Chapter 507 Lancelot's Curiosity
When Lancelot woke up again, he found that he was not on the emerald grassland he had dreamed of.
"What... is going on?"
When he opened his eyes, he found himself still lying on the dry and desolate gray grassland of the Shadow Kingdom.
The sky was still the familiar, colorless gray-black.
Logically speaking, when Lancelot truly died, the Knights of the Silver Crown Dragon...his former colleagues and comrades-in-arms, would descend from the dream world on the Rainbow Bridge and lead his soul to the realm of the Silver Crown Dragon.
The towering mountains covered with snow are the Crystal Mountains where the Silver Crown Dragon lives. Distinguished guests come to visit from time to time, and there is a large library donated by Wei Zhe where the knights can study. Usually, the knights will gallop on the emerald grassland at the foot of the mountain.
It was a beautiful lakeside place with eternal sunshine, completely different from the Kingdom of Shadows where Lancelot had lived for over four hundred years.
This lake borders the Fairy Kingdom, where lost fairies occasionally stray. Some, captivated by its beauty, stay and become musicians and poets in the realm of authority. Fairies from the Shadow Kingdom also occasionally bathe in the lake and meet the heroic knights they admire.
If it weren't for the promise he made to Merlin, Lancelot would never have stayed in the dark and gloomy Shadow Kingdom to hone his martial arts.
Only in the Land of Shadows, a land without sun or moon, where neither life nor death exists, can Lancelot be resurrected through the grand ritual of "The Shadow of Avalon." After all, this ritual itself draws on the power of the Queen of Shadows to resurrect from the dead and reshape her body.
...Looking back on it now, I feel like I might as well have died.
But if he died now, all the hard training he had put in for the past four hundred years would seem to have been wasted. When he returned to the Emerald Grasslands, those old brothers he hadn't seen for four hundred years would probably laugh at him again.
Thinking of this, Lancelot couldn't help but put his hand on his forehead and felt a headache coming on.
"Huh?"
At this moment, a gentle and mature voice came: "Lancelot? I heard that you left?"
Lancelot heard this and thought to himself that something was wrong. He opened his eyes reluctantly and said, "Morgan...?"
Long silver-blue hair, eyes as clear as sapphires—it was the elven witch who had now transformed into a fairy. She was Gawain's biological mother and Mordred's adoptive mother.
She smiled faintly and stretched out her hand to Lancelot, as if to pull him up.
She was friends with Vivian, and through Vivian's connections, she studied magic under Merlin for a while.
Lancelot knew a secret: Morgan had a past relationship with Arthur, who was born a mortal. After all, Arthur's war with the High Heavens wasn't just one. He had also been wounded and dying, and it was Morgan who healed Arthur.
As a witch in the realm of love, her method of treating Arthur is naturally quite witch-like.
What made Lancelot even more uneasy was that Morgan seemed to have taken a fancy to him again.
Although she was initially elevated to the Emerald Grasslands as an apostle of the Silver Crown Dragon... but upon learning that Lancelot was planning to go to the Land of Shadows to learn martial arts, she followed him.
Now Morgan has become an apostle of Shadow Sky and often appears with Vivian.
Even though Morgan and Arthur had only had a one-night stand, and the Silver Crown Dragon had always ignored her... Lancelot still didn't dare bet on his boss's opinion of her. Despite Morgan's repeated advances, Lancelot never dared to touch her. After all, he still hoped to return to the Emerald Meadows after his death.
"…It seems something went wrong. The situation is a bit troublesome."
Lancelot coughed dryly, then sat up from the grassland without shaking Morgan's hand. "I seem to have been summoned to the material world by the 'Shadow of Avalon' ritual... but then I was sacrificed, and my newly resurrected body was snatched away by the City Breakers. Then I met some people... and suddenly returned."
"The one who broke the city? Enyo?"
Morgan was surprised when he heard the name: "Are you sure?"
"...What's wrong?" Lancelot realized something was wrong.
"She just died, and Xiong Tiansi went crazy again."
"Dead?"
Lancelot was stunned for a moment: "Who killed him?"
"I don't know."
