Ordinary fantasy adventure in Faerûn

Chapter 586: City of Pale Glory
"Where is this?"

Noshir asked as he scanned the scene in front of him.

The pale fortress before him was obviously not a building that could be found in the abyss. Looking at this regular and tall castle in front of him, even though most of it had been tightly wrapped in flesh and blood, Noshil could still feel an inexplicable sense of sacredness from the castle's appearance.

"Here... this seems to be..."

Beside Noshir, Lulu suddenly muttered to herself several times, and then flew towards the castle as if out of control, and Noshir immediately followed.

Not long after Noshir threw Kalokotok's body out of the pit, Lulu flew down directly from the outside world and took the initiative to find him. As soon as the two met, Noshir took the initiative to ask her whether she had felt the breath of the Sword of Zariel on the evil creature.

Lulu's answer was that she did feel the breath of the Sword of Zariel, but it was not on the monster. In fact, she felt the inexplicable call just like Noshir, so she took the initiative to jump out of the pit to look for Noshir, and the fortress in front of her made her feel extremely familiar.

As soon as he saw Lulu's performance, Noshir already had a rough guess in his mind. If he guessed correctly, the Sword of Zariel should be in the fortress in front of him, and the method of confirmation was also very simple. He would know it as long as he went in and took a look.

But on the outskirts of this fortress, Noshil did not observe any existence similar to a city gate. This simple, sacred and solid castle seemed to have not been prepared with those things since its inception. All that could be seen was either flesh and blood or city walls. It would take a lot of effort for ordinary people to get in, but this little problem naturally did not pose a problem for him.

Noshir used his current giant body to wield the equally huge [Mata Lotok], and smashed through nearly 1/4 of the outer wall with just one strike.

However, while breaking through this barrier, Noshil also felt a considerable obstacle. The defense of this city seemed to be even stronger than he had imagined. If it were not for his amazing strength and the help of divine weapons, if either of these two conditions was missing, it would not be so easy for him to blast open this section of the city wall today.

But unfortunately, Noshil is such a monster, so the above assumptions no longer exist. After blasting open the city wall, Noshil directly shrank in size. In his original state, he could recover his strength very quickly. After making sure that his current state was still good and he still possessed quite complete combat effectiveness, he took Lulu directly into the city.

He saw with his own eyes the internal layout of the fortress. Compared to the scarlet outside, the interior of this place was more like a palace, a large round palace that continued to extend inward. Inside this palace, the floor was paved with bluish-white marble bricks, and on top of it was a red carpet that led straight to the depths.

White marble pillars support the dome. When he was on the outside, Noshir could see many of these pillars. As he went deeper and deeper, the number of these stone pillars continued to decrease until he really approached the deepest part of the palace.

First, he walked inward for several thousand meters as if on flat ground, then walked up a staircase nearly 30 meters high, and then continued to walk inward and encountered staircases again. He repeated the above steps four times before Noshil really reached the center of here and saw a room, an independent room located in the deepest and highest point of the palace.

Looking at the door in front of him, which might be the only door in the palace, Noshir examined it for a moment and after making sure that there were no magic traps on it, he directly used his warhammer to press against the door and gently pushed it open.

And at the moment the door opened, Noshier also saw the divine sword that was emitting endless blue light, had angel wings as a guard, was extremely sharp, and was inserted directly into the central stone base, and the armored warrior who was obviously dead, but still tightly grasped the hilt of the sword, half-kneeling on the spot, and his body had not yet rotted.

"Ya...Yael!"

Lulu murmured to herself in disbelief, and Noshir also said inwardly when he heard the name. Although it was a little unbelievable, the heroic warrior in front of him was indeed the legendary Yael.

Noshier stood there, silently gazing at the deceased hero. He did not expect that he would actually see this legendary hero again. Although even if he saw him, it would only be a corpse, but in this hellish place, the Abyss, this warrior could actually preserve his body intact for such a long time without being corrupted by the environment of the Abyss or being devoured by demons. Just based on this point, it was already a "surprise" in a sense.

I guess Lulu must have felt a little relieved that her friend's body had not been desecrated but remained here intact, but...

"Why? According to Lulu, wasn't Yael eaten alive by Kalokotok? Wasn't this the scene that Lulu saw with her own eyes? But now her body appeared here, and there is also this sword and this fortress. What is going on in this place?"

Noshier wanted to ask Lulu. Since arriving here, Lulu seemed very excited. The reason why he rushed towards the center so recklessly was because Lulu had been flying in this direction at full speed since entering here, as if she knew that there would be absolutely no danger here.

Based on her performance, Nosir concluded that she must know the specific situation here, but when he turned to look at Lulu, before he could open his mouth, Nosir saw a line of tears falling from Lulu's eyes again.

Noshil was silent. He stopped his actions temporarily and waited silently for Lulu to recover. He watched Lulu come to her senses after being stunned for a few seconds, and then slowly flapped her wings and slowly approached Yar's body.

She stroked Yael's face with her nose, wiping off the blood stains, and slowly closed her eyes, which had long been lifeless but still slightly half-open. Time seemed to have stopped at this moment. It was not until several minutes later that Lulu shook her head and turned around, as if she had regained her previous calm and laughter, and then seemed to see Noshir's doubts.

After a short silence, she took the initiative to explain to Noshir why this fortress appeared here. She guessed that the reason why this fortress appeared should be... no, it should be absolutely, absolutely because of the special ability of the Sword of Zariel!

