle either, gripping her familiar dagger in her right hand and holding several cross darts in her left, vigilantly monitoring the surroundings.
Gerald worked hard for a while, then sighed: “No good.”
At that moment, Nelly suddenly turned back, her dagger blocked before she could swing it.
The newcomer said with a helpless tone: “I thought I told you not to joke with your own safety.” He turned to look at Gerald and the door.
Gerald cautiously surveyed the suddenly appearing black-haired youth, stroking his chin meaningfully: “Last time, you also gave Gerald quite a start.”
“Karl…” Nelly slightly elongated her tone. Seeing the laughter in his red eyes, she glared at him and asked seriously: “Can you open this door?”
Karl smiled slightly, with a proud expression, but honestly answered: “This door can only be opened with Iza’s light stone.”
Nelly clearly saw Gerald’s mouth twitch again, regretting participating in this crazy action and having such unreliable teammates.
Karl confidently flipped his palm, revealing a pure stone the size of a pigeon egg: “But I’ve got it.”
Naily drew out her black dagger and probed the rooms, sensing only emptiness. These rooms clearly had a tangible structure, but she could feel nothing beyond the air.
Kalsas curved the corners of his eyes: “Exactly. If we open the wrong door, real monsters will appear.” He sneered, spreading his fingers, and a golden raven staff materialized.
Naily recalled the injury Kalsas had suffered that night.
If opening the wrong door could cause such damage… Naily pushed the negative thought away and asked, “So only one room contains something?”
Kalsas briefly added: “This vault indeed has no treasure. Only one room contains something. And I intend to destroy it.”
Gerard’s eyes narrowed, his fingers slightly curling into a defensive posture.
But the black-cloaked youth simply walked past Naily and Gerard, striding toward the blue door. Naily stepped forward and grabbed his arm. He looked down at her, slightly furrowing his brow, saying nothing.
“Apparently, all rooms have shifted clockwise by one position.”
If what you’re looking for was previously in the black room, it would now be in the adjacent blue room on the left, but… don’t you think this seems too simple?” Naily was somewhat skeptical.
Kalsas remained unwavering: “Outsiders who come here twice within a day are extremely rare. The Duchess visits daily, controlling the movement’s direction, so those with ulterior motives can only obtain invalid information. The Duchess didn’t set up this mechanism to confound intruders, but to trap those with outdated intelligence, delaying to catch them and extract information from internal spies.”
After speaking, he approached the blue door and struck it with his staff.
With a thunderous boom, the stone door was blasted open. The magic seal lit up but was immediately pierced by the staff’s tip. The black-haired, red-eyed youth turned back amid the rising dust, his face calm and composed.
Gerard exhaled and joked, “No need for you to do it. Someone has already blown open the door that Gerard couldn’t open.”
Naily chuckled and stepped forward quickly. Behind the toppled stone door was an empty white room, with a black stone pillar holding a black stone basin, identical to the one from earlier. She walked up and saw the basin was empty, turning to look at Kalsas.
He walked to her side, suddenly grasping her hand holding the black dagger, guiding her to thrust the blade hard into the center of the basin’s bottom.
Despite being hard stone, the material yielded like tofu to the knife, cutting through a strange emblem and plunging deep into what seemed like a liquid-filled space below.
Almost simultaneously, the circular emblem shattered, and a plume of smoke erupted from the crack.
The stone pillar slowly sank into the ground, and the surroundings violently shook.
The wall behind the stone room gradually opened, revealing a space filled with blinding light.
The light was too intense, and Naily had to close her eyes. Struggling to keep them slightly open, she finally saw what was within the bright light:
Interlocking gears, one after another, of various sizes influencing each other, connected end to end in a spiral, coiling around the brightly glowing object, resembling a silkworm cocoon or a spindle. Each gear was connected by threads as thin as hair, these semi-transparent threads intertwining and converging toward the center of the light.
Looking closer, some threads were reddish-brown, some colorless. Toward the edges, the threads’ colors grew deeper, seeming ancient and worn. Only one thread, wrapped in bright light, separated the red and white threads. This shimmering thread moved slowly, driving the surrounding uncolored threads to rotate the gears, one by one.
The green-haired magician let out a strange laugh: “What is it? Isn’t it obvious? This is the source of this world, the true face of fate!”
Just one look and you’ll understand, such beautiful magic…”
His voice abruptly stopped.
Nelly was startled.
Blood quickly spread across the white robe. Gerald stiffly lowered his head, looking at his chest, mouth agape. There was no trace of a blade piercing him, yet a hole had opened, blood gushing out.
“This is indeed the truth of the world,” the newcomer released a pleasant laugh, “but some truths must be exchanged for life, isn’t that right? Gerald?”
Nelly propped her hand on the ground and quickly retreated, creating distance.
The blonde noblewoman in a purple robe stepped lightly over the scattered stones, glancing down at Gerald, whose lips were still moving. Her smile gained a hint of pity: “I liked you, what a pity.”
Gerald spat out several mouthfuls of blood, speaking intermittently: “Fate is truly… infinite… but… it’s enough… destroy it…”
Nelly was stunned for a moment before realizing he was speaking to her. She gripped her dagger and responded: “Okay.”
The white-robed magician seemed to finally be at peace, completely lying down. He cast his gaze toward the ceiling, speaking in an almost inaudible volume: “I want to… see the Sage’s Tower one more time…”
He took a difficult breath, his whole body trembling, his eyes remaining open, still staring at the Sage’s Tower scene only he could see, motionless.
Nelly took several deep breaths, realizing she was trembling all over. She glanced back; Calsas was still in a stalemate with the magic barrier, and the Duchess could only be dealt with by her.
