Lu Mingfei, become the King of Elden!

Chapter 313 Marika Above, Me Below

The lost knight crouched down to examine the body:
"He has been dead for a long time; he was murdered."

Lu Mingfei searched the room carefully and found two unsettling items behind a rotten wooden box:
A sacred mark embedded in obsidian, and a prayer book written in ancient script.

"Hunting God's Mark and Prayer Book".

Lu Mingfei read the title on the cover in a low voice, his face gradually darkening.

Why would items from the Hunting Gods Cult appear in Stoneville?
That is an absolute heresy, an existence rejected by all forces related to the Golden Tree under the guise of "hunting gods".

After their "destined death" was taken away and sealed, they should have disappeared without a trace.

Could it be that the theft of the "Death Rune" has made them active again?

But why Stoneville?

He realized that the source of the curse underground probably involved more forces than he had imagined.

“Greek”

Lu Mingfei said in a low voice:

"You've really left me with a mess."

The lost knight slowly walked into the depths of the room, pointing to a stone terrace that extended outwards.

The edge of the platform was severely weathered, and loose stones kept falling from the broken edges, plunging into the bottomless darkness below.

"This place was once a passageway to the underground sanctuary."

His voice sounded particularly muffled in the empty room.

Lu Mingfei walked to the edge of the platform, and the strong wind whipped up the stray hairs on his forehead.

What lies hidden in the deepest part?

He stared into the abyss and asked.

The lost knight paused for a moment, as if recalling a distant scene:
“That place was once a sacred site for sacrifices, where a young golden tree was enshrined.”

Everyone was startled when they heard this.

Roger strode forward, raised his torch and shone it down. Several meters below the platform, he saw the remains of a ladder, neatly severed by a sharp blade, swaying in the wind.

"This was vandalism."

Roger's tone was certain:
"The cut is too clean. Either someone doesn't want what's underneath to see the light of day again, or..."

He paused:

"Someone cut off their escape route to stop their pursuers while fleeing."

Lu Mingfei's gaze swept over several unnatural wear marks on the edge of the platform, his voice low and deep:
"Or, both."

He turned to the lost knight:
Are there any other routes?

The knight looked troubled:

"Perhaps there's a secret passage near the throne room. But it's badly damaged; it's questionable whether it's still passable."

The words of the knight who had lost his homeland made the air freeze.

Lu Mingfei and Roger exchanged a glance.

Roger frowned, his expression grave:

"This is too bizarre. It seems that all the roads leading to the underground were deliberately destroyed at some point in time by the same force, or at least by people with the same purpose."

Lu Mingfei nodded slowly, his gaze fixed on the boundless darkness beneath his feet:
"I'm getting more and more curious about what kind of shady things are buried underground that are worth going to such lengths to seal off."

He turned to the lost knight, his tone leaving no room for argument:

“Take us to that secret passage near the throne room. No matter how damaged it is, we need to see it for ourselves.”

The knight of the lost home nodded slightly beneath his armor, said nothing more, and turned to lead them away from the cliff platform.

The group followed in silence, walking through the abandoned church and dilapidated corridors, the atmosphere heavy with tension.

They eventually stopped in the middle of the passageway in front of the throne room, where a completely collapsed building lay before them, with some pot-like creatures occasionally visible inside.

"This is it."

The voice of the lost knight carried a hint of helplessness:
"When I came last time, I could barely make it a short distance. But now... it seems the collapse is much worse."

Roger stepped forward and carefully examined the marks on the cave wall, his fingers brushing against the black thorns and the sharp edges of the rocks.

“These fracture surfaces… are strange. They are not entirely natural collapses.”

He pondered:

"One part looks like it was squeezed, while the other part looks like it was man-made."

"You mean, someone is stopping us, or anyone else, from getting down from here?" "Very likely."

Roger straightened up and dusted off his hands. "Did Lord Grek really not say anything about the damage here? Not even a casual remark?"

