Part 5 THE RED PRIEST CHAPTER VIII THE STRANGE OLD CASTLE
Forsyth’s eyes and Hugh’s met in mid-air, and neither spoke.
After a while, Voorhees laughed dryly:
”Haha, you didn’t fall asleep?”
Hugh frowned a little and said:
”What happened to you just now?”
”Nothing, didn’t I tell you? Whenever the full moon comes, my state isn’t too good, and it’s even worse during the blood moon.” Forsyth replied with a pretense of normalcy.
Hugh looked her up and down and pulled the covers over her and said:
”I remember you brought potions for sleeping?”
”Not for now, I’ve regulated myself.” Seeing that Hugh didn’t pursue the question, Forsyth secretly sighed in relief and said, “Sleep, sleep, I still have to get up early tomorrow to go into the forest.”
Without another word, Hugh rolled over, embraced the covers, and closed his eyes.
It wasn’t long before her breathing became a little heavier, long and even.
Forsyth stared blankly at the ceiling, ruminating for a while, and at some point fell asleep as well.
……
At noon the next day, in the core area of Delaire Forest, in front of an ancient castle that had collapsed most of the way and was covered in green vines.
Foerth wiped the sweat from his forehead and let out a long sigh of relief:
”Finally arrived …….”
Hugh glanced at her and said:
”The innkeeper told me it would only take two hours to get here.”
They had left just before six in the morning and had spent nearly seven hours en route.
The corner of Voorhees’ mouth twitched as he said:
”The theoretical state and the actual situation are not the same, we didn’t even have a road when we came to the later part of the journey, we need to grope and open it up by ourselves!”
Hugh took out the three-pronged thorn and nodded his head, saying:
”At the very beginning you should have been able to foresee such a situation, but as a result you still refused the innkeeper’s suggestion of recommending a guide.”
”As an ‘astrologer’, I don’t think this kind of small matter will cause trouble, look, aren’t we already here? Besides, it’s just the right time of year, and the grumbling ghosts must all be in their weakest state.” Forsyth, who squeezed out a smile, held “Lemanor’s Travel Notes” in one hand and pointed forward with the other, “I didn’t think so before, but now the more I think about it, the more I’m puzzled.”
”Confused about what?” Hugh also turned his gaze to the abandoned old castle that was almost covered with vines.
Forsyth casually searched for a reason:
”Who, do you think, would build a castle in the middle of a forest? And there’s no road cut right through here yet ……”
Before the words left her mouth, she genuinely thought it did seem a bit odd.
Hugh thought for a moment and said:
”Perhaps there was originally a road, and with the abandonment of the castle, long time washed away all traces of what came before.”
Forsyth tucked her hair around her ears and shook her head:
”Then why was it abandoned?
”If it was built with safety in mind, the middle of an uninhabited forest far away from the town would be more dangerous instead, and if it was needed for a vacation, with the style of the nobles, they wouldn’t give it up, even if it was difficult to repair and maintain.”
Hugh blurted out:
”Because it’s haunted?”
Forsyth thought for a few seconds and said:
”Someone who can afford to build a large castle would not be able to hire an extraordinary person to deal with the haunting?
”I suspect that the three major churches and the kingdom government don’t know about this ancient castle, otherwise, there’s no reason for them to spare the extraordinary materials inside ……”
Speaking here, she raised a possibility:
”An ancient castle of the Blood Clan?”
This kind of transcendent creatures liked to live in places where people were rare, and they were often associated with buildings like eerie ancient castles.
In addition, the information about this ancient castle itself was provided by the Blood Clan.
”It’s possible.” Hugh first agreed, then offered a different opinion, “Would the Blood Clan still be afraid of ghosts? They surely have the ability to deal with the ancient grudge spirits here as well.”
It makes sense ……Don’t all those Bloods like money and don’t care about the collection of extraordinary materials? Forsythe thought about Mr. “Moon”‘s performance, then dismissed his guess and spoke with deliberation:
”Unless there are other troubles that can’t be solved well here, so that high-level powerhouses choose to bypass them.”
In that case, her actions would be more dangerous than expected.
Hugh said with a “hmm”:
”While the sunlight is fierce now, let’s do a preliminary exploration immediately.”
”Good.” Forsyth took “Lemanor’s Travel Notes” and approached the half-collapsed castle step by step.
The two of them soon came to the entrance that was blocked by two-thirds of the stones, and found that under the green vines, the stone walls were mottled and badly weathered, and seemed to have existed for a long, long time.
Hugh was in no hurry to enter, and greeted Forsyth with a slow circle around the old castle.
Returning to the entrance, she opened her mouth doubtfully:
”The style of this castle belongs to a purely defensive type, it seems to have not considered the issue of habitation at all, moreover, many of the architectural features, I haven’t heard of them, the age of its existence should be before the late Quaternary Period, or even earlier.”
”What is there to defend here? Orcs? Tree people? They almost became extinct after the Cataclysm, haha, this can’t be a building from the Second or Third Era, right?” Voorhees responded casually.
