The setting sun had already sunk, and there was only a very wide bright edge with a slight arc left on the horizon.
With the help of Amber's shadow interference, the group easily climbed over the wall on the east side of the castle, and reached the interior of Viscount Andrew's fortress through the internal stairs of an old tower.
They hid on a terrace on the second floor of the castle under the cover of shadows, overlooking the empty atrium below and the corridor opposite the atrium.
This castle, like most noble fortresses in southern Ansu, has a roughly square and layered structure. The outermost layer is a wall, and the inner layer is formed by stables, servant rooms, utility rooms, and verandahs. The arch guard area, and the inside is the living area formed by the inner corridor and the lord's mansion, and the several areas are connected by thick passages with strong walls and thick walls. At the highest point of the corner, there are arrow towers, bell towers and beacon towers for early warning.
This kind of residence is not comfortable, and most of its structures look like a military fortress, and this is precisely because the southern border was the front line against the tide of demons, and the old architectural style has been passed down from generation to generation as a tradition. With the peace of the past few hundred years, many places in the southern region have begun to change. Even the less wealthy southern nobles have begun to learn to improve their living environment like the northerners, and even prefer to live in comfortable and bright manors. But obviously, Viscount Andrew is not a person who cares much about living conditions: his castle still maintains a considerable degree of "classical style".
But in such a castle that was almost a military fortress, Gawain didn't see many guards who were supposed to be patrolling and standing guard. Even the atrium in the center of the castle was empty.
"There is no one everywhere?" Amber stared wide-eyed, looking down curiously, her shadow talent allows her to clearly distinguish objects in dim environments, "And it seems that no one has pruned the garden for months The...weeds and bushes are growing to cover the road."
As Amber said, the courtyard of the castle was not only empty, but also the plants were growing very vigorously everywhere. It was clear that the order here should be normal until a few days ago, but at this moment Gawain glanced down and felt that this The castle seemed to have been abandoned for several months or even more than a year. Lush plants grew wildly everywhere, covering the road and the walls, and some vines even climbed to the gate leading to the main building.
"Byron, you haven't fully recovered, you are waiting for us here." Gawain turned his head and said to the middle-aged knight behind him, "I left you three 'crystal grenades' for self-defense, have you memorized the usage?"
The gray-haired middle-aged knight twisted his neck uncomfortably: "It doesn't feel good to be treated as a burden."
Gawain smiled, and patted the shoulder armor of the usually inconspicuous Mr. Knight: "You have made great achievements and fought bravely. At this time, I don't want my knight to die because of recklessness."
Gao Wen said this from the bottom of his heart. Although he also secretly complained about the unreliable words and deeds of this "non-mainstream knight" who was born as a mercenary, Byron has indeed shown enough bravery and determination in this incident. There is no need for him to drag his weak body to take part in the adventure. Maybe someone with a strong chivalry like Philip would fight with Gawain to the death, but Byron is not such a pedantic person.
So the middle-aged knight nodded, took the three grenades that Gawain handed him, and looked at the exquisite "magic industrial product" with a slightly complicated expression: "Tsk tsk... I am afraid that even children can handle this kind of thing." Learn to use it... "
After a while, Gao Wen and his party entered the atrium of the castle under the cover of the increasingly dark sky.
They didn't see any guards along the way, nor did they see the minions or magic traps of the cultists. This huge fortress seemed to have really been abandoned, empty, quiet, and weird.
Knight Philip followed behind Gawain quietly with his sword in hand, but soon he shrugged his nose and said in a low voice, "There is an evil aura here."
Amber couldn't help but take a look at this young knight who usually looks a bit stupid: "You won't be shouting 'Holy Light, this evil is worth fighting' in the next second and rushing out to hack and hack, aren't you? Paladin."
"Shh," Gawain interrupted Amber's bb in a low voice, "Don't forget that Philip is a follower of Kyle."
Amber opened her eyes slightly, then pursed her lips and said nothing.
Kyle, the god of warriors and knights, is also the god of war. He is a powerful god in the lineage of righteous gods, second only to the god of light. He protects all warriors and blesses war, even though he is not the god of light. But his divine power also has the power to resist blasphemy and detect evil. His followers will get extra blessings when they are looking for cultists. Although they are not as good as orthodox Holy Light priests or paladins, they are also much stronger than ordinary people.
And Philip is a devout follower of Kyle, even if he is not a priest, his piety can make him more sensitive than others to the aura of heretics entrenched in this castle.
Gao Wen didn't believe in gods, so naturally he couldn't get the blessings of gods, but his body was naturally alarming. He held the pioneer sword and stared vigilantly at the dense flowers, shrubs and decorative trees in the courtyard: "These If the plants are growing too lush, there is probably something wrong."
Pittman held a handful of ironwood seeds in his hand, but he didn't dare to release any druid spells to detect the surrounding situation at will: just as he could easily sense the cultists of the same root and the same root, the death of all things, who were born in Druid Rui's cultists could also sense him the moment he cast a spell, and unless a direct conflict broke out, he would never dare to take the risk easily.
