Chapter 230: Wall of Fire
The fortress sat at the edge of the valley, worn down by time and neglect. Its outer walls were cracked in several places, sections having collapsed entirely to reveal the empty halls within. The towers were mostly intact, but their tops had caved in or been stripped by storms, and the banners that once flew there had long since rotted away.
Grass had overtaken the main courtyard. Weeds sprouted between broken cobblestones, and puddles had formed in shallow craters where the stone had eroded. Old tools and shattered crates were scattered around, rusted through or buried under dirt and leaves. The smell of damp stone and mold clung to the air.
At the center stood the keep — a squat, square structure with most of its roof missing. Its walls were blackened in places, likely from fire. The windows had no glass, just narrow slits or empty holes, and the doorway had lost its door entirely. Inside, the floor was littered with debris: fallen beams, broken furniture, and the fallen carcasses of Nightmare Creatures Sunny had took the time to kill earlier.
Beneath the keep, a staircase descended into the ground. Unlike the rest of the fortress, this entrance had been kept shut by a heavy iron grate. The hinges were still stiff, and the scratch marks on the stone suggested it hadn’t moved in years before that. Faint runes had been engraved into it, ones Sunny couldn’t decrypt.
’It’s hot.’
The heat seeping through the seems of the door were reminiscent of when he fell into the Sky Below, where he fell through a sea of divine flame. Fortunately, this was nowhere near that intensity.
With Seele by his side, he stood before the door for a few moments. He hummed for a moment, before sighing.
"I can’t sense anything. Guess we’re going home."
As he turned around to leave, Seele stared at him in indignation.
"We haven’t even done anything yet!"
Sunny shrugged.