"Yes, that is the spell. Do you know this ring, too?"
Sister Defulin nodded. The autumn leaves on the cliff were blown by the evening breeze, and the hems of the blind nuns' robes were ruffling. In the wind, they kept the same posture, and the blindfolds reflected the moonlight, which was indeed a bit strange.
"This relic is not well-known. I heard about it from Granny Cassandra before. She even told me the spell. It is said that this is the knowledge of her teacher. This sage-level relic was originally in the hands of the local vampire clan in Midhill Castle. Granny Cassandra's teacher said that this relic first appeared in the Fifth Epoch. The great vampire gave it to a human male. After that mortal died in the Xikar Mountain area, the relic returned to the hands of the vampires."
"I see... Died in the Sikar Mountains."
Xia De nodded somewhat disappointedly. The sage-level relic ring should have been given by the saint to the gray-haired armored old man at the end of the God's banquet. And now, after an era, Xia De heard about the ring again. The ring has transformed from a powerful divine item into a relic, and the old man has long disappeared.
"The Vampire Ring changes races, and unlike the Transformation Ring, this one seems to be activated by someone else chanting a spell... If I give it to Mia, it's like turning Mia from a cat into a Vampire. In this way, maybe she can use the Fish Training Ring, and then speak and use the Transformation Ring... What am I thinking? The user of the Vampire Ring will be infected with blood thirst, and I can't let the cat get this troublesome disease."
The nuns of the spiritual order had to rush to the top of the mountain, so after making sure that Xia De was okay, they said goodbye to him. Xia De watched the nuns leave the cliff and enter the dense forest again. He turned to the edge of the cliff and looked down.
Even if he didn't have a fear of heights, looking at the dense forest under the cliff at night from this angle still made him feel a little dizzy. And the witcher's silver sword was in a secret cave under the cliff. The entrance to the cave could not be seen by ordinary methods, and only the person holding the parchment could see it.
"Finally found it..."
It was already late, and Shade was still worried about his cat. Although Luvia, who was stargazing on the third floor, would help Shade feed the cat, Shade was still a little worried.
"Hurry up, I need to go back as soon as possible."
He looked up at the moon in the sky, then found some thin threads from his pocket. After covering them with white cloth, he turned them into thick hemp ropes, tied them to the tree closest to the cliff, and tied the other end to his waist. After pulling a few times to make sure it was very firm, he slowly slid down from the cliff.
“That’s why it’s so troublesome to find things in the mountains.”
Fortunately, he found the right place this time. Not long after, Shade, holding the parchment in his hand, saw the traces of twisted fluctuations on the cliff. He pasted the parchment there, and the dark cave entrance immediately appeared.
Shade swung into the cave, and used Felianna's witch light to melt a handle-like depression on the stone wall at the entrance of the cave. He untied the rope and tied it to the "stone handle" to make it easier for him to climb up later.
"Silver Moon."
The moonlight bloomed at the fingertips, illuminating the dark cave. This didn't look like a nest dug by an animal, but rather a natural crack in the rocks that had widened and become what it is now.
The cave was very deep, and there was no wind all the way down. There seemed to be no other exit. Because the location of the trap and how to remove it were recorded on the parchment, Shade was not in danger. He was sure that none of the traps had been triggered, and the rituals used for warning were only damaged by time, not by human intervention.
"That's good news. The sword is still here. It seems I'm lucky."
The further you go inward, the narrower the passage becomes. The deep cave is like an ant's nest, with no end in sight.
When it was almost nine o'clock, a voice in his ear suddenly reminded him that there were whispering elements ahead, which were traces of relics. This meant that Shade was getting closer and closer to the finish line.
"How did the ancestor of the high-level sorcerer and ophthalmologist Jacob Alfred find this cave on the cliff?"
He thought to himself, holding on to the uneven stone wall and continued to walk forward. The ground here was not flat either, and it was quite difficult to walk.
"Besides, why is it getting hotter and hotter?"
This is definitely not an illusion of a closed space caused by going too deep into the cave, nor is it the natural temperature rise in the cave that has been unventilated for many years. I didn't feel it when I first entered here, but after the whispering element appeared, the feeling of temperature rise immediately became very obvious.
"Could it be that the power of that sword is related to fire? Can a sword related to fire... sense something?"
There is indeed an abnormal temperature rise, but it is not caused by the whispering element.
"No? Could it be that this passage leads directly to the underground magma lake?"
Xia De thought in surprise, and as he continued to move forward, even the rocks in the cave became hot, which made the sound of his breathing more and more obvious:
"What's going on? This is definitely not normal."
He continued to move forward, and the increasingly narrow passage finally came to the end. A faint red light flickered in front of him, and at the same time, a rolling heat wave hit him. The moonlight on his fingertips showed that there was a vast space outside the passage, and according to Shad's estimation, he should be in the belly of Mount Xikar.
