Chapter 51:Loc Muinne 1

After a day of riding, Viltz finally arrived in the vicinity of Rinde, a northern city.

Looking at the large lake in front of him, Viltz scratched his head in frustration.

"Sigh, guess I'm due for a dive."

Taking off his clothes, Viltz dove into the lake and began searching for the object that brought him here.

...

Six hours later, a soaked Viltz with bloodshot eyes emerged from the lake with a clay amphora.

Looking at the amphora in his hands, Viltz smiled with joy and the annoyance of spending six hours searching disappeared from his face.

Stroking Storm, he opened a portal that led them back home.

After taking a long shower, Viltz entered his laboratory with the amphora in hand and placed it on a pedestal.

Then he brought a mirror covered with a sheet closer and uncovered it, focusing on the amphora.

"Magic mirror, reveal to me the mysteries of destiny, show me the place where the owner of this amphora kept his most precious treasures..."

The mirror began to glow for a few seconds before the image of the map of the continent appeared on its surface, with an X marking a place on the map.

Viltz unfolded a map drawn on parchment and marked the location shown on the map.

The mirror stopped glowing and returned to its previous opaque appearance.

Viltz covered it again with the sheet before storing the amphora in a safe.

"I think I should first prepare myself before attempting to explore the hideout of an ancient wizard as powerful as Geofrey Monck, a sorcerer capable of trapping djinns to grant wishes would not leave his home unprotected."

Opening a portal to the stable, he mounted Storm and teleported to the outskirts of Oxenfurt.

After half a day's travel, he finally arrived at his destination, the ruins of the ancient city of Loc Muinne.

It was originally a city built by the Vran, an intelligent civilization of lizard men that were now almost extinct, later taken over by the elves, who made it their home until a few decades ago when a racist extremist from the kingdom of Redania decided to get rid of all non-humans in the area and massacred them all.

Entering the ruined city, Viltz strolled for a while through the abandoned streets before something suddenly attacked him from behind.

Viltz dodged at full speed but another attack came from the other side.

Drawing his saber, he made a slash that materialized a wind blade that flew out, crashing into one of the enemies.

A large cut appeared on the chest of a stone gargoyle that did not even flinch at the attack and kept trying to attack with its claws.

Looking up, Viltz saw three other gargoyles coming from different directions.

Quickly analyzing the situation, Viltz made a quick decision.

He sent a fireball at the first gargoyle and a wind blade at the second.

Taking advantage of the momentary paralysis of the enemies, Viltz conjured a wind spell that increased his agility and started running in a specific direction.

The gargoyles seemed to go crazy as they began to chase him.

The further he went into the alleys, the more gargoyles joined the mob following him.

"Don't look back! Don't look back! Don't look back!"

Contradicting his inner thoughts, Viltz turned his head slightly and saw out of the corner of his eye how more than thirty gargoyles were chasing him like mad, not caring about trampling each other.

Running for his life, Viltz turned around a corner and found a passageway separated by a metal grate.

With a slash of his saber, he broke the lock on the door and entered, conjuring a host of vines that wrapped tightly around the door, sealing it so that the gargoyles could not get through.

Viltz dropped to the ground and sighed in relief.

"Fiuh... At least now things will get quieter."

Straightening up, Viltz walked over to a wooden lectern on which lay a scroll with some information encrypted in runic language.

Viltz held the scroll in one hand and began to disable some runic formations in the room.

There were four in total and it was quite easy to deactivate them.

When the last rune went out, the magical barrier protecting a chest in the corner of the room was deactivated and Viltz opened the chest directly.

Along with the sound of the creaking hinges, a voice recording left by the sorcerer who left the previous runic formation could be heard.

"You hold the sword of Aramil, who defied the command of his king. The Lord of the Wild Hunt desires the gene of the Ancient Blood. He seeks to open wide the gates between worlds, so that terror and destruction may reign.

The King of the Hunt ordered me slain, and the wraiths born of his order assumed living form, haunting me across the gaps between worlds for centuries.

I have arrived in Loc Muinne. Although I am tired, I know I will not rest. The riders of the Hunt are approaching. On my back I can feel their deadly breath."

Viltz pulled a gleaming silver sword from the chest and looked at it for a moment before opening a portal and throwing it into his room.

