"I remember a little. The water didn't carry me out, but some hairy creature did."
Stingham held his head as more broken images appeared in his head. Some of them overlapped with the scenery before him.
"What hairy creature?" Ayrin and Meraly asked.
"I can't remember. I think it had many legst." Stingham felt frustrated, "Forget it, I'm too lazy to think."
"How can you become lazy at this moment!?" Meraly was fuming, "You want to die of laziness!?"
"Why don't you try remembering? A place that you apparently have been to before yet can't remember clearly. These memories are also scary and feel like a nightmare. It's so uncomfortable......" Stingham uncontrollably shuddered.
"The main point is not about what brought Stingham out, it's to confirm whether Stingham has really been here before."
Ferguillo emotionlessly spoke, "Jean Camus suspects his mother is an Evil Dragon Bishop. If even the most divine Priestess in the Royal Palace who has countless followers is an Evil Dragon Bishop, while the true Green Dragon Prince, the inheritor to the Kingdom of Doa's throne, was exiled through the sewers, that would be disastrous."
"What's disastrous?" Stingham asked.
"Idiot! Did you really get water into your head when you were little? You still need to ask such an obvious question?" Rinloran lost the last shred of sympathy towards Stingham. He spoke with a dark expression, "It means that the Evil Dragon followers have ruled over the Doa Royal Palace!"
"Stingham, don't think about the details, just think about the surrounding scenery. Confirm if you have really been here before or if you're just seeing a hallucination due to the effect of an arcane skill." Charlotte looked at Stingham and tried to speak calmly, "If the Evil Dragon followers really rule over the Doa Royal Palace while the outside world did not know, that means the entire Kingdom of Doa has fallen into the hands of the Evil Dragon followers."
"I have a question." Meraly interrupted, "The majority of the Corps and arcane teams in the Kingdom of Doa obey the Doa Royal Palace. If it's really as you say, why would the Kingdom of Doa send so many arcane teams to cooperate in the Fallen Shadow Valley Campaign?"
Ferguillo glanced at Meraly and said, "According to the clues obtained by the Office of Special Affairs, the Evil Dragon followers are trying to resurrect the Evil Dragon."
"The Evil Dragon has been dead for so long and only a fraction of its remains are left. How can it be resurrected?" Ayrin could not comprehend it.
"It's just a metaphor. As long as they can recover the complete Evil Dragon bloodline, any Evil Dragon follower can obtain the complete bloodline. The one chosen would obtain the Evil Dragon's talent and become the true Evil Dragon." Ferguillo slowly explained, "However, we did not discover any buildings or artifacts related to the resurrection of the Evil Dragon after conquering the Fallen Shadow Valley. If what we guessed is true...... this place definitely holds a greater conspiracy. The Fallen Shadow Valley might not even be the Evil Dragon follower's main camp."
"The Evil Dragon follower's main camp is here? Inside the Doa Royal Palace?" Meraly could not hold back her scream. Her face became ghastly pale.
"We must first confirm if it was a hallucination caused by an arcane skill or if Stingham has really been here before." Ferguillo looked at Stingham and spoke, "Think more carefully."
"Brave warrior Stingham, please try harder. This Kingdom of Doa may just be your Kingdom." Ayrin swung his fist and encouraged Stingham.
Stingham thought for a while before saying with some uncertainty, "I remember there should be water-spraying mermaid sculptures inside."
"Let's go in and take a look!"
Ayrin took the lead.
The five monsters kept feeling something scary would happen and trailed behind the group.
Due to the long period of time staying in the mines, Ayrin had a great sense of direction in such an underground environment. He advanced in a single direction for a few minutes before stopping on the spot and shouting, "Mermaid sculptures!"
"It's real......"
Rinloran and the others glanced at one another.
Mermaid sculptures reaching the height of their waist lined up on both sides of the water passage. The mermaid sculptures were delicately crafted and each had a different pose.
"I remember...... There should be a pond full of black grass up ahead." Stingham shuddered again.
Ayrin rushed in front and shouted back, "There really is!"
There was a narrow rectangular pond filled with black-colored seaweed. The water flowing into the pond was still a little murky, but most of the filth was filtered by the black seaweeds, purifying the water flowing out.
