Chapter 1053: The Source of Light
The guide and the liaison declined without hesitation. Knaff had already drifted, without appearing to notice, several steps closer to the trees. The soldiers positioned near him discouraged any further drift.
Rother stepped across the threshold without a coat, without a mask.
“You’re certain?” Sean said again.
“Keep the extra for the soldiers who might need to follow us.” She moved her shoulders. “I’m certain.”
Inside, it was unexpectedly dry.
Sand had filtered through the entrance over years — or decades — and half-blocked the passage so that they had to stoop moving forward. The walls on either side showed the damage of deep time: paving bricks heaved apart by roots, vines threading through every crack, the surface crumbling where moisture had crept in from above. Rother led, swinging an ax to clear the way. Without her, the downward passage would have taken the better part of a day.
“This place hasn’t been sealed for as long as the rumor claims.” Sean’s voice came back muffled through his mask. “Or not entirely.”
“What did you find?” Rother glanced back.
“Torch slots on the walls.” He gestured at the carved notches in the stone. “At intervals of roughly ten paces. The chiseling is much cleaner than the wall surface around them — formed at different times. You don’t cut torch slots into a shelter you visited once during a rainstorm.”
Regular slots meant regular traffic. People walking in and out, often, over a long period.
Rother’s mouth curved. “So the lord did send people in. The story was adjusted somewhere between then and the tavern.”
“What I’m more concerned about,” said Sean soberly, “is whether the things they carried out are still somewhere nearby. His Majesty said the source material is essential to the Glory of the Sun. If any part of it has been moved — passed through unknown hands over a century — we have a problem.”
“We can’t solve that until Azima brings us to the first source.” Rother’s body stilled suddenly. Her head came up a fraction. “I think we’re close.”
The soil cleared from the stairs. Stone steps emerged from under the packed earth, and the passage opened and they moved faster.
Thirty minutes later, they stopped.
The torchlight ran out in front of them.
Not because there was nothing ahead — the passage continued — but because the darkness stopped the light. It was as if the shadows had substance, a wall of black that swallowed the flame’s reach entirely. The boundary between the torch-lit passage and what lay beyond was sharp and absolute, like the edge of a doorway into a different kind of space.
“That’s—” Azima said.
“A large hole.” Rother lifted her torch and walked in. She disappeared.
Sean followed.
Mind your step. The soldiers at the rear.
I will. Azima pressed her eyes shut for one breath, then stepped through.
The darkness took her. It took several seconds for her vision to rebuild anything at all — and when it did, the torches ahead looked wrong, diminished, like candleflames viewed from across a courtyard. The space had expanded enormously the moment they passed the boundary. What had looked like a wall of black was simply the failure of firelight to reach any reflecting surface.
“It’s smaller than I thought,” said Rother from somewhere ahead. Her voice came back in soft echoes. “Two hundred paces across at most, in any direction.”
“You can see the edges?” Sean asked.
“You get accustomed to it. Centuries underground — you adapt or you remain blind.” A pause. “The ceiling’s high. Stone floor, tiled.”
Azima reached for the coin.
The green light blazed.
It filled her entire field of vision — not just the coin, but the room. Floating luminous points drifted from the ceiling all the way to the floor, tracing the space’s full dimensions. In their light she could see the tiles beneath her boots, each one distinct. She could see the walls.
She stopped breathing.
The walls were covered in paintings. Floor to ceiling, dense and intricate — but the scenes they depicted were nothing any human hand could have drawn for any purpose she recognized. Mad shapes. Chaotic motion. Subjects and victims in postures of impossible anguish.
Below the paintings, iron cages ran in rows. In the cages: bones. Piled without ceremony. She did not try to count them.
A hundred paces from where she stood, the floor dropped into a large pit, and from the pit a beam of light rose — matching the green of the coin, but wider, steadier, far brighter.
The source.
“Azima.” Sean’s voice. He had turned. “Are you all right?”
Her throat was dry. She licked her lips.
“I think,” she said slowly, “we’ve arrived.”
“You found it?” Rother spread her hands. “Where? I don’t see anything.”
“We’re inside it.” Azima’s voice fell to almost nothing. “We are already inside the source.”
The witch answered in low murmurs, staring at the light that only she could see — green and boundless, flooding every corner of the room, outlining every cage, every bone, every grotesque figure on the painted walls.
Chapter 1053: The Source of Light
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN The guide and the liaison turned down the offer immediately, especially the guide, who had already unknowingly moved away from the entrance and would have run away if there were no soldiers keeping an eye on him.
Rother did not put on the weird coat. “I don’t need it. Keep it as a backup.”
“Are you sure?” Sean frowned.
“The God’s Punishment Warriors have a much stronger resistance and selfhealing ability than common people and are immune to general plagues and poisons. I don’t think a disease that allowed common people to survive ten more years is a threat to our bodies. This is the most common thing we could find in ruins.” She shrugged. “The one-piece coat, on the contrary, would slow me down and dull my keenness, especially in an uncertain place such as this. Moreover, if we encounter a situation that is too difficult to escape, the soldiers outside would have a spare coat to rescue us, though such a thing can scarcely happen.”
This was a convincing argument. The God’s Punishment Witch could only perceive the outside world by her sight and hearing, so they heavily relied on them. After having been through centuries of training, they could even estimate the humidity and flexibility of the soil by the sound of their footsteps. Azima had already seen this skill during the journey.