He then pulled out a few pieces of jewelry and gold coins which he also sent to his room.

To be on the safe side, he set the coordinates of a portal in that same room before climbing the stairs carefully to observe if the gargoyles had already retreated or were still waiting for him to come out.

Removing a vine so he could see, Viltz contemplated the surroundings for a while before taking a deep breath and beginning to prepare his spells.

He activated all the runes of his enchantments and applied all the speed spells before removing the vines and shooting out the door.

Before the gargoyles could even begin to move, Viltz had already left them behind and in less than ten seconds, he had reached another room with runes similar to the previous one.

Sealing the entrance again, Viltz did the same procedure and deactivated the runes in the room before opening the corresponding chest,.where he found a magically encrypted ancient manuscript.

"Hmmm, if I remember correctly, this manuscript has a diagram of a sword, not much use to me but at least it's something."

Throwing the manuscript through the portal, Viltz repeated his same previous actions and finally reached the last room, but this time, he found a small surprise waiting for him.

A golem attacked him as soon as he entered.

Viltz dodged to the side before counterattacking.

Pulling Aerondight from its scabbard, Viltz threw it as if it were a spear, embedding itself right into the golem's magical core.

The golem collapsed, leaving nothing but dust.

Sheathing his weapons, Viltz went back to breaking the various runic seals and opened the last chest, finding nothing of interest aside from some jewelry and coins.

"At least now that I've deactivated the seals, those pesky gargoyles won't bother me anymore."

Surfacing, Viltz found a few gargoyles petrified in their places as they struck poses.

The seals in the rooms were the gargoyles' main source of power and if he hadn't deactivated them then the gargoyles wouldn't stop attacking him nonstop.

"Okay, time to explore."

After wandering around for a while, Viltz entered through an iron door and down a passageway until he came upon a small door with a floating face staring back at him.

The floating face uttered some strange gibberish but Viltz paid no attention to it and began to carve runes on the floor around the floating face.

The floating face just repeated the same gibberish with a questioning tone.

When it finished engraving the runes, they glowed blue and the floating face grimaced before disappearing, causing an orange portal to open in its place.

Entering through the portal, he found himself in a room with a puzzle that involved lighting cauldrons on the walls in a specific order.

Viltz walked past it and directly picked the lock on the door using magic.

As he walked down the hallway, the first thing he saw was a fully clothed mystery man leaning against a wall.

The man noticed Viltz and straightened up, approaching him.

"Welcome chosen one..."

"Operator, I come here by the guidance of destiny, to claim my rightful reward!"

"You know me?"

"Of course I do! The honorable guardian entrusted by the ancient Vrans with the task of guarding the most precious artifact of their race to aid the chosen ones..."

As Viltz spoke, the Operator relaxed for a moment, a moment that Viltz did not waste, drawing Aerondight at lightning speed and cutting off his head before he could react.

The Operator's head flew off, slamming into a wall, causing the helmet to come off the head, revealing the face of a humanoid reptile.

Viltz removed the corpse's tunic and threw it through a doorway, then grabbed the staff that had fallen from the Operator's hands and sized it up for a while.

"Such a magnificent artifact, in the video game players could reset all their abilities with this tool to rearrange them as they saw fit, in other words, this staff is an artifact that allows its user to redefine their own physical abilities, it's an optimizer with no side effects, as well as an excellent weapon."

Viltz imbued his power into the staff, causing it to glow before opening a small portal that teleported him a couple of meters away.

He then tried another spell from the staff, casting a fireball that shattered the ground where it landed.

He then summoned a powerful magical barrier that was nearly impenetrable to normal sorcerers.

Finally, Viltz waved the staff a couple of times and two gargoyles appeared in front of him.

Nodding with satisfaction at the staff's magical abilities, Viltz deactivated the summoning spell and the gargoyles disappeared again.

"If it wasn't for the trash talk I spouted at the beginning that made him let his guard down, fighting that Vran would have been quite a challenge with this staff in his hands.

It's interesting how that race, despite not being able to master the power of chaos innately, didn't give up on developing that power, creating such wonderful artifacts."

Sighing, Viltz opened a portal that transported him out of the secret chamber.

He walked for a while before arriving in front of a tower in the central square of the city on which the symbol of an eye was drawn above the door.