Whispering Verse

The passage leading to the seal is in the cave under the cliff, but not everyone has to go in. Some people must be left waiting outside to prevent their backs from being attacked.

Miss Aurora and Granny Cassandra must go in. Only they understand the seals left by the Witch Emperors. Among the remaining people, two high-level sorceresses and four middle-level sorceresses stayed outside, and Shade also stayed outside.

This was his own request. After all, he didn't understand the power of witches. While you have time and all the evil spirits nearby have been cleared away, why not collect the corpse grass, hell orchid and black witch flower that Mr. Copus wants to purchase.

Such plants are more common in the mountains than the route Shade took when he last entered the city in Hazama. If the narrow room were not so dangerous, this place would be full of gold pounds.

So the group of people separated temporarily, and the big witches took most of them into the cave under the cliff. The six sorceresses left on the cliff are all followers of Granny Cassandra, and naturally they all know about Shad.

When Shade expressed that he wanted to take a look around, the brown-haired middle-aged eight-ring warlock immediately said that he could go with him.

"No, I'm just going to collect some plants."

Shade shook the sword in his hand:

"I won't go too far. If there is danger, I can escape myself."

In view of Shade's performance along the way, they did not stop him.

The three materials purchased by Mr. Copps were in huge amounts, with the corpse grass alone weighing 200 pounds (approximately 90.72kg). Shade's [Toy Making] actually has an effect on casting materials, but the effect is very poor. He collected some corpse grass and tried it, and found that he could turn them into toys, but casting the spell consumed a lot of spirit, three times that of ordinary matter of the same volume.

As for the Mingduolan, which Mr. Copps asked for at a higher price, it would cost more to turn it into a small toy. The black maiden flower, which costs 20 pounds apiece, can only be transformed from a plant into a toy of the same size, and it cannot even be reduced in size.

"Although the Lady Flower is large in size, one flower is worth two Mias. The price of Corpse Grass is 3 pounds 7 shillings per pound, and the price of Mingduolan is 13 pounds 15 shillings 5 ​​pence per pound. Even if it becomes the most Even though it is a light stuffed toy, its weight is still amazing. Hmm.”

He brought the [God's Gift Box] with him just to hold the plants. In addition to being a weekly gift and containing relics, this box also keeps plants fresh. This is not a commendable feature, because most container-type relics have similar effects. According to research, this is the effect of the whispering element.

"Collect more Resentment Flowers and less Corpse Grass."

After thinking of a plan, he left the bare cliff and entered the forest alone.

The black forest is extremely terrifying, with charred trees and gray vines, like weird plants that can only appear after the end of the world. The power of death corrodes everything around it. Even though he has barely adapted to this place, Shade still feels uncomfortable all over. .

"I don't know what's going on inside the boundary of my home. I must hold a ceremony to seal it tonight!"

In order to prevent himself from having an accident, Shade was careful not to go too far. It took an hour to fill the [God’s Gift Box] on my back. Although this has not yet reached the acquisition limit of Mr. Copps, Shade knows how to be content with what he has, so he turned around and returned to the cliff.

The six sorceresses were still waiting there. After seeing Shade come back, they were relieved to see that he was fine.

Miss Aurora and Granny Cassandra still did not come back. Shade and the sorceresses waited for another hour. When there was still no movement, he proposed to go down and take a look. No one here could restrict his freedom, so despite objections, Shade finally left.

The foreigners can't fly yet, so they can only climb down the black cliff along the rope. The entrance to the material world requires parchment to open, and the special power of the witch is needed in the narrow room, so Shade used the [Witch's Light] spiritual rune to illuminate it and saw the dark hole.

The cliff cave in reality is already very dark and terrifying, and the passage in the narrow room seems to go straight to the bottom of the bottomless abyss.

This passage has the power exerted by the Witch Emperor of the Fifth Age, and no light can be produced in it to illuminate the eyes. Even Shade's "Light Technique" can only produce a shimmer the size of a grain of rice. Fortunately, after the operation in the [Dark Realm], he has a certain degree of dark vision, and the thick fog from the outside world does not exist here. , so there is no need to worry about falling in this passage.

The further you go inward, the more you can feel the howling wind blowing from the front. When you first entered the passage, the wind only brought a slight chill, but as you continued walking, the breath of death cut your skin like a knife.

After walking for a full twenty minutes, I left the passage and arrived at the platform on the side of the large hollow in the belly of the mountain. In reality, a Balrog was sealed here, and the bridge connecting the platforms on both sides was broken. But here, a bridge built of bones connects the two sides of the cave.

Those white bones seemed to be suspended in the air. At least based on Shade's understanding of mechanics, it was impossible to analyze their force conditions from a purely materialistic perspective.

