Chapter 549 The castle at the bottom of the crystal sea
Galen seemed to be considering something for a second before he gave Daimon his answer.
"I can take you there in exchange for the information you mention, however there is another thing I want to discuss with you, it appears that our sides are capable of working together", he said as he stole a gaze at Daphne.
At first Daimon was surprised thinking that Galen had managed to see through the effect of the bracelet of the god of mischief, which Daphne was using to hide her lineage as Daimon told her to, so she could pass as an outsider like him, Calvin and the others.
But then he remembered that the old merman in front of him, could treat people like Vincent, Calvin's grandfather and probably even the Lich King of the undead back at the four galaxies, as juniors, at least in terms of age.
"Don't worry, I'm the only one who has noticed it, just like I'm the only one in our race that knows about the existence of the world "below" ours, however I didn't realize that young miss was a native of Neptune due to that… but because when I was young, I once came across the entrance to a challenge which radiated a particular aura, which I was reminded off after meeting you".
'Cunning old man', thought Daimon before saying.
"So, what is the deal?".
Galen nodded and then took out a piece of paper which he handed to Daimon.
"There is the description of the entrance to the challenge I mentioned, no one knows the test that will be faced inside but what I can confirm is that even if two people take the same one, the test won't be the same, take it as a show of goodwill between your enemies to me, we'll assist your allies if we find them, of course it would be for the best if you give us intel about your enemies".
Daimon had to admit that this old merman was quite something, however there was something Galen probably ignored, and that is the fact that the other three groups as a whole were his enemies.
"Are you sure you want to place your bet on my group, I don't mind telling you that we are outnumbered", he said.
"Kid, I have met too many people in my life but until a few minutes ago, no one made my instincts scream, more than Ereth when he was tearing my and my brother's flesh down, I would never be able to forget that sensation, however I only felt like that after he betrayed, mutilated and massacred us, as for you it happened the moment you set foot in this island".
"Heh, so you used that general guy to test me?", asked Daimon, just to see Galen shaking his head.
"Not really, I was legitimately in shock and only reacted when things got more serious, my brother wasn't like that because he lost consciousness back then when Ereth blinded him, but I made sure to remain awake through the whole process".
"As for the outnumbering I wouldn't worry about that, my race has always been fighting 3v1 battles, and I assume you aren't afraid of all your enemies joining hands either", he said.
Daimon nodded.
"Deal", in any case he had nothing to lose, from the very beginning he never expected help from the natives of this place, so this was a bonus for him, who knows they might come in handy later, also that thing Galen mentioned about the challenge with an aura that was similar to Daphne's, caught his attention.
Luckily contracts between Daimon and the members of the Sea clan were possible, so a few minutes later the deal was finished, Daimon handed the information he promised and Galen immediately created a portal for them.
group and my race".
"In exchange, I would like you to describe your allies and your "I'll accompany you to the entrance of the castle, if it isn't what you are looking for, I'll take you back, then you can decide where you want to go, just be aware that I can't use portals to take you directly to any settlement of the other three races, at most you'll appear a few dozens of kilometers from them", said Galen as he jumped into the portal first as a sign of goodwill.
Daimon nodded and the others, he of course used infinity eyes to make sure that the portal was safe, the whole group entered the portal which disappeared behind of them.
…
The group found itself inside the dimensional tunnel, which like the one used by Zander previously, also contained water mana instead of just the regular space mana that is present in the tunnels created through either transportation arrays, or the spatial movement spell obtained by mages and knights, in other words Space Shift.
Since the travel will take a couple of minutes, Daimon took the chance to ask Galen about it.
"This movement spell is different than the one I know off, not to mention you and your brother are Arch ranks, so how come you can move through space in such a fluid way?", he asked.
"Oh this, it was a reward that we were granted due to the continuous victories over the other three races, unfortunately only my brother and myself can use it directly but we can condense portals and give them to others… like the ones you extorted out of me", said Galen.
Daimon nodded, he inwardly thanked Zander for not hiding what he used to create that portal, naturally he didn't make this question out of curiosity, he wanted to confirm something, and he now was sure of it.
Those portals were possible thanks to the deity of the Sea clan, and now he had gotten a few of them and handed them to Calvin and the others, just in case.
The travel inside the dimensional tunnel didn't last long, and they were able to appear practically at the entrance of the castle that Galen mentioned, since this island that had sank to the bottom of the sea, used to be a Sea clan's settlement.
The interesting thing, is that according to Galen, the challenge that used to be linked to this area, was destroyed when it sank, otherwise the Sea clan would have destined some guards to stay here.
