Selene thought for a moment before nodding her head at Orion without hesitation. "I will arrange for some warriors so they can take you to the location Garnet talked about immediately," Selene responded.
If it were previously, she would have thought seriously about such a decision, weighing whether to take Orion to a location where he could find more artefacts they had yet to search through properly.
However, considering her current situation, she abandoned such thoughts without hesitation.
After all, even with the fact that the Crystalforge Clan now had about thirty-six Crystalforgen Clan's Elite warriors, all of whom were in the late-tier Crystal Emperor rank and could become mid-tier Crystal Overlord Warriors with the help of a special technique that increased their powers by over a realm, which was the highest tier that anyone, even she, had failed to reach in the past despite her strength. Selene couldn't refuse his request for control of the Crystalforge Clan and the Prismerian Kingdom if he had asked for it right now, as she was sure they still wouldn't be able to compete with the warriors that had come from Orion's village.
Besides, she had eavesdropped on the Crystalforge Clan's Elite warriors, discussing how they stood no chance against the warriors from Orion's village in an all-out war.
They would instead surrender and save more of the Prismerion race in a war that was already futile to fight from the beginning.
Also, she already had an idea about where Garnet might have discovered the artefact and was waiting to confirm it.
Despite not expecting the Queen's immediate response, Orion could understand her current train of thought, so he immediately smiled and nodded in understanding.
"Alright," he responded.
Selene then called Iris and the two other Crystalforge Clan's Elite warriors to guide him to the location as they left the garden.
….
Thirty minutes later
"Is this the place?" Orion asked curiously.
He and Iris, along with the two other Crystalforge Clan's Elite warriors, stood in front of a narrow passage, similar to the one they had used to go to the upper regions of the mountain several times.
"Yes," Iris responded. "So that individuals who go up the upper regions of the mountain don't get lost or do not get cornered in case they encounter White Flame, several passages connecting the upper regions of the mountain to the Prismerian Kingdom were made. Although some of them have been lost due to the changing terrain of the upper region of the mountain that occurs consecutively, some of them can still manage to resurface like this one," she pointed at another entrance close to it, indicating that the other one must have opened after the one before them was lost.
"Alright, let's go then, lead the way," Orion said.
With the Prismerian Kingdom behind them, Iris lowered herself and crawled into the hole, while Orion crawled in second, and the two other Crystalforge Clan's Elite warriors followed suit.
As they entered through the third entrance, it took them only about eight minutes to arrive at the first level, which was by another narrow entrance to their left.
This prompted them to cut their journey forward and crawl through it until the passage slowly widened, allowing them to walk on their feet with their backs hunched forward.
"I can see something," Iris said, capturing their attention and directing their gaze in the direction her eyes were focused on.
Orion's eyes narrowed as he saw the figure of a skeleton.
As they walked closer to inspect it, he noticed that everything on the skeleton had already dissolved, and even part of its lower body had turned to dust.
To confirm his thought, Orion stretched his fingers to touch the bony shoulder blades, and immediately, he watched as the rest of its upper body turned to dust and collapsed on the rocky ground.
"It's just as we thought," Iris responded.
Seeing Orion's questioning expression, she explained, "After seizing the Gemheart Clan's possessions, we noticed some uncommon and rare artefacts that were not recorded within the 'Ancient Codex' and should not be in their possession. This made us believe that the Gemheart Clan Leader, Clan Head Garnet, must have found some of the lost artefacts during the 'Three Great Slaughter'."
"Because it was after we had won the 'Great War,' it was common for a single individual to have several high-level artefacts for protection. So, the fact that many individuals had died during that time meant that many artefacts had gone missing, and it shouldn't be surprising that the Gemheart Clan had managed to find an artefact that could suppress both the Queen and the King."
Orion understood her words.
"So you are saying that there could be more?" Orion asked.
Iris nodded, "Maybe," she responded, "It could be that the Gemheart Clan had already raided this place and taken all the artefacts they could find, which were the unknown artefacts we had collected from them. However, I suggest we keep going deeper and see if we are lucky to find something else."
Orion nodded and followed Iris's advice, as it was also something that he was thinking about. After a few minutes of thoroughly checking their surroundings, they ventured deeper into the cave.
Within the next hour, they found about ten skeletons at intervals of five to ten minutes, each looking to be in the same condition, with some parts of their bodies having turned to dust, while the rest awaited the same fate.
Orion decided not to give up and instructed them to walk deeper into the cave. After two hours, they stopped encountering skeletons, and the narrow passageway was now wide enough for all four of them to turn around and look around if they wished.
Regardless, they hadn't encountered anything yet.
'If the Gemheart Clan hadn't encountered anything else in the next two hours, then considering the previous Clan Head's mission at hand, it's not a bad idea that they would have returned to the Prismerian Kingdom and be satisfied with what they had obtained, as the harvest was already enough. So if we keep walking, we might encounter a dead end or several more untouched corpses of dead Prismerion Warriors,' Orion thought.
