novelraw Chapter 355: "Gift to the Moon Princess"
Chapter 355: "Gift to the Moon Princess"
After three days of climbing, Fisher and Valentiina were getting closer and closer to the location indicated in the True Ice Scroll. It had to be said, the place where the Phoenix Race resided was truly not somewhere ordinary people could climb up to. This continuous mountain range with a depth of thousands of meters made even Fisher, who was currently about to reach the eleventh rank, feel somewhat strained.
However, because the Schwari scholar Balzac had already planned the route reaching the mountain summit for them in advance, this journey was overall still considered smooth. Along the way, he and Valentiina passed through quite a few primeval jungles deep within the snowy mountains, saw several magical creatures unique to the Sema Mountains, and also discovered quite a few ruins constructed by demi-human species in the past.
After all, the Phoenix Race had already existed several millennia ago. Therefore, having braved the erosion of time, these ruins nowadays were either completely covered by wind and snow or entirely transformed into broken walls and rubble. Among them, the most numerous type of ruin was an upward-leading staircase. The staircases, scattered and shattered into several segments, were further divided into two types: one type were gigantic stairs where each step was two meters high, and the other were stairs used by ordinary humans.
It was not difficult to deduce that back when the Phoenix Race existed, the demi-human species beneath the snowy mountains relied on these stairs of varying sizes to climb for several days and nights to worship the Phoenix. It was only a pity that these stairs were completely abandoned now, and the help they could provide to Fisher and Valentiina was exceedingly minimal.
"Fisher... ha... ha... quickly look beside us... it's clouds, we can touch them with our hands."
As the altitude traversed by Fisher and Valentiina escalated, the air above also became increasingly thin. Fisher didn't really feel anything at all; after all, he had experienced breathing underwater, which was ten times more uncomfortable than here. Instead, it was Valentiina on his back who kept panting. For every sentence she spoke, she had to open her mouth and pant for a long time.
She stretched out her hand to poke the clouds next to them, then slowly drew her hand back. Although it was impossible to grasp the clouds in her palm, she happily hugged Fisher's neck. Subsequently, she turned her head to cast a glance at the surroundings shrouded by clouds and mist. Recalling the general scope for a moment, she spoke with considerable surprise,
"Wait, are we about to reach the location mentioned on the scroll immediately?"
Fisher nodded, his pace remaining steady as before,
"If the route planned by Balzac has no problems, we will very soon arrive at the Tree Base of the Wutong Tree.""So fast... I heard that even for a well-equipped mountaineering team, climbing the Sema Mountains takes at least half a month or more. You don't have any equipment and you brought me along, yet we actually arrived in three days..."
Valentiina reached out with some surprise to pinch the muscles on Fisher's chest, subsequently retracting her small hand with a slightly flushed face. If it weren't for Fisher possessing obvious biological characteristics, and occasionally revealing that kind of gaze wanting to eat her up when looking at her, Valentiina truly would have suspected he was a mechanical disguise.
"Of course. This wretched brat's rank is almost at the eleventh rank already. He can single-handedly drag those trains you humans build and run. This frail little body of yours probably isn't even enough to fill the gaps between his teeth."
"Eimhart..."
With a flushed face, Valentiina glared at Eimhart who had begun speaking suggestive words again. As a result, the Book Viscount let out a yawn, not wanting to pay attention to her at all. It was only when Fisher spoke up that this square book quieted down and stopped speaking. Over these past few days, Valentiina had gained a basic understanding of many terms they spoke of, such as "rank" and so on. Right now, listening to them, she suddenly remembered and asked,
"By the way, these past few days you guys have been constantly talking about this rank and that rank. I want to ask, what rank are the Phoenixes at?"
Golden light surged upon Eimhart's body for a moment, and he subsequently said to Valentiina,
"Excluding other abilities, probably in the range of the ninth to twelfth ranks. Roughly similar to the Whaleman Race in the sea, and a bit higher than the Dragon-kin of the Southern Continent. However, the Phoenix King and her three children might be of the Mythic Rank. Otherwise, I truly can't imagine how they defeated the Chaos-kin. Could it be they relied on those few Holy Artifacts given to them by the Holy Progeny?"
