Chapter 40 — The Ancient Ruins
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
In fact, the ancient ruins—or relic site—in Gao Yang's memory was not far from where the company had made camp. It lay on the northern side of the Dark Mountains, most of it buried within the mountain massif, with only a portion of its structure exposed among the cliffs. In theory, one had only to look up at the Dark Mountains in the distance to glimpse part of the ancient site amid the rock faces several hundred meters above the ground.
Yet the long passage of ages had worn away all trace of civilization; sprawling vines and mountain vegetation covered the cliffs, layer upon layer concealing the ruins, and combined with the site's own collapse and the accumulation of earth and stone in the mountains, those structures exposed outside the massif were now very difficult to observe. Standing at the camp and gazing toward the mountain, even a hunter with the keenest eyesight would have trouble spotting, at first glance, anything unusual among those rocks and vines.
Once the matters of the camp were settled, Gao Cenxing and the other three set out into the mountains. A mere ten years would not change the lay of the land; with the satellite view from a decade ago in his mind, together with the route he remembered, Gao Cenxing found the mountain path without difficulty.
Amber looked rather worried. "I say... you're going into the Dark Mountains to dig up treasure, and there are only four of us. Doesn't this team strike you as a bit dicey?"
Gao Yang glanced at the half-elf. "And what would you suggest?"
Amber gestured broadly. "At the very least, a few hundred men to guard the way, a dozen master-level rangers and druids to hold the line, knights opening the road up front, mages anchoring the rear, and a grandmaster thief as formidable as myself to handle the lock-picking—isn't that the standard configuration for treasure-hunting in the mountains?"
"Standard configuration my foot!" Gao Yang had thought the fellow might actually have something insightful to say, but it was all nonsense. "What treasure-hunting company is outfitted like a regular army! And you make it sound so easy—go on, organize a company like that for me!"
"Fine, I exaggerate a little, but this is the Dark Mountains! The Dark Mountains!" Amber waved his arms theatrically. "In the legends, there's a demon lord living every eight hundred meters! And you're taking three people in—one of whom can only cast fireballs..."
"Would you believe I can knock you flat without a single fireball!" Rebecca flared up at once, hoisting her staff and pointing it at Amber. "Let me show you just how formidable the women of the Cecil family are!"
Gao Yang held back his great-great-granddaughter—plus one generation—and gave Amber a helpless look. "You'll die of that mouth of yours one day. And where did you hear that a demon lord lives every eight hundred meters in the Dark Mountains? That's just ignorant villagers scaring children. If there really were that many demon lords, they'd have overrun Ansul long ago."
As he spoke, he lifted his head and looked at the winding mountain path ahead.
"The Dark Mountains are indeed a dangerous place, but people have exaggerated that danger far beyond reason. In the days of the Gondor Empire, this range was merely one of the ordinary northern mountains, known together with the High Ridge Mountains of the southern continent as Loren's two great mountain systems, north and south. The Dark Mountains were not dark at all back then—rather, because of their rich produce and their many kinds of ore, they had the name of the 'Gilded Mountains.' It was only later, when the magic tide erupted, that the Dark Mountains happened to stand directly in the path of the elemental storm's fiercest assault. The entire southern face was eroded by the elements and became the dreaded Black Forest, and only then did the range gradually come to be called the Dark Mountains."