Rise of the Legendary Emperor

Chapter 139: Ancient Words

Unlike the girl beside Cassek who was shivering and shaking in fear seeing Don's black sword and the ominous aura the sword was radiating, Cassek had no fear in his eyes.

"I don't fear you Don, you have no idea who are you messing with"

"Oh, do tell"

However, without answering Cassek started to laugh like a maniac

"Do you think that I will tell you?"

Don shook his head

"Nah, I was just asking"

As he said, Don turned his gaze towards Arrora and nodded. The moment Arrora saw Don nodding, she raised her hands as the elven archers rained arrows on the remaining bandits killing them in the spot.

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

The girl's scream echoed through the forest as the resting birds flew away in flocks hearing her high pitched scream despite the heavy rain

"You are Lamar's sister, aren't you?"

Arrora noticed the girl's hand and saw one missing finger in her hand

Since Don paid little to no attention towards the girl, he had no idea how Arrora came to that conclusion but seeing the girl's reaction to Arrora's question, he knew that Arrora hit the bullseye

"You were never kidnapped, you staged that to scare your brother away from investigating the bandits, am I right?"

The girl stuttered and went to answer Arrora's question as Don stopped her with a wave of his hand

"Cassek, it's your time"

"No!"

The girl stepped forwards and shielded Cassek with her body

"Please don't kill him, let us go, we will never come back here, please"

Surprisingly Cassek came before her and gently took her face in his hand and smiled

"Its okay Tisha, it's time we say our goodbyes"

As he said, Cassek moved his mouth towards Tiya's mouth but when Tiya closed her eyes, she heard a loud banging noise as she opened her eyes to see Cassek lying on the ground unconscious

"That's rude, Don"

"YOU KILLED HIM!"

Seeing Cassek's body, the girl leaped at Don to scratch and bite him but when she was in the midway of her leap, Don simply punched her and necked her out

"Transport these two without anyone knowing and put them in a separate private dungeon, I need to know who's behind him"

"Oh, I thought you were going to kill him?"

"It was just to catch him off guards in case he has some tricks of his own"

"What about them?"

Arrora pointed at the dead bandits and asked

"Burn the bodies to the ground, the rain will take care of the shreds of evidence"

**********************************

In the blizzard there was no way to know which direction to go, the usual landmarks were hidden behind the white that swirled so densely. Even Ken's men in front of him were little more than a crude outline of a person mostly erased by the storm. The soft crystals he would have found so bewitching from the other side of mirror glass, found their way into his robe in every possible way. The packed down his neck and between the fabric that flapped at the front. He could feel his blood cool, skin became icy and fortunately, everyone had bound energy running through their bodies to keep them somehow warm. 

They shouldn't have come, not in this weather. Disorientation was a given; and the cold was a killer. He cried out for Elrond to turn but the wind carried his voice faster than he could speak. The world was being erased around him, and he'd be with it if they didn't find shelter.

"Uncle Ken, we should take shelter in that cave"

Elrond shouted as he released an arrow that hit and lit the cave entrance

"Yes,let's go"

It took longer than they thought to drag themselves to the cave through the knee-deep snow and it was worse for the short dwarves as the snow almost reached their neck.

"How much further to the Chelby peak?"

"According to my memory, we should be pretty close"

"Alright then, I'll make the fire and we will continue our journey after this damn storm"

Elrond said and made his way to the center of the cave while the men checked the cave for any threats like magical beasts or creatures.

Looking outside, Ken realized that the storm isn't going to settle for at least half a day so he decided to join the men in the campfire and eat.

"Uncle Ken, do you miss them?"

When Ken sat near the fire, Elrond asked while munching on the sandwich that Amaryll prepared for him

"Who?"

"Your family"

Ken took a deep breath and remembered the times with his family and his granddaughter in his time. Even though he was living his dream by serving the founders and protectors of Everlight, he still misses his family and friends. Yet seeing little Elrond, a smile appeared on Ken's face as Elrond was known as the greatest archer in his time and worshipped by Everlight's ranged units. Now Ken had the chance to see the greatest archer growing up from childhood.

"I do miss them, Elrond

"Me too"

Ken could see the sadness in Elrond's eyes as he patted Elrond's back

"A family isn't you're born with, it's who you will die for as well as who will die for you Elrond and you have all of us, all of the Everlight"

Elrond sighed and let out a small smile

"You're right, Uncle Ken"

"Oi, check this out, it looks like there's something behind this wall"

Suddenly one of the dwarves from the party called out from the end of the cave.

Putting the sandwich aside, Elrond and Ken made their way towards the dwarf and by the looks of the wall, Ken didn't know how the dwarf came to that conclusion

However seeing the rest of the dwarves' reaction, Ken realized that there might really something behind the cave walls

"How can you tell that there's something behind the wall? It looks just like a regular wall to me"

"That's because kid, you're nae a dwarf"

As the dwarf said, he knocked on the wall a couple of times and placed his ear on the wall

"Aye there's definitely something behind it"

"Can you break the wall?"

The dwarf took out his hammer and hit the wall with all his might and shook his head

"Nae I dinna think so"

"Hey look something appearing on the wall"

Unexpectedly after the dwarf hit the wall, a sentence started to appear on the wall shining

"What does it say?"

The dwarves scratched their heads and looked at Ken for his answer as the elves looked no better than the dwarves 

Looking at the sentence and the letters, Ken frowned as he had a bad feeling about this 

"What does it say?"

"How can it be?"

Ken shook his head in disbelief

"Uncle Ken, what is it?"

"The sentence, it's written in ancient"

Even in his time, they had no idea of who used the ancient language until the particular someone appeared and Ken would still shiver in fear thinking about that person

"Okay, can you read?"

Ken slowly nodded his head and started to read the words

"Hvat can vergar allr humans, mar save nosu too, too much abr thet er vandr, mar niat enough er horrid?"

"WHAT THE!"

The moment Ken read the sentence, the land beneath them started to shake as the ice cave crumbled

"No no no"

One of the elves shouted pointing at the cave entrance that had been blocked by huge ice blocks

Despite the surprising writing on the wall, the dwarves and the elves ran towards the cave entrance and tried to push the ice blocks to clear the entrance but no matter how hard they tried, the ice blocks didn't even move an inch

"Catalie, can you hear us?"

Elrond tried to contact Catalie through the Khal but unusually he didn't get any response from her

"It seems our only way out is through this wall"

Elrond said to Ken but Ken couldn't help but feel an illogical fear in his heart

"It's a riddle Ken mumbled

"Riddle? Tell us in the common tongue"

"It roughly translates into, What can kill all beings, but save us too, too much of it is bad, but not enough is horrid?"

"What can kill all beings, but save us too, too much of it is bad, but not enough is horrid?"

Elrond repeated Ken's words and tried to come up with an answer to the riddle while the dwarves seemed completely hopeless hearing the riddle as most of them kept trying to break down the wall

"Water?"

One of the elves said but nothing happened

"I think I got it, women"

Following the elf, a dwarf shouted at the door with a grin but his grin disappeared from his face seeing the unresponsive wall

"Elrond, keep trying to contact Catalie or his majesty, I try to figure out the answer to the riddle and open this damn wall"

No matter how hard Ken tried not to remember that person and the horrible things that person did to the people, he still ended up with seeing that person's face and the feeling he hated the most, powerlessness.

And looking at the ancient letters, he didn't want to admit it but he was terrified looking at those ancient words.

"Come on Ken, think harder, What can kill all beings, but save us too, too much of it is bad, but not enough is horrid?"