Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 297 Sky Temple
Lucia suddenly turned her head and looked behind her. Gustav, Anasia and the ancient path in the forest had disappeared. In their place was a road that was several times wider than the central road of the Golden Temple!

There are countless tower-like torches on both sides of the road, and extending from the edge are magnificent stone walls like cliffs, on which are carved magnificent reliefs.

When he looked back again, what was in front of him was no longer the huge dragon body like the Guior Mountains, but a majestic palace that reached from sky to earth.

Lucia was stunned for a moment, not because of anything else, but because the bronze palace door facing him was too familiar - three years ago, at the starting point of all this journey, he pushed open this huge bronze door of tremendous weight and opened his own dragon blood inheritance.

"Lux Saint Petra" he muttered a name from deep in his blood in a trance, "Sky Temple - Eternal Light."

This is not the Fam Azra Ancient Dragon Cathedral which is now regarded as the main building of the Sky Temple, but the ancient Sky Temple sealed by the Dragon King in the storm of time and space. It is the source of countless dragon beliefs and the birthplace of the ancestral land. It is also the place where the Dragon God Heraris first came into the world from the virtual to the real!

Lucia walked step by step towards the bronze door that was so high that the top was invisible. Unlike the old, mottled, and dilapidated door deep in her soul, this huge door was intact and looked like new. Every line she saw exuded a majestic and dazzling light.

“It turns out that there is a giant tree here.”

He looked up at the pattern in the center of the door, matching it bit by bit with the vague traces in his soul.

It was a gigantic tree that was over a hundred meters tall, with red-gold patterns interwoven into its roots and branches. Countless raised tumors on the branches were breeding grounds for golden spores, and a large amount of red fallen leaves were piled up in the soil beside the roots, just like the fusion of death and rebirth.

After a long time, he turned and walked towards the reliefs on both sides of the avenue. The craftsmen of the Sky City in ancient times demonstrated outstanding skills that are difficult for people today to match, and depicted one vivid historical picture after another with their ingenious pens.

In the first picture, a powerful ancient dragon with five heads rose into the sky from a cracked tree stump and hovered in the sky above the furnace tree. Countless hybrid creatures that were born on the earth trembled and bowed to the ground, offering their loyalty and blessings to the oldest and most powerful creature.

In the second picture, the sky temple in front of him has been built. A tall and burly male figure like a peak is kneeling on one knee. The huge bronze door in front of him slowly opens, and a woman in a plain robe walks out slowly and puts her slender hand into his palm.

The next few pictures showed a series of battle scenes. The man and woman sometimes appeared in human form and sometimes transformed into dragon form, leading the boundless dragon army behind them like a storm to sweep every corner of the wild world. Even the one-eyed fire giants had to retreat again and again, shrinking into the desolate and extremely cold snowfield to live in dormancy.

There were also a few scenes of construction and development. Lucia saw three moons descending on a vast island in the sea, many star creatures of different shapes and forms building the prototype of a huge city together with humans, a giant dragon soaring above the Storm King's flag, and a dense crowd of people shouting two names that they had recited countless times.
In the penultimate picture, a figure dressed in a priest's robe appeared in the light with five fingers, gently picked up a magic ring shaped like the overlapping roots of a giant tree, and handed it to the woman with both hands.

She stood on the top of a thousand-step long staircase, with two huge gate pillars behind her that connected the sky and the earth. At the other end of the arch formed by the two overlapping gate pillars, she could just see the giant furnace tree with a crack in the center.

In the open space below the long steps, countless guards wearing earthy yellow robes and with horns on their heads prostrated themselves on the ground in awe, looking up at the Gate of God and the gods on the top of the tower, their eyes filled with a divine light of fear and yearning. The last picture became unusually simple, no longer depicting any figures or those complex and magnificent landscapes, only an abstract outline of a dragon egg waiting to hatch, with red-gold and moon-silver patterns intertwined on the surface of the eggshell, and twenty-one flying dragons of various shapes hovering around it, as if guarding the arrival of the king.

Lucia stretched out her fingers and gently stroked the relief pattern, whispering softly: "Supreme Egg, why is there an extra primordial flying dragon on the top?"

Just at this moment, a brilliant light suddenly appeared behind him. The huge bronze door had opened silently at some point, and a woman in a white robe appeared in the light inside the door.

Lucia didn't know how to describe her appearance. She only felt that the figure seemed to exhaust all the imaginations of beauty and goodness of billions of creatures in the world. Just standing there a hundred steps away, people felt that all the filth and fatigue in the soul were washed away by the light and warmth that came towards them.

He suddenly felt a sour feeling in the tip of his nose and a slight heat in his eyes. He subconsciously wanted to run towards that figure, but saw another figure hurriedly passing by him and heading straight for the front of the hall.

It was Guior—Lucia had seen the human-shaped portrait of the Mother of Flying Dragons in the Sky City and recognized her at the first sight.

"Your Majesty," she bowed slightly, her face shrouded in shadows, "The final preparations for the first phase of the Emperor's plan have been completed. Your Majesty Platon Sanx has just injected the Thunder Blessing into the Primordial Egg. It will be activated upon your final order."

"It seems that you still have doubts, Guior," Helarius said with a slight smile, "Can you tell me why?"

"I..." Gui Aoer's serious face flashed with a trace of entanglement. After a moment of silence, he gritted his teeth and said, "I am worried that the first phase of the plan is too hasty. I am even more worried that the child cannot bear the high hopes of the two majesties and countless compatriots of my clan."

"Personal feelings aside, these children are just experimental products after all. They are young, strong, and growing rapidly. They have greater power than their predecessors within their respective authority. But correspondingly, their minds are not strong enough to bear such power, so they are more impetuous, aggressive, and easy to lose their way. Isn't the child of Borelius a perfect example?"

"You're too kind," Helarius smiled and shook his head, "It's as if Borelius has become a traitor in your eyes. In fact, he did nothing wrong. It's natural for a child of this age to want to prove himself on a larger battlefield when he has power far beyond his peers. Believe me, when we really need him, the child will definitely come back."

Gui Aol seemed to be touched by the words of the Dragon God and did not utter a word for a long time.

After a long while, she finally raised her head and asked for the last time: "Your Majesty, do we really have no time?"

This time, Helarius also stopped smiling. She looked at the stars outside the palace and sighed deeply, "Yes, this is why the plan must be implemented immediately. If it is delayed any longer, it may be too late."

(End of this chapter)