Chapter 2332: The Radiant Helm

Chapter 2332: Chapter 2332: The Radiant Helm

After he’d had a moment to recover, Shard finally restored his own set of Golden Armor. And when the four sides of the box dropped away, the lion‑shaped armor standing inside was still shining. A faint Golden Miracle Element clung to it, making that golden lion form look even more real and imposing.

"What happened?"

Old Lady Sianod asked Shard, and Shard shook his head, then began to recount to her and Miss Sander the experiences of his excursion outside.

The round trip had consumed a great deal of Time; forty minutes seemed to have vanished in the blink of an eye, so Shard spoke quickly and kept it brief. Once he truly left, Miss Nate and Miss Mister would presumably tell the story again.

"So, the Compass Fragments are in there?"

When Shard finished, Miss Sander eagerly pointed at the coffin, and after receiving the Old Elf’s permission, she opened it. The Mermaid Girl leaned half her body into it; just when Shard thought she was going to topple in, she straightened up again, delighted, with that piece of metal in her hand:

"Look, I found it, this is it!"

She handed the new Compass Fragment to Old Lady Sianod, and Shard also returned the one he had taken away. Once the two pieces of metal drew close, they resonated, then latched together like magnets.

Thus, the round, disk‑shaped black metal Compass now possessed two‑thirds of its full mass. Barring any surprises, once they found the final fragment, they would be able to learn the location of the "Heart of the Oasis."

"Granny, hurry~"

The blue‑haired girl urged, and Old Lady Sianod chuckled softly, then once more activated the Compass’s Power of resonance. After a brief wait, the steady point of Light appeared again upon the surface of the Compass.

Miss Nate, who had taken off her Armor, also came over. Together with the contents Miss Sander had recorded in her notebook—contents already beginning to blur—they quickly determined the Direction of the next Compass Fragment.

"That’s going to be troublesome."

The Old Elf said to Shard:

"The information about that place isn’t clear, or rather, it isn’t really Ruins at all. Although it doesn’t directly display any Supernatural Power like the Tomb you just returned from, there’s definitely danger there as well."

"What exactly is that area like? Who went to explore it back then?"

Shard asked, and Miss Sander raised her hand, a little embarrassed:

"It was me. I mentioned before that after I came to this desert, I was trapped for a long time in a cave. Only when I realized my soul would eventually decay did I leave the cave one Dusk and collapse in the chill of the night, where Granny found me unconscious. When I was running through the desert night, I encountered that place. At the time..."

She tried to sift through the blurred, chaotic memories:

"Of course, I was freezing. Seeing a dark mass in the distance, I thought it was a building and wanted to go over to shelter from the wind and sand. When I drew closer, I saw that it was..."

She suddenly shivered hard:

"I saw a gigantic, rotten head lying in the Sand Sea under the Darkness, its mouth altered into a great door. And behind that massive Human head, attached to it, was the Corpse of a sand Worm."

Listening to her description, Miss Nate’s expression had already turned ugly, and Shard frowned slightly:

"Was that a modified construct, or does there truly exist a monster with a Human head and a Worm’s body?"

Only after asking did he suddenly realize that the "desert Worm" Professor Drake had become in the Bygone Era: Sixth Era looked very much like that.

"The mouth turned into a door was probably man‑made."

The blue‑haired girl said, giving a little tremor:

"I was sprinting through the night when I suddenly saw that rotten head. I was scared out of my wits in an instant; I even suspected I’d already gone mad. I didn’t dare go near it and instead turned to run in another Direction, and I kept running until I blacked out. When I woke, Granny had already brought me here, and it was daylight."

"Is that area far from here?"

Shard asked, and Old Lady Sianod shook her head:

"A little farther than this last trip."

Which meant Shard had no Time to go and see it with his own eyes this time.

"The Compass Fragment is in that Worm’s belly, then... Miss Sander, what else did you see back there?"

Shard asked again, and the blue‑haired girl simply shoved her notebook into his hands:

"After I woke, Granny had me record everything I could remember. Granny knows this desert makes memories unreliable. But later, when I went back and read what I’d written, there were things I myself no longer remembered."

Shard lowered his head to flip through it and found a hand‑drawn sketch in the relevant notes. The Mermaid Girl had apparently tried to depict that door, but her drawing was extremely abstract.

"What’s this symbol?"

Shard pointed to the symbol on the door, and Miss Sander leaned in to take a look:

"That’s one of the things I can’t recall clearly anymore. I suppose it was just the symbol on the door."

Shard therefore noted down that symbol, planning to go back and investigate it later; after all, this was the only thing he could look into for now.

"Next time we set out together."