For this reason, the protective coat had a larger influence on the God’s Punishment Witch than ordinary people, who would just take it as a coat that could cover their eyes and ears.
“But what if… the temple was really cursed by the Gods?” Azima was worried.
Rother let loose the same hideous laugh as she did before. “Let’s put aside the doubt whether a leather coat can resist the Gods’ curse. I have no fear in facing them even if there really are Gods inside. I’d like to see how the curse by the Gods could be any worse than the millions of people who perished on the Fertile Plains.
“I see.” Sean nodded after a moment of silence. “Let’s move now.”
Azima took a deep breath and followed the guard entering the stone gate.
Unexpectedly, it was not damp inside the ruin. The sand that had been brought through the entrance had almost blocked the passage so they had to bend over to move forward. However, as they went deeper, the downward passage became less congested and less steep.
With the light of the torch, they could see the wall on both sides of the passage had been severely damaged and the tree roots and vines had dug out of the paved bricks and crawled all over. Rother, who was leading the way, used an ax to open the way. The downward incline would have taken them half a day to pass through if they did not have the God’s Punishment Witch to clear the way for them.
“This place has indeed been deserted for a long time, but what Knaff said isn’t entirely true. It wasn’t sealed off because of the curse,” Sean said suddenly. “There must have been people coming and going at least for a period of time.”
“What did you find out?” Rother put on a curious look.
“There are torch slots on the wall,” he said, pointing toward the wall. “The chiseled lines are much clearer than that of the walls, indicating that they must have formed at very different times. If this is just a place that they used to take shelter from the rain, they didn’t need to set up torches at intervals of about ten paces.”
There was no doubt that torch slots were only made when people had to walk in and out of this place frequently for a long time.
“Ha, how could the lord not be interested in the treasures inside of this ruin?” Rother sneered. “It’s not the guide who lies but the rumor itself has been polished.”
“I’m concerned whether the treasures are the thing we are searching for…” Sean said soberly. “If there are many sources, how many have been carried away in the past century and where? His Majesty said that the thing is crucial to the creation of the Glory of the Sun, and we must, by no means, let it fall into the hands of other people.”
“These problems can’t be solved until Miss Azima leads us to the first source.” Rother’s body suddenly tensed. “I think we’re close.”
Finally, there was no more soil covering the stairs and the stone steps were exposed.
They moved much more quickly after that.
30 minutes later, they stopped in front of a sea of darkness. The light shining from their torches could not illumine the way ahead any longer. It was as if the torchlight was being absorbed by the darkness. It looked as though a dark wall was standing there, separating the two worlds.
“That’s…” Azima blurted out in amazement.
“A big hole.” Rother lifted the torch, entered the darkness, and totally disappeared.
Sean followed her.
“Mind your step.” The soldiers guarding the rear warned.
“I will,” Azima took a deep breath and stepped into the darkness. Prior to her promise to accept King Roland’s task, she had always thought that she was a brave girl. However, she now found herself far behind Sean and Rother in terms of bravery. Perhaps, this was the reason why she could not make the final decision of leaving the Sleeping Island.
“To be frank, you’re a coward.”
Nightingale’s voice once again echoed in her ears.
But this time, it was no longer sarcasm, but a different kind of meaning altogether.
The darkness enveloped her.
It took a few seconds for her eyes to adapt to the dense darkness. She could make out Sean’s and Rother’s torches. Their lights seemed to have shrunk by a lot and looked small and dim.
“Are we at the bottom of the ruin?” Rother said as she looked around, her voice echoing from the unseen ceiling. “It’s smaller than I thought. No more than 200 paces in any direction.”
“You can see the edges of the room?” Sean asked.
“It’s not that impressive. You don’t have many choices when living under the ground for hundreds of years. You either adapt or remain blind.”
It wasn’t until now did Azima realize why Rother said it was “a big hole”. As she entered, the space suddenly extended by a lot so that the firelight could not reflect on the walls and looked much dimmer. The hole was not at the same level with the passage they had just passed through, so those entering first looked as if they had suddenly disappeared.
“How far do we have to go?” Rother looked back over her shoulder at Azima.
She hurriedly took out the coin. Suddenly the green light filled her vision. There were countless bright green spots floating in the air, from the ceiling to her feet, outlining the whole place. It was as though she was in a fictional world, and the endless darkness now had clear boundaries. Under the luminous spots, she could even see the shape of every tile on the floor.
The wall around them was engraved with psychedelic paintings that were beyond description. What the paintings showed were all mad and chaotic. No human beings could create anything like that. There were rows of iron cages
under the paintings in which numerous bones were piled up. She did not know how many people had been imprisoned here and died.
About a hundred paces away from them, the ground sank down and formed a large pit from which a splendid beam of light rose. The beam matched the light of the coin, but the beam was much brighter.
It was her first time seeing such a sight!
“Azima?” asked Sean. Upon not hearing an answer, he turned around and asked, “Are you alright?”
Azima felt the dryness in her throat. She licked her lips and said slowly, “I think… we’ve arrived.”
“Ah? Do you mean we’ve found the source?” Rother spread out her hands and asked, “Where is it then?”
“We are… inside it now.”
The witch answered in low murmurs.