"I never met any higher monster than those weaklings down below," she said before flapping her wings for a minute and landed on the ground, just half a mile away from the hill. "See? There is the fortress," she turned into human form and pointed towards one side of the hill.
There was a collapsed line that was covered in dirt. Behind it Arthur could see a wide deep gap, with darkness prevailing there and no light to see anything.
"It's like a destroyed rudimentary stronghold," he muttered.
"Try to sense its energy then."
When Arthur tried to spread his cultivation energy to that stronghold, he felt a strong resistance coming from inside, and some pain. "Damn, it's really strong," he held his head for a moment as he felt like a sharp long thorn just touched his mind dantian, making him feel a moment of excruciating headache.
"Told you, this place isn't simple," she laughed while adding, "I tried to send some monsters there, but no matter how much I sent, none came back even after days."
"I need more intel," he muttered before adding, "Scout the fort for me."
"Ding! There is a strong blocking force field around that spot," the system said after a couple of minutes.
"You have to get inside and overcome anything you meet there," the golden dragon said before adding, "this is the only way."
"You are right," Arthur nodded before turning to the queen, "What shall I call you from now?"
"the queen is fine, I love this name," she giggled while he laughed, "I'm the king, and I have many girls to my side. You can't take their spots like that."
"Hehehe, I'm confident that I can," she giggled and he just sighed.
"Alright queen, lead everyone to crush all the monsters here," he started to move towards the fort before adding, "we have less than a day, don't mess things up."
"What about you? Are you going in alone? Don't need my help?"
"I need your help here, not there."
"Oh, you're worried about me," she laughed and he just shrugged and said nothing back, "very romantic of you."
He ignored her remark as he didn't do this for her sake, but his. He didn't know if he could beat whatever was lying in wait inside, or even this was part of his trial or not.
So he needed to make sure he had crushed every monster here while he tried his luck inside.
He stood in front of the fallen walls and finally spotted a crumbled old gate made of a metallic ore that became rusty ages ago.
And the opening of that gate was almost covered up with dirt. "Sigh, I need to crawl then to enter," he muttered before taking out his sword as he added, "or I should clear my way through."
"Bad idea," the golden dragon suddenly said, "you shouldn't meddle with the already crushed fortress or else you'll risk a landslide here, blocking any path to the inside."
Arthur paused before shaking his head as he said, "you've a point."
He then climbed the hill and when he reached the fifty meters high gate, he crawled to enter it. The moment he passed under the gate, he felt like he penetrated an invisible barrier, and the next moment he entered into a strange world.
There he found himself standing on top of the hill he was on right now, yet the world around looked extremely different. "What's that?" he asked, yet no answer came from his system or golden dragon. "Sigh, an illusion? And strong enough to block even my system and golden dragon, tsk," he wasn't worried at the least while the next moment he closed his eyes and tried to enter his garden.
Yet a strange opposing force prevented him from doing that!
"You are afraid of my garden, right?" he sneered as he sensed his connection with the garden was there, but extremely weakened. "If I can't go in, then I can at least bring things out. Come forth my dear pillars, let this illusion rumble under your mighty force."
The next moment he felt a strong blocking force against his will, yet his necklace shook strongly and shone with pure milky light and the next thing happened was for this opposing force to shatter.
"Rumble!"
"Rumble!"
"Rumble!"
Hundreds of pillars appeared the next minutes accompanied by the rumbling of this illusion. When his pillars exceeded five hundred, and some were completely purified ones, the illusion broke up and the real world appeared in front of his eyes.
"Get the hell away from me," as he crushed the illusion, he saw a strange creature formed entirely of black fog floating in the air in front of him. Its body was enormous, with many thin arms like tentacles extending and dancing slowly from its body.
And some of these arms were surrounding Arthur, yet when the pillars broke his illusion, they also burned down these tentacles.
"Hurry and use your arrows to activate your pillars, hurry," the sound of the golden dragon came in such an urgent way that made Arthur realize how dangerous his situation was.
"Swoosh!"
"Swoosh!"
"Swoosh!"
The next moment he took his bow and arrows, and started launching them to hit the pillars without stop.
"Rumble!"
"Rumble!"
"Rumble!"
Each arrow activated the pillar and caused a rumbling shockwave of white light that was instantly blocked by the massive energy and body of that strange monster.
"Keep hitting them, don't stop," the golden dragon screamed in panic before adding, "Summon more, help him and surround this bastard with twelve arrays. Hurry!"
"Ding! Can you explain why you look like a frightened little girl?" the system complied as he brought out many pillars.
"This isn't something we should meddle with, this is the soul sucker. A monster lives entirely on eating others' souls. We need to hurry and seal it before it turns serious."
The words of the golden dragon told Arthur everything he wanted to know for now.. He also started to get more serious, and instead of hitting a dozen arrows in one go, he started to release twenty arrows at the same time.
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