The black-haired maid widened her eyes in surprise when she heard what the hostess said: "The cemetery of the ancestors? But the Holy Spirit's Day has already..."
"It's not for sacrificing ancestors," Victoria exhaled, "Go and prepare, Maggie."
Maggie glanced at the hostess quietly, without asking any more questions, but lowered her head slightly: "Yes, I understand."
Just like Gawain Cecil who was finally buried under the ancient Cecil Castle in the southern border, the tombs of the founding dukes of the four Ansu borders were finally set up on the land they guarded. The "Duke of Winter" who guarded the northern mountains The place where Norveld sleeps is under the Winterhold, which stands on the top of the mountains in the north.
Passing through the cellar at the lowest level of Winter Castle, and walking through the deepest and most solemn black corridor, is the oldest and most solemn mausoleum area of the castle. Their magnificent fortress, and nearly half of their manpower and material resources are used to maintain this mausoleum buried deep in the mountain.
The ancestors of the Wilder family were not favored by the power of elements like Gawain Cecil. The mausoleum under Winter Castle was completely stabilized by the powerful human mages who used manpower to apply elemental blessings, so that they survived without any damage. for seven centuries.
Accompanied by her maid Maggie, Victoria Wilde walked into the underground palace without any extra attendants.
The magic spar lamp embedded on the wall is infused with magic power, emitting a dim and constant radiance: in order not to disturb the ancestors, the magic spar in the mausoleum is specially designed, and its brightness is only about half of that of ordinary magic spar lamps. Under such a slightly dim light, the sloping underground palace ramp extends into the hazy darkness ahead in the duchess' line of sight. It looks vague and frightening.
But Victoria didn't care about the darkness, she stepped forward.
The wall built of requiem stone bricks receded beside her, and the solid stone steps and boots collided with hollow echoes, echoing in the oldest corridor of the entire fortress, Victoria had a feeling that she seemed to be reversing Following the track of time to the past, every time she advances 100 meters in this ancient corridor, she goes back 100 years. After the reform of the dynasty, after the years of prosperity, finally... Arrived seven hundred years ago, arrived at the original starting point of this country and this family.
The main hall of the rectangular mausoleum arrived, and the maid Maggie silently came to the stone pillar next to the entrance of the hall, and pressed her hand on a metal disc on the surface of the stone pillar. As the magic power poured into it, the magic crystal lamps inlaid everywhere in the hall also Light up one by one, allowing the originally dark hall to float a layer of light enough to see things.
The portraits of the successive heads of the Wilder family hang on the walls on both sides of the hall. From the first generation of "Snowveld the Winter Duke" to Victoria's father, everyone has the same silver hair and serious face. They slightly With lowered eyelids, as if gazing at the visitors entering the hall with serious eyes, Victoria Wilde calmly welcomed the gaze of these pairs of eyes, and saw the ancient motto engraved on the wall:
"We are the last line of defense for Ansu"
Victoria's eyes slowly swept across the faces of her ancestors, and finally landed on her father. Her eyes stayed on the majestic old duke for a long time before she whispered: "Father, it is as you expected. As mentioned above, the hidden dangers of the Second Dynasty finally broke out... But you probably can't predict where the biggest variable in this chaos comes from... "
After a moment of silence, the duchess raised her head and told the maid beside her, "Go out first, I need to be alone."
The black-haired maid exited the hall in silence, while Victoria Wilde stepped forward.
She came to the stone platform at the end of the hall. The platform was about half a person high, like a wide tabletop, with a circle of mysterious runes and patterns engraved around the platform, but the surface of the platform was as clean as a mirror, and nothing could be seen. Decorative marks.
After hesitating for a moment, the duchess put her hands on the platform and whispered the ancient spell.
The magic power in the air stirred up, and the runes around the platform lit up one after another, and the smooth mirror-like table began to ripple like water, accompanied by a milky white shimmer, a silver-white metal plate about one foot square Floating up from the rippling platform surface.
This metal plate was actually sealed in dense stones.
Victoria picked up this metal plate. It was not heavy, and it was very thin. You could see the tough decorative lines on the edge of the metal plate. This is a typical Gondor style. She rubbed the surface of the metal plate, and the metal plate immediately emerged Text comes.
Charlie Moon, guide, leader, protector, founder of the kingdom we honor as king.
Gawain Cecil, Lord of Knights, Pioneer, Protector, Founder of the Kingdom, we honor him as the Guardian of the South.
Snowveld, Frost Grip, Guardian of Knowledge, Pioneer, Founder of the Kingdom, we honor him as the Guardian of the North.
Anthony Loren, Lord of Warriors…
Always indifferent and alienated, the inaccessible Duchess of the North like the Ice Queen couldn't help showing awe when she saw this metal plate, her eyes gliding over the glorious names, Behind each of these names, there seems to be a towering mountain. They represent the cornerstone of this kingdom, the power to overcome obstacles in the natural disaster that almost destroyed human civilization seven hundred years ago, and also represent... a treaty law.
