Building My SSS-Rank Universal Empire: From Trash to Cosmic Overlord-Chapter 160: A chained
"Time to do your work, Blessed Vale." Leojan said. His projection had varnished and his real consciousness back into the Tower. The remaining two Minotaurs had been quickly taken care of.
Vale stood from his chair, and the force binding him to it released him with ease. He looked at the destruction outside and asked, "How many times can you do that?"
"As many times as I can if I have the essence to spare. But I have to recharge after every use of that attack. It’s my finishing move." At first, Leojan smiled, then he frowned.
"What’s it?" Vale asked immediately. He turned to the viewing wall, but the surrounding areas were silent; even two of the three ruin break portals had disappeared.
Leojan shook his head. "It’s too easy. I feel like something is wrong. If it was this easy, then one of the Flagbearers should have held the surrounding areas since."
Vale froze, eyes narrowed. "That’s right. And why don’t they send more monsters? They didn’t even need to send the lesser and greater beasts; they could have just sent a wave of the Minotaurs."
Leojan sighed. "I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do. There’s no monsters to fight, after all. They’ll reveal what they’re planning with time, or they’ve given up on the fortress."
"I doubt that," Vale muttered as he frowned in concentration. "They must be waiting for something. Maybe for me to open the fortress?"
Leojan shrugged. "We will be waiting for you when you are ready to return. You can open and close too fast—that’s the signal. Don’t worry; we will be watching."
As he said, there was nothing they could really do, so they moved the Tower closer to the fortress, and then it opened up for him. Vale got out with his sword ready and formation held tight in his mind.
But nothing out of the ordinary jumped out at him.
Except for the smell. The iron-tinged smell of blood and spilled guts made him curl his nose in disgust. The ground to the fortress door was covered in blood and ripped flesh. Vale picked his way gently as he went to the fortress door.
It was made of silver iron and etched with different complicated symbols. He studied it, even though he didn’t understand it, and then, with his heart beating fast, he laid his palm on the door.
At first, nothing happened, and then an almost unnoticeable wave passed from the door into his body and then out again. The door shuddered, the symbols lit up one after the other, and it groaned open.
Vale took one look at the Tower, and then he conjured a fireball to float above him before he entered into the room without looking back.
The door closed immediately behind him.
He didn’t need the light that he conjured because glowing stones were set into the wall of the hall he found himself in. The ground was made of smooth white stones that reflected his image and that of the fortress ceiling that seemed to go up forever.
He looked around. There wasn’t much to see, as the whole hall seemed to stretch far but also near at the same time. No single piece of furniture except for a throne that stood in the middle of the hall.
"There’s some kind of enchantment here. It’s as if the hall is bigger than it should be and at the same time, it’s too small." Vale turned to better study the hall.
He couldn’t find any doors on the seamless wall, and there were no upper floors. It seemed as if there was only the single room he found himself in.
"So how do I get underground?" he mumbled. He could remember being told that the fortress was built in such a way that its real space was underground.
He began to search the wall and the smooth floor for anything that might lead to the underground. Maybe some kind of space where a concealed door was?
But no matter how hard he searched, he didn’t find anything. Everything was smooth and glossy. After a while, he sighed. "Then how do they get down? Some kind of words of power? Or a portal?"
Getting tired, he blasted the ground with fireballs, waiting to see any reactions, but still, nothing. Even the ground didn’t hold the mark of his attack; it remained smooth and white.
As his eyes traced the room, they settled on the throne. "This is the only thing in the room. Maybe it’s the clue?"
He went close to it and began to search around it, using his hand to touch and press the different designs on it, but nothing moved or clicked. After a while, he sat down with a weary sigh. "I thought I’ll be facing monsters, not stuck looking for doors!"
Suddenly, the throne he was sitting on vibrated. It grew warm and began to emit a wave of essence. Vale sat up, ready to jump away, but then he froze.
Sudden information pressed into his mind. His eyes saw things that weren’t in front of him—he saw the town underneath the fortress, and then he traced it to the biggest building underground, where something was quietly waiting at the lowest floor. Just as suddenly as the sight appeared, it varnished.
"The Chained Artifact is there! The Tower is really there," Vale said. Then, as if he’d known the next word that came out of his mouth all along, he spoke the words of power that roughly translated to, "Portal."
The light on the floor gathered and formed a door-shaped portal that spun gently in front of him. With his sword in hand, Vale stood up from the throne and directly entered the portal door.
The blinding light in front of him faded away, and he found himself underground. He was standing on a platform that was carved into the wall overlooking the town that spread below him in darkness.
This time, the light he created helped.
Vale suddenly shivered. "Why is it so cold, and why didn’t the portal just drop me at the house at the other end of the town?"
As he looked around, though, he saw more of the platforms carved into the wall. "This must be where the portal always drops people. Well then, time to get myself a Chained Artifact."
