Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 499 Twins

At the beginning of May, the ocean-going fleet dispatched by the Far Eastern Islands had completed nearly half of the voyage along the outer edge of the far north ice field. Lance Sanks personally led the best priests of the Sky Temple, searching inch by inch for the flaws in the Jedi Seal, and it had been nearly a hundred days since then.

The search method was not complicated. In addition to the ancient dragon priests recording the divine power fluctuations at different locations day after day, the heroes and powerful warriors poured their strongest attacks on the seal again and again, recording the feedback after the seal was hit, and thus deducing the possible location of the "flaw" that only existed in imagination.

Over the course of three months, even with Lance's profound divine power, he repeatedly exhausted himself to the point of exhaustion, sometimes nearly vomiting blood. If it weren't for Guileer's unwavering adherence to Lucia's orders, repeatedly pulling the priest away at crucial moments to prevent him from taking further risks, it's hard to say whether Lance might have suffered some kind of lifelong, incurable wound.

With the Jedi Seal raised for so long, all those waiting outside could say was that they believed Lucia would be alright. But no matter how much they believed, how could those who were truly worried about his safety remain calm and at ease?
During these days adrift at sea, Lance had no way of knowing what others thought, but in her heart, the six centuries she had lived in vain were as insignificant as clouds floating on the sea, while the past hundred days were like a giant rock sinking into the deep sea, every minute and every second so gloomy and difficult, making it hard to breathe.

Since the fall of the High Priest of Quran, during her sixteen years in power, she had never been so tense and disoriented. Now, all she could do was force herself to calm down, mechanically repeating the daily search, as if by measuring every inch of the vast ocean surrounding the 30,000-mile-long Arctic ice plains, she could find the flaw in the seal of the forbidden land and a way to save Lucia.
She felt she would go crazy if she didn't do it.

Another day of relentless bombardment ended, but the raging tide unleashed by the Claw of Destruction still caused the sea to tremble hundreds of miles away, even causing Fam Azra's massive, ten-thousand-ton magical warship to rise and fall.

The soldiers rushed forward to greet him with great concern, only to find that the priest was no longer able to maintain his dragon form. His face was pale, and he weakly clung to Guileer's dragon neck as he rode on the dragon's back and landed on the deck.

"Cough, cough cough." Lance landed with difficulty with the help of Guileer, clutching his chest and coughing violently several times. A flush rose on his flawless face, and it took him a while to catch his breath.

“Lord Lance, you must rest tomorrow. This can’t go on any longer—” Guile held Lance’s hand tightly. He could not feel any warmth in his palm, only a slightly damp and cold surface.

Given the physique of a powerful figure at the pinnacle of heroism, this is enough to prove that Lance's physical condition has deteriorated to an extremely dangerous critical point.

Don't worry, I know.

"But that's what you said three days ago!"

"I really understand now. I'll listen to you and take a day off tomorrow."

"Why...why did you push yourself to this point!" Guile, who usually seemed a bit silly, now had tears in her eyes. "It's just breaking the seal, I can do that too, why do you always stop me from doing it?"

"The attack must exceed a certain threshold to cause a sufficiently noticeable fluctuation in the seal in a local area, making it easier for the priests to observe and calculate—" Lance explained, then, seeing that Guileer and the soldiers' faces showed no improvement, he forced a smile, gently tugged at Guileer's hand, and said, "Alright, I really understand. Take a rest tomorrow, and everything will be fine soon."

Guile was about to say something more when he caught a glimpse of a rapidly approaching airflow high in the sky. The clouds in the sky were pulled by the high speed, turning into a long trail behind it, like a shooting star streaking across the sky.

Although Lance's senses were not as sharp as they were in his prime, he still caught the strange phenomenon high in the sky immediately. He turned around and looked at the rapidly spinning vortex of air, paused for two seconds, and a look of astonishment appeared in his eyes.

This guy has been practicing Void Wings for hundreds of years, but he still hasn't grasped the essence of spacetime power. His attacks are all about throwing bricks with tremendous force.

With a sharp whistling sound as the air was torn apart, a black figure suddenly flashed into the low sky and abruptly stopped a few hundred meters away from the fleet.

Within a radius of several miles, more than twenty warships of various sizes simultaneously aimed their cannons, magic towers, and mechanical crossbows at the target. The dragon warriors took off immediately upon spotting the target, and the dragons prayed, ready to unleash their power and blast the enemy into dust at a single command.

However, when the soldiers saw the faces of the newcomers, they froze on the spot, and after a few breaths, they burst into enthusiastic cheers.

"It's Priest Fur!"

"Priest Fol is back!"

"Finally back—"

Fol landed on the flagship's deck. His black horns, bone armor, and scales flowed away from his body, revealing a heroic and majestic human face. He strode towards his sister, his expression urgent, and said, "I sensed your extremely weak aura from thousands of miles away. What happened?"

Lance was about to question him about why he had abandoned so many military affairs on the western front and instead of returning to Sky City to oversee things, but he was cut off before he could even speak. He was initially a little annoyed, but seeing how anxious and frantic Fell looked, his heart softened for some reason.

As twins born at the same time in the Nest of Ten Thousand Dragons, the two have no direct blood relation, but they have had a kind of extremely mysterious spiritual connection since childhood.

Any minor change that happens here will be perceived as a severe warning by Ful, who is thousands of miles away. Now that the dynasty is beset by internal and external troubles and is in a precarious state, it is no wonder that he is overreacting.

"It's nothing, nothing. Why are you all making such a fuss? It's just that we've been trying to break the seal these past few days, and we've suffered some excessive strain—"

Lance spoke with a hint of reproach, but his eyes were full of tenderness. He reached out to brush the snowflakes off Fort Foll's shoulder and said, "But you, with hundreds of thousands of people fighting at Fort Pelum and Karen's side about to clash at any moment, and Her Majesty Renara personally overseeing the front lines to help us hold back Radagan, why did you, the one in charge, come back?"

Fol looked his sister up and down, and only breathed a sigh of relief when he confirmed that she was just temporarily weak after exhaustion. He explained, "My return this time was also at the behest of Kalia. First, to send non-combat personnel, including the Ahara caravan, to the rear. Second, to discuss with you the matter of advancing into Gmir."

"Her Majesty Renara has no spare troops left. Nangemir is also territory that we have been managing for four years. It is only right and proper that we should fight it. However, Her Highness is not here, so we have to make the decisions on when to fight, who to send, and how to fight."

Lance nodded, ordered Guiller to temporarily take command of the entire army, and instructed the fleet to return to normal sailing. He then turned to For and said, "Let's talk inside."

　The book isn't dead, but I'm dying. My back pain has flared up for the past two weeks, almost keeping me bedridden. It just started to improve last week, then worsened again. It's only gotten a little better today, and I can only get up and write a little when it's less severe. I'll finish a chapter and revise it before posting it. Seeing everyone so eagerly awaiting updates is heartbreaking. I finally managed to maintain a relatively stable update schedule, and now things have turned out like this. I'm so sorry to everyone. Even though readers keep saying "take care of your health" and "just don't leave it unfinished," as the author, I can't accept all of this with a clear conscience. I just hope to recover soon so I can repay everyone with more frequent and better updates.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)