This is a list, a list of all the founders of the Ansu Kingdom at the beginning, arranged according to merit and title, but it is not just a list.
Victoria turned the metal plate over, and on the back of the metal plate, a piece of text clearly appeared on it:
"... If a natural disaster breaks out to destroy the country, or an irreparable man-made disaster occurs, resulting in the death of the king or being unable to continue to protect the kingdom due to various reasons, if there is no available heir, the person on the list will inherit in order and rule the kingdom..."
Seven hundred years ago, it was a precarious age.
It may be difficult for people living in a stable and peaceful period to imagine what it was like when human beings broke out of the wasteland and established a kingdom on a barren land. Even Victoria Wilder can only read it from ancient books. I read the records about that period of time, or heard some sporadic and one-sided descriptions from the mouths of a few long-lived races, but I couldn't have an empathetic understanding.
But every time she saw this list and the text behind the list, she could still imagine how dangerous the kingdom maintained by the ancestors was at the beginning of Ansu's founding.
The aftermath of the demon tide is constantly invading the country. Until the completion of the magnificent wall, the monsters rushing out of the wasteland of Gondor are still attacking the human world. Even when the demon tide is strongest, the hinterland of the Holy Spirit Plain will be Large-scale erosion occurred. To this day, there is still a black corroded wall brick on a section of the city wall in the inner city of Saint-Sunil, silently describing that period of crisis.
In those days, the king could die at any time, the guardian duke could die at any time, everyone could die at any time.
That's why there is this list, and the "emergency succession rules" behind it.
But just like that, no one has ever thought that the honorary "permanent development right" will come into effect one day, and those who know this list probably never thought that someone on this list would suddenly come back to life...
Victoria Wilde looked at the metal plate in her hand quietly. After a long time, she sighed softly, solemnly placed the metal plate on the stone platform, and reversed the spell to seal it again.
After doing all this, she took two steps back, left the stone platform, and turned around to look around the entire hall.
There are many stone gates lined up on the walls on both sides of the hall. Behind the stone gates are corridors. Those corridors lead to different tombs. One day, she will lie in one of the tombs, and one of her descendants will stand Where she was standing now, she also looked around here.
But you might be thinking about something different.
After standing there for a while, the Duchess seemed to have suddenly made up her mind. She glanced at the closed door, and through the faint sense of breath, she knew that Maggie was still guarding the door.
In fact, even if no one is guarding, no one would dare to trespass on this place.
Victoria turned around, glanced at the stone platform before, then walked around the platform and walked towards the door behind the stone platform.
This door is the most special, it occupies a wall of the hall by itself, there is no corridor behind the door, only the only tomb.
From this structure, the layout of this mausoleum is actually no different from Cecil's ancestor mausoleum.
Accompanied by the creaking sound of the magic mechanism running, the Duchess opened the door of the special tomb at the deepest level, stepped into it, and lit the magic spar lamp in the deep tomb.
The magic spar lamp illuminates this spacious hall, and the furnishings of the hall can be seen at a glance: a large number of stone slabs and magic pattern curtains depicting mysterious runes are arranged around the hall, and bookshelves, planetary instruments, and miniatures can be seen in other open spaces. The mage tower model and other objects are arranged in seemingly random but orderly positions, and on the high platform in the center of the hall, there is a black iron coffin quietly placed.
"Ancestor, your descendants came to visit you."
Victoria Wilde said softly with a solemn expression, then seemed to swallow lightly, and walked towards the iron coffin.
When she came to the high platform, she saw the stone slab leaning on the iron coffin, engraved on the stone slab was the last words left to the world by Snowveld, the patriarch of the Wilder family:
"Old folks, it's no fun that I outlive you all"
It may be difficult for outsiders to imagine that the ancestor of Wilde, who only had a frosty and serious expression on various official portraits, would leave such a sentence at the last moment of his life, but Victoria is no longer surprised by this sentence. .
She diverted her attention away from the stone slab, and stared at the dark iron coffin in front of her, with a struggle and hesitation on her face.
After hesitating for nearly ten minutes, she finally stretched out her hand boldly and tapped lightly on the lid of the iron coffin.
The iron coffin didn't respond.
After hesitating again, she stretched out her hand again, tapped the lid of the iron coffin lightly, and quickly turned her head to look around.
Of course there was no one here, so the Duchess of the North took a breath and approached the iron coffin: "... are you there?"
Three awkward minutes passed, and all Duchess Victoria heard was her own breathing and heartbeat.
The face of the Duchess seemed to be covered with a layer of frost. She straightened up quickly, took two steps back, and whispered to herself: "...Damn, what stupid thing am I doing..."
She quickly left the tomb and the hall of the underground palace. When the maid Maggie saw her, the guardian of the northern border had regained her indifferent, noble and steady appearance.
"Vicky, you've been in there for a long time."
"To confirm something," Victoria said lightly, "let's go, Maggie, this time, I really want to go back to my room to rest."
"OK."