“…She didn’t resurrect?”
Lancelot was also surprised. "Why not ask after resurrection?"
In theory, phantoms are immortal—in this sense, the material world is like an incubator. Once a soul ascends to a phantom, it can survive in the dream world forever. Souls that fail to ascend are shattered and randomly reshaped.
After repeated cycles, the number of phantom demons will naturally increase.
Unless the power is devoured by a phantom demon of the same path, the phantom demon will reshape its body from the dream world after death; even if its body and soul are destroyed, at most it will become a phantom demon egg and be reborn from the material world.
"That's the problem," Morgan said seriously, "She didn't resurrect from the dream world—she must have turned into a phantom demon egg."
Becoming a phantom demon egg means having all power taken away and falling into complete and total death.
According to Lancelot, even if he was resurrected from the form of the Phantom Demon Egg, he could not be considered to be exactly the same as before... His old memories were vague and fragmented, and the only clear memory was the memory of the host in this life.
“…Strange.”
Lancelot murmured.
He subconsciously recalled the ritual that briefly summoned him to the past.
If there's any problem...it's probably this.
The Ritual of Shadow of Avalon...did something go wrong, or was it tampered with?
"Now that you've seen the City Breaker, why not come with me to see Her Majesty the Queen."
Morgan invited enthusiastically, "Her Majesty the Queen is summoning us to discuss this matter."
"Her Majesty the Queen" is their respectful title for Ying Tiansi. After all, Ying Tiansi calls herself the Queen of the Kingdom of Shadow.
“…I have to go.”
Lancelot nodded slowly.
He suddenly thought of something: "Oh, right, I remember it was Merlin who maintained this ceremony?"
"No, Merlin is only responsible for constructing the ceremony. Vivian is responsible for maintenance." Morgan shook his head.
Hearing his adoptive mother's name, Lancelot paused.
He and Vivian had completely fallen out a long time ago, and now they were almost half enemies. They basically never met.
But thinking about the issue of the Shadow of Avalon Ritual, Lancelot suppressed the strange feeling in his heart and insisted, "What about Vivian? I need to ask her something..."
"She's gone."
Morgan was also a little surprised that Lancelot actually wanted to find Vivian...
But she still explained: "It's been gone for a long time."
"…What do you mean by disappearing?"
Lancelot was shocked—Vivian was also killed?
Guessing what Lancelot was thinking, Morgan shook his head and explained, "She wasn't murdered; she ran away on her own. Since Her Majesty couldn't find her, that means she's not in the dream world right now, nor did she appear in the world through the Shadow Sky Temple... So I think she must have been reincarnated."
...Why did I suddenly reincarnate at this time?
For some reason, Lancelot suddenly thought of the ceremony that went wrong.
Lancelot's expression suddenly became subtle: "...Are you sure you can't get in touch?"
Could it be that Vivian just ran away because there was a big problem that couldn't be solved during the ceremony?
Over the past few decades, Lancelot had met a good brother in the Kingdom of Shadows. He was a man who had died in the ancient Parthia Kingdom.
According to that guy, the ritualists of the ancient Parthian Empire loved to create something grand, as if they couldn't prove their prowess without creating a grand ritual. Therefore, they needed to extort a lot of money from their benefactors, and there was a high chance that the ritual wouldn't achieve the desired effect they'd initially boasted about.
——So there is a saying over there that only one of the ritual and the ritualist needs to be able to run.
"...I'm afraid Vivian has run away. I have a bad feeling."
Lancelot thought of that strange experience and warned, "I might have just been summoned by one of the Pillar Gods into a simulated world. I went through the real-life Shadow of Avalon ritual. There's definitely something wrong with that ritual... I suspect it could pull the Apostle directly into the material world and kill him."
"—I suggest you go ask the wolf cub that Vivian raised. He should know where his master is."
Lancelot didn't have a good attitude towards that guy.
Whether Vivian was his adoptive mother or his lover, Lancelot disliked the young wolf cubs she raised.
"I've looked."
Morgan answered without hesitation, "I've looked for her a long time ago—twice, even. I looked for her seven years ago when she first disappeared, and I looked for her again last year because I was worried. But he really doesn't know where Vivian is."
