Bear School Astartes

Chapter 447. Anahad’s secret chamber

"I remember... well, follow this path."

Ged led the way through the long-abandoned castle.

Behind him was Lann, who had already dried his clothes, and Regis, who remained relaxed from start to finish.

At this time, the once enormous glass windows of the Heinkawei Castle, some still basically intact, others crushed under the weight of ever-growing snow.

However, generally speaking, snow piled higher and higher on those window sills, with only a few rays of light able to shoot into the castle.

This led to the interior of Heinkawei being quite dim.

Ged, as the leader, lit a torch and held it high.

The predominantly stone buildings were sturdy but still showed the marks of decades of abandonment.

The carpets on the ground tangled together, frozen in the moments of those decades ago.

Lann’s boots stepped on them, without even purposely grinding his toes, and the carpets broke like rotten burlap sacks.

They climbed upstairs from the castle hall and stopped on a middle floor.

The corridor here had several wooden doors, most already violently dismantled.

Through the marks of knives and axes on those wooden doors, one could see the walls inside the rooms had collapsed.

The snow scene of the outside Amel Mountains and the cold wind rushing in, giving a chilling feeling both psychologically and physically.

"Huh, these marks, indeed, it’s Anahad’s secret room."

Ged holding the torch went deeper into the corridor, finally stopping in front of an unremarkable stone wall.

Without needing to speak, Lann’s amber cat eyes automatically began contracting and focusing.

Under the Demon Hunter’s vision, the bottom edge of the wall had obvious opening and closing marks.

This was a disguised secret door within the wall.

Lann crouched slightly, gently touched the semi-circular scratch on the ground, and looked up at Ged.

"Such obvious marks... Anahad never intended to hide from Demon Hunter peers, right?"

Ged seemed totally unconcerned with the thoughts of his school’s founder.

"Because he knows, within the school each manages their own affairs, no one cares about others. So there’s no need to hide."

Facing Ged’s deep resentment towards the school, Lann helplessly shrugged.

While he had no sense of belonging to the Bear School, he merely stopped at that.

But Ged, a Demon Hunter who had lived in Heinkawei for a long time, was even more resistant to his own school than him.

"At this point, talking about such old matters is meaningless."

Regis stood up with his slow speech to alleviate.

"We should think about how to open the secret door? I recall many such scenarios would hide the mechanism within the wall candle holders..."

As Regis spoke, he walked towards a wall-mounted candle holder on the stone wall.

Lann crouched playfully, watching the high vampire walk over.

He didn’t even glance at the candle holder, after all, this was Anahad’s secret room, how could the switch be in such an obvious place?

"Oh? Then dear barber doctor, exactly where did this ’precious’ experience come from? Could it be knight novels and adventure pamphlets... right?!"

Before Lann’s sarcasm finished, Regis had already hooked his finger on the wall-mounted candle holder, then pulled it down, causing the mechanism’s ’click’ sound.

This caused Lann’s final word abruptly changed to a tone of shock.

Amidst the scraping sounds of the stone wall secret door on the ground, Regis looked at the embarrassed Lann with a peaceful smile.

"Experience. Live long enough and you gain all sorts of experience, young one."

After saying this, his hand rested on the strap of his single shoulder bag and walked into the secret door.

After a long interval, Mentos finally launched a fireworks special effect on Lann’s retinas, with text in the center reading: Mockery +1

... Fine!

The biological smart brain is rebelling!

The young man expressionlessly and calmly patted his pants, stood up, and walked inside.

Ged followed behind, seeming quite like a blame-shifter: "I told you, Anahad really doesn’t care about hiding."

Lann listened and pouted unhappily.

Yet, this somewhat harmonious atmosphere vanished without a trace once the three of them entered the secret door.

Because several corpses lay scattered not far from the secret door entrance.

Lann and Ged, who were originally relaxed and joking, quickly raised their guard.

Their brows furrowed, not approaching those bodies lightly for inspection.

"Anahad doesn’t care about hiding." Lann looked at those corpses and softly asked, "But he doesn’t mind killing those who enter his secret room, right, Ged?"

"For the Bear School, these two emotions are indeed not contradictory." Ged affirmed Lann’s speculation.

"Their time of death is very old, judging by the degradation of bodies and clothes, it must be decades... were they those mobs?"

Once into working mode, Lann would unconsciously mutter when observing clues.

Ged beside him agreed with his view and added supplements.

"Most likely it is them, firewood axes, bone cleavers, hayforks... matching the destructive marks on the outer wooden doors."

"The key is their manner of death... whoever killed them could also kill us."

"Way of death? It’s not easy to discern." Lann walked two steps, attempting to change angles for more information.

"The low temperature environment preserved their corpses intact, but being weathered, their soft tissue is all shriveled and pressed against the bones. I can’t see any wounds on the skin and flesh."

Lann’s vision under the effect of [Spiritual Sight] is far stronger than ordinary Demon Hunters, with him saying he can’t see, Ged is even less possible.

The young man fell silent for a moment, then raised his left hand towards the area where the corpses lay.

"[Alder]!"

"Boom!"

The air was compressed into a semi-transparent shock wave by the impact of Chaos Magic Power, rushing forward.

Like a sweeping fall wind, it pushed the debris on the ground, and several corpses further into deeper positions.

After waiting a bit more, Lann then put down his left hand.

"It isn’t a pressure-triggered trap, we can go ahead."

Ged nodded: "Smart approach."

The Demon Hunter’s Magic Seal could indeed violently remove some traps, but most members of the Bear School had to use precious vitality for bearing armor weight, rather than restoring Chaos Magic Power.

Thus, they greatly cherished opportunities to use Magic Seal.

The two Demon Hunters cautiously advanced into the depths of the secret room, both simultaneously casting a layer of [Quen Rune] on themselves.

Passing the spot where the corpses were just stacked, Lann ensured there was no mechanical trap, rather than his [Spiritual Sight] failing to see.

Because of Anahad School founder’s reputation, he seemed very careful here.