Valentiina parted her lips, finally realizing in her heart that Fisher was actually already about as powerful as the legendary Phoenixes. Then, if she herself was a Phoenix, was there a possibility of becoming a bit more powerful in the future...?
After all, she didn't want Fisher to carry her on his back like this her entire life. She also wanted to become stronger. At the very least, not being as useless as she was now would be good.
However, Eimhart seemed to see through Valentiina's thoughts. He smacked his lips and added another sentence,
"However, rank is an artificial set of considerations formulated by ancient humans to avoid danger. In reality, it's highly inaccurate. Because the higher a creature's rank is, the less contact they have with humans, therefore their assessment of these races is extremely vague, only able to provide a rough division based on tiers... Moreover, I also don't know if a Mixed-Blood Species like you can reach the same rank as the Phoenix Race. If a Mixed-Blood Species could reach the same rank as a Phoenix, logically speaking, that group of people from the Turan Family shouldn't have been able to capture the descendant of the Moon Princess..."
"We've arrived."
Just as Eimhart was pondering, Fisher's footsteps suddenly halted, making him wobble and float into midair. He shook his head and looked ahead, only to see they had already passed through the sea of clouds from where they came and arrived at the highest point of a mountain peak. Ahead of the highest point was filled with gently swaying clouds and mist, transforming the faintly visible mountain ranges in the distance into shadows whose specific shapes were difficult to distinguish.
And at the highest point of the mountain peak before their eyes, several massive boulders that looked as if they had fallen from the heavens pierced through the mountain peak before them. Scattered amongst them were a few artificial ruins that had long been wasted away by time and covered by wind and snow. However, gazing from afar, those ruins were dead silent, appearing quite mysterious. It seemed as if no one had arrived here for a very, very long time.
"Is that the entrance marked on the scroll? There seem to be buildings there, but they've already been destroyed..."
"Let's go over and take a look."
Carrying Valentiina on his back, Fisher continued walking towards the front of the mountain peak. Due to the genuinely high altitude here, the winds blowing past the surroundings were so strong Valentiina couldn't open her eyes. Even Eimhart floating in midair was about to be blown into a windmill. Left with no choice, they both had to lean tightly against Fisher, who stood tall and motionless amidst the wind, drawing closer to the ruins ahead little by little.
"These buildings are so massive. Just this broken door alone is ten meters, right... But these don't seem like buildings constructed by Phoenixes, it should be other races."
The closer they got to the buildings before them, the volumes of the buildings that appeared somewhat normal in size from a distance became increasingly gigantic. Casting a glance at the immensely dilapidated stone buildings before her eyes, Valentiina suddenly spoke up as such.
Eimhart still harbored some doubts, whereas Fisher nodded,
"Mm, I've seen the Snowflake Fortress built by the Moon Princess. Although I feel the fortress built by the Moon Princess combined the construction techniques of many other races, that kind of grandeur should be exclusive to the Phoenix Race... The buildings here are too crude, and the materials are all stone. This indicates the race that built it was limited by the terrain of the snowy mountain. It was built by a race from beneath the snowy mountain; it's highly possible it was done by the Giant Troll-kin."
Eimhart glanced for a moment at Fisher making the deduction, and another moment at Valentiina on his back expressing agreement. All of a sudden, he opened his mouth and asked,
"Wait, Fisher, when did you go behind my back to the Snowflake Fortress? I'm with you all day, how come I didn't know?"
Fisher was currently observing the buildings and hadn't had the time to respond to him. Instead, it was Valentiina on his back who blinked at him, playfully whispering with a wicked smile,
"This is a secret between me and Fisher."
"Your mom..."
With a dark expression, Eimhart shrank back into Fisher's embrace, deciding not to pay attention to Valentiina anymore. That defeated appearance caused Valentiina to be unable to resist covering her mouth and laughing. She discovered that teasing this little book friend was especially interesting. No wonder Fisher brought him along every day.
At this moment, Fisher ignored the words of the two of them. He merely frowned, gazing at the architectural ruins before his eyes that had long turned into a total mess, as if he caught a whiff of a familiar faint fragrance...
