Chapter Seventy-Nine: The Ghost of the Seagull
"Who is there?" Catherine, who was shocked into a cold sweat, hurriedly turned around, raised the silver gun in her hand and aimed it in the direction of the woman in white, but saw her shadow disappear in a flash.
"What's going on?" asked Rogge, walking up from behind and looking in the direction Catherine's gun was pointing.
"Just now, just now," Catherine looked back at Rogge in disbelief, and said in a trembling tone, "There was a woman over there just now, and suddenly she disappeared!"
"What kind of woman?" Rogge looked around curiously, but didn't find anything suspicious.
Catherine pointed to the place where the woman had disappeared and described her appearance to him, and Rogge listened silently and nodded slightly.
"Maybe you're just mistaken, from your description, the woman looks like Leah, maybe it's the surroundings that remind you of the night we met Leah. He patted Catherine on the shoulder and comforted.
Catherine nodded, glanced uneasily in the direction of the woman's disappearance, and followed Rogge to turn away.
Led by the little owl, the two of them briskly walked through the dark and gloomy jungle, bypassing the remote and hidden paths, and came to a cave hidden behind the dead grass and trees.
"Looks like this is the hole the captain was talking about. Rog looked around, and the grass was overgrown nearby, and all but the path from which they had come was surrounded by towering rocks, and a large withered tree stood beside the stone wall opposite the entrance to the cave.
Rog gestured to Catherine, signaling her to stand guard, and walked cautiously towards the entrance of the cave, stopping in front of the entrance, picking up a stone from the ground and throwing it into the hole, while quickly backing away.
A blue flame rose into the air with the throwing of the stone, instantly burning the stone into ashes, Rogge shrugged his shoulders, turned back to the stunned Catherine and said, "Even the stone can be burned to ashes in an instant, this is not an ordinary flame." ”
He asked the little owl on his shoulder, "Where's that enchantment stone?"
"Right behind you!" the little owl pointed to the big stone under the big tree behind him with his wings, and Rogge turned and beckoned Catherine to walk over to the stone together, and wiped the dust on the surface of the stone with his hand, and saw the clear words carved on it emerge.
Rogge silently read the contents of the stone, and suddenly realized: "I see, this island used to be the magic testing ground of the mage tower a long time ago, and these enchantments were also set up by them to carry out enchantment breaking experiments for magic apprentices, but they have been abandoned for a long time. ”
He pointed to the last line of text and said, "This is supposed to be the secret word for breaking the barrier: when the seagulls land sideways on the stone wall above the cave entrance, they will awaken the sleeping hellstone with their eyes, and only the hellstone can extinguish the hellfire." ”
"What does that mean?" asked Rog with a confused expression.
"Let's look at it one by one. Rogge pointed to the first sentence of the secret word, looked back at the mouth of the cave that burned with blue flames, and landed his gaze on the stone wall above the hole.
"When the seagull lands sideways on the stone wall above the mouth of the cave......" Rogge looked at the mirror-smooth stone wall, straight as a knife and an axe, and asked the little owl, "Little one, can you land on that stone wall?"
"Let me try!" the little owl flapped its wings and flew before the stone wall, stretched out its claws and tried to grasp the surface of the stone wall, but after several attempts it slipped down and could not stay on it at all.
"No, it's too smooth!" the little one cried out, turning.
"The little one is so small, but he can't even land on the front, how can a seagull more than twice its size land sideways on it?" Rogge thought as he took a cigar from his waist and lit it silently.
He looked down at the words on the slate and fell into deep thought, Catherine beside him couldn't help but want to ask, seeing his contemplative and meditative appearance, and afraid of disturbing his thoughts, he had to turn around and look around boredly.
Caught off guard, she noticed that something seemed to be moving in the grass on the forest path from which she came, and Catherine suddenly became alert, clenched her handcuff in her hand, and stared at it with her eyes.
After a few moments, a hazy figure slowly rose from the darkness, staring at her with a pair of glowing red eyes.
Catherine blinked vigorously to make sure she was not mistaken, and she jerked the silver gun in her hand and pulled the trigger, but the figure disappeared in the flash of the gunshot, and the silver bullet flew through the grass and disappeared.
"What's going on?" Rogge, who was alarmed by the gunshot, hurried to Catherine's side, and the girl pointed in that direction with trepidation, and told him what had just happened, Rogge frowned and stared at it for a while, and nodded slightly.
"There's no shortage of troublesome things on this island!" he called back, "Lilith!" The little owl flew to his shoulder and landed, and heard Rogge say, "Find a vantage point to observe the surrounding situation, and alert us in time if there is anything abnormal!"
The little owl agreed, and rose into the air and landed on the high stone wall beside the big tree, from which it looked down at all the places around the cave entrance, and a pair of eyes that sparkled in the night caught the movement around at any time.