The moment the group came out of the tunnel, a variety of beastly gazes fell on them, as many different magic beasts eyed them, luckily, they were really close to the entrance, and despite the challenge having disappeared, the "protection" of the guardian deity of the Sea clan, remained.
As for its effects, there were only two of them, first of all, water couldn't destroy the settlement and second magic beasts past the Lord ranks couldn't approach past a certain point, otherwise, with the horrible weather of this place, the islands would face hurricanes and floods quite often, not to mention the packs of magic beasts which would attack them without mercy.
With the group entering the area covered by the protection of the castle, the magic beasts didn't continue chasing them.
Daimon observed his surroundings and his eyes glowed behind his mask.
"It matches…", he mumbled, what he was looking for were similarities between this castle and the one described by Arianna, since even with all the resources of Annete, Vincent, Aurora, Thea and Armando, there was no trace of the place where that "junior sister" of his as well as that little girl from the Jolbaris, where.
At that point Daimon was sure they weren't in Neptune, he looked through the four seas, so unless they went to another world like Kerrol, they should be out at the first layer of Neptune, where Stella and the others were, or here, since Calvin and the others also ended in this place.
Daimon took out his sigil lector and tried to look for the signal of Arianna or Dana's sigil, but after a couple of minutes there was no sign of them, however something did show some reaction.
He felt his black Sea Emblem trying to come out of his inventory, and he let it go, as that little thing could escape if it really tried, while for Daimon this was a normal occurrence, Galen was in awe at the sight of an emblem moving on its own.
"What the hell is that emblem of yours", he said.
Daimon shrugged and then he followed the little thing through the outer area of the castle, previously Galen was using his mana to create a bubble of air around the group, but past a certain point, the water didn't approach the castle, an effect which Daimon found rather familiar as the water affinity he got from one of his lineages could do something like that.
Not that it was a surprise, he got the Dracolevia lineage as a reward for overscoring in the trial that the Lineage Temple gave him to obtain the Black Armored shark lineage, and that Black Prison Megalodon was able to give the Black Armored shark lineage too, there was bound to be a connection between them.
Speaking of the Black Armored shark lineage, Galen and Helric didn't obtain the eyes trait which he had, but they did have something similar to the ability "Ruler of the Sea", which he got, that was in part the origin of the respect that all the other members of the Sea clan had for those two.
Daimon guessed that was a low ranked version of "Commander of the Sea", the previous version of his "Ruler of the Sea", those two couldn't control sea magic beasts but had some sort of presence in front of them, it instilled respect on the members of the Sea clan as a side effect.
The group followed the black Sea Emblem which guided them to the frontal entrance of the castle before stopping there, it remained floating in front of the giant gates, but Daimon didn't take the emblem yet, because his nose caught a familiar scent on the air.
"Wat here for a second", he said to Daphne and the others as he flashed towards a corner of the outer walls that surrounded the castle, following that familiar scent he caught off.
The origin of it was as he expected a few red stains on the wall.
'I guess one would expect a werewolf to be especially sensitive towards other werewolf's blood, luckily the message was left for me, because other star ranked werewolves would never discover it due to the salinity in the air', thought Daimon.
Blood codification, a method used by the werewolves to leave a message only other members of their race would be able to notice, it was developed as a mean to give instructions on battlefields, where it is normal for lots of blood to be spilled and no one would pay a second gaze to it.
"She really is Aura's student", said Daimon as the nail of his right index finger, enlarged, curved and turned black, he then used his claw to puncture the tip of his left thumb, letting a single drop of his blood to come out of it, which he then used to connect all the stains on the wall.
And that the trick, the stains moved and aligned as words in the common language of the four galaxies, made out of blood, appeared on the wall.
[Daimon, we were here for around a month and a half, but were forced to enter a portal that appeared in this same wall, because the magic beasts were getting too violent and threw their lives away to reduce the protection of this castle, we are perfectly fine as we were able to advance quite a bit, I want a rematch later, please come find us when you can.
Your junior sister Arianna]
Daimon chuckled as he thought.
'What a troublesome sister I got', Arianna never doubted he'll find his way to this place, the change on the behavior of the magic beasts was probably linked to the global raid starting, since Arianna added the date she more or less guessed was back at the four galaxies, and it matched with the count Daimon kept to not lose sense of the time they have been gone.
"I swear I'll ask Liz to make a better communication device, they left practically the moment we arrived here, if the sigil lector would have detected them initially, this would have been much easier", said Daimon.
'Well, you can always make them your soulmates, even at this distance you know how to find your way to where Aisha and the others are~', jokingly said Evangeline.
