Chapter 976 - 585: Are You My Master?
Deep within the underground of the Royal Palace,
Delia pushed open the door and walked into this tightly guarded room, hanging the oil lamp she held on the wall beside her.
The faint yellow light dispelled the darkness around the girl’s body, but it couldn’t illuminate the entire room; beyond the lamp’s reach, it was still pitch black.
In this deep room, the darkness enveloped every inch of space like a silent guardian. The dim flame seemed like the most distant star in the night sky, striving yet barely able to outline a corner of the room, while the rest remained steeped in boundless darkness, appearing both mysterious and profound.
The room was vast and boundless, seemingly capable of swallowing all sound and light, making one involuntarily feel small and alone. Who would have known that such a mysterious place existed beneath the Royal Palace?
The walls around the room were smooth like mirrors, without paintings, without carvings, just a monotonous and cold surface reflecting the weak glow of the lamp, further accentuating the emptiness and desolation of this space. These walls seemed to isolate all the noises of the outside world, making it an independent world completely cut off.
The entire room’s floor was a gigantic bluish-green stone slab, which unlike the walls, was not completely smooth. The passage of time had left mottled marks on it, with some areas sunken into deep dark colors, chronicling the flow of time.
However, the most striking feature of the room was the enormous and intricate Magic Array etched on the bluestone slab.
It covered most of the slab’s surface, with array patterns that were intricate and complex, like the tangled roots of trees in nature or the intertwined tracks of stars in the night sky, appearing chaotic and unordered yet containing an indescribable harmony and beauty.
Under the illumination of the lamp, each line of the array emitted a faint glow, weak yet sketching a magnificent and mysterious scene in the darkness, invoking a sense of awe towards this ancient power.
In front of Delia, this room felt like a secret realm forgotten by time, quietly waiting for someone capable of deciphering its secrets.
"Sigh~"
Delia let out a soft sigh, looking at the room in front of her with a heavy heart.
This basement was the most hidden place not only in the entire Royal Palace but in the entire Cardiff Kingdom.
Outside this basement, there were countless protective barriers and traps left behind from many years ago, making it the most securely guarded place in the Royal Palace, even more so than Queen Delia’s own bedroom.
Gently tracing the array patterns on the giant Magic Array on the bluestone slab, Delia felt a coarse texture under her hand and murmured to herself:
"Is this the gate that the ancestors passed through countless years ago when they came here?"
"Is the real Gaia World really so vast, with so many strong beings?"
Delia did not know the answer to the questions; these most crucial secrets weren’t recorded in any documents but were passed down orally by each king.
Perhaps for this reason, across countless years, apart from the most critical information, most of it has become vague or lost.
Delia only knew that the only way to leave the world they lived in was through the giant Magic Array beneath her feet.
Though Delia was also a Mage, she had no way to activate the Magic Array before her.
According to the records left by the ancestors, only those who could independently open this Magic Array were qualified to go to the Gaia World.
Delia had learned from her father that the Cardiff Royal Family seemingly came to this small world where the Cardiff Kingdom is located to escape disaster.
Without sufficient strength, going to the Gaia World was just a pipe dream.
If one couldn’t independently activate this Teleportation Array, they could only stay honestly in this small world as a safe haven.
However, now this safe haven seemed no longer stable...
Delia recalled the ministers’ arguments she had just witnessed in the palace, feeling somewhat anxious.
The Duke Pa Ao they mentioned was the guardian duke of the Southern Cardiff Kingdom and one of the most powerful figures in the Cardiff Kingdom.
Because the Bren Mountain Range in the kingdom’s south had various veins of rare Magic Metals and Magic Gems, but also because of this, the magic power concentration in the Bren Mountain Range was significantly high, which also gave rise to numerous Magic Beasts.
To resist the waves of Magic Beasts from the Bren Mountain Range, the kingdom’s southern region had long been the most troublesome.
However, after the emergence of Duke Pa Ao, the situation greatly improved.
Yulian Pao, the new head of the Duke Pa Ao Family, possessed substantial strength; though only forty years old, he was almost the most powerful in the entire Cardiff Kingdom.
Moreover, this Duke Pa Ao was highly skilled in his methods.
On one side, he used the development of the Magic Metal and Gem Mines in the Bren Mountain Range as leverage, uniting most of the noble families in the kingdom’s south to form a coalition army to collectively resist the waves of Magic Beasts in the mountains,
On the other side, he sought help from the Cardiff Royal Family, while secretly amassing power within the mountains.
Once the kingdom’s southern region was entirely stabilized and the Magic Beasts in the Bren Mountain Range could no longer pose a threat, the kingdom suddenly realized that Duke Pa Ao’s power had already grown substantially, even threatening the kingdom’s rule.