Clearing the village didn’t take long, after all. Even though corruption had taken over, the corrupted humans kept fighting it from within.
Wanting nothing more than to be free of the torture of being trapped in their own minds by the corruption, they gladly welcod their deaths.
Neither Adrian nor Marion felt particularly remorseful, as they continued forward, towards the kingdom.
Soon enough, a massive wall ca into view, on the horizon.
Adrian observed that it stretched almost endlessly in both directions similar to the one at the frontier.
His gaze swept across the walls, spotting the entrances and visible patrol routes.
"They adapted quickly," he finally said.
"They had no choice," Marion replied with a light shrug, "either build sothing like this... or get eaten by whatever is out here."
"Though, they’re just being a bunch of cowards hiding in the pit they dug, waiting for the inevitable."
His tone was casual, but his eyes lingered on the city longer than necessary and Adrian imdiately noticed.
"You’ve been here before," he said.
"Hmm?" Marion tilted his head slightly before chuckling, "Of course I have. I told you, didn’t I? I was part of the group that discovered this place."
"That’s not what I ant."
Marion went quiet for a brief mont, then he let out an easy smile.
"Sharp," he said, "yeah... I’ve been back a few tis."
"Co on," he quickly switched the topic and pointed towards the opposite direction, "no point standing around. We’ll head to the east gate, it’s less crowded."
Adrian continued following, but he had basically confird his thoughts... The man before him was hiding sothing.
Then again, he saw no reason to find out, after all, they’d part ways the mont he found his lady.
But,
A faint shadow, thin as a thread, clung to Marion’s heel, sothing even the man himself didn’t seem to notice.
Just in case.
The closer they got, the more the scale of the wall beca apparent.
Up close, the wall was both massive and oppressive.
Dark stone was stacked upon dark stone, reinforced with what looked like bones from monsters and hardened black resin.
Strangely though, although Adrian could see large amounts of corrupted mana coming from the wall, it seed to be reinforcing it.
"Cool right?" Marion muttered with a smile, "They figured out how to make use of the mana that was corrupting them."
"But it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, after all, they had a genius amongst them while building this, so the result was to be expected."
With the way he said that, it beca clear enough that he was talking about himself which Adrian quickly figured out.
He gave no response so Marion had no choice but to continue forward, and soon enough, they reached the gate.
The guards standing there had on armor that seed to have been worn a few too many tis.
They had no weapons in hand, but Adrian could tell that they could handle themselves without them.
From their mana, he figured that they ranged from B to A ranks.
Strangely though, for people that had been in this dungeon for five years, the corrupted mana coming from the was minuscule.
At first, Adrian thought it was due to whatever filtration system Marion was talking about, but that thought was discarded when he looked at the man.
He had a small frown on his face as he muttered to himself, "That’s strange, I could’ve sworn they had a lot more corrupted mana within them the last ti I was here."
Yeah, sothing else must’ve happened to cleanse them of their corruption and there was only one person Adrian knew was capable of such.
"Halt," one of the guards suddenly noticed the two approaching, "state your purpose."
Adrian silently observed the guard with his glasses for a while, trying to search for even the smallest sign of that mana to confirm his thoughts.
And soon enough, he spotted the littlest bit of it, so he looked back at the guard’s face and calmly responded, "We’re passing through."
The guard’s eyes narrowed slightly before his gaze turned toward Marion and he imdiately recognized him.
"You again."
"Miss ?" Marion replied casually, raising a hand in greeting, "though I must say, you look a lot better than the last ti I was here."
The guard neither returned the greeting, nor did he respond to the man’s obvious curiosity, after all, his saying anything would just lead to trouble.
"If you’re here to cause trouble—"
"I’m here to leave, actually," Marion cut him off with a shrug, "just escorting a guest to your lovely city."
The guard was silent for a while before turning back to Adrian and calmly observing him.
"You seem new here," he said in a tone that wasn’t one of questioning.
"Yeah," Adrian nodded, "I entered a few hours ago... Or maybe it could’ve been an entire day, I’m not quite sure."
"A day," the guard seed to be in deep thought as he muttered to himself, "although the timing seems a bit off."
"Are you, by any chance searching for the Saintess," he finally asked looking at Adrian.
"No," Adrian answered.
"Then the Red dragon or maybe the Lightbringer?" The guard guessed again causing Adrian to look at him with a blank expression.
What the hell was with that nickna?
He knew exactly who was being referred to as the Red Dragon, but what had the idiot done in just a few hours to earn himself the nickna?
"I’m searching for my lady," he finally said, "a woman with beautiful white hair, beautiful blue eyes, and a beauty you’d only see once in a lifeti."
The guard awkwardly looked at him before turning to Marion who just shrugged in response.
The guard wasn’t the one who was describing the lady, but he was getting second-hand embarrassnt.
Still, he cleared his throat and tried thinking of whom the man before him was describing before he finally recalled soone with such features.
"Ah, you an the Ice Empress," he spoke up, and he couldn’t help but agree with this man, she truly was a once-in-a-lifeti beauty.
That was why even their king coveted her.
’Ice Empress huh?’ Adrian repeated the na in his head with a small smile on his face before nodding, "That’s her."
"I see," the guard nodded before turning around and ordering, "open the gates."
A mont after, the massive gates let out a groan as they were pulled open, revealing what lay beyond.
Adrian and Marion walked through the gates and into the city leaving the guard who was looking at their retreating backs.
The mont they were fully inside, Marion turned to him.
"Welco," he said softly, his tone strangely unreadable now, "to the kingdom at the end of the world."
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