I don't know if it's a coincidence, but in reality there is a bonfire in front of the bridge that corresponds to the Balrog's seal. But after getting closer, I discovered that the bonfire had just been lit not long ago, and it should have been left by Miss Aurora and her group. The bonfire was quite strong, and you could feel the warmth when you got close to it. Even your physical strength and spirit, which had almost completely stagnated, were slowly recovering under the firelight.

"The preparations are really sufficient."

After taking a short rest, Shade walked around the bonfire and stepped onto the bone bridge.

Stepping on it lightly with your feet, you immediately felt that the whole bridge was shaking. Then, a sudden and strange feeling of dizziness made Shade almost lose his balance and fall to the side:

"oh."

He covered his head and felt that the sky was spinning and the earth was spinning, but he was not spinning.

[There is a curse on this bridge. 】

"It's a simple curse that throws people off balance, but it's really vicious in a scenario like this."

Just thinking about how deep the abyss under the bridge was, Shade felt cold sweat break out on his back.

After he barely recovered, he took out the extract of weathervane bluegrass and put it on the tip of his tongue, trying to leave the bridge in dozens of steps using [Raglai's Jump]. But this thaumaturgy failed. Spatial movement was actually prohibited on this strange bone bridge. The effect was very similar to Shade's [space stabilizing halo].

"Although she is arrogant and extravagant, the Witch Emperor is worthy of being a Witch Emperor."

He could only continue to move forward against the shrill black wind, trembling with fear every time he took a step. But before the dizziness ended, another abnormality occurred on the bridge.

The viscous and weird liquid seeped from underneath the bridge, through the gaps in the bones, and onto the bridge deck. Those amorphous weird liquids are like some kind of weird creatures. Along with the whispering elements, they gather together to form a weird shape that is as big as a human being and keeps shaking.

The appearance of this monster is particularly terrifying, with small fleshy buds trembling constantly on the surface of its squirming body. And between the granules, white particles like pimples kept growing, popping, and then growing again.

The severe dizziness and the appearance of the thing in front of him made it difficult for Shade to resist the feeling of vomiting:

"Humanoid relics? What the hell is this?"

With a slight stroke of his right hand in the air, a bright streak of light flew forward silently parallel to the bridge, and smoothly cut the body of the liquid creature. But this is of no use at all. The opponent's body can be deformed and combined at will, and an extra wound is not a problem at all for it.

"How did Miss Aurora and the others get there just now?"

He raised the [Night Watcher] in his hand, but immediately put it down. The weird squirming creature was slowly walking toward Shade while shaking its body. The slippery sound was particularly noticeable in the extremely quiet large hollow at the heart of the mountain. Shade can even imagine that once the two sides fight in close combat, the other party will attach the mucus on his body to his body until he is completely "swallowed" into his body.

"Why would the Witch Emperors use such weapons? I always thought they only liked beautiful and expensive things."

He carefully took a step back and pointed his finger forward:

"Feliana's Witch's Light."

The power belonging to the witch bloomed at the fingertips. In the golden light, the liquid monster's footsteps suddenly stopped, and the surface of its body slowly melted. But judging from the speed of melting, even if Shade consumes all his spirits, he can't even think of annihilating the opponent.

A crashing sound resounded on the bridge, and the dark chains of sin poured out of Shade's sleeves, and then easily tied the enemy's ankles, or it could be said that they were actively absorbed into the body by the opponent.

The power of sin polluted the liquid, but the most important thing was that the imprisonment effect of [Chain of Sin] began to exert its power. Although the [Sin Chain] is not very effective against relics, it does make it temporarily difficult for the opponent to move.

Throwing the frog legs off the bridge, Shade bent slightly and ran forward for a few steps, then jumped up suddenly:

"ha!"

His excellent physical fitness combined with the power of the spell allowed him to get over the head of the liquid monster. Maintain the effect of the chain and seize the moment to run to the other side of the bridge.

The bridge deck was shaking violently with his footsteps. When Shade finally stepped off the bridge deck and reached the platform on the other side of the large hollow, the dizziness disappeared almost immediately. Looking back again, I saw that the end of the [Sin Chain] was lying on the bridge, and there was no trace of the terrifying monster on the bridge.

"Hallucination?"

[It is not an hallucination, the traces of abnormal whispering elements have not disappeared. 】

"It's really amazing."

After leaving the bridge just now, the light that had been suppressed since entering the mountain finally returned to normal. The light of the silver moon spread around, and Shade shook his fingers left and right, and found a stone tablet on the side of the cave entrance as he continued to walk inward.

Upon closer inspection, the inscription is written in the language of the Fifth Era, probably left by the ruler of Widun, the Witch Emperor Violet Marshall:

[Dead end ahead. 】

PS: With the help of the operations officer, I found a real big boss to recommend to each other.