Pillar of Yita

Gita also saw this scene and exclaimed in surprise, ”Brother Ade is really amazing.”

Fang Hong was actually a bit excited. Many of his theoretical experiences had remained on paper, and this was the first time they could be put to use. During the continuous battles underground in Fenris, there was no time to test these little details.

But now, this knowledge was coming in handy.

There were no other traps in the latter half of the corridor, so Fang Hong led Gita into it. The inside wasn’t very large, with five rooms distributed into the darkness down the corridor — he opened the wooden doors one by one. The first four rooms were furnished identically, with a bed, a bookshelf, and a desk, apparently guest rooms in the castle.

But they were deathly still, with a strange atmosphere.

It wasn’t until he opened the last door that Fang Hong realized something was wrong. For so many years, who knows how many adventurers had been to this place? How could the furnishings in these rooms be so tidy?

Moreover, apart from being covered in dust and cobwebs, there was no sign of decay.

He instinctively wanted to turn back to check, but in the corner of his eye, he saw a white shadow flicker. Fang Hong quickly turned his head and shouted in that direction, ”Who’s there!?”

As he shouted, he also raised his right hand and fired a ’Rocket Fist’. The metal glove flew into the darkness and with a ’bang’, seemed to pierce through something. Fang Hong, taking Gita with him, went over to look and found out he had pierced through a wooden door at the end of the corridor.

But where was any white shadow?

”What’s the matter, Brother Ade?” Gita asked quietly, grabbing his coat with one hand.

”Nothing.” Fang Hong shook his head.

He glanced at the wooden door he had punched a hole through, thought for a moment, and then casually turned the door handle. The feeling of this handle was completely different from the previous ones, as if the internal mechanism had rusted together.

This was supposed to be normal, but here it was a bit unusual. This abnormality piqued Fang Hong’s curiosity, and he applied a bit of force — but the situation was very real, and the doorknob ’cracked’ and broke off.

Fang Hong held the doorknob for a moment, speechless, before discarding it and stepping back — he then forcefully rammed the door. The door was long rotten and caved in, shattering into splinters.

As he stepped into the room, a gust of wind hit him.

But Fang Hong was prepared; he blocked with his hand, and a bronze long-handled axe chopped out from the darkness, hitting his right hand’s metal glove. The immense force knocked his balance down by over 70 points, instantly depleting his block value, but Fang Hong also managed to parry the long axe.

He retreated slightly while his left hand shot out a Flying Claw along the trajectory of the long axe, hitting something in the darkness with a ’Kong’. A gray number rose up in the darkness, and Fang Hong didn’t have time to see what the number was, but a gray number indicated block or structural value life. This hit didn’t seem like a block, making him realize the attacker might not be a living being.

The thing he hit flew backward, crashing into who knows how many things with a rattling sound.

Only then did Gita, behind him, enter with a sword in one hand and a crystal in the other. In the cold light from the crystal, Fang Hong saw clearly that what he had knocked away was a suit of armor, holding a war halberd, collapsed between a broken desk.

An Activation Armor long in disrepair.

The system simultaneously gave this name, marking out the level behind it: Lv13.

In Eteliria, identifying monsters is a dynamic process, where the system analyzes the Invoker’s knowledge while taking feedback from the Invoker’s judgment for correction.

Fang Hong, with his rich theoretical knowledge, had a great advantage in this area, but this Activation Armor was lower-level than him; after all, experience has little impact on determining monster levels.

The latter wobbled as it stood up.

But at this moment, the Energy Angel flashed to Fang Hong’s front, swung a sword to knock away the long axe in the Activation Armor’s hand, and then stabbed it in the seam beneath its left shoulder armor. The Activation Armor staggered backward.

Fang Hong seized the opportunity, his mind moved. The Energy Angel withdrew its wrist blade, stepped forward, and swung its leg, the sleek blade feet sweeping across the Activation Armor’s head chest, making its helmet tumble down with a ’clang’.

