Chapter 585 Graska Mountain
With the additional light, the details that had been painted on the walls became clear, as well as the fact that the city had most likely not met with a peaceful end.
There were scorched spots on the walls, and some cuts in the stone that Karl had originally mistaken for tooling marks were actually weapon strikes.
That gave the area a very different feeling than simply being abandoned for many years, and the two intruders began to move with a bit more caution as they followed the soul energy towards its source.
The tunnel ended in what looked like a forge district, the furnaces long dormant. However, the buildings were intact, and Karl took the opportunity to look inside a few to see what he could find.
The first was completely bare, nothing but a stone shell, but the second had a forge left in it, covered in magical writing.
"I will need a moment before we move on. I have never seen anything like that before." Karl whispered to Nacht.
[Good call. Brother Hawk will love me for writing these runes down for him. I don't know what they do, but if they're in a forge, they should all be fire related, right?] Remi agreed.
The dragon waited patiently, well aware of the curiosity of humans. Karl was also very young, and he wouldn't be familiar with Dwarven Forge Runes. It wasn't something that they taught in school, and Nacht didn't know if there were any Dwarves left in his nation. Before the thought crossed his mind, he hadn't cared. Who lived in the Golden Dragon Nation was of no concern to him.
The signs of battle had been everywhere in the city as they travelled, but the houses had been carefully vacated, and there were no signs of the destruction that usually came with looting. There were no broken housewares or low-value items, and even the paintings on the walls had been removed and not left damaged or discarded.
Perhaps whatever battle had caused the Dark Iron Dwarves to leave the city was not a losing battle, after all. It might have simply been infeasible for them to continue living here.
If you can manage that much, you should receive a significant reward. There are immense amounts of divine energy in this place, waiting for someone to pass the trial and activate it."
Karl continued to walk forward, completely focused on not letting the pressure drive him to the ground, as he moved past the point that it was simply trying to force him away.
"Fascinating. Your soul is compressing under the pressure." Karl didn't even hear Nacht's words. He was completely focused on the task at hand. From the outside, it would look ridiculous, a grown man staggering down the street like he was drunk. But the normally invisible force was far stronger than anything Karl had ever felt. Even the aura that the Emperor of Newbon emitted when he was enraged wasn't close to this powerful.
Karl wished that he had Thor here with him. His stalwart friend would know the best way to get across the road to his destination.
Karl nearly stumbled as he moved from the cobblestone street to the soft gemstone gravel surrounding the tomb. Resting with his hands on his knees as he leaned forward, Karl saw the target, a large white opal stone. It was the source of the energy, and if he could just put a hand on it, he should have completed the trial.
"Just a little further. Today will be a good day, I can sense it." Nacht chuckled, excited to find out what sort of trial they had been sent to that could accept a dragon of his power.
It was absurd to think that someone had set a trial capable of accommodating Totems, unless this place was truly a Legendary Relic. But here he was, and although he couldn't fully partake because of his affiliation with the God of Death, he was still part of the trial.
Karl could feel his mind beginning to shatter as he took another step forward, but Remi, who was unaffected by the trial in her space, was singing as she worked on potions, and that was just enough to ground him and keep Karl moving.
A final step, and millimetre by painstaking millimetre, he extended his hand to the Opal.
[Trial Successfully Completed]
[Calculating Rewards]