"...then ask Merlin."
Maybe that bastard Merlin knew—sometimes Lancelot thought he knew everything.
"Merlin can't find it either."
Morgan smiled bitterly. "He rarely returns to the Dream World. He's always playing in the Material World. The rituals can't lock him up, so who knows where he is now? I'm telling you, I'm very familiar with the teacher... As long as he doesn't want to see you, you'll definitely not be able to find him."
"I'm also very familiar with that bastard - but no matter how he runs, Wei Zhe will definitely know."
Lancelot was a little anxious: "Why don't you ask Gawain to ask? If you tell Gawain, he will definitely go."
"It's not a good idea to trouble the Pillar God for such a small matter. His Majesty might be unhappy..."
Morgan was still a little hesitant.
But Lancelot saw clearly that she simply didn't want to return to the Emerald Grasslands. There she had several children and her lover, who had become a Pillar God...
This is the trouble with those on the path of love. Once you live long enough, all the complicated emotions will become a mess.
However, Morgan finally sighed, unable to refuse Lancelot's request: "Forget it, I'll go ask - but don't get your hopes up. Even if I can contact Merlin, he may not know where Vivian is."
"It's always good to try."
Lancelot warned, "Better be careful... I think the Ritual of the Shadow of Avalon has become very dangerous, completely different from Merlin's original design. I suspect Vivian may be planning something."
"Don't worry, she won't be planning anything."
Morgan just smiled and comforted her, "I know her best."
——Can you understand her as well as I do?
Lancelot thought to himself.
But he was too polite to say it directly.
"Oh, yes," Lancelot thought of another name: "Do you know this person named Aiwas Moriarty?"
"…Descendants of Mordred?"
Morgan's expression was a little strange: "What's wrong?"
Mordred was her adopted son, and while they weren't related by blood... none of Mordred's descendants were related by blood either. In that sense, if Mordred could be considered an ancestor of the Moriarty family, then she could be considered one, too.
"I'm a little curious about him. Please help me research him... He should be young, a pastor, and very handsome."
Lancelot said: "I can't leave the Shadow Kingdom. Can you help me find him?"
"Okay, this is quick. Much easier than going to Gawain."
Morgan smiled and said, "After I meet the Queen, I'll go down and take a look... Since his last name is Moriarty, he should live on Glass Island, right? Then I'll go to Glass Island and take a look around. There should be someone there who knows him."
As a fairy, she could appear briefly from any lake in the material world at will, and Glass Island happened to have a large lake, so it was quite convenient for her to get there.
Those who threw axes around the lake saw these fairies.
"Remember to bring my kindness to him."
Lancelot instructed, "Just say that everything is fine here on my side—I've returned to the Shadow Kingdom and had a great time fighting alongside him. I hope to see him again in the future. Then I'll treat him to a drink."
What he meant was that he hoped Aiwass could ascend to the Dream Realm in the future. Then, Aiwass would be able to come to the Shadow Realm to find him.
They said they were fighting side by side... but they were actually two souls squeezed into one body, being beaten together by the city breakers.
But thanks to their mutual support, their souls were not crushed by the city's destroyers. If only one person had survived, they would have been crushed before long... Although Lancelot lived a long time, he was not an apostle after all, and his soul had not been sublimated.
However, Morgan's expression was a little subtle.
The dead person said to the living that he hopes to meet them in the future... This sentence doesn't seem very auspicious.
So she changed the subject and asked, "Should I bring him a token of your love?"
"...I can, but I really don't have any money."
Lancelot thought for a moment and said, "Please give Aiwass a gift for me, Morgan. Thank you. I will make it up to you later."
The ladies of the lake were all wealthy.
After all, they were once witches, and even if they transformed into fairies or witches, they still possessed the ability to create magical items and potions. Just a few hundred years of mutual exchange could accumulate a huge fortune.
"No problem, I'll give it to you as soon as I see fit."
Morgan was very satisfied with Lancelot's words and said with a smile: "I am looking forward to your gift too."
Update completed meow!
(End of this chapter)
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