The black-haired maid opened her eyes in surprise when she heard what the hostess said: "Ancestral mausoleum? But Holy Ghost Day is already..."
"It's not to worship ancestors," Victoria breathed out , "Go and get ready, Maggie."
Maggie glanced at the hostess quietly, without asking any more questions, but lowered her head slightly: "Yes, I understand."
Just like Gawain Cecil who was finally buried under Cecil Castle in the south, the tombs of the founding dukes of Ansu and Suzhou were eventually placed on the land they guarded, guarding the mountains in the north. The place where Snow Wilder, the Winter Duke, sleeps is underground in this Winterfort that stands on the top of the mountains in the north.
Going through the lowest cellar of Winter Castle and walking through the deepest and most solemn black corridor is the oldest and solemn mausoleum area of the castle. The successive heads of the Wilder family have used huge They spent manpower and material resources to build their magnificent fortress on the top of the mountain, and nearly half of the manpower and material resources were used to maintain this mausoleum buried deep in the mountain.
The ancestors of the Wilder family were not favored by the power of the elements like Gawain Cecil. The tomb under Winter Castle relied entirely on generations of powerful human mages to exert elemental blessings through manpower. After being stabilized, it survived without any damage for seven centuries.
Victoria Wilder walked into the underground palace accompanied by her maid Maggie, but did not bring any extra entourage.
The magic crystal lamps embedded in the wall are infused with magic power, emitting a dim and constant light: in order not to disturb the ancestors, the magic crystals in the mausoleum are specially designed, and their brightness is only that of ordinary magic crystals. About half of the stone lantern. Under such a slightly dim light, the downward slope of the underground palace extended into the hazy darkness ahead in the Duchess's sight, looking shadowy and frightening.
But Victoria didn't care about the dimness, and she took steps forward.
The wall made of soul stone bricks receded beside her, and the solid stone steps and boots collided with each other, making a hollow echo that echoed in the oldest corridor in the entire fortress. Victoria had a sense of It felt as if she was walking against the trajectory of time - every hundred meters she advanced along this ancient corridor was going back a hundred years. She had walked through the civil strife in Wuyue, and In Ansu's last heyday, he went through dynasty reforms, experienced years of plenty, and finally... arrived at the original starting point of this country and this family seven hundred years ago.
The rectangular main hall of the mausoleum arrived. The maid Maggie silently came to the stone pillar next to the entrance of the hall and pressed her hand on a metal disk on the surface of the stone pillar. As the magic power was poured into it, everywhere in the hall The inlaid magic crystal lamps also lit up one by one, making the originally dark hall float with a layer of light enough to see things.
Portraits of successive heads of the Wilder family are hung on the walls on both sides of the hall. From the first generation of "Winter Archduke Snow Wilder" to Victoria's father, everyone has the same characteristics.With such silver hair and serious faces, they lowered their eyelids slightly, as if they were looking at the visitors who walked into the hall with serious eyes. Victoria Wild welcomed the gazes of these pairs of eyes calmly, and saw the words engraved in The line of ancient motto on the wall:
"We are Ansu's last barrier"
Victoria's eyes slowly swept across the faces of her ancestors, and finally landed on Her eyes lingered on the majestic old Duke for a long time before she whispered: "Father, as you expected, the hidden dangers of the Second Dynasty finally broke out... But I'm afraid you I can't predict where the biggest change in this chaos will come from..."
After a moment of silence, the duchess raised her head and ordered the maid beside her: "You go out first, I need to be alone. "
The black-haired maid silently exited the hall, while Victoria Wilder stepped forward.
She came to the stone platform at the end of the hall - this platform was about half a person tall, like a wide tabletop. There was a circle of mysterious runes and patterns engraved around the platform, and the surface of the platform was But it is as smooth as a mirror, with no traces of decoration visible.
After hesitating for a moment, the duchess put her hand on the platform and whispered the ancient incantation.
The magic in the air stirred up, and the runes around the platform lit up one after another. The smooth, mirror-like table began to ripple like water, accompanied by a milky white shimmer, which was about one foot square. The silver-white metal plate floated up from the surface of the rippling platform.
This metal plate is actually sealed in dense stone.
Victoria picked up the metal plate - it was not heavy and very thin. You can see the strong decorative lines on the edge of the metal plate, which is a typical Gondor style - she rubbed the metal On the surface of the plate, words immediately appeared on the metal plate.
Charlie Morn, guide, leader, protector, founder of the kingdom, we honor him as king.
Gawain Cecil, the Lord of Knights, the pioneer, the protector, the founder of the kingdom, we respect him as the guardian of the South.
Snow Wilder, the Frost Grasp, the guardian of knowledge, the pioneer, the founder of the kingdom, we respect him as the guardian of the north.
Anthony Lauren, the Lord of Warriors...
The Duke of the North, who has always been cold and distant, as inaccessible as the Snow Queen, saw this metal plate. She couldn't help but show a look of awe. Her eyes slid over the glorious names. Behind each name, there seemed to be a mountain towering over the sky. They represented the cornerstone of the kingdom and the seven hundred The power to overcome obstacles in the natural disaster that nearly destroyed human civilization two years ago also represents... this country's original treaty law.
