Chapter 427: Fleeing Fortress, Roland's Guilt

"This fortress is a living creature; the power of the Chariot has no effect upon it."

Wang Yu rubbed his chin. He had expected to conclude whether the Chariot’s power was sufficient to breach it or not, but he had not anticipated the final verdict: the existence Roland left behind was a living thing.

"A living thing? If so, opening this fortress will be difficult. As for its composition, we currently lack the means to destroy it."

Avia was equally astonished. Aside from Wang Yu himself, she was the one who understood best just how absurd the Chariot’s power could be. If it could not influence a fortress defined as a living organism, they possessed no current means of forcing it open.

"Hm? No, wait. This fortress does not seem to be entirely alive. From the main gate to a small room within, that portion does not fall under the category of a living entity..."

The Chariot’s power spread out, perceiving the overall structure of Roland’s fortress and transmitting the information back to Wang Yu. The areas he had not previously probed now fed back data, revealing that while the majority of the architecture could be classified as life, a small portion could not.

"Well, shall we take a look?"

The girl tilted her head and asked.

"Let’s try."

With the space occupied by that door, Wang Yu was not afraid of any dangerous traps. As long as he wedged that space into the gateway, there would be no major issues until his mental energy was fully exhausted.

Arriving at the fortress’s main entrance, the familiar, heavy gate stood before him. He remembered how, back then, he had shattered the key with a single punch, destroying the path for Yale and himself into this secret treasury left by Roland.

He had little interest in these messy treasures; curiosity, perhaps, but longing would be a joke. It was just that this man, hailed as the greatest wizard in human history, seemed destined to be linked to him because of Celin, an astrologer who spoke of building a "Utopia."

"If I don't deal with these inexplicable things, trouble will find its way to me on its own."

Wang Yu’s mindset had likely shifted since his encounter with the devil. Rather than being too lazy to get involved in such rot, he was now more willing to strike first, killing those who caused him trouble before he could be dragged into events due to his own peculiarities.

He pressed his palm against the gate. According to the fragments of information Yale had once revealed, its purpose was to identify the "key"—the access card granted by Roland to enter the fortress.

Since this gate and the room behind it were not alive, no matter how sturdy they were, they would be forcibly distorted and commanded by the power of the Chariot.

"Creak, creak, creak..."

The heavy gate emitted a harsh, grating sound. Though it did not confirm the presence of a key, Wang Yu used the Chariot’s power to drag it, forcing it open bit by bit from the center. The room behind the gate gradually revealed itself to them.

"Snap!"

A crisp sound of breaking echoed in Wang Yu’s ears. Before he could grasp the situation, the entire fortress began to tremble. The sound of the fracture had come from within the fortress, which had been judged as a living entity.

"Damn it, this thing can run."

The force transmitted from the room enveloped by the Chariot’s power made Wang Yu realize what was happening: the fortress had begun to flee due to his forced intrusion.

"Leave the goods behind."

Wang Yu stopped caring about the fleeing fortress—let it run if it wanted—but the portion he had seized with the Chariot’s power had to remain.

The part controlled by the Chariot was entirely within Wang Yu’s grasp. No matter how hard the fortress pulled, it could not wrest it from him. The tugging force intensified, and the tremors produced by the entire structure grew increasingly violent.

"Boom!"

With a thunderous roar, the pulling force reached its limit, yet it still failed to reclaim the parts commanded by the Chariot. The connection to that space was forcibly severed.

The living portion of the fortress surged forward at incredible speed, vanishing from Wang Yu’s field of vision in less than half a second.

"Tsk, I really didn't expect that... Avia, can you track its location?"

Wang Yu asked the girl. She had reacted faster than him the moment the fortress began to stir, immediately using a phase-gate spell to mark the structure and pinpoint its position.

"Wait, its position is changing in a completely irregular pattern. If this continues... ah, I’ve lost it. The spatial marker was erased by the turbulence in the void."

The girl was currently focused entirely on observing the constantly shifting coordinates through her perfect fractal lens—the location of the mark she had placed on the fortress.

But the coordinate parameters were fluctuating violently and erratically, causing Avia to ultimately lose track of where Roland’s fortress had gone.