Since Lulu's memory has just been restored, although she remembered most of it, some details still need the passage of time or the reminder of things to slowly make up for. After seeing this fortress and entering it, Lulu finally remembered the origin and capabilities of this fortress.

What is certain at this point is that the fortress beneath their feet was able to appear only because of the special abilities of the Sword of Zariel.

Back then, because of her own ambitions, Zariel chose to descend to the main material plane to wipe out the demons, and trained an elite army of humans in Eltorel, attempting to rely on this army to attack the abyss of hell.

However, during the army's march, qualified protection and resting places are absolutely essential. If after occupying a certain area, there are not enough qualified barriers and walls there, they will not be able to defend the subsequent important roads, nor can they recover from the various negative effects caused by the unique environment of hell.

In order to solve this problem, Zariel took the initiative to add a unique nine-ring spell [City of Pale Glory] to his sword when he was still in heaven.

This spell is similar to an extremely enhanced version of the combination of the Holy Residence and Mordenkain's Mansion, allowing the holder of the sword to instantly create a fairly large sacred castle according to his own ideas in a very short time.

In this castle, the soldiers can rest assured. The unique power of the castle itself can wash away the pollution of the hellish environment and add spells like blessing and protection against evil. According to the will of the caster, if you choose to defend with all your strength when casting this spell, the fortress will become as strong as it is now, so strong that even the city gate will not be reserved.

As for the current situation, Lulu guessed that maybe when Yael was swallowed by Kalokotok, she did not die instantly. Although she was seriously injured at that time, the Sword of Zariel protected her, at least allowing her to survive in the belly of the giant monster outside for the time being.

And Yael must have tried to resist. During that time, she must have wanted to escape from Kalokotok's belly, but the giant monster was thick-skinned and tough. Although Yael was a powerful warrior, she was a mortal after all. Even if she had the Sword of Zariel at the time, she might not be able to fully unleash the power of this artifact, and it was even more impossible for her to dig through the monster's flesh and blood in a short time.

Coupled with the other demons in the giant demon's mouth and the endless strong acid churning in its stomach, Yael must have gone through numerous hardships before finally escaping from the giant's stomach. But by that time, Kalokotok had probably returned to the abyss, and directly returned to the area where they were currently.

When Yael finally broke open Kalokotok's belly and escaped from death, what came into her sight was the strange and unpredictable environment of the Endless Abyss. At that time, Yael must have understood the situation she was in, so after coming out of Kalokotok's belly, she didn't hesitate at all and directly inserted the sword into this chaotic land.

Although most of this bloody plain was mud, flesh, and blood, it was still mixed with a lot of hard rocks. Using these rocks as the base material, Yael activated the [City of Pale Glory], and protected herself and the Sword of Zariel firmly in this city.
Then, over the next hundred years, the castle was gradually swallowed up by this strange plain and buried deep underground. It was not discovered until today and saw the light of day again.

After listening to Lulu's guess, Noshier couldn't help but sigh with emotion, lamenting that such a story was really tortuous and bizarre. Although all of the above were just Lulu's personal guesses, it was indeed the best explanation for the current situation.

Noshil looked around again and recalled the harsh terrain of the Bleeding Plains and the geographical location of the fortress. All of this could be said to be extremely harsh.

If he had not acquired such powerful strength at this time, no one would have been able to discover the secret here. Yael's body would continue to remain here, and it is unknown when the sword would see the light of day again. Whenever Noshir thought of that possibility, the thought of letting the hero's body fall here and be forgotten, and Zariel, the hero who originally played the role of a savior, would continue to fall into depravity, Noshir would feel an uncontrollable sadness.

Fortunately, this hypothesis no longer existed at this time. Nosher put away his emotions and, with respect for the hero, carefully collected Yael's body, wrapped it in a shroud and sprinkled holy water on it. The next step was to put it into the coffin.

However, as there was no prior preparation, Nosher could only use local materials. He scraped some stones on the spot with a battle axe, cut them into a simple sarcophagus with brute force, and placed Yael's body in it.

He had no intention of putting it into the space box because he felt that it was too disrespectful. Noshil even prepared a coffin lid, but because Lulu wanted to see Yael for a while longer, he just put everything aside after preparing it and made preparations when he was really going to leave.

Just after Noshil had prepared everything, he finally looked at the gorgeous sword in the middle again. Without any hesitation, he walked forward, grasped the hilt with one hand, and took it off the stone platform. The process was smooth and he didn't feel any resistance.

And just as Nosir drew out the sword and wanted to hold it in front of his eyes for careful observation, an inexplicable but friendly thought suddenly emanated from the sword, expressing the desire to communicate to Nosir.

Noshil was stunned for a moment, then immediately removed the shielding of his mind ring, instantly merging with the thoughts in the sword. And at this moment, all kinds of memories emerged in his mind like a passing show, extremely fast but extremely clear.

Noshir immediately knew who these memories came from, Zariel, the Zariel who had not fallen. These memories from Zariel also clearly filled in the parts of his previous doubts, confirming their previous speculation about Zariel's fall and Yael's experience.

Yes, that's right, Noshier's previous speculations about Zariel's fall were all true, and Lulu's inferences about Yael's experience were also all correct, and these news were equivalent to telling Noshier clearly that they were now on the right track.

(End of this chapter)