"There should be many more muddy ponds with weird worms swimming inside just a little further! Those bugs eat the mud!" Stingham shouted.
"Is this guy really the Green Dragon Prince?"
Meraly's hands began to tremble.
In fact, everyone started to believe that Stingham was brought out from the Green Dragon Divine Temple through this passage even if Stingham did not describe any more details.
"There really are worms in the ponds here!"
After passing the rectangular pond, Ayrin spotted numerous circular ponds filled with bubbling mud. Huge earthworm-like worms were crawling inside. It was a disgusting sight.
"The passage up ahead should be quite narrow. Your monsters will not be able to enter." Stingham felt uncomfortable. Even if he stopped trying to think about it, those clear images kept popping up in his head.
He was also sure he had been here before. The scenery must have triggered his memory.
"It's fine, I can summon them later."
Ayrin waved his hands to the five monsters at the back, "You all can rest here."
"Thank you, Master!"
The five monsters looked grateful. However, in their minds, they were cursing Ayrin to encounter a powerful arcane master and die to them. Only like that would they be truly safe.
"After crossing through here, the Green Dragon Divine Temple should not be far away."
Stingham became their guide and walked at the front along with Ayrin.
Like he said, the passage gradually shrunk so that at most only two people could walk shoulder to shoulder.
"There's sound!"
"Sounds like someone's fighting!"
Suddenly, everyone stopped. They could vaguely hear impact and clashing sounds.
"Why is there a battle here of all places?"
"Didn't they say that even royal arcane teams don't dare to enter here? Are those five monsters lying?"
Ayrin dashed towards the source of the disturbance without any hesitation.
However, he had also become very careful and tried not to make any noise. He also suppressed the usage of arcane particles and moved using his physical strength alone.
After dashing for five or so minutes, Ayrin found the location of the battle.
The battle took place in what looked like a warehouse, and it was reaching the climax.
On one side were seven arcane masters wearing pale cyan arcane robes. There was a girl who looked similar to Chris, while the other six were male arcane masters ranging from twenty to forty years old.
There were fighting against a group of one-meter big spiders.
The spiders were covered in black hair. As the arcane power reverberated, not only did they shoot out waves of white spider silk, but their black hair also constantly shot out.
"Hairy creature, many feet!"
The instant Meraly saw the huge spiders, she screamed, "Stingham, don't tell me those spiders carried you out of the sewer?"
"I don't think so. The hair color is different, and it was bigger than these spiders." Stingham was taken aback. His memories kept coming back to him a little at a time.
"Different hair color and bigger size?"
Meraly was shocked. However, she immediately drew a sharp breath.
She saw a glowing layer of dark green suddenly appearing in the surrounding passages.
Several huge spiders double the size of humans suddenly appeared.
Compared to those huge spiders, the black spiders were like malnutritioned failures. The hair of those new spiders was green.
"I think it was one of those......" Stingham opened his eyes wide.
"Did those spiders really send you out through the sewer?" Ayrin quietly commented, but his gaze was locked onto the fight.
There was a great number of huge spiders. Just the black spiders alone numbered in the hundreds already.
Not to mention the way the black spiders fought was troublesome. The white spider silk had a thickness of an infant's arm. Several threads weaved together to form huge webs that fell over their opponents.
Meanwhile, the black hair on their body was very fine and could pass through the gap of the webs.
However, the seven arcane masters fighting against the huge spiders were not normal arcane masters. They clearly did not want to waste their arcane particles. They just cut apart the spider webs and made shields out of the cut webs. They only used arcane skills or materialized weapons to slay the spiders when they approached.
Even the corpses of the killed spiders were calmly gathered by them. They arranged them into pillars and held up the falling spider webs, giving them sufficient space to move inside.
From the moment Ayrin's group heard the noise up to now, there were at least a hundred black spider corpses gathered around them.
"What a great arcane power affinity!"
From a glance, Ayrin could sense that those arcane masters had special bloodlines. Their affinity with water arcane power was astonishing. Even if they did not use any arcane skills, trails of water would be brought out and form water blades when they used their materialized weapons to kill the spiders.