Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 475 Two Sparks
In the north of the Sacred Tree Forest, a ragged but high-spirited team was marching towards the east.

They attached their scarred armor to the only remaining warhorse, and wore tattered cotton-padded clothes, cloaks and hunted animal skins. They carried swords on their shoulders and kicked away the knee-deep snow as they moved forward, singing off-tune folk songs. If you just look at their appearance, anyone would think that they were probably a group of thieves who had just returned from looting. It would be difficult for anyone to associate them with the most elite king's personal army of the time.

Lucia thought this was a good idea.

Young lives should sing heartily in the winter and under the snow, instead of struggling in the mud and biting each other with equally young enemies, using up their last bit of strength to stab their weapons into each other's chests. Although later generations called them heroes, they still died like beasts in the best time of their lives.

Everything he did was to make such regrettable endings less and less, until they disappeared from this world.

"Your Majesty seems to be in a good mood." Adam was also wearing a bearskin cloak. Unlike the other soldiers, he was so burly that he looked like a brown bear walking upright from a distance. "Is it because of the rare sunny day?"

Ever since Lucia woke up from his serious injury, the Southern Expedition Army had spontaneously changed the way they addressed him. In the eyes of the soldiers, the so-called coronation ceremony was just a formality for the other two dynasties to see.

Their Highness had long been recognized as the new king, and after this battle he had completed his final transformation from prince to king. Even if His Majesty Platon Shanks saw this scene, he would not pursue their usurpation of power. Instead, he would only feel gratified and proud for the birth of the next king of the Sky City.

"Yeah." Lucia looked up at the mottled sunlight between the branches and leaves. The snow on the treetops was shaken off by the loud singing and gently fluttered in the air.

"The sky over the Arctic ice sheet has been gloomy for too long, so long that it's hard to breathe. Who would reject the sun at this time?"

"You were like this in the past, right?" He turned his gaze to Adam, his icy blue pupils seeming to see through all secrets. "I noticed the information about you long before the Northern Expedition. When you were seriously injured and unable to recover, the Samir village called Kuerros took you in. Unfortunately, they were massacred by the Xilia family on the day you left without saying goodbye."

"I'm sorry. I once ordered scouts to collect information about Gran Cilia and the person behind her. Currently, we can only confirm that one of the seven archbishops of the Holy Temple is standing behind her. However, they have disappeared since the outbreak of the Northern War. I guess that the archbishop has now infiltrated the upper echelons of the giants and is hiding in a corner that is hard to find in the outside world, such as the Holy Land. Gran Cilia is probably following him."

Adam did not answer immediately. Instead, he reached into the inner pocket on his chest and took out a short knife about the length of a palm. The blade seemed to be made of some extremely tough and sharp material. It was light and reflected a cold light.

He handed the dagger over and whispered, "Your Majesty, do you know what this knife is made of?"

Lucia took it and weighed it twice in her hand, and said with surprise: "It is an armor-piercing dragon arrow produced in the Far East. Since it appears in your hand, it should be ordered from me by the nobles of the Northern Territory before the war broke out, right?"

"When I was unconscious outside the village of Kuerros and was picked up by the two Samir sisters, there were twelve armor-piercing dragon arrows in my body. The villagers cleaned my wounds for me and used the arrowheads to make this knife. Over the past year, I have been thinking about driving it into the head of that beast and draining every drop of her blood."

"There will be a chance," Lucia handed the knife back, with a cold light in her pupils, as if the coldness of the knife remained in her eyes. "The giants are making a comeback, relying on more than just the little power left in the holy land. The garrison and the temple should have blocked any possibility of their resurgence. It was the rebellion that was born within the Golden Dynasty. The sins stained on the hands of these scums are far greater than those of the giants."

"But you, don't blame yourself too much before the day of revenge comes—" He reminded the former monitor, who was also the last monitor. "That meaningless sense of guilt will corrode everything about you like poison, until the flames of hatred burn you and your enemies to ashes."

“Don’t worry, Your Majesty.” Adam raised his young and proud head, letting the forest wind cool the heat in the corners of his eyes.

"Every day, every day I think of those who died under the knife of the Wolf Hunter Knight - Ms. Vichy, Chief Kurlov and his only son Callister, and those young children. I used to stubbornly believe that I was the one who brought all their misfortunes. Self-blame and guilt gnawed at me to the point of going crazy, but slowly, I remembered some details, some details that should have been completely destroyed by the forbidden fire."

"For example, the place where I fell down last should not have been so close to Kuerlos Village. Even though I was seriously injured and almost lost my mind, the years of death training of the Watcher would at least ensure my final vigilance. The place where I hid the forbidden prayer book was three miles away from the village. So before I passed out, I would have made sure to fall down in a place even farther away from human habitation."

"But during the two-month coma that followed, not only was I not discovered by the Temple Guards or the nobles' private army, but I also appeared at the entrance of Kuerros village in an unconscious state, with two more 'sparks' in my body that were definitely not condensed by me."

"Two sparks?" Lucia frowned.

The forbidden prayer book that Adam had taken with him when he escaped was destroyed in his battle with Glenn Celia, but the moment he saw Lucia, Adam wrote down the contents of the eleven forbidden prayers in the prayer book, including the last one, the "Forbidden Door", which was vague.

Just looking at those contents, with Lucia's vision, she was able to simulate a path of "evolution" into a giant, but this path was interrupted at the moment of reaching the so-called forbidden door.

If the practitioner stops at this point, the chaotic and disordered runes will transform the practitioner into a mass of unconscious flesh and blood. If they force their way through the door, they will be like Arganti who failed at the last minute and will not be able to suppress the surging rune energy, and will completely explode themselves and everything around them.

"Those who follow the source of fire will eventually embrace glory under the guidance of the fire—" it is recorded in the final chapter of the prayer book.

If the word "fire source" refers to the runes that drive the evolution of life, then what this forbidden prayer book lacks is the method of condensing the "fire" that guides the path of life evolution.

After Adam recovered from his injuries in Kulos Village, facing the templars and wolf hunters who were chasing him, he burst out with the forbidden power of the fire giant in desperation, but did not go to destruction like his brother. This is enough to prove that the fire had been implanted in his body without his knowledge.

Now according to his guess, there are actually two such fire seeds?

There is one more chapter today, it may be late, you can read it tomorrow.

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(End of this chapter)