This is a list. It is a list of all the founders of Ansu at the beginning of its founding. It is arranged according to merit and title, but it is more than just a list.
Victoria turned the metal plate over. On the back of the metal plate, a paragraph of text clearly appeared on it:
"...If a natural disaster breaks out that destroys the country, or an irreversible catastrophe occurs, leading to the death of the king Or due to various reasons, it is impossible to continue to protect the kingdom. If there is no available heir, the people on the list will succeed and take charge of the kingdom..."
Seven hundred years ago, it was a turbulent era.
It is probably difficult for people who live in a stable and peaceful period to imagine what it was like when humans just broke out of the wasteland and established a kingdom on a barren land. Even Victoria Wilder could not imagine it. We can only read records about that period of time from ancient books, or hear some sporadic and one-sided descriptions from the mouths of a few immortal races, but we cannot have an empathetic understanding.
But every time she saw this list and the text behind it, she could still imagine how crisis-ridden the kingdom maintained by the ancestors was at the beginning of Ansu's founding.
The aftermath of the demonic tide continues to invade the country. Until the completion of the Great Wall, monsters rushing out from the wasteland of Gondor are still attacking the human world, even in the areas where the demonic tide is the strongest. At that time, large-scale erosion would occur out of thin air in the hinterland of the Holy Spirit Plain. To this day, a black corroded wall brick still remains on a section of the city wall in the inner city of St. Sunil, silently recording that critical time.
In that era, the king could die at any time, the guardian duke could die at any time, and everyone could die at any time.
That’s why we have this list and the “emergency succession rules” behind it.
But just as no one had ever thought that the honorary "permanent right to develop" would one day come into effect again, people who knew this list probably never thought that there would be someone on this list suddenly. Come alive...
Victoria Wilder looked at the metal plate in her hand quietly. After a long time, she sighed softly, placed the metal plate solemnly on the stone platform, and Reversal of the spell sealed it back up.
After doing all this, she took two steps back, left the stone platform, and turned around to look around the entire hall.
There are many stone doors lined up on the walls on both sides of the hall. Behind the stone doors are corridors. Those corridors lead to different tombs. One day, she will also lie in one of them. One of the heirs will stand where she is now, looking around as well.
But you may think about different issues.
After standing there for a moment, the duchess seemed to suddenly make up her mind. She glanced at the closed door, and through the vague sense of breath, she knew that Maggie was still guarding the door. With.
In fact, even if no one is guarding, no one would dare to break into this place.
Victoria turned back, glanced at the previous stone platform, then walked around the platform and walked towards the door behind the stone platform.
This door is the most special, it is aloneOccupying one wall of the hall, there is no corridor behind the door, only a single tomb.
From this structure, the layout of this mausoleum is actually no different from that of Cecil’s ancestor mausoleum.
With the creaking sound of the magic mechanism operating, the duchess opened the door to the special tomb in the deepest place. She stepped into it and lit the magic crystal lamp in the deep tomb.
The magic crystal lamp illuminates this spacious hall, and the furnishings of the hall can be seen at a glance: a large number of stone slabs and magic pattern curtains depicting mysterious runes are arranged around the hall, and can be seen in other open spaces. Objects such as bookshelves, planetary instruments, and miniature mage tower models are arranged in seemingly random but orderly positions. On the high platform in the center of the hall, a black iron coffin is quietly placed.
"Ancestor, your descendants are here to visit you."
Victoria Wilder said softly with a solemn expression, then seemed to swallow lightly and walked towards the iron coffin. .
She came to the high platform and saw the stone slab leaning against the iron coffin. On the stone slab was engraved the last words left to the world by Snow Wilder, the ancestor of the Wilder family: < /p>
“Old guys, I’ve lived longer than you – it’s so boring”
It’s probably hard for outsiders to imagine that there is only a frosty and serious expression in various official portraits The ancestor of Wilder actually left such a sentence at the last moment of his life, but Victoria was no longer surprised by this sentence.
She turned her attention away from the stone slab and stared at the dark iron coffin in front of her, with a look of struggle and hesitation on her face.
She hesitated for nearly ten minutes before finally boldly reaching out and tapping the lid of the iron coffin.
The iron coffin showed no response.
After hesitating again, she reached out her hand again, lightly tapped the lid of the iron coffin, and quickly turned her head to look around.
Of course there was no one here, so the Duchess of the North took a breath and approached the iron coffin: "...are you there?"
Three embarrassing minutes passed, and Queen Victoria The only sounds in the Duke's ears were his own breathing and heartbeat.
The Duchess's face seemed to be covered with a layer of frost. She quickly straightened up, took two steps back, and whispered to herself: "... Damn, I am doing something stupid... ”
She quickly left the tomb and left the hall of the underground palace. When the maid Maggie saw her, the guardian of the north had regained his indifferent, distant, noble and calm appearance.
"Vicky, you've been in there for a long time."
"To confirm something," Victoria said lightly, "Let's go, Maggie, this time, I I really need to go back to my room to rest."
"Okay."