Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic-Chapter 1395: Undead Guardians and the Laboratory
The True God believed by the Granger Family is the Sun and Earth God [Lantern Bearer], and thus this chapel from a hundred years ago is also a Sun Cathedral. Generally speaking, the specifications of cemetery churches differ from those of formal churches, and this is the first time Shard has seen a Sun Cathedral in a cemetery.
Although abandoned for over three hundred years, the main cathedral in Randall Valley City has long stopped dispatching priests, but perhaps the lumberjacks who worked here, out of respect, maintained it, or for some other reason, the church in the abandoned cemetery looks well-cared for, not appearing as though it was destroyed three hundred years ago.
The major earthquake of Common Era Calendar 1498 destroyed the most important underground cemetery in the Granger Family’s burial ground. According to Earl Granger, despite attempts to reopen the sealed passage to the underground cemetery after the earthquake, it was ultimately deemed too difficult and abandoned.
The subterranean rock layers in this area are extremely thick, making it more of a task to excavate stone rather than soil when digging into the ground. Therefore, there’s no worry about someone easily stealing from these sealed tombs. By the time the Outlander arrived in Common Era Calendar 1854, the only area left worth exploring was the chapel before him.
"If it weren’t mentioned in the memoirs that Mr. Lyman kept one of the four Gem Keys in his descendants’ custody, I would truly wonder if today was a waste of time."
Shard muttered. In the book "The Butterfly Family: My Life," only a small portion of the Chapters describe how Mr. Lyman arranged matters for himself. The book doesn’t mention the location of the cemetery, but it does detail the whereabouts of the four gems.
One was stored with the memoirs near the Ancient God’s statue; one was entrusted to a friend to carry away from his homeland; one was given to his most cherished daughter to pass down to descendants; one was thrown into a trading market, letting fate decide where it would be taken. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮
Because the memoirs mentioned the colors of the four gemstones, Shard could confirm that the white gemstone provided by Ston Osenfort was the one "entrusted to a friend to carry away from his homeland."
Thus, Shard believed that his journey here today should yield some results. If not, he would have to consider spending precious coins to enlist Luviya’s help with divination.
Gray outer walls of the chapel in the cemetery are wrapped in withered winter vines. All the windows are boarded up, but fortunately, the doorway is not sealed.
The rusty metal door is almost fused to the ground. Shard pushed it but couldn’t open it. After unlocking it with the Key of the Door, it still wouldn’t budge, making it clear that the door frame’s deformation had completely jammed it.
"I apologize for this."
He whispered and then kicked the door open, reminding himself that he should try to re-seal the door before leaving.
The interior of the long-sealed chapel was freezing cold and reeked of corruption. Such chapels are quite limited in their layout, typically comprising only the main hall for prayers and a living area for the clergy members.
The main hall was entirely empty, with construction debris piled up in the corners. The carcasses of dead rats and spiders lay in hidden corners, with no telling which perished first.
Shard bent down to set the metal door he had kicked off its frame against the wall but discovered upon lifting the heavy metal door that the lock showed signs of previous damage, though it was unclear whether this occurred decades or centuries ago.
Then, to his surprise, he noticed faint bloodstains on the rusty metal handle on the inside of the door. There was an extremely sharp protrusion on the handle that seemed to have accidentally caused a scrape.
"Interesting, someone has been here—Echo of Blood."
Narrowing his eyes, the almost invisible bloodstains on the door handle began to emit a crimson glow.
Shard then looked at the ground beneath the door frame, indeed spotting droplets of blood. It appeared the wound was quite large when it occurred.
However, it seemed the owner of the wound had no intention of treating it. Shard looked towards the inside of the church, where every few steps a drop of blood marked the ground with a crimson hue.
Following the blood, he ventured deeper, noticing the trail did not extend towards the church’s residential area for clergy members but instead vanished near the stone pulpit.
"Did they treat their wound here?"
With the windows sealed, the church’s interior lighting was quite dim. To avoid drawing the attention of the forest ranger again, Shard refrained from igniting the light at his fingertips. Hence, in the darkness, he could easily see the faint crimson glow of bloodstains at the base of the pulpit.
The amount of blood adhering here was extremely sparse. If not for the sunlight unable to reach so deeply from the entrance, Shard might not have noticed it:
"Instead of bandaging and cleaning their wound, they hurried here... What could be here?"
