Seeing the list of buffs appearing in the status window, Magnus smiled like a maniac.
'Ha... Hahahahaha. While being half as fast is really dogshit, the defense and attack speed buffs should be good. And...'
Thinking this far, he placed the sharp end of the glove on his exposed chest. Before long, he started applying more and more pressure on the point, wanting to see when he would be wounded.
'25... Nothing. 50% still nothing, this is insane.'
His muscles bulged, and any other knight would be sweating just seeing this.
'100% and there's still not even a scratch? Even considering the fact that it said my defense got buffed...'
He glanced at the gloves, specifically at the razor sharp ends on his fingers, sighing. 'These things are supposed to be just good at killing knights as swords...'
Shaking his head, he gave up on testing everything in detail right now. 'Just knowing I can tank a hit or two is good enough, though I shouldn't focus on taking hits in the first place... Even if it's cool.'
'As for techniques, I don't have the mana for them. Whatever, definetely worth the two points I've used.'
"Hey..." A weak voice came from behind.
Both Magnus and Elara turned to look at Charlotte, who seemed to be anxiously looking around.
"What is it?" Magnus asked.
"Is it just me or has there been more corpses near here? I mean... Skeletons of humans and beasts, and other things left behind." she looked around the area, fidgeting.
At first confused by her statement, Magnus looked around. Elara followed suit before she spoke.
The occasional skeleton they saw previously, maybe one every hundred meters, now was one every dozen meters. More strangely, almost all of them had red colored clothes of different varieties. Some even had armor and a weapon next to them, which had rusted to the point where you couldn't tell which weapon it is.
"You're right..." Elara spoke, before she looked at Magnus. "They also seem to have belonged from the same organisation."
"Can either of you tell which organisation they belonged to?" Magnus asked, only for the two girls to shake their head.
"Then... Hey Elara, is your gut feeling telling you to go towards the structure in front of us?" A sudden curiosity came over him. "Also what happened with it and you not dodging the tongue of that creature?"
"Yeah, it says it's safe. As for the tongue, I was simply too slow to react..." Her expression darkened, lightly rubbing her neck.
"That settles that then, and since I don't think we're finding another structure anytime soon, let's keep going."
Neither of the girls objected and they continued their journey. Along the way the ground rumbled more and more often, each time lightly launching them in the air.
The number of corpses littering the ground increased even more, and an occasional siege engine followed.
Broken catapults that were half sunken into the ground. Chariots that were rusted, their emblems long since unrecognisable. He even found a battering ram of some sort, with only the head of it peeking from the ground.
Soon, Magnus became stunned upon the sight before him. Elara and Charlotte came next him, only to follow suit.
A metallic fortress stood in front of them, hundreds of meters tall and stretching as far as the eye could see. The subtle curve of the wall hinted it was a circular structure, while the lack of gates made entry seem impossible.
'How am I supposed to get inside, I don't think I can even jump that high...'
"Can we get in by jumping?" Charlotte, who was still carried by Elara, asked.
"Nope, too high even for me." Magnus waved his hand, "and we don't know what's beyond the wall, which is... Unsettling to say the least. "
"Then how about running around it and finding an entrance." Elara suggested.
Before Magnus could reply, the ground shook once more. This time the vibration was much weaker, yet it lasted for a minute.
"Let's go, I got a bad feeling about this!" Elara shouted as she ran to right side of the wall.
Following behind them, Magnus touched the smooth metallic wall. Even after being in this world for a month, having studied from Bastils personal library, he still couldn't tell which metal this was.
A glossy black surface that mirrored his reflection, polished to the extreme. Deciding to do a few quick tests while running, he clawed full force at the metal.
Sparks flashed and metal screeched, before he took a look at his glove. Two claws were broken, yet the metal where he attacked didn't even have a scratch.
'Scratch tests, what the hell is this shit?!'
He eyed the wall, still running. 'If its stronger than the enchanted steel on my gloves, then it's probably a magical metal. But... It's hardness is insane, and the sheer quantity...'
They had been running for a minute now, before a shiver went down his spine.
He knew the metal.
"Drant! It's fucking Drant!?" he yelled, prompting both the girls to look at him.
"Drant is the heaviest and one of sturdiest metals to exist, and this shit-" he slammed his fist against the wall, "Fits the description perfectly."
Charlotte shivered in understanding , while Elara innocently asked, "Why is that bad?"
He looked at her, before shaking his head. "Someone used a metal thats used to create magical weapons..." he pointed at the wall, "To create a nigh indestructible wall."
'Besides, how does the Kraken move with this much Drant inside of it. A coin of it is basically a kilogram... Something is very wrong here...'
"Ah..."
"A staircase!" Charlottes excited yell startled them both.
Turning to look where she was pointing, they indeed saw a staircase. It was stuck tightly to the sides of the wall, blending in almost seamlessly with the pitch black wall.
'Roughly 5 meters wide, enough for a brawl without being easily thrown off.'
Excited, they got to the staircase, and Magnus took the lead here. With each step, he jumped over multiple stairs as he raced to the top.
Along the staircase, skeletons wearing many different attires littered the ground, some which were obviously more recent than others.
'Even though this place gives me the creeps-'
Another rumbling sound interrupted his thoughts. Halting his footsteps, he turned to look at the blue forest. Each and every single one of the towers shook incessantly, as if something was going to burst.
A sudden eruption in the distance grabbed his attention. Glowing blue fluid sprayed hundreds of meters into the sky, like a geyser or a volcano.
Following that, more and more of these geysers erupted, and a green sea was beginning to form at the ground level, rising rapidly.
'It's beautiful...'
"Let's go, it's beginning and we're not safe here!" Elara yelled, snapping Magnus out of his daze.
He nodded, before continuing up the stairs.
A minute later, they stood atop the wall, their faces dazed.