Abel had spent three days in Lila Valley; During the day, he would practice his knight's fighting technique inside the valley. In the night, he would go back to the dark world to clear up all the hell creatures in Black Marsh. With Flying Flame, it didn't take much time to eliminate the hell creatures he found.
Flying Flame had more opportunities to fight, and it really wanted to show off. Abel was happy about that since the more it kept using the same technique, the better control it would have of its own abilities.
There were a hundred beast-type monsters in front of them. They were shaped like giant gorillas, and their muscles were frighteningly powerful. In fact, they were one of the most muscular and agile hell creatures there were.
Flying Flame knew that. That's why it was so high up in the sky. It knew that a dragon's roar wouldn't do much to these hell creatures, but out of habit, it still screamed at them for a good two seconds. When it flew at them, they just howled back because they couldn't do anything else.
Instead of going down to have a close-range battle, Flying Flame did something that was much easier. He spat out a white flame ball. Within seconds, all the creatures in a ten-meter radius were incinerated into ash.
This was Flying Flame's new ability. By throwing a compressed fireball at its target, it could unleash an area attack with a ten-meter radius. The fireball would explode when it made contact to the ground, which was almost guaranteed to kill whatever it hit instantaneously. Well, that's pretty much the case if it was against a bunch of hell creatures.
Flying Flame was born to breathe out fire. It could only use this about ten times before resting. Drinking soul potions didn't make that number higher, but they increased its attack range and durability. The longer it could keep spitting out flames, the more damage it could deal to its enemies.
When Abel charged towards the battlefield with his summoned creatures, the number of hell creatures were obliterated. Flying Flame dealt with the vast majority of them, so all he had to do was to do a quick "clean-up." This was how things were going to be from now on. He could now save a lot of time from having to sweep off all the hell creatures himself.
"What is that?"
When Abel cleared off the last hell creature, he saw an abandoned building at the plain in front of him. When he rode towards it, he discovered that it was a square building completely made of giant stones.
Whatever power that was used to destroy this building, it must've been absolutely destructive. All that remained were broken walls and frames. This was probably the Forgotten Tower, where the Countess used to live in.
Abel ordered as he saw the entrance in front of him, "Stay out, Flying Flame!"
Flying Flame was just big enough to fit the entrance. It wasn't good at walking with its two legs, though, so it had no choice but to fly on top of the Forgotten Tower. As disappointed as it was with itself, it knew its obligations well enough to serve as a guarding post.
Instead of walking inside the tower right away, Abel chose to send in his five spiritual guardian knights first. That was the right call. Soon, he started hearing the sound of fighting coming from the inside. Once he came in with the rest of his summoned creatures, he saw that the spiritual guardian knights were fighting five large beasts.
So, five spiritual guardian knights and five large beasts, all fighting to the death with each other in a very small room. The spiritual guardian knights were wielding lances with shock effects, so even if they couldn't use their abilities, they could still protect themselves relatively well from the beasts' attacks.
When the beasts were knocked away, their backs collided against the wall because of how small the area was. That's when the spiritual guardian knights pinned them down with their lances. Whenever these creatures tried to move, the shock effect of the lances would keep trapping them from making any sort of movement. After that, their health points were drained away by death qi and attacks.
Abel didn't have to do much himself. The result of the fight was obvious from the beginning. With a wave of his hand, he easily took the five beasts' lives away with his "charged bolt" spell.
Now, he was worried that his poisonous ivy couldn't travel underneath the stone tiles, but it turned out that he didn't need to be concerned. The poisonous ivy was the strongest low-tier summoned creature for druids, after all. Even in a place like this, he could still see them occasionally hopping out from the ground.
When he took a better look at this place, he realized that everything was burnt before: the floor, walls, and ceiling were all charcoal black. All the furniture and decorations were damaged by fire. All that remained were pieces of charcoal that were on the wall.
Because of what happened here, the secret entrance that was hidden in the corner appeared to be more visible. It was an entryway to the underground dungeon. The light was dim, which made the dark pit that was below looked even scarier.
For a better view, Abel took out a night pearl from his portal bag. After putting it at his shoulder, he began to look for a stairway that he could walk down with.
Again, he sent in his five spiritual guardian knights first. As they had no use for a ladder, they could just disappear and re-appear in the dungeon. When Abel tried to sense their whereabouts, he realized that he couldn't hear the sound of them fighting. That's how he knew that it was safe to go down.
Abel was still on top of Black Wind. As its large paws padded on croaking stairs, they slowly made their way to the dungeon that was below. On their way, he saw that there was a small room that he could see with his night pearl. He had guessed that it was where the dungeon guards used to live. It became more evident when he looked inside.
There wasn't much to look at. There were some rotten corpses on the ground, and there were some broken wooden tools that he wasn't sure what they were for. The air was pretty clear, though. Whoever designed this place must've put some work in ventilation.
At the corner of the dungeon guard's room, there was a passageway that went further down. There was an iron door that was in the way, but everything except its edges was already eroded. With one command, Abel could easily tell his five spiritual guardian knights to charge in.
And so he did. After, he and the rest of his summoned creatures walked towards the passageway as well. It wasn't a long passageway. Actually, it was more of a stone stairway that was going down. After taking fifty or so steps down, he began to see a line of lanterns that were in front of him.Those were the lights of long-lasting lanterns. Long-lasting lanterns were made with a special oil that could only be produced with alchemy. While their lights weren't very bright, they could last for many, many years without going off. Like the ones Abel saw right now, some of them could switch on in the presence of a nearby person.
Long-lasting lanterns were often used for graves of large families. Knowing that actually just made it creepier for Abel. He could make the place more visible with his night pearl, but because of how big the place was, there were still areas that he couldn't quite see.
When his eyes became better-adjusted to the dark here, he began to notice four wooden barrels in front of him–but they looked new. They had clearly been in this place for some time, but no damage could be found whatsoever.
What kind of things would be inside them? Abel wasn't willing to find out himself. He still remembered the times when he encountered explosive barrels from inside the dark world. If these were really explosive barrels, he and his summoned creatures would surely take a lot of damage.
Since Flying Flame wasn't here, the spiritual guardian's knights would have to be the ones with the highest defense points. Not only that, but Abel could also enhance their fire immunity if he switched on their fire enhancement mode. That being said, these skeletons were his safest option to test out the contents that were inside these barrels.
When the spiritual guardian knight captain came near the four barrels, it did not hesitate to slash one of them open with its knight's lance. There was nothing inside, though. Abel was glad that that was the case. If there was anything valuable inside, it would've been destroyed just then.
Once it was told to restrain its force, the spiritual guardian knight captain proceeded to slash at the second barrel. An angry roar suddenly came from the inside. It was a hell creature, and it was interrupted from its sleep.
A hungry ghoul stood up from the broken barrel. After it tried to take away the broken wooden pieces, its shagged cloth and dark-black skin started showing. It was screaming as if it was trying to find the ones who were disturbing it. It looked kind of hungry as well. After waking up from a long slumber, it was desperate to replenish itself with some food.