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Chapter 591.1: Lilian’s Scheme (1)

In an underground wine cellar suffused with the rich scent of alcohol, Roel stared at the wine barrel before him in disbelief. He was stunned for a brief moment before he quickly cast a spell to illuminate the surroundings.

Light suddenly filled the room, making him squint in discomfort for a brief moment. The words inscribed on the wine barrel appeared even more vividly under the light, verifying that what he had seen wasn’t just a product of his imagination.

He immediately shot to his feet.

After a few moments of thought, his shock was slowly replaced with solemnity. He headed deeper into the wine cellar to check on the other oak barrels—they had different vintages, but the place they were brewed was the same.

<Product of Tark Stronghold>

“…”

Roel fell silent.

The first wine barrel might have just been a coincidence, but the fact that the other wine barrels were made in the same place cemented the reality for him. He was left with no choice but to acknowledge a shocking fact.

He was in Tark Stronghold, the Theocracy’s fortress housing over a hundred thousand elites and many high transcendents that had suddenly disappeared years ago.

Roel’s first reaction at having found the missing fortress was not delight but fright, for he knew the context behind its sudden disappearance.

Shrouding Fog was the most powerful member of the Six Calamities that Roel had encountered thus far. It was a monster that he wouldn’t want to confront even now that he had reached Origin Level 2.

Yet, it couldn’t be clearer that he was currently inside its domain.

Damn, I was transported straight into its belly? Roel was rendered speechless.

Even though the Six Calamities were lacking in intelligence, it would be foolish optimism to assume that Shrouding Fog wouldn’t notice their presence in its domain.

Most likely, they had been able to elude Shrouding Fog’s notice thus far because he had only activated Silver Devourer for a few short seconds, and his and Wilhelmina’s conditions were too poor to catch its notice.

The two of them were on the verge of death when they first arrived in this place, resulting in their mana pulsations being weaker than ever, making them no different from ordinary mortals. Naturally, Shrouding Fog wouldn’t pay too much heed to them. However, this situation was likely to change soon, since they were recovering from their injuries.

No matter how dull-witted Shrouding Fog was, it was only a matter of time before it noticed the intrusion of an Origin Level 1 and an Origin Level 2 transcendent inside its domain. Needless to say, it would surely make a move on them.

The longer Roel and Wilhelmina stayed in this place, the greater the danger they would be in. Thus, Roel made up his mind to leave this place as soon as possible once they recovered.

A second question immediately emerged in his mind: where had the people here gone?

More than a hundred thousand elites were stationed in Tark Stronghold when it was devoured by Shrouding Fog, but there was not a single person to be seen. On reflection, the state of the wine cellar was rather peculiar too.

Tark Stronghold was a humongous fortress constructed with the ambitious goal of blockading an entire mountain valley. It had a huge stockpile of rations to ensure that its soldiers wouldn’t go hungry, but there were over a hundred thousand mouths to feed, after all. There was no way their rations could have lasted for over a year.

Yet, there was still plenty of alcohol inside their wine cellar even after the passage of two years, not to mention that the wine barrels looked untouched.

This was both unusual and unrealistic.

Roel would have to leave the underground bunker and head to the surface if he wanted to uncover the truth, but that was not very realistic for him in his current state. Exhaustion was already getting the better of him, telling him that he had reached the limit of his activity.

So, he quickly got to action.

He grabbed a nearby sack and threw in a dozen fruit wines that he considered decent before leaving the wine cellar. Then, he cast an illumination spell and headed back to where he came from.

There was no need for him to tread carefully anymore now that he knew where he was, so he didn’t bother silencing his breathing or concealing his footsteps. For better or for worse, not a single person popped out from the nearby doors to confront him.

“…”

The heavy silence dampened Roel’s mood.

Following the marks he had made along the way, he soon arrived at the stone chamber he had exited from. He gently opened the door and saw that Wilhelmina was still deeply asleep, so he carefully closed the door behind him before settling next to the wall.

He positioned the Nine-headed Serpent Staff next to him to serve as a sentry before turning his sights to Wilhelmina.

With Wilhelmina’s resilience and recovery prowess as an inheritor of the Dragon Bloodline and an Origin Level 1 transcendent, she should be able to recover to a decent extent in a jiffy.

Similarly, even though Roel was currently in a terrible condition, he was making good progress in the assimilation of his Origin Attribute. It shouldn’t take him too long before he re-established the window of connection with his ancient gods. That would put him in a much better position.

The only problem was that they had to leave this place before Shrouding Fog noticed them, and there was a good chance that their landing point would be the same place they had disappeared from.

The deviants were bound to be camping in the vicinity, knowing how suspicious their abrupt disappearance was. By the time they returned, those tenacious bastards would have made thorough preparations to ensure that the two of them couldn’t pull the same trick twice.

It was impossible for the two of them to fight against an entire race on their own, especially when they were up against the Deviant Sovereign too. They were bound to need reinforcement, and it was going to be his agreed meeting time with Nora in two days’ time.

Prior to their separation, Nora had promised him to dispatch all of the reinforcement she could. As long as they could draw away a portion of the deviants’ forces, he and Wilhelmina would be able to exploit the opportunity to break out of the deviants’ encirclement.

“…Two more days, huh? Let’s hope there’ll be as many people as possible,” Roel muttered as he prayed that the reinforcement coming in would be able to pull its own weight.

He took another sip of wine before he closed his eyes and drifted off to dreamland.

As his body slowly healed in his sleep, a black-haired woman in a distant fortress stared at an envelope on her office desk with a perplexed frown.

…