The Old Elf said to everyone again:

"We’ll go together to search for the last Compass Fragments, then use the fully pieced-together Compass to find the ’Heart of the Oasis’ together. Next time I won’t leave you any retreat—either we find it together, or we die together. Without that kind of resolve, we won’t find it."

"All right, Grandma."

"No objections from me."

"Yes, Old Lady Sianod."

The three girls answered like this, and of course Shard had no objections either; in any case, he had to make the trip.

"The time I have left isn’t much, so before I come back next time, please make your preparations. Miss Sander, try your best to recall what else you saw back then. And this coffin—everything inside belongs to all of you and can be used for preparations."

Inside that coffin were the personal belongings of an ancient Hero, as well as precious materials the Ancestors had buried here as burial goods when they entombed this Tomb church.

The ordinary items inside had decayed the moment Shard opened the coffin; what remained were all genuine treasures. Relics alone numbered four pieces, and Shard was certain he saw a piece of "Philosopher’s Stone." But he couldn’t take any of these things away, so if they could be consumed here, that was fine.

"And this."

He picked up the Stone Sword lying on the bench beside him—of course, before raising the Sword, he had to first remove the cat squatting on it:

"This is the Longsword of that ancient Hero; now it’s just ordinary stone. I’d like to keep it as my memento, but I don’t know if it’ll be useful later. So this time I’ll leave it here; if next time we manage to successfully find the ’Heart of the Oasis’, I’ll take it away then."

Having said that, he added with a smile:

"We’ll definitely find it."

Shard also placed the stone Longsword into the coffin, and then he saw that one of the Relics inside was impressively a [Demon Hunting Seal].

"As expected, wherever there are Demons, there’s one of these... Wait, that Demon actually lay together with this Seal for so long..."

The last thing he handed to Old Lady Sianod was that Glass Bead of white mist that had sealed the Demon. Shard claimed all the credit for himself, stating that he was the one who sealed it, and hoped Old Lady Sianod could turn it over to Saint Byrons for handling.

Thus the Old Elf nervously received the Glass Bead, opened the sachet she wore at her neck, and placed it inside.

Of course, if this Glass Bead could be taken away, handing it over to Dr. Schneider would actually be the best choice. Unfortunately, it couldn’t be taken, and even in the age when the Outlander lived outside the Sixth Era, this Glass Bead was still in the Academy; Shard couldn’t think of any way to reclaim it.

"Maybe when I reach Thirteen Rings, I’ll be able to ask for it back."

In any case, this adventure in the Gravel Golden Sea, after a series of accidents, finally reached its end.

Though he lost the final chance to obtain "a gift" because he sought help from the Deity, the fact that he did not let that Demon escape to harm others a thousand years later left Shard very satisfied.

Of course, what satisfied him even more was that Miss Nate had not truly sacrificed herself in order to obtain the Compass Fragments.

The Lady Knight was still resting at this moment; this outing had placed a far heavier burden on her than on the others. Noticing Shard looking her way, Miss Nate again gave a slight nod.

Compared to when they first met, her expression had softened a lot; evidently the Illusionary Realm in that Tomb had also helped her think some things through.

For someone born Human and ordinary to have come this far was already extremely lucky. The only Belief supporting her to keep living on in this wretched environment was probably that stubborn persistence. That persistence was like steel, like Flame; Shard hoped it wouldn’t, in the end, burn her to ashes as well.

Of course, with the few minutes remaining, Shard still had one last matter to deal with—his own glowing Armor.

"I don’t really know what’s going on with this Armor either."

Miss Mister and Miss Nate were sitting and resting, while Miss Sander was curiously tallying the burial goods in the coffin. Shard stood up with Mia in his arms and, together with Old Lady Sianod, walked over to the Armor.

The Golden Lion-shaped Armor looked imposing even in the slightly dim interior; its glowing bright Gold made it far more eye-catching than its original Dark Gold appearance. This reminded the Outlander of the Armor from that "story about a woman and her 88 bodyguards" he’d seen back in his Hometown, though clearly his set of Armor was nowhere near that formidable.

"It was given to me by a friend; I’ve always suspected that friend isn’t an ordinary person either."

Shard explained to the Old Elf, and as he spoke he glanced at Mia.

Old Lady Sianod did not delve into the topic of "friend." Drawing on the life experience of an Elf, she pointed out:

"You’ve sensed the Light of this desert yourself—it really is capable of making things shine that normally wouldn’t. The sand outside is glowing on its own; didn’t you notice that too?"

"Grandma, you mean this Armor just happened to glow because it was touched by Sunshine?"

This phenomenon could also be found in Moon Bay nowadays—the white Light sealed in ’Empty Bottle Fruit’ had precisely that effect.