Throne of Magical Arcana

The moonlight spread gently on the river bank, making everything look a bit fuzzy like it was in a dream.

Hearing Francis’ words, Ramiro was quite surprised. He then purposefully put on a greedy looked and asked, “the treasure of the Lord of Underworld? Can I go with you?”

In the city of Husum, when Ramiro first heard that the Lord of Underworld had been killed, he was more than shocked. The ninth-circle spell Confinement was not Command Death, it should not be able to kill a fake god!

Once, there was a demon count who had been confined for over a thousand years but was still alive. He was set free by the hard effort of his numerous followers when the power of Confinement started fading. Therefore, Ramiro seriously suspected that the ninth-circle archmage had just confined the Lord of Underworld and would release this false god at some point after he made enough preparations to kill Him swiftly.

Ramiro would like to further investigate this, but he knew neither where the Lord of Underworld was being confined nor where the Lord of Underworld’s realm was. So he had temporarily put this aside and turned to investigate the godhood of the God of Moon instead.

Knowing that it was Leviathan who found the realm of the Lord of Underworld, Ramiro was very eager to go there and try to see what actually happened to the Lord of Underworld to make Him the pray of a ninth-circle archmage.

Because of the death of the Lord of Underworld, Ramiro had ruled out his last bit of suspicion towards Leviathan. Ramiro saw it with his eyes that Leviathan jumped into the water, and that was possibly where the Confinement was cast.

Obviously, there was no time for Leviathan to go back and forth between the several agreed places without attracting Francis’ attention as both of the places were relatively far away from the city of Husum, unless Leviathan had the legendary level power.

However, if that was the case, there would be no necessity at all for Leviathan to hide around. Instead, he could just directly sweep over Erdo.

“A false god’s treasure must be very abundant, and I don’t mind you taking a portion, Anheuse,” said Francis with a smile. His main purpose of going there was also to figure out what happened to the Lord of Underworld. “You can help us, so we can finish our searching as soon as possible before the Lord of War notices.”

With the same smile on his face, Francis asked Leviathan casually, “Leviathan, don’t you want to go? I thought you were longing to go.”

“If it was me alone, I wouldn’t go for sure. Who knows what horrible things are hiding in the Lord of Underworld’s realm. But now since you two are in, I’ll definitely not miss it!” Lucien pretended that he was zealous. He had his own purpose for going to the domain — to investigate the mysterious sight he felt when he swam past it and the reason why the Lord of Underworld suddenly chose to move to the bottom of Solna River. Maybe he would also be able to find some good materials for fixing his magic items.

Ramiro frowned. “Then we must hurry. The realm would slowly collapse and disperse after the death of the Lord of Underworld.”

After they enter the realm, Ramiro could find a better chance to kill Leviathan behind Francis’ back to steal Leviathan’s identity. And then he could put all the blame onto the unpredictability and strangeness of the realm.

“Show us the way, Leviathan,” said Francis leisurely. In his knowledge, the Lord of Underworld was just confined, and his incarnations still existed, therefore, the domain was not going to disperse.

Lucien had the same opinion as Francis, but neither of them expressed it out. After all, Ell and his devoted followers were deeply convinced that the Lord of Underworld was killed by Ell.

Wearing the stone bracelet, Lucien took the initiative and jumped into the river, followed by Francis. Ramiro used his blood power to cast a divine-like spell on himself to breathe underwater and followed behind quietly.

Swimming against the currents for quite a while, after passing the old watergate, the three of them had approached the realm of the Lord of Underworld. For a second, Lucien sensed the weird feeling of being looked at again.

“It’s here,” said Francis, nodding when he saw the schools of half-rotten fish. Relying on his acute sense of the power of death, he started leading Lucien and Ramiro to swim down towards the bottom of the river.

Past the clusters of strange-looking, pale water reed, Francis purposefully hit a common-looking stone. Then, the stone quickly distorted and turned into a heavy, black gate that emitted a strong scent of death.

The stone gate was very dilapidated. The black paint was falling in tiny pieces, and the inner material was rotting.

“The Lord of Underworld died?!” Francis casual smile froze on his face — Wasn’t it Confinement?!

Both Lucien and Ramiro looked at Francis in confusion. “What do you mean? The Lord of Underworld died days ago.”

There was a hidden mocking in Ramiro’s tone.

Although the look on Lucien’s face was the same as that of Ramiro, Lucien was actually clenching his fists really tight, so tight that his nails almost sank in the skin. Lucien was, in fact, as shocked as Francis, if not more.