They began to cross the courtyard, approaching the main building of Viscount Andrew's castle: it was the place where the cultists were most likely to hide.
A layer of dim "tulle" shrouded the figures of the four of them, and Amber walked in the middle of the team, using her ghost-level shadow affinity talent to create a group stealth effect for everyone. The guy who was a fool followed, and Gawain would not choose to take the risk of sneaking into the castle directly to save time.
The sun has completely sunk below the horizon, and the only remaining light in the sky is gradually being swallowed up by the darkness, and the starlight begins to emerge, and at the moment when the starlight first appeared, a cool night wind blows across the atrium.
Those dense plants that seemed to have grown wantonly for a year swayed in the night wind, making a swishing sound, and in that sound, there seemed to be mixed with countless murmurs.
Amber instantly got goosebumps, and as the power of shadows grew stronger as night fell, her vision began to shift towards the "extraordinary", and some things that were ignored during the day suddenly entered her field of vision.
The half-elf lady was so frightened that she almost cried out, but before she could speak out, Gawain had already pressed her mouth tightly.
"I saw it too." Gao Wen whispered.
In the atrium, beneath the lush vegetation, among the wild roots and vines, there was something.
The nearest shrub was swaying in the night wind, a pale hand emerged from its roots, buried in the soil, slightly convulsed; a half-buried face protruded from the nearby weeds , the eyes on that face were half-closed, and the cracked and cracked lips were still moving; an old half-lived oak tree leaned by the roadside, with a swelling at the root, the shape of the swelling was like a head, and a pair of eyes emerged from the bark. It was exposed between the cracks, yellow and stiff, half-lived and half-dead like an oak tree...
Under all the plants in the entire courtyard, there are buried human limbs, and the owners of those limbs are obviously still alive!
"The name of the God of War!" Knight Philip shouted in a low voice, suppressing his voice, "What a frenzied act!"
"These people... are they alive or dead?!" Amber took two deep breaths, and said in a low voice with a trace of panic after breaking away from Gao Wen's hand.
"Most of them are still alive, but it's hard to say how long they can live." Pittman squeezed the seeds that were going to be used as spell-casting materials in his hand, "No wonder we didn't see any guards and attendants... They were all buried in the atrium !"
"Be careful not to touch these plants," the old druid added, "They are the eyes of that cultist!"
"What are the cultists going to do to bury these people here?" Amber suppressed her nausea and frowned, "Drain their life force?"
"...I'm afraid not," Pittman shook his head. "There is no need for such a troublesome ritual to extract life force. The cultists control these people between half-life and half-death, and keep their consciousness in a trance... I suspect that he is extracting the minds of these people .”
"Extract thoughts?!" Amber was taken aback, "All things will eventually perish even this can be done?!"
"Of course it's not so easy to deal with extraordinary powers, but these are ordinary people without magic resistance, alas," Pittman sighed softly, "It seems that the cultist is not just trying to kill a few people here, He has a purpose, he is gathering intelligence..."
While speaking, everyone had already passed through the atrium full of crazy plants with extreme caution, and came to the porch leading to the main hall of the castle. In front of them was an oak door that was partially hidden. On the oak door, engraved Crest of the Leslie family.
The emblem seemed to be flowing with fresh blood, dark red and shiny.
Gao Wen didn't directly touch the obviously abnormal door with his hands, but pushed the door with the Pioneer Sword, and pushed it open slowly without a sound. Afterwards, he became very vigilant and took the lead to step across the door. .
And the moment he stepped through the gate, a burst of unbearably noisy and chaotic noise suddenly swept over from nowhere!
It feels like there are ten thousand sounds exploding in my ears at the same time, ten thousand people shouting in my ears at the same time, ten thousand chaotic and absurd musical instruments are playing in my ears at the same time, or there are two ambers who are drunk blind ear bb...
Gao Wen felt as if his body was rusted, and even turning his head became extremely difficult and slow, and he soon discovered that those noisy sounds did not come from the outside world, but came from his own mind amidst the maddening voice , he saw that the castle corridor covered with dark red carpet was suddenly elongated, and the walls on both sides with the portraits of the ancestors of the Leslie family also quickly receded to infinity, and all directions suddenly became extremely wide, and the darkness The starry sky replaced the original scene in the castle.
Those chaotic noises finally merged into one clearly distinguishable voice, and it continued to roar: "All things will perish! All things will perish! All things will perish!"
However, even though Gao Wen was shrouded in noise and illusions, he found that his thinking was extremely clear. The converging roar came clearly, and he even had a very clear thought in his mind: "Yeah, because of the increase in entropy, what's wrong?"
"All things will eventually..."
Before Gao Wen realized what was going on, the crazy noise and the phantom of the dark starry sky stopped abruptly and disappeared.