Chapter 436 - 13. Lion-man Species_2
Continuing inward on the island, Fisher and his companions came across a hollow rock cave that linked the beach with the island’s interior. The cave’s layout was intricate but the scenery inside was quite chilling. Just as they entered, everyone was startled.
On both sides of the cave, numerous humans dressed in ancient attire from the Northern Realm were orderly sprawled. Each of their bodies appeared as if devoured by feathers, a condition far worse than the person hidden under the cloak they had seen before, with feathers completely occupying all their facial orifices, unmoving, maintaining the most devout bowing posture, facing the direction inside the island.
"They... They persisted to the last moment for their master’s mission, taking turns to guard that item. Now only I remain, and I dare not think what would have happened if you hadn’t come..."
The man in the black cloak, a Feather Man, covered his face with sorrow as greyish-white feathers fell from his face, identical to those Fisher and his group had seen earlier inside the ship.
Fisher couldn’t understand their language, so Emhardt was translating for him, albeit somewhat slower than everyone else, which made Fisher feel it was necessary to learn the Northern Realm’s language properly.
Hearing this and combining what he had seen on the ship, Fisher roughly guessed the situation.
It seemed that in the ancient Northern Realm, a Phoenix had entrusted these humans with a very important item, telling them to take the treasure out of the Northern Realm and hide it until the Phoenix arrived to relieve them of guarding the treasure.
However, the treasure possessed a powerful curse that afflicted these humans with a strange disease of growing feathers, and they had been waiting for the Phoenix to retrieve the treasure and break their curse.
"We have arrived, master..."
They walked along countless figures sprawled in sailors’, captains’, and chief officers’ outfits to the end of the cave. Outside the cave was a lush primeval forest, and following his pointed finger, Fisher saw a small stream at the cave’s mouth now entirely covered in Ice.