Edward and Adrien walked over to what was left of the door leading deeper into the ruins. That door had been entirely shattered, and pieces of rocks of different sizes were scattered in the surroundings. They trod carefully, so as not to stumble onto a stone, and to avoid making noises, the beasts were still somewhere inside the ruins after all.

Once they crossed the threshold, they admired the lavishly decorated corridor, there was one row of statues on each side of it. Each statue was separated by Corinth-like pillars, with engraved relief vines coiling around it. At the bottom of the statues was a plate with the name of the person and the corresponding date of birth and death, the whole supported by a short description of his or her main accomplishments.

There were about thirty statues on each side, at the end of the corridor, some places between pillars were still free to welcome future statues. The corridor wasn’t ending with a door but with a stretch of inclined floor, leading further down. There was no visual difference between the tilted slope and the rest of the floor. Just behind the opening, there was still a bit of floor left with an empty display stand. On top of the display stand, on the wall, was a symbol of a drop of blood, the same symbol that was above the entry door of this corridor. Bloodstains were also present on the whole length of the corridor at regular intervals, but this time it was real blood stains and not a symbol.

“That must be what Marc was talking about when he was laughing about a hidden door. Judging from the bloodstains, he went through there while fleeing the monsters.” Edward whispered to Adrien.

“I would have much preferred for this path to stay hidden if we could have avoided those monsters,” Adrien told him.

“Fair enough,” Edward responded.

Whatever artifact Marc was searching for, it must have been quite precious. Those people even put a fake display to make thieves believe that the artifact was already gone and that there was nothing else left to see.

Edward looked at the different statues while going slowly forward. Isistae foundress of the first library, Kathusa mother of the forest first archmage of her time, Lephacia inventor of the world portal spell, Aeghad the explorer…Thanks to his experience with the pedestal he was now able to understand and read the Damkinan language.

Well, at least I have heard of this one. So many statues, if they have only one or two statues per generation, for how many years have their civilization lasted? Let’s say they had the same lifespan as us, thirty generations would be like…about three thousand years. Well, damn, that’s a lot.

The statues were made with an incredible number of details, the folds from the clothes were visible, and different patterns were also engraved on them. Some statues were holding spheres in their palm, that Edward realized, were supposed to represent different kinds of spells. The statues were very vivid and lifelike, it was crazy to think they were made with stone, one wrong move and the statues would be destroyed while carving it. Well, I guess in this world magic would have helped with that, Edward thought.

The last statue before the empty spots was of ‘Dalenka, the last hope’.

That sounds reassuring. Seeing the state of this building, I guess it didn’t end well for them.

Adrien and Edward progressed along the slope, once they were past the floor level, they discover to their surprise that the green lines were back. Wherever the power came from, it was still supplying this part of the ruins.

There must be different sources of power, the one in the barrier room was suppling the library, and they must have put a different one in this hidden area to make it independent. At least I’m glad we don’t have to travel in this red light, it was getting on my nerves. Not knowing when you can stumble upon a horrifying monster while being constantly under an aggressive red light is not exactly pleasant.

A few minutes later the slope ended in a gigantic open space, it made Edward though of a temple. In the center of the room, the ceiling was forming a dome that was several meters higher than the rest, on the dome a great fresco was displayed. On one side Damkinans were rushing to stop a tidal black wave of darkness, most of the Damkinans were represented ready to lunch spells, however, the main figure and the ones supporting her were having weapons instead. The supporting figures were dual-wielding some weird-looking dagger. In the middle of the dagger was a horizontal handle to get a good grip on it, on each side of the handle a line of metal was going back giving the user a guard protecting from hits to the hands, in front of the dagger laid a thick blade decorated with runes. Edward was able to recognize the main figure, it looked just like the statue of Dalenka he had seen a few moments ago, she was clad in full armor and was carrying a sword instead of daggers like the others. From the tide of darkness, no details were visible, it was as if it was devouring everything and nothing could come back out of it, it seemed unstoppable.

Under the dome, there was a vast open space with a set of stairs leading to a stone stand where a set of daggers were resting, they were the same as the ones on the painting. Dissociating with the open space, on the sides of the room, rows of columns were supporting the ceiling. On those sides, different openings were leading further into the ruins. The scene was breathtaking, however, Adrien and Edward didn’t stop to admire it as they spotted one of the monsters roaming in the open space. Luckily for them, it was having its back to them and hadn’t detected them yet.

They quickly entered the room and rushed behind a column to hide as they were for now in plain view in the corridor with nowhere to hide.

Edward looked at his hands, they were shaking from the tension. Ok, calm down Edward, you can do it. It hasn’t spotted you yet. You just have to keep calm and quiet, we have to go further in to find another way out. Edward took a slow breath without making noise to calm himself, Adrien was looking at him.

“Are you ok?” he asked whispering.

“No, but that will have to do. Let’s wait until this thing leaves.” Edward replied.

The two of them waited for the beast to leave, glancing from time to time from behind the column. Adrien saw a bloody shape collapse on the stairs, it was missing an arm, and there were bloodstains sprayed around it.

“Hey, I think I found Marc, he managed to make it all the way to here, but he couldn’t escape in the end. I would say he deserved to die like that after what he put us through, dying by the same cause that killed the whole expedition he was supposed to protect.” Adrien said nudging Edward with his elbow.

Edward closed his eyes, it was true that Marc was an asshole, but he wasn’t exactly happy that he died like that. After all, Marc was an awaken, and if even he couldn’t escape, it didn’t bid well for them.

The beast finally decided to leave by one of the exits on the side. They both relaxed when the beast left their line of sight. That was close, if it had decided to roam around the room, we wouldn’t have been able to do anything if it spotted us.

“We should quickly find a way out there, the more we stayed in those ruins, the more dangerous it will get,” Adrien announced.

“I agree, but I want to take a closer look at those daggers. They look similar to the ones in the paintings, and I think that is what Marc was searching for so desperately. Now that we are here, we should at least take the loot, maybe it can help us fight those beasts.” Edward answered him.

“Ok, but be quick about it, I don’t want to stay in this place, we are too exposed, we don’t know when another beast will come in, and no matter how powerful those weapons are, I doubt it will help us fend off those beasts at our level.”

Edward quickly ran up the stairs, avoiding Marc’s corpse with mixed feelings. Maybe you are right, and we can’t kill those beasts yet, but I won’t skip this opportunity. We have to take every chance we can to increase the chance of our survival, and if those weapons were searched for by Marc, they should be important. Besides, they are also in that painting on the dome, and I doubt they will use some gadgets or poor weapons to fight something like that black wave.

He gazed at the two daggers, the runes on the blades were glowing in a faint red, they actually signified blood flow. Is that an enchantment or just the names of the daggers? Anyway, it seems appropriate for such weapons. He took one in each hand, it felt right. They are actually quite light, it almost makes me feel like wearing boxing gloves, except this time it’s to hurt the opponent instead of protecting him.

Edward decided to keep holding the daggers in his hands for now instead of putting them in his backpack, if he encountered a monster, he wouldn’t have the time to retrieve them, so it was best if he was ready to fight from the get-go.

Adrien made him understand to hurry with a sign of his head. Edward quickly ran down the stairs and joined him on the side near a column.

“That beast left that way earlier, let’s go to the opposite side. The quicker we find another exit, the quicker we are out of there. Another beast can come at any time.” Adrien declared.

“You are right, sorry for the delay, but even if we can’t fight those beasts, I feel a lot more at ease with those weapons on me.”

Thus, both of them left through one of the corridors, getting once again further into the ruins instead of getting out of it.