He walked out carefully, raising his right hand as high as he could to illuminate the surroundings. Outside the passage was a small stone platform, and outside the stone platform was a huge hollow in the belly of the mountain. In the quiet, hollow, dark, deep and extremely depressing environment, the weak flame light was swaying, which made the environment even more weird.
The top of the big hole is not very high, about three stories high, and the bottom...
Xia De bent down, picked up a stone, and then threw it under the stone platform. It took a long time before the sound of falling was heard.
"There really is everything in the Xikar Mountains."
Opposite the hollow in the mountain, there is another stone platform, connected to another cave. Between the two stone platforms, there is a thick stone pillar that seems to extend from the bottom. The two platforms and the stone pillar in the middle are connected in a straight line, and when Xia De got closer to the edge of the platform, he found traces of bridge pillars and broken bridges.
In other words, a long time ago, there was an incredibly long rope bridge here, connecting this platform to the stone platform in the center of the large cavity, and then to the platform at the other end. But now, although the pillars of the bridge remain on the stone platform, and a small part of the rope bridge drooping downwards, the main body of the bridge has disappeared.
"What on earth happened here?"
Fortunately, Shade did not intend to continue exploring here. The sword he was looking for was on the stone platform where he was currently standing. To be more precise, it was inserted in front of the damaged rope bridge.
The silver blade shone brightly in the darkness because of the moonlight on Shade's fingertips. He could clearly see the inscriptions on the blade. Those ancient words came from an even older era, from an era when evil spirits and demons were rampant in the material world:
My heart is clear and my sword slays the devil.
Finally seeing the sword, Shade was not happy but frowned, because the sword was not stuck in the soil, but in a bonfire with sparks.
Although the bonfire had long been extinguished, it only emitted a few scattered dark red sparks, and the dim red light came from those sparks. The temperature of the bonfire was extremely high, and as soon as I walked out of the narrow passage behind me, I felt the rolling heat wave coming towards me. The temperature rise I felt after feeling the whispering element just now was due to the influence of this bonfire.
"What is this?"
As Shad squinted his eyes and stared at the campfire, sparks suddenly ignited the ashes that had long been extinguished. Dark red flames sprang up, and with a loud bang, Shad was forced to take several steps back by the heat wave.
The flames almost instantly reached the top of the large hollow in the mountain, completely illuminating the stone platform. The flames splashed in all directions, and at the same time, the firelight cast a huge shadow of Shade on the cliff behind him.
The silver sword inserted in the bonfire vibrated with a humming sound, and the originally black inscriptions on the silver sword lit up with a bright yellow light from bottom to top, suppressing the rising flames. The bonfire was suppressed little by little until it returned to its normal size. Amid the crackling sound, the flames licked the silver sword inserted diagonally, as if the two were wrestling.
Xia De looked at the scene in amazement. A faint murmur sounded in the huge cave in the mountain. There was a voice tempting Xia De, tempting him to pull out the sword immediately.
"Oh shit, this can't be..."
He took out a ring from his pocket and put it on his right hand, then put his right hand behind his back, and then walked over step by step as if he was really bewitched.
The heat waves hit his skin, and the dazzling firelight forced him to squint his eyes. In the campfire flames that were forcibly suppressed by the silver sword, there seemed to be a terrifying face made of flames looking at Shade, with sharp and slender eyes and a cracked mouth that almost extended behind his ears.
It was whispering, it was murmured, it was watching the first mortal to set foot here after eight hundred years.
Light and shadow intertwined on Shad's body. The swaying campfire made his shadow sway constantly. The firelight on the ground was layered and had a sense of hierarchy. When Shad finally came close to the campfire, as the campfire erupted again, in the surging flames, a giant hand that was larger than Shad's body, as if made of broken obsidian, with a magma-like luster flashing in the cracks, suddenly stretched out from the campfire and grabbed Shad.
"Moonlight Greatsword!"
The right hand with the Demon Hunting Seal swung the silver giant sword at the attacking giant hand. The two-handed sword collided with the demon's giant hand, and at the cost of the sword scattering into star-like light, Shade took a few steps back to stabilize his body. The giant arm was chopped into a cluster of flames and was forced to return to the campfire again.
The silver sword inserted diagonally on the campfire completely suppressed the flames, and the crackling campfire returned to its original state with only a few sparks of fire. Although it was still crackling, there was no sign of what had just appeared from the flames.
"I see. So that's why Dr. Alfred's ancestors didn't put the Demon Seal and the sword together in the house where their descendants lived."
Xia De covered his right arm, stared at the bonfire, and stepped back step by step. The firelight illuminated his face:
"That high-level warlock from eight hundred years ago actually used this sword to seal a demon here! Demonologist Mr. Sean Asmon was actually right!"