She surveyed the terrain and led Hugh away from the entrance to a nearby wall that was still intact, extended her palm, and pressed on it.
–While she lacked experience in fighting people, she was quite skillful in the various matters before a battle.
The illusory light and shadow in front of their eyes changed, and Voorhees and Hugh entered the abandoned old castle at once.
The first thing that caught their eyes was the collapsed staircase, the overlapping remains of the superstructure, a ray of pure sunlight shining in from high above, and a ground that was nothing but masonry and decaying wood, free of beasts, birds, droppings, and all sorts of green weeds.
The whimpering wind blew through, even at midday, with a chill that seeped into the marrow of the bones.
Folth turned on her psychic vision and looked around slowly, failing to see any spirit creatures.
However, she noticed that to the right of the broken walls, there was a stone staircase that was still intact.
The ladder was mostly mottled and stretched all the way down, leading to nowhere.
”Go over and take a look?” Forsyth glanced at Hugh and made her suggestion.
In her thoughts, the rest of the ancient castle was either clear at a glance and could be seen clearly, or the collapsed things were layered on top of each other, so if she was prepared to explore carefully, it would definitely take quite a long time, so it would be better to roughly map out the overall pattern first, and have a little bit of a bottom in her heart.
Hugh glanced around and nodded gently:
”The cold wind is converging …… toward the ground I suspect that all the resentful ghosts here are hiding in the place where that ladder leads to.”
”Hmm.” Voorhees cautiously walked towards the mottled stone staircase, and traveled down the steps, which were scattered with a lot of debris, one step at a time.
The steps were quite narrow, only passable for one person, and were of the kind that circled deeper and deeper, making the walk rather trembling for Voorhees.
Da, da, da, the light within the staircase grew dimmer and dimmer as the sound of the two men’s footsteps echoed deeper and deeper.
Hugh lit the lamp in his hand, and Forsyth opened “Lemanor’s Traveling Notebook” and skillfully wiped his fingers across one of the pages.
A clear, warm light leapt out of the air, illuminating the mottled steps in front of them, and Forsyth and Hugh each tensed their nerves as they descended one level after another.
Along the way, a chilly wind blew through them, causing them to overreact several times, nearly launching themselves at non-existent enemies.
Ta, ta, ta, in the cramped and cold environment, Voorhees finally finished the steps and stepped onto flat, solid ground.
She wanted to open her mouth and say “staying in such a place for a long time will really make people go crazy”, but due to the silent atmosphere around her, she couldn’t really make a sound for fear of breaking this state and triggering an extremely bad change.
Illuminated with the help of the light mass floating diagonally above, Voorhees cast his gaze ahead, trying to see clearly what the end of the staircase actually looked like.
It was a hall, nearly 10 meters high, covered with black floor tiles that had seeped out of the water droplets, with traces of cracks and damages everywhere.
A few dozen meters away, on the other side of the hall, which the light mass narrowly failed to illuminate, stood a bronze door that was open to the other side.
From the top of the gate, the stone on the left and right walls fell off, and the statues were broken, revealing the dark brown soil that covered the bottom.
The surface of the gate, is painted and engraved with dense symbols and strange patterns, giving people an intuitive sense of mystery and a sense of heaviness, seems to be sealing what is blocking what.
Forsyth finally couldn’t help but speak, she pressed her voice and said:
”Have you ever seen a similar gate?”
Hugh beside her shook his head and said:
”No.”
Forsyth gave a sudden “hiss”:
”What would be behind this door, do you think? What could it lead to?
”This… this is what the castle was built for in the first place? To prevent the creatures behind the door from coming out?”
Hugh looked around, not finding any murals that could provide information, only realizing that the closer he got to that bronze gate, the more water beads seeped out of the ground, and the more silver and black longswords were thrown around haphazardly.
”In the Fourth Age, the Fifth Age, frescoes were a widespread thing within all castle buildings, and before the Cataclysm, as evidenced by several elven ruins, the transcendent beings were equally fond of praising the gods and recording their daily lives in the form of frescoes ……” Hugh combined his own bounty Hunter’s experience and insights, said in a slower tone.
Voorhees nodded slightly:
”Indeed.
”This old castle is even more peculiar than I had imagined.”
At this moment, she was quite apprehensive, and was all too tempted to just quit the place and ask Mr. “World” for help.
–After listening to so many horror stories of ruins and ruins told by the little “sun” at the tarot meeting, she always couldn’t help but think too much and scare herself when she was in a similar environment.
”Come closer, maybe we can find more clues.” Hugh boldly took a step forward and approached the heavy door that sealed off something like a place.
Forsyth, clutching “Lemanor’s Traveling Notes,” hurried after him.
As she walked, a flash of bright red suddenly appeared in her eyes.
Those black tiles in the cracks seeped out, no longer water droplets, but a piercing blood!
”This ……” Forsyth snapped open the notebook with the copper green casing, and swept Hugh beside her out of the corner of her eye.
In her line of sight, Hugh at some point had gone pale, his eyes were black and green, his lips were blood red, his surroundings were dull, and his expression was extremely distorted.