Chapter: 850

Jay cautiously placed his hand on the latch and turned. Readying his sword, he pushed it open with the tip of his blade.

Red stepped forward, ready for whatever was on the other side. However, as the door swung open, no enemies were waiting.

Instead, there were more of those strange basins filled with the green fluid.

“Oh. Interesting…” Jay approached. “this must be like their food. It’s no wonder they reacted so strongly to a few of those flesh pits being cut off.”

The basin itself was made from the single root that entered the room, having enlarged at the base to form a foundation, with a large bowl structure on top. If there was water in it instead of green fluid, Jay would have mistaken it for a wooden hand washing sculpture of some sort.

Jay raised a sword to cut it down, but just before he swung, he decided against it.

“If they knew we cut the roots before, they’re going to know if I cut this. The plant is warning the knights somehow.” He thought.

“As for how it communicates with the knights, I can’t be sure, but neither does it matter. After destroying the plant, this dungeon will hopefully allow me to exit, so ultimately, who cares?”

“As for leaving this dungeon, I still need to figure out who is innocent. Plus, the needle of the starved only ever says ‘tainted’, so it’s not much use at all. Everything might as well be tainted.” He shook his head.

Jay casually pulled out the needle and pricked the root. After a moment it turned the familiar red color.

“Red. Tainted. Even the damn plant is tainted.” He smiled reluctantly.

Jay wasn’t sure how often they patrolled this area, so he kept Red waiting in one room just behind a half-closed door, while he stayed close to the entrances of various rooms he searched. If enemies came through here, they could simply hide, wait for them to pass and hope that they didn’t enter either of the rooms they were hiding in.

Jay covertly entered another room, yet this time no root led under the door, so he wasn’t as cautious of enemies.

Inside the room was a glass table with various test tubes and other laboratory instruments Jay couldn’t identify.

“Strange… it doesn’t match the rest of the castle at all. I was expecting to find weapon racks, sculptures, or a storeroom.” He thought.

It seemed far more advanced than the castle it was in. After a quick search, he found nothing of interest, and couldn’t add anything to his inventory, so he turned to leave, placing his hand on the door latch.

“Must be a small research area by whoever set up this experiment.” He guessed, remembering the corpse in the white coat at the top of the tower.

Jay was about to exit the room, yet heard the stomping of heavy armor suits echoing into the hall. For a moment Jay smirked, hiding in the room, feeling as if the passing enemies were moronic, though as he listened to them getting closer, his paranoid thoughts cycled through his mind.

“Damn. If they go down the passageway leading to the wall, they will find the bodies.” Jay thought.

“But if they don’t see any knights at all, they will probably send for help…”

“Though if I kill these, they will notice a patrol missing. Dammit.”

After escaping the gatehouse, Jay bought himself some time by fleeing into the castle. However, there was a trail of dead knights left in his wake. It would only be a matter of time until the knights realized he was in the main castle.

“We may as well slay them now. Better now than later, when they come back in greater numbers.”

(Red get ready.)

Jay cracked the door and peaked through.