The Amber Sword

v3c353
Requiem(3)

Each of the twelve witches stood under a hazelnut tree and began to chant an ancient song. Seven stone pillars broke out silently from the ground. A great white rock with a crack then rose up from the dirt in the middle of the stone pillars. The crack resembled a black hole leading to the gate of hell.

The stone gates and pillars were obviously artificially carved out of natural rocks. There were some curved scripts on them, but they were so eroded that Brendel could barely make out what was supposed to be the writings of the ancient dwarfs.

“Lord, this door will only last for a quarter of an hour, please decide who you want to take with you quickly,” Babasha said immediately in a hoarse voice as soon as the white rock appeared.

Brendel had long since decided which people would accompany him. “Babasha, please choose five dependable people to come with me. Count Audine, take the knights and enter after us. The rest of you shall protect the princess. I want you to swear upon the Goddess of The Burning Pillars of Hell.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Brendel,” replied Count Audine as he bowed to the knight. His relationship with Brendel seemed to naturally become one of superiority and inferiority, but the Count was not narrow-minded; he understood that Brendel was far more qualified to give orders here because he did not feel that anything was wrong with this arrangement.

The witches obediently did as they were told. Count Audine was stunned as he watched them. While the witches occasionally made deals with worldly authorities, they would have never behaved so respectfully. He did not really believe the old witch who claimed that it was because Brendel had helped them before, but he doubted part of Brendel’s history. He already knew that Brendel was a descendant of the Sword Saint Darius, and that Brendel had learnt the the path of a wizard from a powerful, cloistered wizard – whom Count Audine suspected to be Tulman. Thus, he subconsciously attributed the witches’ relationship with Brendel to the possibility that they might have once benefited from the mysterious Silver Fortress’ master before.

“Mr.Brendel-” Just as the half-elf girl opened her mouth, she was interrupted by Brendel. “Your Highness, please stay here and don’t let me worry. Because whether it is you or me, Aouine will always need someone who will lead the way into the future. I may be a little arrogant for saying so, but I don’t want my efforts to go to waste.”

Brendel gestured for Babasha to extinguish the torch, then he took out a crystal used for light. This crystal was basically an ubiquitous, cheap good that one could find anywhere, which emitted a very dim light.

It was not that Brendel did not have a better choice; he had done so deliberately. He had not forgotten that below the cliff was the female spider’s lair. Going down with a light source that radiated heat would be just suicidal.

It was only after changing the light source that Brendel added the Wind Wings spell to each of them. The Wind Wings of a Level 20 Elementalist would not be enough to enable flight, but it was sufficient for slow landings. The entire row of people slowly drifted from the cliff, taking merely a few minutes to descend to the bottom.

There was a totally different view below the cliffs, and the knights soon discovered that there was an underground river below. The pebbles on both sides of the riverbank were covered with layers upon layers of white spider webs. Countless spider eggs could be seen beneath the webs and fist-sized spiders could be seen crawling among them.

Brendel subconsciously looked up and saw that the sloping cliffs were filled with spiders that looked like dense black balls of flesh, stacked up layer by layer. Gooseflesh prickled intensely on his head. He could not help but curse at himself, just like when he was in the game.

When they first ventured here, he had subconsciously glanced over his head and ended up screaming in shock, which drew the female spider out, resulting in the team being destroyed. He was scolded severely once by his senior because of this, and was still embarrassed at the thought of it.

But a wall of crawling bugs overhead that felt like they would fall at any moment was a little too disgusting. Even if he was mentally prepared, he still had goosebumps.

“Listen up everyone, don’t look over your heads.” He retracted his gaze immediately as he gave the order.

The knights did as they were told, but Princess Gryphine was very sharp and seemed to have guessed what might be overhead. Brendel saw her face turn pale, so he touched her hand multiple times, but he immediately retracted his hand each time.

He did not expect the princess to be so afraid of spiders. Had he known that, perhaps he should have let her look up. Princess Gryphine would be so scared that she might hug him straight away. Brendel had this mischievous thought in mind, but of course, it was just a thought.

“Mr.Brendel, these spiders must have come from somewhere,” Princess Gryphine said with a pale face. She knew it was unlikely for so many spiders to cluster together inexplicably, and the only possibility was that there might be a lair of magical creatures here.

Brendel nodded. “It was said that the owner of this place is Anarons, the Mother of Spiders. That magical creature already had a terrifying strength of the Elemental Activation or even the Elemental Enlightenment as early as one or two hundred years ago. It was said that its Elemental Power is the web. The web means both bondage and linkage; it could control every single thread here.

“By the way, don’t ever touch those nets, not even one thread,” Brendel reminded them. It was best to avoid messing with the dreaded female spider as much as they could.

Everyone shivered as they heard him say that. However, it was at this moment that Brendel heard a rustling noise coming from a direction.

It did not sound like a spider.

“Huh?” He trembled slightly. He could not help but turn to look towards that direction.