Chapter 432: Frozen Battle

Ron and the others had been to the Dark Territory before, but only by way of a Teleportation Array. Since the local, Seymour, wasn’t here, Jilannis was naturally considered the authority.

Dismissing the thought that they might face Dark Elves, Mushroom People, or Underground Dwarves, Ron and the others followed the barbarian’s pace, slowly walking down the stairs to find the door to the next level, following Victoria’s directions.

Everything here was forged from metal—cold and unforgiving, yet it had been preserved for so long that it was still functional even now.

"It’s really hard to imagine those creatures would put so much effort into this, yet let their own lifeline be so easily broken," Aive muttered while waiting for Ron to open the door. "I’m starting to wonder... could it have been a man-made disaster instead of a natural one?"

"When our Lord Count came here in the past, there was already Red Mould, which means there were Spore People too. Is it possible that even before that, these creatures had already had dealings with the Spore People?"

"You think they were wiped out by those Spore People who can barely even talk?" Silvia looked at the Half-Elf in disbelief. "I find the idea of Rose City being destroyed by the Ocher Tribe more believable than that!"

"Hey! You got a problem with me?" Sera protested. "I’m not bragging, but while my tribe doesn’t do that, back in the day, plenty of tribes much weaker than us would run short on food in the early spring. They’d take wooden boats and travel south along the coast, which hadn’t even fully thawed, and raid the southern lands!"

"I heard they burned down a lot of towns! The spoils they brought back let them live extravagantly all the way until the next early spring!"

"And then?" Delaford, who loved this kind of talk, quickly pressed her. "Damn, I used to dream of living that kind of life!"

"And then? Then it was early spring again," Sera said, blinking, before bursting into laughter. "They didn’t hunt a thing all year and had no food stored up, so of course, they had no choice but to go raiding again!"

"If they had managed to combine the two, their lives would have been much better," Jilannis said calmly. "Of course, that still wouldn’t help against a world-altering cataclysm."

"Are you talking about the Moncton tribe?" Aive asked, glancing at Sera. "I’ve heard of them; they’re quite famous. Rumor has it that Cloud Port even erected a life-sized bronze statue of their chief."

"A bronze statue? I really didn’t know about that. Why?" Now it was Sera’s turn to be confused. She had indeed been talking about the Moncton tribe, but their chief had never mentioned this.

’That doesn’t sound like his showboating style at all.’

"Not the current chief; this was decades ago. It was probably the previous one," Aive explained. "The story goes that several tribes had united to invade Cloud Port, but he, in his great mercy, single-handedly pushed for their forces to withdraw from Cloud Port and attack Ville Bay on the other side instead."

"Ville Bay?" Sera grew even more confused. "I’ve never heard of a Ville Bay. The Moncton tribe invited me to join them, too. They even said I could pick whatever target I wanted to raid. I didn’t go, but I never heard them mention that place."

"It makes sense you haven’t heard of it. Because Ville Bay is gone," Aive said casually, watching Ron open the door, which had quite the delay. "It’s been gone ever since."

"Aive has plenty of stories of her own, she’s just never willing to share them with us," Ron said, turning with a smile. As the massive door slowly swung open behind him, he bowed and gestured for them to enter. "Maybe when we get back, you can take over for Sera and tell us about some of your old adventures?"

Ron was smiling, but he soon realized his companions weren’t about to return the expression. Their faces were filled with astonishment and fear as they stared upward, looking high above and behind him, past the doorway.

’An enemy?’

Ron didn’t sense anything amiss, and his companions made no move to run or fight. They just stood there, watching.

"Is there something behind me?" Ron asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes. And... they’re huge," Aive said, swallowing hard as she pointed behind Ron. "Two of them."

"What are they?"

"See for yourself. I’m not sure how to describe them."

Not understanding what could possibly be there, Ron slowly turned around, bracing himself for an enemy to leap out at him. He faced the world beyond the door, and as his gaze involuntarily drifted upward, his expression mirrored that of his companions.

’By Ernest...’ (In this world, he was only familiar with this one Deity).

The Plant People weren’t much taller than humans, but their architecture was universally grandiose. The rooms stretched a full twenty meters or more from floor to ceiling. Ron had assumed this was just part of their unique aesthetic, but now he realized it had a practical purpose.

Because standing before him, filling his vision, was a terrifying entity. Like a Giant Spirit, it towered twenty meters high, its entire body a gnarled mass of conspicuous wooden structures.

Like the creatures on the floors above, it was long dead. But unlike them, this god-like being had not chosen to lie peacefully in a chamber that matched its size. Instead, it had come out to stand in the center of the room. Its empty eye sockets seemed to be fixed in a furious glare from its final moments, staring straight ahead. Its desiccated, almost petrified arms were raised in the air. One hand clutched a large infusion tube, while the other looked as if it had once held a spear or halberd. It was frozen mid-stride, as if about to thrust that enormous, deadly weapon into the heart of an invisible foe!

Ron noticed that its center of gravity was off, yet it remained standing there like a statue. This was no supernatural phenomenon. Clusters of thick, semi-petrified, tube-like structures extended from the surface of the plant giant’s body to another massive creature in front of it. The two corpses had created a delicate balance, keeping the giant from collapsing into the dust.

But in life, their relationship had surely been anything but harmonious.

’If that’s a Thorny Beast, it’s a little on the large side.’

Ron sized up the four-legged creature’s carcass, which was now propping up the giant in death. It looked much larger than the remains of the old Green Dragon they had seen before, with a shape somewhere between a dog and a bear. It had trampled the chambers beneath it into a chaotic mess, its head thrown back in a roar, as if intending to devour the powerful being in front of it.

It had, in fact, done just that. And it had succeeded.

Because as Ron processed the scene again, he realized his first impression had been wrong. Those semi-petrified, tube-like structures were not extending from the giant’s body. They were "limbs" stretching out from the four-legged monster! These structures had fastened themselves all over the giant, draining its life and turning it into the monster’s own nourishment!