"No help for it. But look on the bright side: at least these things were successfully left behind."

Shaking his head in resignation, Wang Yu looked at the gate and the room behind it—a room that connected to the door but was vastly disproportionate in size. The living fortress had tried to drag this room away from him, but failed.

What was gone was gone; the task now was to see what could be salvaged here.

Entering through the gap in the gate, which was wide enough for two, Wang Yu found that the area connected to the massive door was a small study linked by a corridor—the kind of study common in this world.

"This style... why does it feel so familiar?"

Looking at the study that gave him an inexplicable sense of déjà vu, Wang Yu began to ponder.

"Let me think... the study in the Cabin in the Woods, the study of the Night’s Edge..."

Seeing Wang Yu lost in thought, Avia poked his cheek and proceeded to list every study he had ever entered to help him recall.

"Oh! That’s a huge help. I remember now. It’s the Sky Mechanical City, the study of the tower spirit who called himself Malfurion. Though the layout is different—otherwise I would have remembered sooner—the feeling is very similar. It’s that common thread from the previous era."

Wang Yu said, pulling out the chair from under the desk and sitting down to observe and feel the room’s characteristics from that angle.

The natural expansion of the Chariot’s power, combined with the Knight’s exceptionally keen senses, allowed Wang Yu to discover minute details. Many of his feelings were not merely intuition, but grounded in reality.

"Even this table—the material confirms that whether or not these two studies are connected, they are definitely creations of the same era."

His palm brushed over the clean, tidy wooden desk. The Chariot’s power naturally sensed the internal structure and material; Wang Yu confirmed every minute detail. Having served as a human alchemy workbench for years, he possessed a wealth of experience regarding material composition.

"The creator of the Sky Mechanical City should have had a connection to Roland. That much is certain. Merlin, the greatest alchemist, and Roland, the greatest wizard—both peerless geniuses from the era of fighting the Abyss. These titles should be considered equivalent..."

Avia analyzed Wang Yu’s discovery. After confirming that the similarities between the studies were not strange, she offered another perspective.

"But it is a bit odd. Merlin, including Sura—no matter how you put it, is it not a bit too little that they left behind? From what you’ve seen, Wang Yu, you haven't really encountered many personal stories about them, unlike the many ambiguous tales of Roland."

"Compared to Roland, Sura and Merlin seem more like those who suddenly vanished. They left almost nothing of themselves behind. The deeds recorded in biographies and the like are quite singular and definitive—stories that everyone agrees upon."

The girl tapped her chin lightly, speaking of those buried by the dust of history.

"Exactly. And a place like the Sky Mechanical City—it makes no sense for them not to be interested in the key Roland left behind. Even if the city itself had no desire to explore it, would not one of the scholars there know of Roland’s key? That shouldn't be."

As the girl spoke, Wang Yu began to broaden his train of thought. Things that had already passed now seemed to hold many undiscovered questions.

"I never saw any books signed by Roland in any of the libraries in the Sky Mechanical City, including the study of that tower spirit who thought himself Malfurion."

"Even Mr. Samuel Hayden had the 'Dark Ritual Codex' given by Roland, yet the Sky Mechanical City, a super-knowledge repository founded by an alchemist on par with Roland, has no relevant knowledge. It’s very strange."

"Or perhaps Astartes deliberately concealed these materials. If so, why? Is it stingy, or does it not know either? Doesn't it already have the highest authority?"

Wang Yu pondered to himself, but the more he thought, the more confused he became. His current line of thinking was a circle; he was getting nowhere. There was still too little information to lead directly to these matters.

"Stop thinking. Let’s look at the things here first. Hm?"

Avia found it amusing to see Wang Yu’s eyebrows twitching as he thought. She walked over and patted his shoulder, reminding him to check what was in Roland’s study, but her words suddenly stalled.

The girl’s eyes turned toward the gate outside the room. While its appearance had not changed, the feeling had. The materiality of the door was slowly fading away.

"What, eh?"

Wang Yu had just followed the girl’s advice and opened a notebook on the desk when her soft exclamation caught his attention. But the content he caught in his peripheral vision surprised him even more.

"There are a few people in this life I have failed the most. Samuel, my best friend, you are one of them..."