Chapter 505: The First Lair
Chapter 505: The First Lair
By the time I woke up, it was already the next day’s morning. Turns out I was a lot more tired than I thought I was, but at least this meant Mei Gui got a bunch of her energy replenished with this. The girls were worried that I had died or something, but upon checking in on me, they saw me still breathing, so…
In any case, there was no time to waste. As soon as we ate breakfast and got ourselves prepared, we set out for the location of the first of the three other Empyreans’ lairs, marked on the map. Over the past day, Lan Xiao Su had figured out all the coordinates of the three lairs we needed to go to, and… well, let’s just say the locations were nothing short of extraordinary, but also made sense at the same time.
Aquira’s temple, for example, was underwater, and Aerim’s was above the clouds with the Celestici. And Ignis? His was the most ridiculous one of all—it was literally at the bottom of a now-dormant volcano. According to Xiao Su’s research, it was no longer active and didn’t have any lava inside, but the fact that it used to be a volcano was still… unsettling.
Compared to these, Terrarim’s choice of lair location seemed like child’s play and the most normal one despite being at the bottom center of a 3,000 meter tall mountain. I would rather go down those 3 kilometers’ worth of hellish stairs than underwater, in the clouds, or into a goddamn volcano.
Well, no use complaining about it. In the end, we settled on heading to Aerim’s temple first since that seemed like the easiest one, but to reach there, only those with Sky Magic could go, and the limit was once again 4 people only maximum. It would seem the barrier erected around Mount Kita last time was not done at the hands of Silver, but actually the Empyreans themselves.
When I asked Terrarim about this, he said that it was to avoid entire armies of people coming into the place and fighting over the spoils, which I suppose made sense. As such, it was decided that our roster for this temple would be Flaria, Lin Luo, Mei Gui, and of course myself. The other three all specialized in aerial combat, and Lin Luo especially would be helpful as she was half-Celesticus.
“So, how did you guys even manage to explain to that village elder about Yami?” I asked as we flew towards the destination, with me carrying Flaria since she insisted.
Lin Luo sighed. “The village elder knew all along, apparently. She just humored us anyway because the child reminded her of her grandson. That’s all.”
“Huh… I see…”
Soon, we arrived at the coordinates Xiao Su gave us.
Or… at least, we thought we did.
“Uh… auntie Xiao Su? We’re where you told us to go, but there’s nothing here,” Flaria said, talking through my phone. I nearly burst out laughing at the usage of the word ‘auntie’, but Xiao Su didn’t seem to mind. Had it been any of the other girls, though, that would’ve been a different matter altogether.
“Really?” Xiao Su’s voice came from the other end. “Huh… I’m certain the coordinates I got are correct, though…”
“There may be a hidden mechanism,” Lin Luo said, folding her arms. “We Celesticus use camouflage technology on many of our important buildings to hide them from public eye. Chances are, the enchantments we use to do so are directly descended from the one used here. If that is the case, then…”
She shut her eyes and traced some invisible sigil in the air, then opened her eyes again.
And suddenly, like magic, a massive sky island materialized out of thin air before our very eyes, and we could only gape in shock.
“Wow… it worked,” Flaria murmured.
“Hmph. As expected,” Lin Luo muttered, and ascended towards the island, then turned back to us. “Come on. What are you waiting for?”
The other two girls and I exchanged glances, nodded, and flew up behind Lin Luo.
*****
On the sky island, we found a castle.
That was no exaggeration or expression. It was a literal castle in the sky, towering and glorious. It looked a little worn-down, but without a doubt, this was constructed by an Empyrean himself.
“Just to confirm… this is the place, correct?” Flaria asked, arching an eyebrow, and I nodded.
“It should be here… at least, according to Terrarim,” I replied. “Besides, I trust Xiao Su’s skills.”
“Yes. I can sense a powerful aura around this place as well,” Lin Luo added. “It would seem… this ‘Aerim’ character is in fact the ancestor of all Celestici, hence why I can feel his aura.”
“Her,” I corrected. “It’s a she.”
“Is that so?” Lin Luo raised an eyebrow. Then, “I see.”
Soon, we arrived at the gates of the castle, surrounded by a moat that eventually led to a beautiful waterfall off the edge of the sky island. Strangely, however, from down below on the ground, this waterfall was completely invisible, and even if you went directly underneath it, I doubt you would feel water dropping over your head.
In any case, the front gates were unlocked, so the girls and I just strolled on in. Before entering the main castle, however, Terrarim sent me a warning.
“Be careful, kiddo. Aerim is… somewhat of a playful character. She will have many tricks and traps around the castle, and most likely already knows we are here thanks to my presence. Although most will be harmless, some can be… quite a pain to deal with.”
I kept that in mind as I pushed open the castle doors. It seemed like quite a normal castle at first, but very old. The sunlight highlighted all the dust specks in the air, and the creaking of the door hinges didn’t help its case one bit. Rather than being creepy, though, despite the darkness, there was a sense of mystery to it that was amplified by its oldness, as if drawing us deeper inside.
Naturally, we obliged, and stepped through the door. I half-expected the doors to suddenly slam shut on us, but apparently, here, that wasn’t going to happen.
“Okay… first things first: light,” I said, and snapped my fingers to create a shining sphere of light above my head with Light Magic. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
“Hm… this place really is like a medieval castle,” Lin Luo murmured, looking around at all the armor sets on the display statues and the various pieces of furniture all around us. “It would seem our target is further inside, though.”
“Your destination is the tower at the very rear end of this castle,” Terrarim said in my mind. “That is where you can find Aerim’s power, also herself. Progress towards that direction, and if my guess is not wrong… you will need to climb up from there.”
Oh, great… first stairs heading down, and now stairs heading up. Of course.
With a sigh, the girls and I began making our way through the castle. Being a castle, it was quite hard to navigate and quite easy to get lost in, so we stuck together the whole way even if it meant us spending a bit more time. Naturally, I already tried simply flying to the tower, but there was some kind of restriction in place preventing us from doing that, as if saying we had to go through the castle and climb the tall tower.
As this was the Air Empyrean Aerim’s territory, you would think she wants us to fly, but I guess reality was the opposite. Either way, even though we spent a long time passing through the castle, there weren’t any traps or tricks like Terrarim had mentioned. It was a perfectly normal castle with perfectly normal aesthetics and a complex layout, but it was manageable.
After about 15 minutes of wandering to and from inside the castle, we found absolutely no useful information. There were no old documents laying around anywhere of any form, but thankfully, we did manage to locate the passageway that led to the tower that was our destination.
The double doors leading into it were unlocked, and I pushed through without a second thought. This time, howeve, when the girls and I all made it across…
Click.
… The doors locked themselves up.
“…!” I immediately spun around in surprise, and tried blasting through, but there was some sort of heavy Enchantment in place. This, was the work of an Empyrean, something that not even I could break through with my current understanding of Chaos.
“… Shit. She got me,” I muttered. Because the first doors didn’t shut like this, nor did any of the other ones in the castle, I didn’t expect this one to automatically lock itself like so. How… clever.
“Well, looks like we have no way to go but up now,” I said, sighing.
And amidst the quietness of the stone tower, I could’ve sworn I heard the high-pitched laughter of a little girl.