Fors's gaze met Hugh's in mid-air, and neither of them spoke.
After a while, Fors chuckled dryly:
Haha, you're not asleep?
Hugh frowned slightly and said:
What happened to you just now?
"It's nothing. Didn't I tell you? I'm not in a very good state whenever there's Full Moon, and it's even worse during Blood Moon," Fors replied, feigning normalcy.
Hugh looked her up and down, then pulled the blanket over him and said:
"I remember you brought sleeping pills?"
"Not for now, I've already adjusted." Fors breathed a sigh of relief when Hugh didn't press the matter. "Go to sleep, go to sleep, we have to get up early for the forest tomorrow."
Xiu didn't say anything more, turned over, hugged the blanket, and closed her eyes.
Before long, her breathing became slightly heavier, long and even.
Fors stared blankly at the ceiling, lost in thought for a while, and then fell asleep without realizing it.
The next day at noon, in the heart of the Delaire Forest, in front of an ancient castle that had mostly collapsed and was covered with green vines.
Fors wiped the sweat from his brow and let out a long sigh of relief.
"Finally arrived..."
Hugh glanced at her and said:
"The hotel owner told me it would only take two hours to get here."
They set off before six in the morning and spent nearly seven hours on the road.
Fors's lips twitched slightly as he said:
"The theoretical state and the actual situation are different. Eventually, we reached a dead end and had to find our own way, groping our way forward and forging our own path!"
Hugh took out his triangular dagger, nodded, and said:
"You should have foreseen this from the beginning, but you still refused the hotel owner's suggestion of a guide."
"As an Astrologer, I don't think such a trivial matter will cause any trouble. Look, we've already arrived, haven't we? Besides, the timing is perfect; the Evil Spirit spirits are definitely at their weakest." Fors forced a smile, holding " Lemano's Travel Notes " in one hand and pointing ahead with the other. "I didn't think about it before, but the more I think about it, the more confused I become."
"What's puzzling you?" Hugh also turned his gaze to the abandoned castle that was almost completely covered by vines.
Fors casually made up an excuse:
"Tell me, who would build a castle in the middle of a forest, without even a road leading directly to it...?"
Before she could finish speaking, she genuinely felt that this was indeed a bit strange.
After thinking for a moment, he said:
"Perhaps there was originally a road, but with the castle abandoned and the passage of time washing away all traces of it."
Fors tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, shook her head, and said:
"Then why give up?"
"If safety factors had been considered during the initial construction, the remote, uninhabited forest center, far from any town, would actually be more dangerous. If it's for a vacation, given the way nobles are, they wouldn't give up no matter how difficult the repairs and maintenance are."
Xiu blurted out:
"Because it's haunted?"
Fors for a few seconds and said:
"Someone who can afford to build a large castle wouldn't be able to hire Beyonder to handle a haunting?"
"I suspect that the three major churches and the kingdom's government are unaware of this castle; otherwise, there's no reason for them to overlook the extraordinary materials inside..."
At this point, she raised a possibility:
" The Sanguine's castle?"
These extraordinary creatures prefer to live in places rarely visited by humans, and are often associated with buildings such as eerie ancient castles.
Furthermore, the information about this ancient castle itself was provided by the Sanguine.
"Possibly." Hugh initially agreed, then offered a different opinion, "Would Sanguine be afraid of ghosts? They certainly have the ability to deal with the Ancient Evil Spirit here."
That makes sense... Don't those Sanguine like money and care about collecting extraordinary materials? Fors thought about Mr. " The Moon's " behavior, then dismissed his own guess, and carefully spoke:
"Unless there are other intractable problems here that cause high-level powerhouses to choose to bypass them."
This would make her actions more dangerous than anticipated.
Hugh grunted and said:
"Let's take advantage of the intense sunlight and immediately begin our preliminary exploration."
"Okay." Fors, holding " Lemano's Travel Notes," approached the half-collapsed castle step by step.
The two soon arrived at the entrance, which was two-thirds blocked by stones. They found that beneath the green vines, the stone wall was mottled and severely weathered, seemingly having existed for a very long time.
Hugh didn't rush inside. He called out to Fors and then slowly walked around the castle.
Back at the entrance, she asked in confusion:
"This castle is purely defensive in style, seemingly without any consideration for habitation. Moreover, I've never heard of many of its architectural features before. It should date back to before the late Quaternary period, or even earlier."
"What's there to defend here? Orcs? Treants? They were almost extinct after the Cataclysm, haha, is this some kind of Second or Third Age building?" Fors casually replied.
She surveyed the terrain, then led Hugh away from the entrance to a relatively intact wall nearby. She reached out her palm and pressed it against the wall.