The space behind the pulpit, where clergy members stood, was akin to a lectern, usually empty below. Shard crouched down to observe the spot with his Dark Vision. When he reached out to touch it, he was surprised to find a stone button inside at the bottom side of the stone pulpit, with faint bloodstains adhered here:
"Is there truly a secret?"
He didn’t rush to press the button; instead, he set down a Silence Charm. Only after ensuring he was prepared did he attempt to press the slightly jammed button.
As the piercing sound of friction, which only Shard could hear, echoed, the pulpit shifted to the right, revealing an underground entrance and the stairs leading down.
Shard took a deep breath, intending to light up his fingertip and descend, but then heard a dull roar from below the entrance. Wondering what it could be, a ghastly green light already shone from the entrance.
"Moonlight Greatsword."
A silver greatsword emerged from thin air. Two seconds later, as the ghastly green light grew stronger, Shard saw its source. An evil spirit, clutching an oil lamp in its left hand and shouldering a shovel in its right, clad in tattered rags and with a skeletal face, floated up from the depths of the cave along the stairs:
"This outfit... a tomb robber?"
The interior space of the dark church was illuminated an eerie green. Shard stepped back two paces, making room for battle. The floating undead roared again, raised the oil lamp, and astonishingly turned into a mist, disappearing below the cave once more.
[To the left.]
With the undead’s roar sounding again from the left, Shard quickly dodged to the right. Then the ghastly green light appeared where the sound came from, with the evil spirit swinging its shovel at where Shard had stood, sparking off the ground with its ghostly green weapon.
Even though the undead looked terrifying, Shard had seen many similar things before at Midshire Fort.
Taking advantage of the evil spirit raising its falling shovel, Shard moved forward and swung his greatsword. The sword passed through the spiritual body of the evil spirit, but did not directly destroy it, only dimming its soul’s color significantly.
"Hmm?"
This was the first time encountering an evil spirit resistant to the Moonlight Greatsword.
The evil spirit spread its arms and puffed out its chest, its skeletal mouth opening while a rune’s glow flashed across its forehead. As a piercing screech appeared, visible shockwaves pulsed through the air around it.
Shard, being close by, felt the wave sweep over him, unexpectedly slowing his spirit’s recovery rate. Though not a permanent effect, it would take at least half a minute to recover:
"No, this isn’t a naturally formed undead! It’s a guardian here!"
Such measures to specifically counter Circle Sorcerers are generated by special undead rituals. Understanding this, Shard had no intention of holding back. As the evil spirit, holding the oil lamp like a scythe, rapidly swooped towards him, he raised his empty left hand and swung out a Moonlight Slash.
The undead’s shovel clashed with the silver arc of light, and the green glow-emitting shovel perished along with the Silvermoon Slash, further confirming the suspicion that this evil spirit was set up as a guardian by a Circle Sorcerer.
Shard continued to retreat, this time raising his left hand. A spinning silver Light Wheel formed in his hand. The Moonlight Wheel was hurled towards the weaponless evil spirit, which immediately raised its green light-emitting oil lamp.
Though the lamp did not provide any protective effect, it absorbed the glow of the Moonlight Wheel. But in exchange, the lamp shattered into light particles, unable to contain the sanctity of the moonlight’s power.
"Now!"
Shard still chose not to approach the evil spirit of unknown skills. This time, electricity crackled in his hand. The silver Thunder Spear left a striking silver streak in the dim church, then pierced through the evil spirit’s chest, exploding with it.
The Thunder Spear did not create much dust, only leaving some leaping arcs of electricity on the ground.
Once the dust cleared and the successful elimination of the evil spirit was confirmed, Shard breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded down through the doorway revealed below the pulpit.
The staircase was not long, and below the entryway was a relatively flat square basement, about half the size of Shard’s family bedroom.
Two skeletons lay against the wall at the end of the stairs, one dressed identically to the evil spirit from before, signifying they were tomb robbers who came together.
Within the small underground space, stone tables lined two walls, and a cabinet lined another. The tabletops bore flasks, funnels, balances, beakers, and some books, while the cabinet housed various biological material samples. Preserved in a potion akin to formalin, a third of the bottles in the cabinet remained intact, with Shard seeing frogs, snakes, and objects resembling tiger parts immersed within.
As for the floor between the tables and the cabinet, a large ritual base formation was drawn, though severely faded, it still appeared intricate and complex to Shard. Without needing to touch it, he could sense the residual elemental reactions within these traces.
"A Circle Sorcerer’s laboratory."