Even after losing its head, the Activation Armor still staggered forward. The Energy Angel, after retracting its blade feet, reversed its sword to stab its chest, then slashed off its left arm.

It then sidestepped to shoulder the armor to the ground, its parts clinking as they scattered across the room. Under Fang Hong’s order, the Energy Angel swung its dual blades downward, pinning the Activation Armor to the ground.

Yet still, the latter struggled a bit, finally making a ’clattering’ sound, as if its internal gears were jammed, before it finally stopped.

Fang Hong also breathed a sigh of relief.

He hadn’t expected to encounter such an old-style construct here.

This thing couldn’t even be called a Flexible Construct and had no intelligence; it was purely a puppet construct, attacking everything in its line of sight once activated, indiscriminately. The only advantage was that it required no human control, didn’t need high-grade materials, and the main core crystal was sufficiently cheap.

At last, Fang Hong had time to survey the room.

It was a study. Unlike the previous rooms, most items inside were severely decayed. A fireplace on one side had collapsed, and two tall bookshelves against the walls had long fallen apart, the books on them scattered across the floor.

Fang Hong picked up a book, and upon turning a page, it crumbled into black powder.

He put down the remaining book cover and looked in other directions. The study was quite peculiar, with two sets of curtains behind the collapsed desk in front, tattered and draping to the floor, riddled with insect holes and covered in insect husks.

But behind the curtains, there was no window, only a stone wall.

He walked over and knocked on it; it was solid, with no hollow feeling at all.

The room wasn’t large, and it seemed there was no place for a white ghost to hide. Fang Hong checked among the remnants of the desk, but there was nothing noteworthy.

He exchanged glances with Gita, both feeling a bit strange. The place seemed odd no matter how you looked at it, yet there was no mechanism to be found.

They looked around the room and finally found something covered with a cloth drape beside the fireplace, and it was quite sizable, over a person tall — the drape was surprisingly well-preserved, except for being covered in dust, it had neither insect holes nor decay.

Fang Hong had Gita raise the Illumination Crystal and pulled back the drape. He heard the Miss Natural Historian coughing softly behind him as dust filled the air. He fanned the air with his hand, and when he looked up, he found the drape covered a giant painting.

Unlike the shabby frames outside, this painting was well-preserved.

In the dim crystal light, the painting depicted a noble young girl with innocent charm. Sitting on a chair, the painting appeared to capture an afternoon moment, filled with warm tones.

The young girl wore a black long dress, her knees bent to one side, with a veil across her face, yet her beauty was still discernible. A white cat lay in her arms, her right hand in a long glove gently resting on the cat.

The artist’s skill was exceptional; it was as if they had captured the moment the afternoon sunlight passed through the room, freezing it on the canvas, giving a sense of peace and tranquility.

Fang Hong was momentarily entranced by the painting.

He felt he had seen the girl’s face somewhere before. But the only noble young girl he knew who resembled this was Hilveld, and the girl in the painting was drastically different from Miss Ship’s Officer, not similar at all.

At this moment, Gita softly exclaimed.

”What is it?” Fang Hong turned back.

”The cat in the painting,” Gita muttered, ”looks exactly like Daisy.”

Fang Hong turned back again and saw indeed. The cat in the girl’s arms had a fluffy white coat, with black-grey patterns on its head, ears, and front paws. Its collar bore a thick furry ruff, looking majestic, just like Lady Daisy.

Fang Hong paused for a moment, but Ishurian Forest Cats were a native breed of this area, and considering the distortion over time, it didn’t seem impossible for a cat resembling Daisy to appear in the painting.

The Aimumu Fortress had been abandoned for at least a hundred years, and the girl in the painting was from goodness knows when; he couldn’t possibly assume Lady Daisy could live for more than a century, right?

Just as the two were silent, a light ’click’ suddenly sounded behind them.

The sound was so clear in the silence.

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