Pillar of Yita

Parker’s eyes widened in surprise as he saw this, ”How did you spot them when even I didn’t notice? Strange, your scouting skills shouldn’t be higher than mine.”

Diket shook his head and replied indifferently, ”Because I’m more familiar with them than you are.”

”Ah, that makes sense,” Parker nodded as if it were obvious, ”You’re a knight of Marlan, after all, with a strong sense of justice, naturally at odds with these sneaky fellows. But I heard you were always in that small countryside place, oh, I know now—it was before the thirteen years war, right?”

Diket frowned at the guy.

He knew the Papalarians were generally chatty, but it was rare to find one with such a high opinion of himself.

”Don’t mind me,” Parker spread his hands, ”I’m pretty good at guessing. Once in Sanxiak, I had a riddle contest with a brass dragon, guess what? She got so vexed that she tried to kick me out of her cave and went back on her word about my wager. Lucky for me, I anticipated something like this and took one of her beautiful swords in advance.”

”I always carry that sword with me, let me show you.” He looked down and fumbled around for a while, then slapped his head with annoyance, ”Oh, I forgot, that sword was stolen by some damned blind thief back at Traveler’s Rest. I curse him never to have good luck again in his life.”

While he was complaining, a voice came from the side.

”But if I’m not mistaken, you said last time that the short sword was won at the Nightingale contest, Mr. Parker.”

”How do you know?” Parker was startled and realized the voice was not Diket’s. He turned around to find Red Leaf emerging from the same door he had entered earlier.

”Ah, that’s a different sword,” the Papalar said nonchalantly.

”Your experiences sure are legendary,” Red Leaf clearly didn’t believe him and looked at Diket with curiosity, also asking, ”Mr. Diket, what are you doing here?”

But the knight just waved his hand at the two of them.

”Do you want to know what happened here?” he asked, suddenly looking at them.

Red Leaf and Parker looked at each other.

”What do you know, Mr. Diket?” asked Red Leaf.

Compared to her, the Papalar’s question was much more intense, ”Rather than that, I’m more interested in where the underground vault is. I’ve been looking for it, I feel it might be under the kitchen. But I haven’t found where the kitchen is either, this place is really strange.”

However, Diket ignored the latter and, looking at Red Leaf, replied indifferently, ”Come with me.”

Saying this, he walked towards the direction the Dragon Worshipper had disappeared.

Seeing this, Red Leaf hesitated but quickly followed.

Parker was a bit more hesitant. He looked at the parchment scroll in his hands, then at Red Leaf and Diket, and after much deliberation, he eventually broke into a jog to catch up.

”Wait for me, what if the basement is the same as the underground vault!?”

...

Fang Hong couldn’t help but sneeze.

He didn’t know whether it was because the room was too dusty, or if someone was cursing him behind his back. Since coming to Eteliria, he had inexplicably made quite a few enemies.

First was the Silver Shadow, then the Descendants of Flor’s Jiefulite Red Cloak Team, followed by Big Sister and the Dragonfire Guild, the ancient tower people from the Artisan League, and now the Dragon Worshippers.

If anyone from this group wanted to curse him, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.

After all, he and Miya had messed up the matter with the Silver Forest Spear and the Red Cloak Team’s affairs so badly that he heard the two guilds were still fighting fiercely in the Tarun Basin’s forest over that ’octopus monster.’

As for the Dragonfire Guild, he had only met that ’Big Sister’ three times, and had directly and indirectly taken her down twice.

He didn’t even mention the various competitors from the Knight Nation’s ancient tower; he was still confused as to how he had like Romeo ’stolen the love’ of someone else’s guaranteed qualification spot.

The more Fang Hong thought about it, the more speechless he became.

However, the matter with the Dragon Worshippers was his active choice. Setting aside the possibility that it had something to do with Miss Atira’s brother, as a fellow member of an adventure group, it equated to being his business as well.

And, coupled with what he had seen and heard in this phantom realm, it was very hard for him to agree with their actions, whether it was Hes’s experience or the live sacrifices he had seen earlier.

But it had firmed his own beliefs.

He closed the door with the back of his hand—

The room behind the wooden door was filled with a faint smell of dust. Although it was also pitch black to the point that he could not see his hand in front of him, he could barely make out that this place seemed to be a storage room.

The room was not big, looking like a corridor used to store miscellaneous items. Fang Hong did not know if Hes had also entered this room, but there was clearly only this one door.

Theoretically, there would be no other place to go.

He groped his way forward, but suddenly stopped. In the blinding darkness, his sense of hearing seemed to become more acute. He faintly heard a conversation coming from another room next door.

”...Stop looking, it’s a waste of effort. There’s nothing here.”

”But His Grace, the Bishop, said that the thing should be in this place. Did we go into the wrong room?”

”Stop joking. I’ve checked; this is the Dean’s office. Here are Lord Manlo’s own letters, look at these documents and files.”

”But what about that girl’s Mark?”

”Who knows, should we go ask Lord ’Raven’?”

”Might as well.”

Fang Hong followed the direction of the voices, and soon found himself heading the right way as the conversation in that direction became clearer. Then he heard the sound of a door opening, which startled him into quickly stepping aside.

Contrary to his expectation, the footsteps didn’t come his way but instead grew fainter. He was puzzled for a moment before he realized that the hallway must have another direction.

He could almost guess without thinking that the two people talking in the room must be from the Dragon Worship Sect. There would be no one else here besides them.

And from the conversation, he drew another conclusion: The room nearby, which at some point served as the Dean’s office, seemed to be a focal point for the conversation. The others were searching for something here but found nothing.

At that point, Fang Hong actually felt excited inside.

Although they hadn’t found what they were looking for here, it didn’t mean the place was meaningless to him. On the contrary, what he really wanted to find was not some Mark, but the truth about what happened thirty years ago in Dolifen.

He had a feeling that the ultimate answer to this phantom realm lay behind that.

Besides, the Mark they were looking for might already be in his possession. After all, they had already obtained two Marks, the Zealot’s Mark of Sacrifice and the Mark of the Faithful’s Martyrdom. Unless there was a third Mark in this place, it was almost certain.

Fang Hong thought it unlikely that this place would be so wicked as to have ten or eight Marks right off the bat. That would be completely inconsistent with his speculation and understanding.

He stood quietly in the dark for a good while, estimating the distance after the two had walked far away before he slowly moved out from behind the miscellaneous items. Recalling the footsteps he had heard earlier, he groped his way to that place and only after searching for a while did he find the shape of a door handle.

Then he turned it forcefully.

With a creak, the door gently opened.

He looked up to find that behind it was a somewhat luxurious office, not much inferior to the one he had seen at City Hall.

It had a floor-to-ceiling window, with thick curtains that reached to the ground, but the curtains were open, allowing the moonlight to stream into the office like water, illuminating everything clearly.

In front of him was a desk piled with documents and literature, apparently rifled through recently, a complete mess.

He was about to go over and take a look at the things on the desk.

It was exactly at this moment that he suddenly heard a ’click’ behind him—the sound of a lock spring. Someone was opening the door! Fang Hong felt as if his hair stood on end, for he had seen firsthand how high the level of a Dragon Worshipper could be.

If it was the two men doubling back, he was mostly likely going to meet his end here.

...