Lucien was the one who cast Confinement. No one knew about the situation better than him. However, now the Lord of Underworld had really died, but Lucien had no clue about this at all.

“Still… Seeing it with my own eyes feels different.” Francis had resumed his usual calmness and casualness. He was not afraid of any suspect from either Anheuse or Leviathan, as, after all, he had taken in the Seed of Spirit, and he was the most powerful one among them.

Ramiro turned to look at the black stone gate and started looking for ways to open it. Later, if there was an opportunity, he could also kill Francis, which would be a good extra credit to him.

“According to the doctrine and the legends, in the Lord of Underworld’s realm, there are seven stone gates outside of His palace. Every gate should be opened with an oblation, or one would be trapped between two gates until one’s soul dissolves.” Francis introduced briefly. “But now the domain is collapsing, and the underworld guards have fallen into sleep, we can use anything to open it.”

Francis picked up a pebble and insert it into the big keyhole in the stone gate.

Within Francis’s expectation, light burst out from the black gate and the gate silently opened for them. Behind the gate, there was bitter and painful groans and moans, and the wind came was freezing cold.

Francis did not hesitate and took the initiative to walk in. Lucien followed him in full alert. However, it wasn’t until a minute later when Ramiro finally came in.

Standing in the overwhelming darkness, Ramiro hurriedly explained. “I’ve cast a couple of spells, in case the power of death is too strong.”

Ramiro was extremely cautious about stepping into the domain of the Lord of Underworld. No one knew that if the ninth-circle archmage was here or not.

Francis did not say anything. He turned to walk to the next gate dimly lit up by luminous moss.

Suddenly, distorted pale faces emerged in the darkness, men and women, young and old. Floating in the air, they aimed directly towards Francis, Lucien, and Ramiro full of hatred and viciousness.

Dark haze rose from Francis’s body and filled in the space. The pale faces immediately disappeared silently as soon as the haze reached them.

“The place is fading, and the specters are out of restrictions now.” Francis reminded them.

He took out a silver coin and opened the next gate.

Then, the three of them run into all kinds of low-rank specters as well as mummies. With Francis, a radiant knight, walking in the front, the specters imposed no big threat to them at all. From time to time, Francis would miss a few, but level-four knight Leviathan and level-four priest Anheuse were able to handle them.

When the sixth stone gate opened, what was behind the gate was no longer pure darkness, but dim bright fog.

In the fog, many figures were moaning and writhing on the ground; many were starving to death, too weak to cry out; many were crying in fear, but were sent to the altar by the indifferent and cold crowd; some were being torn apart into pieces by beasts; some were killed by the fights between gods and priests; some were drowned to death because of the flood summoned by gods; some were dying on battlefields during wars; some were being slaved, being killed by beasts to please the nobles…

In the fog was real hell depicting the pain that ordinary people were suffering from in this world.

“Let’s go. We pray in piety, so we won’t be influenced.” Ramiro inherited part of Anheuse’s memory and knew what to do now.

Walking in the haze, Lucien could hear sounds of sharp screaming in agony. The thin, pale arms trying to grab him in desperation were like spreading tree branches. However, the sound and the scene did not cause a stir in Lucien’s mind. The arms directly went through Lucien’s body as if they were just shadows.

When they got out of the haze, two stone gates emerged in the front. Both of them were dispersing.

“Two ?” Francis asked Ramiro.

Ramiro shook his head, “No idea. But we’d better hurry. Let’s take different paths here. You’re the most powerful one among us, Francis, so you take one yourself. Leviathan and I will take the other.”

Like a wolf stalking a lamb, Ramiro knew that his opportunity was coming.

“Alright. Let’s split and hurry up, or we wouldn’t be able to search all the places.” Francis agreed and went into the gate on the right.

Ramiro turned to look at Leviathan with a smile on his face. “Let’s go.”

“Sure.” Lucien smiled back.

Behind the left gate was a corridor alined with stone pillars. The winding corridor extended into the far side. It was empty and silent, the perfect place for killing.

Seeing that Leviathan had lowered his alert, Ramiro was ready to take action after passing around the corner, when they were far from Francis.

After several minutes of walking, they turned right along the corridor. There were rooms along both sides, but still nothing around.

This was such a good place for Ramiro.

A ferocious smile appeared on Ramiro’s face as he examined Lucien from behind.