The Paladin in the Abyss

"Ugh!" Soveris’s old face suddenly turned red, "Pr... Princess, why are you..."

"Where else can a zombie go? I could only squeeze in with Princess Elizabeth, so I came along." Fran answered confidently, "What, you don’t want to see me?"

"Of course not!" The elf denied urgently, "Seeing you makes me happy..."

"Oh? Really?" The Zombie Princess squinted her eyes, "But if I hadn’t made a sound just now, you wouldn’t even know I was standing next to you..."

"That... that’s because..."

Soveris really couldn’t continue speaking. Among the three before him, the succubus had such a stunning appearance and figure, and the little vampire with bat wings and fangs at the corners of her mouth had a unique charm. In contrast, the gray-skinned Zombie Princess was somewhat lacking in features...

"Ahem!" Lancelot cleared his throat awkwardly. Even he knew that silence at this moment could be deadly, so he quickly interrupted the increasingly strange conversation between the two, "This is just a disguise, an effect of Transfiguration... Let’s go inside, be cautious, there’s a smell in the air that I don’t like..."

The stable was a simple hut located to the side of the inn. In the two outward-facing stalls, the bodies of two gray pack horses lay in already coagulated pools of blood, killed by open wounds at the neck. It hadn’t been long since these horses were killed, most likely related to the skeletal soldiers who had entered the inn earlier. Besides the blood spots on the wooden walls, there were also recent burn marks. Initially, Lancelot was pondering over which undead creature had the ability to use flames but suddenly realized that the culprit might be none other than his ill-tempered steed.

Speaking of which, although he hadn’t seen the black horse in the past two days, as a summoner, Lancelot could still roughly sense the nightmare’s condition. His steed had been running north until it was stopped by the boundary of the Demon’s Domain. Recently, it seemed to be lingering around there. From Lancelot’s sense, the horse’s mood seemed good, perhaps it found a field of carrots or met a mare it fell for at first sight.

At the bottom of the stable, there was a small door directly connecting to the inn. At the moment, it was repeatedly opening and closing due to the air flow, creating an ominous knocking sound. Lancelot gripped Frostslash, his wings tightly folded against his back, and cautiously pushed the door open and walked in, followed closely by his companions.

They found themselves in a corridor in the kitchen area, where the ceiling lamp still cast warm, relaxing yellow light all around, but the scene under the lamp made their hearts shrink. On the not-so-spacious corridor floor, there was a thick, dark red bloodstain, as if someone had just mopped the floor with a mop soaked in fresh blood.