"Renee..."
"Huh? What Renee?"
Valentiina raised her head warily. Because her Naris Language wasn't very good, in that instant, she actually couldn't distinguish whether Fisher was uttering a name or a vocabulary word. Yet she looked ahead over Fisher's shoulder, only to see several patches of white snow on the ground, along with numerous shattered rubble and artifacts.
"...Did you smell any fragrance?"
"Fragrance?"
Valentiina sniffed carefully, and then shook her head. She looked at Fisher with some worry and said,
"I don't smell anything at all. Did you smell anything?"
"...No, perhaps something is wrong with my nose."
Fisher was unsure whether he was hallucinating again because of the Soul Completion Handbook. Regardless, right here and now, he could always catch a whiff of an exceedingly faint yet familiar fragrance in the thin air. That kind of faint scent Fisher had only smelled on one person before, and that was Renee.
Previously, he had asked her exactly what kind of Kadu perfume she was using. As a result, she extremely shamelessly said it was "the body scent of a beautiful woman." At that time, while Fisher was quite speechless, he had firmly remembered this kind of scent...
Even though Fisher couldn't even confirm whether this smell was a hallucination or not, he still uncontrollably shifted his footsteps towards the direction where the fragrance might have wafted from. Carrying Valentiina on his back, he walked towards the depths of the ruins. On the path beside them draped entirely in wind and snow, he could occasionally spot a few corpses that had already turned into white bones. They were still wearing the robes of the Kadu Witch Research Society.
This was presumably the expedition team Caro mentioned before, right? It was this group of people who brought back a black hair of the Undying Witch from here. Yet he had just smelled a faint scent of Renee here just now. Was this ultimately a bait spawned by hallucinations inside his brain, or was it truly reality?
"Fisher, look quickly, there seem to be stairs over there. These ruins still have an underground floor."
Just as Fisher walked close to the edge of the cliff, Valentiina on his back, who was also looking around, suddenly saw flights of stairs leading underground beside a stone pillar piercing through the mountain peak. Hearing this, Fisher walked over. Entering his sight was a long staircase leading to somewhere pitch-black. Gusts of cold wind wafted up from below. Facing that cold wind, the faint fragrance constantly lingering in his nasal cavity grew a bit thicker.
"Fisher... are we going down?"
"Mm, there's nothing above ground. If there is a path heading to the Giant Troll-kin settlement, it must definitely be here. I can see the path clearly even in the darkness, it's fine."
Valentiina nodded obediently, hugging Fisher tightly. She seemed somewhat afraid to look at the impending darkness. Eimhart also shrank his head nervously. He actually wasn't afraid of the dark, otherwise he wouldn't have dared to run off into the Demon Abyss alone previously. He was just deeply afraid that a Baimon would suddenly pop out from below...
Between the person and the book on him growing tense, Fisher's heartbeat also slightly quickened. But it wasn't because of fear, rather because of that faint fragrance. He began to feel that what he smelled wasn't some kind of hallucination, but rather there truly were clues regarding the missing Renee below.
Embracing a mindset of inquiry, he steadily walked downwards, stepping into the darkness no one had set foot in for a long time.
"Tap! Tap! Tap!"
The staircase was very long. With every step Fisher took, the echoing thuds of his shoe soles striking the stone bricks beneath him continuously transmitted back. Valentiina couldn't see anything besides darkness. However, Fisher saw the structure beneath the staircase clearly.
Below was an exceedingly vast, gigantic room. However, this room was extremely empty. Only in the central position protruded a platform. On the ground beneath that platform lay heavily askew many complete or scattered white skeletons. Furthermore, they were composed of all kinds of races...
Those with obvious wing structures were clearly the Cangniao-zhong. The ones with fox-shaped heads were the Snow Fox-kin. There were also the rest of the tribes, and even humans, Sheep-kin, and quite a few races Fisher couldn't identify...
"F-Fisher, why did you stop walking? Did... did you see something?"
"Mm, I see many skeletons lying on the ground. They should be the Five Tribes from past years who wanted to head towards the Wutong Tree—excluding the Giant Troll-kin—but none of them managed to enter, dying here... The Giant Troll-kin are refusing entry to the Wutong Tree for anyone, including the Six Tribes. They won't even hesitate to kill those who trespass."
