Sven, Osvald, and Marlis headed down into the depths of the castle. There were wide passageways with many pillars, most of which were ruined. They led to different passages, but Sven followed exactly the same path since he knew what he wanted to find.
"Hey, are you sure we need this? Isn't it better to leave this place alone? Nothing's happened here for five hundred years, so it's better not to interfere, isn't it?" Marlis asked with a confused look as she tilted her head.
"Soon the rest of the Arkans will come here, and I would not want a battle of historical proportions to happen here again. They could have gotten here before the barriers were removed if they wanted to, but... it wasn't necessary. I'm sure they would have wanted to wait a few hundred more years until enough energy had gathered." Sven uttered with serious looks as he approached the massive gate.
On the gate was a drawing of a five-pointed star, the standard insignia for every Arkans except the strongest, that broke the limits.
Sven touched the gate with his fingertips and the space beside him distorted just as a powerful stream of wind appeared as though due to a vacuum.
Crackle. Crackle. Crackle.
The gate shattered into massive debris as Sven passed them along with Marlis and Osvald.
There was a massive sarcophagus in the room as if someone very important had been buried here. An unusual aura emanated from the coffin, comparable to that of the Progenitors of the Pillars.
Sven approached the coffin, threw the lid aside, and his eyes opened wide for a moment. In the coffin lay a skeleton in a white robe. On the bones, there were several smears of dark paint. It meant nothing to the average person, but Sven could clearly see the sign of the star since he knew better than anyone else who lay in that coffin.
"Hah, this brings back memories. How much effort it took us to make that bastard finally die! Ahahahahaha, his guards were some of the strongest in the Arkans, but we made it!" Osvald exclaimed as his laughter shook the air, causing dust to fall from the ceiling.
"Yeah... but it's a relic of the past." Sven shrugged as he waved his hand.
At that moment, an unknown force threw the skeleton outward and it fell to the ground. The bones were so heavy that cracks appeared on the floor as shivers ran throughout the castle.
Marlis glanced at the skeleton, as such strength of bones that were over 500 years old was important proof that this skeleton belonged to the one they killed.
"Fine, now let's check out what we came here for." Sven muttered with a calm look as he clenched his hand into a fist.
Energy gathered around his fist, the weight of which made space twist as if Sven were crumpling the fabric of the world. Then, he slowly lowered his fist onto the coffin.
He did it leisurely, but in a moment his fist had already reached the stone slab that concealed the secret bottom.
Crack. Crackle. Crackle.
There was a powerful surge of energy as the ground shook as if from a very powerful earthquake. Cracks appeared in the stone slab as it shattered into many pieces, revealing the main treasure of this castle.
A bright blue light burst out from beneath the coffin that filled the entire room, gradually the light weakened as Osvald and Marlis walked over to the coffin and looked at the contents.
"Well, well, it looks just as magical as before." Osvald said with a wide smile on his face.
The coffin contained a blue, energetic rectangle to which energy was constantly flowing through special channels resembling veins. They shuddered from time to time, causing the rectangle to flare up.
Marlis, unlike Osvald, was more serious as she frowned. Her explorer instincts told her that something was wrong here.
Crackling.
Sven broke the rectangle as a powerful stream of energy burst out. This energy was ten times purer than Soul Pearls and much denser. However, it was just a side effect, not worth their attention.
"What...? It's empty...?" Sven muttered with a dazed look as his eyes went wide.
The rectangle was a barrier that hid the main treasure, but there was only energy here, nothing more.
"Fuck... So the Arkans beat us to it?" Osvald uttered with a confused look while rubbing his chin in a careless manner.
"No. That's impossible. We certainly came here first. There was no point in the Arkans coming here before the barrier was removed, especially since they were trying so hard to reclaim space and keep it from happening." Sven said with a serious look as his pupils narrowed.
"Then... who took it...? Did some monster do it?" Marlis surmised as she waved her hand.
"No..." Sven shook his head, "Maybe some monster could have come to this place by accident, but only the Arkans know what's here."
"Hmm... In that case, did someone like us do this? Someone who has his own plan and doesn't obey the general system?" Osvald muttered with a puzzled expression.
Sven's eyes went wide as he smirked, "Osvald, you're a genius. There's no one like us from the old generation. They were either all killed or couldn't take the pressure, but... there's a tiny chance it was someone from the new generation. In that case, it all falls into place, but I have to make sure."
Sven took a step back, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Streams of energy headed toward him as he opened his eyes shining brightly like two stars from whose light nothing could hide. Then, several waves of ripples went through the entire castle and Sven was able to see what others could not.
He could clearly see the white trails that the silhouette was leaving behind, heading toward this room. The silhouette did not destroy the gate, instead, it just opened it, disassembled the sarcophagus, took the object under the treasury, and left the same way, returning everything to its original appearance. It was all done to the highest level so that no one would ever guess it.
"Yeah... I turned out to be right." Sven said with a slight nod as his eyes returned to normal, "It was someone from a new generation."
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l