Release That Witch

Roland quickly estimated the size of the underground cave. It was almost the size of a football field and was surrounded by steep mountain walls. The junction that connected it was right in the center of the mountain and there was a narrow stone staircase beside the cave that extended further down.     

"I guess you didn't cut out these steps." He squatted and put the torch near the ground. The carving marks on the stone steps could be seen clearly under the light and there were a lot of chips and dust accumulated in the carvings.     

"Of course not, Your Highness. The stone steps were already here when we found it." Carter shrugged. "I'm guessing it's been there for decades."     

"Or centuries," Anna suddenly said.     

"I think so too." Lightning nodded. "Border Town has only been established for 70 years so far, so the stone ladder is unlikely to be related to the locals or the kingdom."     

"Was there anyone in the western region centuries ago?" Carter questioned, "The Kingdom of Graycastle had not yet been established."     

Roland patted the knight's shoulder and said, "450 years ago, there was a group of people who were forgotten by the history." Then, he lifted the torch. "Let's go down to take a look."     

The soldiers of the First Army had surrounded the bottom of the cave accordingly. He went straight to the side of God's Stone of Retaliation with the knights and the witches. The greatness of the huge God's Stone could only be felt when they were standing under the stone pillars. It was more than 10 times the length of stretched-out arms and they could only see its top when they lifted up their heads. The tallest purple-colored God's Stone of Retaliation was close to 30 meters and it was almost equivalent to the height of an eight or nine storey building.     

In theory, the glowing stone was likely either made of a radioactive material or it contained fluorescent ingredients. However, the light of the God's Stone of Retaliation was obviously irrelevant to both of them. The former's luminescence came from the ionization of the air caused by the decay of the element itself. The shorter the half-life was, the greater the brightness was. According to the brightness, the soldiers who entered first would die from ionizing radiation after only for a few minutes. The latter needed light to shine and there was no light source underground which was able to support it to emit such a cold light continuously.     

Roland also noticed that although the stone was in a common crystal prism shape, the surface had no crystal lines and was as smooth as flat glass.     

"If a thumb-sized God's Stone of Retaliation can be sold for several gold royals in the church, then such a gigantic one... It can easily empty the treasures of all the four kingdoms," Carter could not help but say emotionally.     

"Sell them to the nobles with the purpose to kill the witches?" Nightingale fiercely stared at him.     

"Uh, I didn't say that." The chief knight unconsciously shifted his sight.     

"It's my first time to see a God's Stone of Retaliation in this color. Shouldn't it be white and transparent?" Lightning looked at the stone pillar and curiously asked, "We would not even need to light a candle at night if we brought a piece back."     

"I'd rather be in a hot room with a dozen of candles than use it for light," Nightingale held her arms in front of her chest and said, "To a witch, it's a cage, a shackle and an accomplice of the church! It would be great if there were no such stones in the world."     

"Well, sister Nightingale, you don't read in the evening anyway..." The little girl licked her lips, picked up a stone and looked at Roland. "May I take a piece back as a trophy for the adventure?"     

Roland nodded. "If you don't react to it."     

She picked up a stone with her hand and threw it to the corner of the prism with all force, but she only heard a crisp sound of "ding", the stone crashed and the prism did not even bear a scratch.     

Carter could not help but feel curious. "How could it be... Aren't the God's Stone of Retaliation normally fragile?"     

"Perhaps the one that's lit up will be different." Lighting patted the stone chips off of her hand, pulled out a dagger from her pocket and began working around the prism. Ultimately, it was futile. She had even used all possible methods, such as scraping, slicing, cutting and picking.     

Roland could feel that something was wrong, he looked at Nightingale and said, "You try."     

The latter nodded. She pulled out her flintlock and pulled the trigger after pointing it directly at the other prism. Suddenly a huge roar echoed in the cave and some sparks came out from the God's Stone of Retaliation which was shot. After the smoke of gunpowder had cleared, they walked over and found that the bullet had left a shallow mark on the surface of the God's Stone.     

It meant that in terms of strength, it had exceeded a homogeneous steel plate.     

"Even the flintlock was useless?" Carter frowned. "How did the church cut it off to sell it?"     

No one could answer the question and this was also different from everyone's usual impression.     

Previously, Roland smashed the God's Locket of Retribution that was around Anna's neck with a brick and it only took two or three smashes to crush the crystal clear stone into a pool of white powder.     

Anna, who had been silent, suddenly said, "Your Highness, do you remember the 'treasure map' drawn by Morning Light Ferlin Eltek? "     

"Treasure map?" Roland was shocked. He vaguely remembered that there was a triangle on the drawings that occupied half of the area, there were three vertexes pointed to Holy City of Taquila, the stone tower of Misty Forest and the North Slope Mountain. "North Slope Mountain?" He suddenly saw a flash of lightning in his mind. "Could it be..."     

"I don't think that's pointing to Northern Slope Mine, but here..." Anna slowly said, "the underground cave has many hidden God's Stones of Retaliation."     

…     

After some careful searching, there were no other valuable discoveries other than the indestructible God's Stone in the cave.     

There wasn't so much as ancient books or remains, it was incredible that there were not even the tools used to carve the steps left behind. According to the present technical level of civilization, it was absolutely a huge and arduous project to chisel a ladder on the steep cliff. The accidental falls, missing tools and so on should be common. However, there was only stone and more stone at the scene as if they had cleaned the cave thoroughly before they left.     

Roland summoned Scroll when he returned to his office, he wanted her to show him pictures of the Morning Knight on the Book of Illusion again.     

According to the pattern in his memory, the southernmost point was indeed located at the foot of the North Slope Mountain, .     

If Anna guessed right, could it be a map left by the church when they were searching for a new God's Stone of Retaliation mineral vein? But why did they abandon it after spending so much effort to cut out those steps that could lead directly to the bottom? If the church, as early as 450 years ago had established a Border Town church, today's Border Town would probably appear to be totally different. In accordance with the price and the use of God's Stone of Retaliation, this mine did not look like a resource that could simply be abandoned.     

Now that the Holy City of Taquila had become a restricted area that was unreachable, perhaps these answers would only be found after arriving in the stone tower... if they are ever found at all.