He looked again at the knight who had lost his homeland.

The Knight from Nowhere paused for a moment, then said:

"Lord Greck... he is very tight-lipped about it."

Roger looked at Lu Mingfei, his brow furrowed, clearly assessing the risks of forcibly entering.

Lu Mingfei simply shrugged.

"It's all here."

He uttered a profound statement:

"We can't go back empty-handed. It looks like we'll have to climb down ourselves."

His gaze shifted to the Forge Knight Theros:
"Teros, can you use your sense of death to point us in the general direction? It's a mess down here, we need a target."

Theros nodded silently, took a step forward, and knelt on one knee at the edge of the collapsed ruins.

Instead of observing with his eyes like most people, he gently placed one armored hand on the ground, his helmet slightly lowered, as if listening to the pulse of the earth.

A moment later, he pointed in a direction.

"There."

Theros's voice was muffled:

"The aura of death is the strongest. It is the opposite of life, as clear as the stars in the night amidst this chaos. Although the path to the underground is blocked, the 'end' leaking from the depths is constantly spreading up from that direction."

His choice of words sent a chill down Roger's spine.

"I understand, that's the direction."

Lu Mingfei took a deep breath and instructed the knight who had lost his homeland:
“This mission is too dangerous, so you don’t need to go. Stay here, and if we haven’t come out by tomorrow evening, report to General O’Neill.”

The lost knight bowed his head, pounded his chest with his right fist, and whispered:

"Yes, my lord."

Lu Mingfei, Roger, and Theros left the Lost Knight behind as backup, and then plunged into the dangerous collapsed area.

They struggled to leap and climb among the twisted beams and rubble.

However, as they went deeper, they unexpectedly discovered a complete road carved out along the inner wall of the massive city wall at a higher level of the ruins.

They proceeded cautiously along the path, passing through a guardhouse that was now completely empty, when the sight before them made them stop once again.

At the other end of the room, below, a series of man-made wooden platforms and stone steps lead to a deeper area.

These structures, clinging to the rock face, form a complex vertical transportation network. One can even vaguely make out indistinct figures lying on some platforms—corpses long since dead.

However, without exception, all of these steps and platforms broke and collapsed, creating countless gaps.

To continue downwards, they had to transform into nimble goats, leaping from one remaining foothold to another, grabbing onto protrusions in the rock face at the last second, or stepping onto seemingly precarious wooden beams.

"By Marika..."

After a daring leap, Roger clung tightly to a protruding rock, panting and complaining:
"This was absolutely the most thrilling, and also the most unforgettable, experience of my fading career!"

Lu Mingfei did not respond to his companion's complaints.

His expression grew increasingly solemn, and his lips pressed tightly together.

The eerie and twisted aura of death grew stronger the further down he went, almost suffocating him.

A strong sense of unease grew wildly within him, as if something extremely terrifying was waiting for them below.

Moreover, a huge question lingered in his mind, becoming sharper as the surrounding environment grew darker.

“Teros,” Lu Mingfei’s voice sounded somewhat faint in the wind, “According to the previous clues, there used to be a young golden tree enshrined below, right?”

“Yes,” Theros’s voice remained deep, but seemed to carry a hint of doubt. “That is to be expected.”

"And what about the light of the golden tree?"

Lu Mingfei stopped and looked around at the all-consuming darkness:
“Even a sapling’s light is enough to illuminate the earth. Look at this abyss, so vast and empty, it seems to have been created specifically to contain the radiance of the golden tree… Why is it so dark here, as if its eyes have been gouged out?”

After being reminded by him, Roger suddenly realized the problem.

He raised the torch in his hand, but its pitiful light was like a firefly in the night sky in the face of boundless darkness, utterly unable to dispel the profound darkness.

"unless……"

Roger's voice trembled slightly:
"That tree... is it gone? Or has it been completely 'contaminated' by something? That's impossible. The seeds and branches of the Golden Tree are the most sacred things in the world."

(End of this chapter)