Daimon limited to chuckle, Evangeline was making fun of him, but she woke up from her usual nap and was paying attention a lot of attention to what was happening, that is a hint she uses to tell Daimon "Don't let your guard down", the system restricted her not to act unless his life was in serious danger, but as an administrator if she wanted to, she could indirectly give him some hints.
'The advantages of having a friend instead of an administrator, right Nasha', inwardly said Daimon, which made Narasha softly laugh.
'Mm, Eve never wakes up as fast as when she has something for Daimon~', said Narasha.
'Hey, Narasha, you are supposed to be on my side', exclaimed Evangeline, but Narasha limited to laugh at her, all the previous was witnessed by a couple of administrators which were one way or another residing with Daimon, but they didn't say anything.
Back to the current situation, Daimon erased all the traces of Arianna and his blood using Demon Light, and then returned to where the others were, his Sea Emblem was still there, calling for him to take it.
Judging by the position, Daimon could tell that the gates of the castle were going to open the moment he grabbed it, which meant he wasn't going to the same place where Arianna and Dana were taken, however if those two have the time to write a message, it meant that it wasn't forced nor automatic teleporting, but more of a portal opening.
"This was the place where Arianna and Dana were stranded, I'll open the gates of the castle and then we'll decide what to do", said Daimon, Galen inwardly nodded at the fact that none of the members of the group doubted Daimon's decision, it meant that they fully trusted him.
'I can see he isn't like Ereth… but then why didn't our creator choose him, if only he had obtained the Black Armored shark's lineage, he is younger than that bastard and yet, he would have been able to crush him on the same rank of age', thought the old merman.
Daimon didn't lose any time, he directly grabbed his emblem and as he expected, the thing shone in his hand, and runes appeared on the gates of the castle, which with a low rumble slowly opened.
What appeared in front of them wasn't the entrance to the castle, but a giant portal instead, the castle was actually hollow as far as Daimon could see, in other words, the castle was actually a barrier to protect this portal.
"Impossible, I came to this castle a few times before the island sank, and even came to check up after it sank, this portal wasn't here and the entrance to the challenge I knew about, had disappeared!", exclaimed Galen.
Daimon saw his emblem blinking constantly, as it urged him to enter the portal, he didn't feel any trap hidden in the portal, in fact his instincts told him that it would be beneficial for him to enter it.
However, he has been tricked before, like when Jasmine was transported forcefully to Kerrol, so he didn't approach it and instead reunited with the others, who were watching from the distance, to then ask Galen.
"What do you think, does it lead to a challenge?".
The old merman frowned, but he ultimately shook his head.
"I don't know, it does look like the entrance to the challenge which Ereth entered, but the size is… quite a few times larger, on the other hand I have never heard of an emblem like yours, so it makes sense that I can't see through the portal it called upon".
"Mm?", Daimon felt a small tug on his right sleeve, he turned around just to see Daphne pointing at the portal and nodding, her eyes were enough to communicate her message, "Something there is calling me", is what she was saying.
And she wasn't the only one, Calvin and the others took out their emblems, Calvin was lucky that Galen actually had one among the things he has collected through the years, it belonged to an enemy which he killed and kept it as a trophy, since he couldn't use it, but now it found its way to Calvin's hands, through the deal the old merman made with Daimon.
"Class rep, this thing is telling me to enter", said Calvin.
"As crazy as it sounds, Calvin is right this time", added Michael.
After considering things for a second, Daimon took the decision of going into the portal, he nodded at Galen to then say.
"I leave this side to you, I suggest you to take action regarding what I told you, as soon as possible, the leaders are surely focusing on challenges, so only the lackeys should be out doing secondary tasks".
"I wish you all good luck, I'll erase the tracks of the portal I used, no one will know where you went, besides me", said Galen as he opened a portal to then leave the castle.
Daimon then turned to see the others to say.
"We'll split into pairs, I'm sure we'll be separated if we try to form a big group, but there are cases of people entering in small groups of two or three", that was one of the valuable information Daimon got from Galen.
Others will try to enter in a big group and will be 100% of the times separated, but among the emblem owners, Galen saw a few that managed to enter in pairs, and remembered that, since one of those pairs were among the successful people that cleared a challenge.
Naturally, Calvin went with Loren, Michael chose Haylee and Daimon was with Daphne, the latter were the first pair to jump into the portal, followed by Michael and lastly Calvin.
The last thing Daimon managed to see before he was transported, was that the other two managed to stay together, so Galen was right.
'I guess we are about to see what have you been hiding all this time', thought Daimon as he held onto his emblem with his left hand, while Daphne grabbed his right arm, before they disappeared.
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