Chapter 029: Lia’s Secret
“Oh, no need,” Chen Ran said with a brilliant smile. “Thank you for the gifts. I’ve always been an easy person to satisfy. Consider these my service fee for tonight. Don’t mention it.”
Sensing that he couldn’t delay any longer, Chen Ran waved his hand and purified another swath of demon souls. At the same time, he shouted to his men, “Smash this altar for me! Faster!”
“Shameless human! You’re going to…” an angry roar came from the other side of the nebula.
“I never believe that cooperating with a devil will lead to any good. Respected Demon Lord, the moonlight is beautiful tonight. I wish you a good night’s sleep…” Chen Ran gave a gentlemanly bow toward the nebula, turned around, and Holy Purge took away another swath of demon souls.
Rubble flew as the warriors began to vigorously destroy everything on the altar. The frame of the portal was smashed, the shamanistic array on the altar was destroyed, and the nebula shrank at a visible rate until it disappeared.
The blood moon hung high in the center of the night sky, silently watching everything that was happening below.
The city, which had been shrouded in the aura of the demon world, lost its former sense of oppression. The surrounding environment seemed to become much clearer at once. The blood in Chen Ran’s body finally calmed down.
He finally let out a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“Alright, I can finally rest for a while. I’m exhausted,” Chen Ran said, casually kicking away a few pieces of rubble at his feet. He was so tired he sat down on the ground, watching the warriors cheering for this great victory.
The Great Elder, whose face had been covered in dirt from the chaos magic earlier, came running over excitedly, tears of praise streaming down his face. “Divine Emissary, we’ve succeeded! The devils have been repelled, the demonic Fire Tribe has received its due punishment, and we can finally return to this city of our origin and restore our former civilization!”
“Mmm, my mission is complete,” Chen Ran muttered in response, his attention focused on the dozen or so notebooks and secret manuals scattered at his feet. He hadn’t had time to look at them closely before, but now he leisurely flipped through a few.
The one he picked up was a notebook by a mage named “Famar.” It recorded his proficient ice magic casting techniques, including high-level spells like “Frozen Frost Nova,” “Glacial Stardust Burst,” “Blizzard,” and “Ice Crystal Storm.” It was clearly the work of a great mage who was a master of ice magic.
He flipped open another one, a secret manual by an author named “Glenn.” It recorded powerful sword techniques like “Starfall Sword,” “Demon Reversal Infinite Kill,” and “Peerless Reverse Wheel Slash.”
In addition, there were assassin’s secret manuals, archer’s secret manuals, and knight’s secret manuals. There were about a dozen in total. Although he couldn’t understand them, they all looked very powerful. Needless to say, he stored them all in his spatial ring.
“Huh!”
Coming back to his senses, Chen Ran felt like something was missing. He suddenly remembered that Lia had disappeared at some point.
These past few days, to ensure Lia’s safety, Chen Ran had kept her by his side. The fighting was usually left to his underlings. Although they had communicated less these days due to being busy, the feeling between them had deepened when they did see each other.
Chen Ran felt that after everything was settled, he would take Lia and leave this godforsaken forest. At the same time, he would find an opportunity to break through the hazy relationship between them.
“Has anyone seen where Lia went?” Chen Ran couldn’t help but ask the people nearby. Someone should have seen where she went.
A tribal warrior immediately raised his hand and answered, “Divine Emissary, just as we were stabilizing the situation and smashing the altar, I saw Miss Lia walk into the temple alone.”
“Oh, I see. I’ll go take a look,” Chen Ran said. He walked down from the altar and headed toward the lonely and desolate temple.
It was hard to imagine that in such a remote mountain forest, there would be such a magnificent temple.
The ceiling was over forty meters high, woven with some kind of ancient pattern. Several rows of towering stone pillars supported this temple, which exuded a mysterious aura.
It was frighteningly quiet inside. Perhaps because it had been neglected for a long time, the corners were covered in moss, and the occasional squeak of a mouse could be heard.
The sound of empty footsteps echoed through the temple, reaching every corner. Lia held a torch and walked through the quiet temple, heading deeper inside.
Many majestic statues stood in the temple. These were the famous deities of this continent. At the base of each statue was a line of ancient text. Lia looked at them one by one until she stopped under the statue of the Goddess of Ice and Snow, Scathach.
Upon closer inspection, one could see that only the text under this statue was scattered and meaningless. Each character was movable, and there was a gap for a missing character, like a puzzle.
Lia walked forward and began to rearrange the text.
It didn’t take long for Lia to skillfully piece the words together into a sentence.
“When the inner demon is in chaos, matters are unpredictable, and ice and snow descend. With my power, I grant it to those who truly need help, to free them from the entanglement of fate’s shadow…”
After finishing the puzzle, Lia looked at the last small gap, reached out, and pulled off the necklace she had been wearing around her neck.
On the necklace was not some pearl or precious gem, but a very inconspicuous small stone fragment with a very ordinary character on the front.
Lia tore off the necklace’s cord and placed the fragment into the gap. It was neither too big nor too small, fitting perfectly.
The eyes of the statue of the Goddess of Ice and Snow, Scathach, suddenly flashed with light, then dimmed in an instant, as if nothing had happened. But on a nearby wall, the sound of a stone mechanism moving could be heard. When Lia saw it, she unhesitatingly ran toward the secret door.
Inside the secret door was a straight corridor leading to an abyssal depth. There was even the clear sound of dripping water. Lia carefully walked down, guided by the torchlight.
After a full ten minutes, she reached the end of the corridor. There was a heavy stone table with an exquisite small box on it. Lia ran forward excitedly and eagerly opened the box.
A blue light illuminated the dark stone chamber. The translucent blue-white light lit up Lia’s face, making her look breathtakingly beautiful. She excitedly held the pure and flawless prismatic gem in both hands and finally let out a long sigh of relief.
“Eye of Scathach, I’ve finally got you. I’ve finally found you…”
Lia repeated that sentence over and over. Two crystal-clear tears unknowingly fell from the corners of her eyes, streaked across her face, and dripped silently onto the ground.
She gently placed the gem on her heart, closed her eyes peacefully, as if she had found her soul’s home.
