“I’ve packed everything we might need and put all the ancient dictionaries Faluel has borrowed us inside Soluspedia. This time, we should be able to read the ancient language of the Kingdom as if we’re native speakers.” Solus had even found the time to finish translating the Runesmithing booklet.
She and Lith had revised its contents multiple times, hoping that it would speed up their study of modern Runesmithing with Faluel. Their only gripe with the booklet was the lack of blueprints for truly powerful artifacts.
Yet it was supposed to be just a school textbook, not the Grimoire of an Archmage, so the discovery had only mildly disappointed them.
Lith studied the lost academy one last time before turning the tower into a ring and Warping to his destination.
From the outside, Huryole looked like a giant stone dome. The only entrances were located at the ground level and breaking the dome would make the cursed object who ‘protected’ the city turn the academy into a rampaging golem.
Flying inside was impossible as well, making people wonder what lay at the center of the city and for what purpose an academy had been built in the middle of nowhere. Huryole was also nicknamed “The Cursed Training Ground”.
Lith used his badge to open the field of several overlapping arrays that prevented everything and everyone from stepping through the city’s borders.
The lost city was a living labyrinth that would periodically rearrange itself, making any old map useless. Its walls couldn’t be affected by earth magic, dimensional magic was sealed, and destroying the walls to make haste only made the Living Legacy that ruled over Huryole angry.
The labyrinth made finding something of value inside the lost academy a bet for Lith, but the same applied to the creatures trapped inside Huryole who kept trying to reach the exit to regain their freedom.
Jakra the Emerald Dragon was among one of its most famous and powerful inhabitants. Unlike other academies, Huryole lacked a forest, but made up for it by hosting all kind of creatures, both living and undead.
‘Who the fuck could be so mad to let a bunch of horny teens sleep in the same dormitory, with no privacy nor supervision, living under the same roof of unspeakable horrors?’ Lith had no idea who had devised Huryole, but was pretty sure to know why modern academies were nothing like it.
‘Beats me.’ Solus shrugged. ‘I’m eager to put to the test War’s abilities. So far, we faced only C-listers unworthy of its blade. With a bit of luck, this will be our last fight for a long while.’
The bastard sword crafted by Orion hung on Lith’s hip, inside the scabbard made from the blood of the last man dumb enough to force Lith to unsheathe War.
‘That makes the two of us. Let’s hope we don’t end up testing its limits instead.’ Lith cursed at himself one second after the thought formed in his mind.
‘I swear, if you jinxed our last raid before it even started, I’m going to leave you spend your last weeks in the army alone while I take a vacation on my own.’ Solus thought.
Lith silently agreed and started to dispose of the creatures that were hitting the barrier sealing the city with their best spells. It was a small group of famished undead, hence Lith didn’t even try to communicate with them.
Their bodies were skeletal due to the lack of nourishment, but like all Huryole’s prisoners, they couldn’t die. For some unknown reason, nothing except for enchanted weapons and spells could destroy the physical form of those who remained trapped in the lost academy for too long.
‘By my maker.’ No matter how many times they faced them, the combat prowess the undead displayed despite their pitiful condition always managed to amaze Solus. Every one of their movements was flawless, allowing them to dodge Lith’s attacks by just shifting their stance.
Yet they fell the moment one of the spells stored inside Lith’s rings disrupted their teamwork. No matter how skilled they were, their starving bodies couldn’t keep up with a strong and fresh opponent.
Lith only needed to graze them with War for the violent energies imbued inside the sword to ravage its victims and turning them into ashes. To make matters worse for the enemies, during his raids Lith would use Death Vision to spot the enemy’s weakness.
Humans could die in so many ways that Lith’s curse was useless against them, whereas undead could only die from darkness magic or if struck at their weak points. Their bodies would unravel starting from there, so Death Vision provided Lith with clues about how to defeat even creatures he had never met before.
The small ash clouds didn’t disperse, but became small whirls that were sucked inside a small Gate. They would be reborn in a random spot of the city during the next cycle.
Huryole was also known as the “deathless city” because its inhabitants were forced into a seemingly unbreakable death and rebirth cycle. Some speculated that those who managed to leave the city’s premises might be freed from such a cruel destiny, but no one was willing to take risks and allow it to happen.
‘How long until the reset?’ Lith thought.
‘About ten hours. The fact that they managed to escape in barely two hours means that either they were very lucky or that this time Huryole arranged itself in a straightforward path. If I’m right, we might be forced to face a lot of enemies.’ Solus thought.
‘It also means we might get further than ever. Even if we miss the Forge, maybe we’ll find something more easily portable.’ Lith said.
Dimensional and Earth magic were sealed inside Huryole, so he couldn’t access his pocket dimension nor widen the doors to make way for bulky loot.
Once they walked through the city gates, they found themselves in what looked like a kitchen where someone had tried to butcher a still alive bull. The stone counters were cracked in many places, the cooking utensils were deformed as if they had been used to hit something very hard, and there was blood everywhere.
“What the fuck did we just miss?” Lith wondered.
Huryole fixed and cleaned all kinds of damage the moment they happened, making the kitchen return to its original appearance at a speed visible to the naked eye. Whatever happened in there, it was likely to have wrecked the room and taken place barely a minute ago.
The kitchen only had a way in and a way out, so after checking around with Life Vision, Lith moved forward. The next room was a long corridor leading to a single door. Both of its side walls were covered by huge paintings perfectly lined up.
Lith froze in place, trying to understand the purpose of the room. In all of his visits, he had never found something as trivial as a passageway. Whoever had built the city seemed to hate wasting space, so every part of the building had a specific role in the lost academy, no matter if it was a bathroom or a classroom.
Life Vision revealed that the paintings were all enchanted with some kind of dimensional magic, yet they depicted still life scenes of no relevance.
Or so Lith thought until he recognized some of them.
“Wait a second. We’ve been there in the past. Could this really be some sort of waypoint to quick travel through the city?”