"The Giant Troll-kin must have a reason for doing this. Could it possibly be an order issued by the Phoenix?"
Valentiina speculated as such, and Fisher also nodded indicating agreement. Subsequently, he stepped over the skeletons littering the ground and walked forward. That faint fragrance at the tip of his nose grew increasingly obvious. Bypassing that protruding platform stained with dried blood, Fisher suddenly discovered there was an extremely long passage behind this room. However, clearly, when they were above ground just now, there was a sheer cliff up ahead. How come after arriving underground, there was a path again?
Fisher walked forward a few steps with some doubt, discovering quite a few murals painted on both sides of the passage ahead. Pictured upon them was an ancient myth.
It told a story. Once upon a time, in a location even further north than the absolute north of the world, grew an incomparably gigantic tree. That tree was truly too massive; tens of thousands times larger than the world itself. To it, the shackles of space held absolutely zero significance. If you stood upon that tree, taking any random step could take you from the northernmost part of the world to the southernmost.
From the inception of the world, that tree stood tall at the distant edge of the world. The world back then was purely quiet, as if this tree was the only thing existing between heaven and earth. Until one day when the sun set, an exceptionally robust, giant dragon arrived from the distant south. Although extremely robust, that giant dragon amounted to less than a ten-thousandth the size of the giant tree. The giant tree looked down at such a tiny evil dragon and voiced out taunts:
"I am more massive than the earth, I am more exalted than the skies. Despite possessing formidable strength, you cannot shake me in the slightest. You better return to whence you came to avoid comparing yourself with me."
These words enraged the evil dragon. Furious, he exerted his entire body's strength to batter against the giant tree, employing the blazing flames burning within his maw to incinerate its trunk. Consequently, as expected, it was all to no avail. His majestic strength essentially accomplished zero effectiveness in front of the tree that was larger than the world itself, soliciting exclusively mocking laughter. Thus, the evil dragon slinked away desolately amidst the mocking laughter of the giant tree. However, the fleeing evil dragon didn't give up. He thought of a brilliant method to exact revenge upon the arrogant giant tree.
He drilled a very, very deep hole, deep enough to exceed the depth of the world itself. It was there that the roots of the giant tree grew.
"Although I cannot shake your trunk, your most important roots are incomparably fragile. I am going to bite off your rhizome and take it away, burying it in a place even you cannot discover, letting you suffer the torment of losing an important object."
Consequently, he resentfully bit off the rhizome of the giant tree. Then, he flew to the top of the world and threw it with all his might to a place even he was unaware of, flying away with a laugh never to return, leaving only the anxious giant tree searching the entire world for its rhizome.
The myth came to an abrupt end. Because the final mural no longer depicted the story of the giant tree and the evil dragon. Instead, a flock of bird-like creatures spreading enormous wings landed upon a peculiar mountain range. Drawn beneath that mountain range was a pattern identical to the giant tree's rhizome. Moreover, the mountains growing out of that rhizome also appeared exceptionally bizarre. They blended with each other, jumped, disconnected, and reconnected, almost as if space was being severed, making the specific meaning hard to distinguish.
Below, the conclusion of the myth was written in ancient Northern Border language,
"The rhizome smashed into the ground by the evil dragon splashed up winding and towering mountains. It pierced through oceans and continents, nurtured sacred minerals, and forged a bitter cold unbearable for living creatures; until a long time later, another esteemed master spread its wings and flew here from afar, settling down and recreating a legend that belonged to them."
Fisher frowned, gazing at the mural before his eyes. He suddenly seemed to comprehend something. Step by step, he walked towards the corridor before him that originally should have been a cliff. The deeper into the corridor he went, the fewer the traces of those corpses became. It wasn't until a long trek later that he saw an identical hall to the one he arrived from at the end of the corridor. In the center of the hall, there similarly stood a staircase leading upwards.
The only difference from when he arrived was that, upon the ground, another line of crooked ancient Northern Border text had been engraved by someone utilizing some sort of gigantic, sharp object:
"Those not of the Phoenix Race who enter the Tree Base of the Wutong Tree shall die."
