CHAPTER 245: CHAPTER 245 RUNES

"If this place really was built as a prison, then the one who erected this barrier to trap the dark fairies inside surely wouldn’t place the core source somewhere easy to find. Otherwise, the barrier wouldn’t have lasted for centuries," Zion said at last, having finally pieced his thoughts together.

"They must have hidden it in a very obscure location, or perhaps there’s even some concealed mechanism hiding the entrance. To uncover it, we might have to comb through the entire forest, turning over every stone and tree in our path."

"That makes sense," Elric admitted with a heavy sigh, his shoulders slumping. "But the fact that we don’t have much time will make it harder. Before we finish searching, the people from our caravan might already be attacked by the Night Walkers."

"Then we can only die trying," Addison said firmly, urging them onward as she began scanning their surroundings with sharper focus. Seeing her like this, the others followed suit, spreading out just enough to search without straying too far from her side, careful not to vanish into the fog.

They suspected the mist carried illusion magic, or perhaps even a teleportation spell that could scatter them to different parts of the forest.

But under the soft, holy glow of the lantern’s light, they were safe from such tricks. The fog itself seemed to thin and retreat from its radiance, further confirming their suspicion that it carried some sort of disruptive magic, one they had no intention of testing.

"Hey, come here and look at this..." Zion finally called out, crouching beside a massive boulder thick with moss. His passion for reading about castles and architecture made it easy for him to guess where a hidden mechanism might be placed.

He had been checking the largest tree stumps and boulders he could find, scraping away years of moss and tangled vines with smaller stones to reveal what lay beneath, searching for inscriptions, markings, or even concealed buttons hidden on their surfaces.

Sure enough, after finishing with a tree stump that yielded nothing, Zion turned his attention to the large boulder. He scraped away years of moss until strange markings emerged, not letters, but symbols he didn’t recognize.

Unable to decipher them, he called out to the others. Within moments, everyone gathered around as he cleared the last stubborn patches of moss from the surface.

"This is a rune, placed in one of the four cardinal directions," Elric said, eyes lighting up with excitement. "If there’s a rune here, then it’s possible the entire clearing is actually part of an array. Quick—find the other runes so we can activate it!"

After hearing Elric’s words, Addison quickly scanned the area. If the runes were placed in all four cardinal directions, and this stone marked the West, then the remaining three would be in the North, East, and South.

The others came to the same conclusion, their gazes instinctively shifting toward those directions. But with the distances between them too far apart, splitting up wasn’t an option; they could only move together, searching for each rune one at a time.

With Addison leading the way, they decided to search north first, then move clockwise to find the rest.

The second rune was hidden beneath a curtain of thick vines, so well concealed that no one would have noticed it without clearing the overgrowth. Zion scraped away the moss to confirm it was indeed a rune before they pressed on.

Heading east, they discovered another rune tucked beneath a massive, hollowed tree stump cleverly disguised to look solid. Finally, in the south, they found the last one wedged tightly between two towering trees.

Once they had located all the runes, Elric set to work deciphering them so he could recite the incantation to activate the array. But the task was anything but simple. The runes were woven with riddles, and one wrong interpretation could trigger disaster.

Instead of revealing the hidden entrance, a single misstep might unleash a killing array, an intentional safeguard to ensure that no intruder could easily reach the core source. Only the prison’s original creators would have known the proper method to unlock it safely.

When Elric realized the truth, his stomach tightened and a wave of unease washed over him. "Your Highness," he admitted, his voice low and tense, "there’s a killing array layered over the real one. If I make even one mistake while deciphering these runes... I might kill us all instead of freeing us." He couldn’t bear to keep Addison and the others in the dark about the danger they faced.

Addison felt her heart sink into her stomach, the weight of the danger pressing down on her, but the sensation lasted only a moment before she made her decision.

"Don’t fret or rush it, Archmage Elric," she said firmly. "If anyone here can handle this, it’s you. And if you’re right, that means these runes are riddled with traps meant to catch anyone trying to activate the array and open the hidden passage."

"If that’s the case, then we’ll have to think outside the box to decipher them. We’ll help however we can; you don’t have to bear the burden alone."

She placed a reassuring hand on the old man’s shoulder, making sure he wouldn’t push himself too hard and risk panicking later on.

Fortunately, as an archmage, Elric possessed strong mental fortitude. Bolstered by Addison’s words, he felt as though a spark of insight had struck him. Without wasting time, he moved to inspect each rune in turn, carefully noting his observations in his large leather-bound book.

Once finished, he sat in the clearing and sketched the runes’ arrangement, recording exactly what was inscribed on each one. For fifteen minutes, he studied the layout in absolute silence, his eyes darting between the diagram and his notes. Then, suddenly, his face lit up.

"Wait—I think the Princess is right!" he exclaimed.

Addison, Maxwell, Zion, and Levi immediately gathered around, watching as the old man’s quill scratched across the leather-bound pages. "What do you mean?" Addison asked at last.

"Just as Your Highness said, this is a trap meant to annihilate any intruders trying to reach the hidden passage," Elric explained as he finished his notes. "Every riddle carved into the runes is a diversion; the real one is actually here!" He pointed to the center of the formation, where he believed the true riddle was hidden. If he could decipher it, he would finally know the correct incantation to activate the array.

Following his lead, they began clearing the overgrown grass from the middle of the clearing, scraping away the layers of dirt that had accumulated over the years as they mirrored Elric’s movements.

As Levi brushed away the dirt with his hands, his fingers struck something solid. "I think I’ve hit something hard over here..." he murmured. The other three, quick to catch his words with their sharp hearing, immediately moved to his side. Noticing the four of them huddled together, Elric quickly joined them as well.

Together, they dug into the earth and tore away the thick grass in the same spot. Before long, they uncovered a massive platform hidden beneath the overgrowth. Their movements quickened with excitement as they worked to fully reveal it, until Elric suddenly cried out, his voice brimming with triumph.