Although she lacked experience in fighting people, she was quite proficient in all the preparations before a battle.
Before their eyes, the illusory light and shadow shifted, and Fors and Hugh suddenly entered an abandoned castle.
The first thing that caught their eye was: collapsed staircases, layers upon layers of superstructure ruins, beams of pure sunlight shining in from above, and a ground covered only with bricks and rotten wood, devoid of wild animal and bird droppings and various green weeds.
The wind howled, carrying a chilling cold that seeped into the bones, even at midday.
Fors activated his Spirit Vision and slowly looked around, but failed to see any spiritual beings.
However, she noticed that on the right side, surrounded by broken walls and ruins, there was a relatively intact stone staircase.
The steps are weathered and stretch downwards, their destination unknown.
"Should we go take a look?" Fors glanced at Hugh and offered his suggestion.
In her opinion, the rest of the castle was either easy to see at a glance, or it was a series of collapsed structures that would take a long time to explore carefully. Therefore, it would be better to first get a general idea of the overall layout and have a better understanding of the situation.
Hugh glanced around and nodded slightly.
"A chilling wind is gathering underground... I suspect all the Evil Spirit and ghosts here are hiding where those stairs lead down."
"Hmm." Fors cautiously walked towards the mottled stone staircase, descending step by step along the steps scattered with many broken stones.
The stairs were quite narrow, only wide enough for one person to pass at a time, and they spiraled deeper and deeper in circles, making Fors with considerable trepidation.
Tap, tap, tap, as the sound of their footsteps echoed deeper and deeper, the light inside the stairwell grew dimmer and dimmer.
Hugh lit the lantern in his hand, Fors opened " Lemano's Travel Notes," his fingers expertly tracing a page.
A bright, warm light suddenly appeared, illuminating the mottled steps ahead. Fors and Hugh tensed up as they descended, step by step.
Along the way, a cold wind blew by from time to time, causing them to overreact several times and almost launch attacks on non-existent enemies.
Tap, tap, tap, in the cramped and desolate environment, Fors finally climbed the steps and stepped onto the flat and solid ground.
She wanted to say, "Staying in a place like this for too long can really drive you crazy," but the surrounding silence prevented her from making a sound, fearing that breaking the silence would cause something very bad to happen.
Illuminated by the orb of light Levitation diagonally above, Fors turned his gaze forward, trying to see what lay at the end of the stairs.
This is a large hall, nearly 10 meters high, paved with black floor tiles that have been soaked with water droplets, and there are cracks and damage everywhere.
Dozens of meters away, on the other side of the hall where the light could barely reach, stood a pair of large bronze doors.
From the top of the gate, stones had fallen off the walls on both sides, and the statues were broken, revealing the dark brown soil that covered them.
The surface of the gate is covered with densely packed symbolic patterns and strange designs, giving it a direct sense of mystery and heaviness, as if it is sealing something or blocking something away.
Fors finally couldn't hold back and spoke, lowering her voice:
Have you ever seen a gate like this?
Hugh, who was next to her, shook his head and said:
"No."
Fors hissed.
"What do you think is behind this door? Where does it lead?"
"So, this is the original purpose of building this castle? To prevent the creatures behind the door from coming out?"
Hugh looked around but couldn't find any murals that could provide information. He only noticed that the closer he got to the bronze gate, the more water droplets seeped from the ground and the more haphazardly discarded silver-black longswords appeared.
"In the Fourth and Fifth Ages, murals were a common feature in all castle buildings. Before the Cataclysm, several Elf ruins show that extraordinary beings also enjoyed Goddess of Beauty and Record daily life through murals..." Hugh said slowly, drawing on his experience and observations as a bounty Hunter.
Fors nodded slightly and said:
That's true.
"This castle is more peculiar than I imagined."
At this moment, she felt quite uneasy and even considered leaving immediately and asking "Mr. World" for help.
--After listening to so many scary stories about ruins and ancient sites told by Little " The Sun " at the Tarot Club, she couldn't help but overthink and scare herself when she was in similar environments.
"Get closer, maybe we can find more clues." Hugh boldly stepped forward, approaching the heavy door that seemed to seal off some place.
Fors clutched " Lemano's Travel Notes " tightly and hurried after them.
As she walked, a bright red suddenly appeared in her eyes.
What seeped from the cracks in those black floor tiles was no longer water droplets, but glaring blood!
"This..." Fors abruptly opened the patina-covered notebook, glancing at Hugh beside him out of the corner of his eye.
In her sight, Xiu had become pale, with dark green circles under her eyes, blood-red lips, a gloomy aura, and an extremely Distortion expression.