Fisher narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the line of text on the floor. Following this, he raised his gaze to look at the long staircase leading upwards right before him. The sunlight outside pierced through the snow-filled sky, illuminating the path forward.
Quite a few skeletons lay on both sides of that staircase. Only, unlike the skeletons inside the hall previously, the states of the skeletons here were immensely tragic. They were either pierced through by some sort of massive object, or cut completely into two halves. Furthermore, sprawled atop that staircase laid a human skeleton pierced through by a giant lance.
That skeleton wore a Kadu mountaineering robe. Its mouth was gaping wide open, as if it had experienced some kind of extreme anguish at the moment of death. Fisher speculated that the person before him might be the missing former Chairman of the Witch Research Society. As for why the Witch Research Society hadn't traversed the corridor behind them to find him even after so much time had passed, it could only mean that the corridor leading here wasn't visible to just anyone.
"Fisher, that skeleton seems to be clutching something in its hands."
Through the gradually brightening sunlight outside, Valentiina also saw the surrounding situation. She cast a glance at that skeleton pierced through by the giant lance, and suddenly intricately discovered that there seemed to be something beneath that skeleton.
Frowning, Fisher stepped forward and flipped the corpse over, only then revealing the item originally hidden beneath its body. As it turned out, this former Chairman of the Witch Research Society was clutching desperately onto a medium-sized picture frame. Fisher picked up the picture frame, only finding that a peculiar oil painting was painted upon it.
The content of the oil painting was simple. It merely painted the rear view of a black-haired woman whose specific facial features were impossible to discern against a stark white background. That woman's sitting posture was dignified, possessing an appearance identical to that of humans, yet it made viewers intuitively feel at a single glance that the subject of this painting wasn't a human... It was unknown whether it was an illusion, but when he picked up the painting, the faint fragrance at the tip of Fisher's nose thickened a bit further. But when he subsequently attempted to search for it, he couldn't smell that familiar scent anymore.
It was unknown what pigments this oil painting used, resulting in the image being exceptionally vivid. However, the overall painting brushwork was distorted and disorderly. Amidst the seemingly haphazard strokes, they actually ingeniously constructed an exquisite picture, capturing Valentiina's attention enough to make her continuously click her tongue in wonder. Instead, it was Eimhart in Fisher's embrace who suddenly screamed out, swiftly jumping out of Fisher's embrace and shrinking into the corner of the hall,
"Ahhhhh! Hurry! Hurry up and take that thing away! Woo-hoo~"
"What's wrong, Mister Book? Did you see something?"
Valentiina stared blankly at Eimhart, who had suddenly shrunken far away in extreme fright. She had zero idea what earth-shattering thing he saw within this painting. Fisher also turned his head around, only to see Eimhart's square body shuddering as it shrank into the corner of the room. He panted for a long while before barely managing to speak out a sentence, albeit even his words exhibiting fragmentation and choppiness,
"Bai... Bai..."
"Bai what?"
"Baimon! I can recognize this guy's taste and brushstrokes even if I turn to ash. This painting was drawn by that fellow!"
"Huh?"
Valentiina didn't know who this Baimon capable of making Eimhart so terrified was. She merely looked at Fisher beside her with some confusion. She saw him raise his eyebrows after hearing Eimhart's words. Subsequently, he picked up the oil painting anew and sized it up closely. There was nothing special about this painting from top to bottom, not to mention its perplexing canvas contents.
However, when Fisher flipped the picture frame over, he suddenly saw three lines of ancient Northern Border text on the back of the frame. Written from top to bottom were the name of the painting, the meaning of the painting, and the person offering the painting:
"『Gift to the Moon Princess』"
"As compensation for rashly participating in the celebratory banquet and traversing etiquette loss, given to the Phoenix Race, hoping to obtain the forgiveness of the Moon Princess who left the banquet early. Please inform her on my behalf, Phoenix King: I have already returned the ten humans serving as stakes for the joke wager, and I express my apologies to the Moon Princess attributing directly to my untimely jokes."
"Demon Baimon~"
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(End of this chapter)