"Don't be afraid, come to me. Rog gently took Catherine's shoulders back to the Barrier Stone, looked down at the words on the Barrier Stone, and looked back at the blue flames burning at the entrance of the cave.
Suddenly, a light illuminated the stone wall, and Rogge looked up sharply, only to see a small round figure appear on the stone wall, and he looked back at the night sky, and saw a ray of bright moonlight piercing through the cracks in the clouds, and shining over the mountain wall on the little owl, projecting her figure on the stone wall.
"I see!" he said back to Catherine and Lilith, "I know how a seagull can stand on a stone wall, it is a shadow, and the light of the sun or moon casts the bird's figure on the stone wall above the entrance to the cave!"
Lilith and Catherine looked back at the stone wall at the same time, and sure enough, they saw the shadow of the little owl standing sideways on the stone wall, Catherine clapped her hands happily and said, "Great!"
"It's all thanks to me!" said the little furball smugly.
"You're a little hero, but we have a second secret word to solve!" Rogge said, looking down at the words on the slate, "They will awaken the sleeping stones of hell with their eyes......"
He raised his head and took a deep puff of his cigar, and whispered to himself: "The eye of the shadow cannot be awakened or anything, it should point in the direction of the bird's gaze, if you stand sideways, there are only the left and right sides of the cave......"
He was about to turn around when his gaze suddenly rested on the large tree beside him, which had withered, but its slender branches still extended to the stone wall where the little owl stood.
"It's so far from the sea, so why do seagulls come here to land?"
Rogge stared at the long dead branches, and thought to himself, "If the Algorithm Tower deliberately released the seagulls on the island and used the outer barrier to prevent them from leaving, the seagulls will not necessarily stay here unless something attracts them to land." ”
"I see, it's a tree fruit! In that case, this is this way!" Rog turned and strode to the right side of the hole, searching around the grass, but looking around to nothing.
"Am I going in the wrong direction?" he straightened up, holding the rock wall beside him with his left hand, the blade of his fingertips lightly tapping against the rock wall, and only a few small stones fell off the stone wall with a few slight noises.
"Huh?" Rogge turned to look at the hole in the stone wall, and saw that the rock wall seemed to have been artificially treated, and he enlarged the damage with his hands, and found that the stone inside was made of volcanic rock.
"Volcanic rock is formed by the cooling of magma after a volcanic eruption, does the Hellstone in the secret language refer to it?" Rog stepped back and shot five blades at the rock wall, carving out a scattered piece of rubble in the wall.
He withdrew his blade, took the gravel in his hand, and turned to the hole, where Catherine and Lilith stood and looked at him as he threw the gravel into the cavern's flames.
The gravel that fell into the flames was not burned to ashes like the previous stone, but absorbed the energy of the flames and began to glow.
When all the rubble radiated red light from the inside out, and the flames at the entrance of the cave were completely extinguished, Rogge looked back and looked at Catherine, the girl nodded excitedly, but Rogge did not show joy, still cautiously stretched out his left hand, and fired a blade into the cave.
The blade swept over the entrance of the cave, and then flew back to Rog's claw blade, the hole was silent, and no more flames rose, Rogge beckoned to Catherine and Lilith and smiled: "Looks like we've passed, let's go, sweetheart!"
He led Catherine into the cave and made his way down the narrow, winding cavern, where he found the dry bones of several dead people along the way.
"This is the badge of the Adventurer's Guild. Rogge ripped a badge from a corpse and said to Catherine, "Murphy has one too, we call him the 'Flying Boots' badge, and only full members have it." ”
"Why did they die here?" asked Catherine, glancing uneasily at the corpse on the ground.
"Maybe we should be worried about who repaired the wall outside the door. Rogge turned meaningfully to Catherine and said, "Isn't it strange that these people must have solved the mystery and got the volcanic rock on the wall, but the wall is intact?"
"You mean, it's a trap?" asked Catherine in an uneasy trembling voice.
"It's obvious. Rog finished and strode towards the cave.
The two of them stepped over the dry bones scattered on the ground and came to a towering and wide cavern, the ground in the center of the cave bulging upwards to look like a large burial bag.
As Rog stepped up the mound, he heard Catherine's scream behind him, and he turned back to find a rotting hand sticking out of the dirt and grabbing Catherine's ankle.
Rog stepped forward and kicked off the rotten hand, sneered, and said, "Is this the beginning?"
A roar of rage reached Rogge's ears, and a humanoid monster with a pus-covered face and a festering body crawled out of the dirt, opening its mouth and pounced on Rogge.
Rog stepped back nimbly, raised his leg condescendingly and slashed down, stomping the monster to the ground, his white boots smashing its tattered head.
"Little zombie, you're lucky to have met me!" Roger smiled, looked back at the pale Catherine and said, "I don't think there will be only one of these things here!"
Before he could finish speaking, countless mutilated and festering arms stretched out from the dirt, and hordes of zombies climbed to the ground from around the mound, shaking their rotten bodies and lunging towards the two of them.