He told his dragons to follow the flying island so they would get closer every time the island flew farther. But the island would not move far enough for him to jump down. So he decided to make it happen.
It took some work but eventually he was able to find something on the island. It was an object like a crystal ball but smaller than his fist. He was curious why this was even there. There were many things like this throughout this world, but none of this made any sense.
Aldred smashed the orb and saw something inside of it, but at first, he thought it was just dark fog, but after concentrating, he could see what looked like a map of the island and around it. The area around the island was very desolate with only forest as its neighbor. There was nothing interesting nearby. There was signs of ancient ruins. Like a temple being buried by time. He walked to an altar, and saw skeletons in a kneeling position, praying to a long-broken statue.
"What happened here?"
Aldred suddenly heard someone screaming outside.
He opened up a space warp above the floating island and jumped through it to where people were crying out in pain.
A group of knights had been attacked by monsters. One knight who couldn't move tried to block the monster with his sword, but failed. The sword shattered when the creature got hit by the spell. Another knight swung his blade horizontally to slice open the back of one beast while another used her shield to fend off two more creatures. A few knights managed to stab their swords into other beasts before dying themselves.
The monsters that killed them didn't die either because they are too tough for death spells and curses to work on them. Aldred recognized that they must be some sort of golem from the description given to him.
The rest of the knights run away from these creatures that did not have a life bar. They all fell down or ran away from the golems chasing after them.
Aldred summon his Phantom Doomblade, bringing all the attention to him as it appeared with a terrifying blazing red flame. Then he charged towards the monsters, attacking and killing each one, ignoring any cries of fear coming from the knights nearby. The last monster standing was trying to attack Aldred but stopped once it saw how strong he was and was about to retreat until it was sliced apart by a lightning bolt thrown by one of the fallen knights nearby.
All the knights cheered in joy upon seeing Aldred save them.
"You're..."
Aldred turned around and found a tall man wearing plate armor approaching him.
"Aldred."
He introduced himself as General Kuznetsov of the Holy Knight Brigade. Aldred raised an eyebrow. Usually the word 'holy' means that he was a part of the Holy State of Montcresia. However, this general wore no holy symbol on his chest like a knight should, only a round-shaped gem with three white dots surrounding it. The symbol belonged to the Church of Light, which were followers of Goddess Aura. That was what the system told him in the history section.
Goddess aura... Church of Light. Aldred had never heard of that before. And how can there be an entire city in this island. He thought the island was small, but it had an entire forest, mountain ranges, and cities. In fact he just noticed that the island seemed like a world in itself the moment he landed here.
There could be some possibilities, but the most probable was space and dimension magic. It looked small from outside, but when entered it would reveal its true space. Aldred laughed inside. Of course it would not be an ordinary island.
"Thank you for saving us," General Kuznetsov bowed his head to Aldred who simply smiled back at him as they exchanged greetings.
"Are these monsters still around?" Aldred asked as he glanced at the corpses of monsters lying all over the place.
"No, they retreated once they saw your strength."
Aldred laughed. "Then these monsters are smarter than I though they are."
General Kuznetsov nodded in agreement. "We're glad we survived this time. Do you know why those beasts attacked us? There's an ancient ruin nearby with undead worshipping statues nearby."
"Oh, ruins nearby? I found some ruins on the way here as well." Aldred remembered he found something similar near the flying island.
The two knights walked to where one of the fallen knights was holding a broken sword, and pointed towards the direction the monster came from. Then General Kuznetsov continued to tell him about what happened after their encounter with the monsters. He said that many of them had been killed by golems which appeared out of nowhere and went berserk when attacking them. They had also lost half of their men before getting help from them. That was when they heard that this was actually an ancient dungeon.
"Golems, huh." Aldred wondered if he could obtain a better blueprint for golems, or maybe something that could make his golem stronger.
Aldred suddenly recalled an idea he just had. "General, did you say there were undead worshiping statues in the ruined temple?"
"Yes..." General Kuznetsov frowned as he confirmed what Aldred told him before continuing to talk to him. "You must be careful as you explore there, as there is no telling what might happen to you inside that place."
"I'll be fine, thank you." Aldred waved away the general's worries. After all, even if things get ugly inside, it would still take longer for him to find some kind of information than doing it himself. He wanted to hurry up and see how strong the golems were first.
"General! What should we do now? If we can't fight anymore then we have to run away!" One of the knights called out in fear after hearing that monsters are roaming the forest near their location.
"Calm down... Don't worry about it, I'm going back with Aldred." The general answered calmly while looking at Aldred who nodded back at him with confidence.
Aldred had never lost his confidence in fighting. Well, except for fighting with that robot lady. He kinda felt fearful of what Thinker and his master would create next. He had to grow stronger. Much stronger!
"I want to see how strong these golems are," Aldred said.
"Are you sure you want to explore that ruined temple?"
"I am a treasure hunter. I have come this far, and there is no way to back down."
The general then guided Aldred and his entourage to the ruined temple. When they arrived, there was already a crowd of people surrounding the area. Everyone was afraid since they saw the bodies of the fallen knights scattered on the ground nearby. A few of them had tried entering the temple but were turned away by undead creatures waiting outside.
Turned away, but more like being slaughtered.
"So there's undead and golems in there?"
"Yes," The general replied. "I lost a lot of my men because of them."
"I am sorry for your loss, general."
"Don't worry about it," he said. "I have lost a lot of men more than I can count during this treasure hunt. I just hope it's all worth it in the end."
Aldred was silent for a few moment. "I hope so as well."
