Lu Mingfei, become the King of Elden!

Chapter 301 What is he afraid of?

Lu Mingfei remained silent for a moment.

He could sense the emotion in the old knight's words; they were connected to this city by blood.

"I understand."

Lu Mingfei nodded solemnly and said, word by word:

"I will protect it."

Svengar nodded slightly, then turned around, halberd in hand.
“Please follow me. I know a shortcut to the city, which is treacherous but will avoid most of the collapsed areas.”

The two followed Svengar through the winding staircase, out of the city tower, and finally stopped at a protruding edge of the city wall.

The wind howled through the cracks in the stone bricks, and several storm eagles circled on the tower not far away, their sharp eyes fixed on these uninvited guests.

"arrive."

Svengar stopped in his tracks and slammed his halberd to the ground.

Lu Mingfei peered down and saw clouds swirling beneath his feet, making it impossible to see the bottom.

"arrive?"

Lu Mingfei looked down at his feet, rubbed his eyes, and then turned to look at the knight:

"But there's no road at all!"

Roger stood cautiously at the edge, his thin eyebrows slightly furrowed.
"Your Excellency Svengar, are you sure this is the place?"

The lost knight stood unmoved, his armored hand pointing forward:
"Jump down."

"Jump down?"

Lu Mingfei almost thought he had misheard:

"We're not those flying Stormhawks!"

Svengar's deep laughter echoed from inside the helmet.

He did not reply to his young monarch, but responded with his actions.

The knight deftly secured his halberd to his back and leaped down without hesitation.

With a heavy metallic clang, the knight's figure disappeared into the churning clouds.

"Did he really jump?"

Roger peered out in astonishment.

Lu Mingfei's eyes suddenly lit up, and he pointed downwards:

"look!"

Not far below the edge of the city wall, a narrow stone platform was faintly visible through the gaps in the clouds.

It turns out that the edge of this city wall was designed in a very clever way. When viewed from above, it was completely obscured by clouds and mist, and only by jumping down could one discover this hidden foothold.

"I see."

Roger exclaimed in admiration:

"The passage was cleverly concealed by the clouds and mist. It truly reflects the architectural wisdom of the Storm King's era."

Svengar's calm voice came from below:
"The platform is stable, you can get off."

Lu Mingfei finally breathed a sigh of relief, but couldn't help complaining:
"This design is terrifying. Couldn't they have just installed a staircase?"

Roger gracefully adjusted his equipment and smiled:

"Perhaps it's precisely to avoid being discovered by the enemy. Come on, let me go down first."

He leaped lightly, landing accurately on the platform, and then waved to Lu Mingfei.

Lu Mingfei took a deep breath and jumped down, just like them.

When he landed steadily on the platform, he realized that it was much more spacious than it appeared from above, enough for two people to walk side by side.

After Lu Mingfei steadied himself, he finally got a clear look at their surroundings.

This narrow platform extends downwards along the outer side of the Stoneville walls, like a ribbon wrapped around the giant's side.

From this unique vantage point, the true state of the entire city is laid bare.

The once majestic gray-white stone wall is now covered with menacing black thorns.

The city wall is dotted with holes of varying sizes, the largest being big enough for a person to pass through, and the smallest being the size of a fist.

“This is…” Roger reached out to touch a clump of thorns nearby, but just as he was about to make contact, Lu Mingfei suddenly grabbed his wrist.

"Don't touch."

Lu Mingfei issued a warning:
"This thing gives me a very bad feeling. It's not just the aura of 'Dead Root,' there's something else about it."

Roger wisely withdrew his hand.

"They are gnawing at the foundations of this city."

Svengar said in a deep voice, his voice beneath his helmet carrying suppressed anger.

Lu Mingfei approached to examine a large pit and found that the walls seemed to be corroded by some kind of substance, accompanied by a faint smell of decay.

"It seems that Stoneville's condition is much more serious than it appears."

Roger said:

"If this erosion continues to spread..."

Lu Mingfei's expression was solemn:
"Therefore we need to seize the time even more."

The three continued along the platform.

At a bend in the road, Lu Mingfei glanced down and was shocked to find that a section of the city wall was completely covered by black thorns, resembling a giant nest.

This once majestic city, which stood firm against the storms, is being slowly eroded from within.

The platform beneath my feet became narrower and narrower until finally I could only stand on one leg.

A large section of the wall ahead had completely collapsed, leaving only a broken pillar hanging forlornly above the abyss.

"jump over."

Svengart, concise and to the point, was the first to leap toward the leaning stone pillar.

Lu Mingfei followed closely behind, nearly slipping the moment he landed.

The surface of the stone pillar is covered with slippery moss.

He quickly steadied the remaining pillar, only then noticing a soldier's body curled up at the top.

The corpse had long since dried out, remaining in the defensive, curled-up position it had been in before its death.

He clutched a wooden shield tightly in his arms, but now the shield surface was corroded and mottled, and the Stormhawk emblem in the center was almost unrecognizable.

"It's the soldiers' standard shield."

Svengar knelt on one knee, his armored fingers lightly touching the edge of his shield:

"Look at these signs of corrosion."

Roger crouched down to examine it carefully:

"It doesn't look like ordinary decay."

He pointed to the black pits on the shield:
"It is the same force as the thorns on the city wall, and it is much more severe than I have ever seen before."

Lu Mingfei didn't speak, but silently stroked the mottled shield.

The three continued down the broken walls, sometimes leaping to protruding eaves, sometimes clinging to hanging vines.

When they finally reached a relatively flat rock platform at the edge of the cliff, even the battle-hardened Svengar was slightly out of breath, supporting himself on his knees.

Lu Mingfei remained silent, his gaze sweeping over the tools and broken ropes scattered on the rock platform, finally settling on the city silhouette hidden in the mist.

The black thorns clinging to the city walls cast a shadow over his heart.

“I’m not sure,” Svengar straightened up, his voice muffled inside his helmet, “whether this road really leads into the heart of the city. But this direction… originally had an elevator.”

He raised his hand and pointed to a spot on the cliff face.

Looking in that direction, Lu Mingfei and Roger could only see a thick expanse of vines intertwined with broken rocks.

"An elevator?"

Roger tapped the brim of his hat with his fingertips, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Yes,” Svengar nodded, “but shortly after Lord Grek took over the city’s defenses, he ordered the place to be sealed off and no one was allowed to use it again.”

The old knight's armored hands slowly clenched, producing a soft rubbing sound.

"No one knows why. The order came suddenly and was carried out very thoroughly... as if he was afraid that something would crawl up from underground."

Lu Mingfei stared at the cliff and finally spoke:
"Then let's go and see what he's afraid of."

(End of this chapter)