Chapter 359: The Lost Clan

"How did you know?"

Benny turned his head in surprise, and before he could answer, he muttered to himself thoughtfully, "True, the Church must know, but why did it take so long, so very long for anyone to come?"

Field had no reply. He certainly couldn't say the Church had played deaf and dumb for twenty years, and that the arrival of those two unlucky souls was purely a matter of serendipity and self-inflicted misfortune.

If he had any choice, he should have broken both their legs when he drove the carriage, letting them stay safely in the manor to recover and write reports with new twists every day.

Instead of being forced to risk venturing into the fog beyond comprehension as he was now.

What troubled him was not just the fog in his heart; the mist before his eyes also seemed to grow denser, rather than dissipating with the sunrise as his intuition suggested.

The mountain moisture, unlike the river mist, carried an impure gray-green backdrop rendered by shadows and trees, settling from invisible heights and surging through the valley's natural constraints with chaotic winds.

Especially when looking upward, one could directly witness the gray veils rolling like a curtain, moving slowly yet swiftly. Like old, lingering bruises, or turbid saliva hanging from the clouds, flowing in streams past a vague barrier separating them from the sky.

"How long have we been walking?"

Traveling through the night had made his sense of time inaccurate, but after laboriously bypassing the ruins of the former village, hunger made him realize time had passed.

"Probably close to noon, slower than usual." Lucian, who was closer, took off a glove and felt the icy droplets falling into his palm. "We still can't stop; it might rain heavily soon, and then it will only be harder to walk."

"Is it far?"

"If everything goes smoothly, you will see the destination before nightfall. They will all be there, just as mountain streams inevitably merge into rivers, without exception."

Pain and cold, physical stimuli, woke his consciousness. By comparison, the itching and roughness on his skin were nothing.

Struggling to pry open his eyelids, the gray background divided by withered grass seemed familiar, yet the related memories, like the few fingers that had lost sensation, were merely connected to his body, feeling completely not his own.

He shouldn't be here, but where should he be?

【Dominic...】

A voice, a voice without tone or features, inserted itself directly, like a character in a drama who, without foreshadowing, triggers a crucial turning point, arriving wearing a mask signifying a non-human identity to deliver a decree.

And he was an actor controlled by the plot, groping the ground and trying to move. Applying a little force sent a deep, bone-piercing ache through his fingers, so he used his elbows to support his upper body, finally seeing the surrounding environment.

The setting was clearly not put together with much care; the surroundings were desolate beyond comprehension. Thin, moist soil layers covered the rocks between the mountains, as if the mountain body had been stripped layer by layer of its vegetation skin by a slow and cruel force, followed by the soil-filled main body, until the jagged skeleton was exposed, the last trace of nutrients washed away, leaving only drooping shrubs and weeds.

Various mosses crawled out of the cracks like mold, growing everywhere, carpeting every surface. Some, along with other plants, were torn up in patches, the missing parts nowhere to be found.

He stood up and noticed chaotic horse hoofprints wandering around, but saw no sign of horses; perhaps they had been frightened away by something.

This didn't matter; the voice had already conveyed all the plot without reservation. The character was in position, ready to complete the final act.

The terrain was rugged and difficult to traverse, and his not-yet-healed leg injury dragged on his steps, yet his feet always found the most suitable footholds, as if rehearsed many times, stepping onto the same route with different identities.

This reminded him of some stories about saints; they were not all people deeply versed in scriptures. Some came from the military, some from noble families, and some even buried themselves in farming for most of their lives, only to suddenly realize the ultimate meaning of their existence when they were very old.

So they abandoned everything, following the guidance of that most true, most knowing, most supreme, and most holy will, embarking on a journey to fulfill a sacred mission.

The process and purpose of the journey often embodied extraordinary wisdom and power, incomprehensible to mortal thought in its entirety, allowing only a glimpse of a part, just as the true face of the Heavenly Father cannot be seen by human eyes.

What he was doing now was exactly that.

Seemingly unrelated and complex contents pieced together in his mind through a key piece of information, forming a whole beyond the limits of thought.

With his wisdom, he could only see a small fragment, unable to contain its full scope.

Yet even a small fragment allowed him to imagine the grandeur of the whole, pointing to something unrestricted by time or region, existing in the past and the future, a thousand li away and yet within arm's reach.

It possessed its own will; he could feel this clearly.

It appeared in the consciousness capable of recognizing its existence, to be carried by them to its destined destination.

Apart from a divine oracle, there was no other explanation.

Bearing such a sacred mission, his steps became unusually light, as if part of his body's weight had vanished, so light that a slightly stronger wind could blow him away, carrying him to the boundless heights.

As he climbed higher, some things somewhat incompatible with the environment began to appear.

These were ruins of an older architectural style, constructed from cut and carved rectangular stones, with the mortar filling the cracks severely powdered and eroded, long having lost its binding function.

Soil loss caused the foundations to loosen, and snake-like, lightning-shaped cracks split the walls, causing them to bulge, crack, and collapse, crumbling into piles of rubble resembling hard, brittle crumbs.

From the remaining foundations and fragments of spiral staircases, one could vaguely discern a momentum no less than that of the Westmin Guardians.

The more column bases and arch stones found higher up indicated the builders' pursuit of aesthetics beyond mere function, as well as their substantial wealth.

Even if the fate that led him here was already strange enough, these magnificent ruins would still be astonishing.

Standing at the edge of the watchtower, which retained only half a circle of battlements, one could overlook the mountain ridge that tore through the sky curtain like a blade, splitting the inverted thick clouds and grim mist, with layers of peaks floating above the sea of fog; their black silhouettes lost their heaviness, resembling some kind of spread wing membrane or claw marks.

This was not a chance-formed spectacle, but an angle tailored for a prosperous family.

Strangely, no such family existed in his memory; the impression this mountainous area gave was always one of fragmentation and backward poverty, lacking even a formal name, despite being so close to the kingdom's center.

Curiosity shifted his attention toward the ruins, searching for potentially valuable information. He vaguely remembered this had some use, perhaps something to be written into a report, though the specific reason and goal were unclear.

A great family that once flourished, even if it left no name in history, should at least have left a mark.

He found what he wanted on a particularly stubborn remnant wall: a relief coat of arms nearly a person's height, the main subject being a somewhat uncommon creature, appearing in a leaping posture, covered in scales and possessing wings.

These features all pointed to the evil dragon, often playing the villain in legends, but this one's image was different; the body was slender and lacked sharp claws, appearing quite strange and unconventional.

A vertical sword pointing downward split the coat of arms in two, severing the dragon's body, its tip buried underground. The hilt was gripped by hands clad in armor; at first glance, it seemed to symbolize the common meaning of slaying a fierce beast, representing the family's spirit of bravery.

The overall momentum was outstanding, yet the direction of the hands' force felt opposite to the action of piercing downward. An accidental mistake was clearly impossible; no family would allow such a serious heraldic issue to appear.

The only explanation was that it was designed this way; those hands were not exerting force downward, but rather...

【Struggling to pull the sword blade out?】

"No..." Too familiar information pierced the chaos like a sword. No Dunling person would fail to recognize this iconic element; it should not appear here.

(End of Chapter)