City ruins of Needham Plain, the castellan residence site.
Relying on his strength, Clyde quickly routed those distorted shadows blocking his way, but he was still a step too late. Those distorted shadows had already severely injured Princess Natalie. Besides having her cultivation practically ruined, it was difficult to say whether she could last until dawn the next day.
Clyde carried the unconscious Princess Natalie and entered the underground treasury once more. Since there was no one else nearby, Clyde could only take a gamble and see whether the owner of that ethereal voice coming from the other side of that hidden door could truly save Princess Natalie.
After entering the underground treasury, Clyde went straight towards the hidden door. That ethereal voice guided Clyde as if it wanted to warn him against taking the wrong paths toward the numerous traps scattered about the room. After arriving before the hidden door, Clyde cautiously sized it up. The owner of that voice was from the other side of this door, but because demon imprisoning paper seals sealed the way, there was no way to come out.
“Can you truly heal people? I don’t trust devils.”
“How can that be? Aren’t you also… we are people on the same side! Just trust me a little bit! Moreover, I cannot defeat you. I just want to come out because it is too stifling here. Nothing more.”
Clyde wasn’t in a rush to open the door. He stood near the hidden door and communicated with the fellow on the other side. After considering for a while, Clyde placed Princess Natalie on a chair at the side, before gingerly standing in front of the hidden door and quietly listening for movement. However, the presence on the other side of the door disappeared; the owner of that ethereal voice seemed to have hidden farther away.
Clyde concentrated his strength onto the tip of his finger and poked a hole through the hidden door with some difficulty. Using this small hole, he then secretly observed the small world on the other side. To his surprise, there was no terrifying thing, but rather a short passage. At the end, there were three thick and heavy stone doors standing side by side. This hidden door area was just a buffer zone. The real owner of the voice should be behind one of those three thick and heavy stone doors.
After confirming that there were no problems, Clyde used brute force to forcibly open the hidden door, ignoring those demon imprisoning seals. The candlesticks inside the passage used Eternal Lamp materials. Even after over a hundred years, their brightness was still as good as ever, illuminating the entire corridor area. After Clyde entered, he saw the inscription writings on both walls, which recorded the past events that had occured here.
Approximately two hundred years ago, the Suzerain of Needham Region had been Duke Arnold. The Duke’s precious eldest daughter, Sigrid, had been a magical genius of Human Race of a level that appeared once a millennium. Before she had reached 20, she had already become the strongest magician of the Human Race, but she hadn’t believed in Light God’s teachings and focused on various kinds of eccentric heterodoxical/heretic ceremonies.
Finally, the inevitable tragedy happened. Over 200 years ago, Adrian Empire’s imperial family had planned to form an alliance by marriage with Duke Arnold, letting Crown Prince Daniel marry the Duke’s precious eldest daughter, Sigrid, and make her a princess. Those Adrian Empire imperial guard zombies suppressed by Clyde just before had been the subordinates brought by Prince Daniel.
What specifically happened after was not recorded on the walls, instead only speculations left by the artist. That night when Prince Daniel’s party arrived, the undead calamity had erupted in Needham Plain. Allegedly, Sigrid hadn’t agreed with this political marriage and wilfully summoned a demon from Demon Realm, unintentionally opening a door to hell. There was also a viewpoint that suggested Sigrid hadn’t actually opened an entrance to the Demon Realm, but rather an entrance to an even more terrifying dimension space. All these were recorded on the walls.
After this great calamity, Needham Plain was discarded, becoming a paradise for specters and other undead creatures. As for those demon imprisoning seals around the hidden door, more than 150 years ago, Light Church’s Pope had secretly snuck here with many of the church’s elites to seal this place. This matter was deemed a secret and not recorded in the annals of Light Church.
Those three side by side entrance doors led to underground summoning laboratories of Princess Sigrid. In anticipation for this kind of situation, these three stone doors were especially built to seal off this place. Once an accident occured, the stone doors would completely block all movement to and from them. From the traces, Princess Sigrid seemed to have immediately closed the stone doors, but even this was unable to prevent the undead calamity. She had summoned such terrifying existences that even though she had successfully trapped them behind the stone doors, their energy had still succeeded in seeping out, causing the entire Needham Plain to suffer the crisis of an undead calamity.
After Clyde walked over, he could clearly sense something behind these three doors. Immediately upon entering the passage, Clyde could feel a penetrating stare, but the other side was not too impudent. Clyde guessed that the other side must have perceived that his strength was above his or her and didn’t dare provoke him. Clyde hesitated for a bit because he didn’t know which door he should open. The owner of that voice had suddenly become mute after he had walked in, so there were no further reminders.
“This is truly troublesome. I don’t care what the background of yours is. If you can save a person, knock your door.”
Just after Clyde spoke, a knock came from all three stone doors. Clyde carefully listened and walked to the middle door without any hesitation. He then smashed the stone door and pulled out the phantom inside. Afterward, he ignored the other two stone doors and quickly left the hidden door area, locking up the hidden door and properly arranging the paper seals again.
After realizing Clyde wouldn’t help them, the existences behind the other two doors felt flustered and exasperated. Ramming against their doors and causing loud sounds, the two doors resounded with strange roars. However, Clyde had already slipped away with two girls. He carried Princess Natalie with one hand and pulled the girl he had saved from the middle door with his other.
The beauty he had saved wore a grey cloak. Her appearance couldn’t be seen, but her little hand resembled the hand of a beauty. Her attractiveness index would not be too low. After grabbing her hand, Clyde could clearly feel the other party’s terrifying latent magic power. Although it was no match for him, it was quite a few grades stronger than Demon King Garfield whom he had accidentally killed when he had first come to this world.
“You, how did you recognize me?”
“It’s nothing. The other two knocks on the door simply didn’t resemble that of the Human Race. We cannot stay here for long. Let’s change to a safe location first before talking more.”
“Aren’t you worried about who I am?”
“Who you are is not important. I don’t care about any of that so long as you can save Princess Natalie. That’s enough.”
The rescued beauty was the existence who had used her ethereal voice to call Clyde. Like her, the two existences behind the other two stone doors were also from the dark camp, but they were not in humanoid form. Thus, Clyde didn’t help them. Instead, he had helped this girl who seemed to have a proper human appearance.
