Chapter 52: The Shield of Obedience.

"We can now confirmed that whatever kills them is something that can easily kill a powerful person at the rank of Intermediate knight and this would mean that everyone of us is in danger if that thing is still here." Father said gravely as everyone of us suddenly went quiet.

It looks like another problem has been added to our list and we still have plenty to solve. We haven't even made any progress to our previous concern and now here is another one.

I'm not even sure if my father could still keep his sanity at this point. Even his training and cultivation have been halted due to the recent activity going on in our territory.

My father has now spent most of his time managing the territory from the countless problem that shows up after our city got trapped inside of this thick fog.

It's just a good thing that we were able to solve the small concern in our territory. Like the food supply and water supply.

But not the main concern of many people. Like the problem with the magic beast, the mysterious fog, and now this mysterious creature that managed to slay an entire team of templar knights.

We haven't even got any news about Gaspar's situation as the wall of thorns stopped us from entering the enchanted forest, and the fog have also made it harder for us to move in our territory as we can only spent limited time inside of it.

"The question that we should all be asking right now, is where the heck is that creature that killed them." Solemnly said by Hugo as he approached the broken cylindrical glass tank.

"I tried something earlier but I think you all should see this." sir Hugo said as he suddenly pulls out his long heavy sword from its scabbard on his back.

He immediately slash his heavy sword toward the broken glass tank and his attack only managed to make a small cut out of it.

You also need to keep in mind that a powerful person such as Hugo can easily slice a 12 inch thick steel and yet even with the help of his aura the glass on this tank only suffers from a small cut.

"Look, did you see that this is just my basic attack and yet I only managed to make a small cut from this glass." Sir Hugo said as he take another sword stance.

With the release of his breath he strongly swing his heavy sword towards the glass tank  using his sword covered in golden aura.

And yet, he only managed to create a crack from it proving the durability of this glass tank.

"And that is, with me using 50% of my strength towards that attack, and look at what kind of damage did I inflict to it." Sir Hugo said as he put back his swords on its scabbard.

Even with Hugo using 50% of his strength on that attack the only thing he did to it, is make a large crack on its surface not even enough to break it.

I also notice that this glass is 2 inches thick and has 2 different layers, and all the damages that sir Hugo has made is only on the first layer of the glass.

The crack's didn't even penetrate the entire first layer as it only stays a few centimeters below its surface.

"The durability of this glass can already be considered as a treasure for us, and yet in this place, they only used it as a prison cell to keep all this creatures inside of it." Kiel said as touch the glass with amazement.

"But I'm still baffled as what is the church doing in this place, and how did they even find out about this?" I said as I step forward and removed the armor that one of the templar of knight was wearing.

"What are you doing Lucas?" ask by my father.

"I'm just checking if I could find something underneath their armor that would help us identify what and how did they got here. They should have a letter or something of some sort." I said as I continued to undress them of their armor.

Don't worry they are still wearing their clothes underneath so there's nothing to see at all, besides they already look like a dried up bark of a tree.

"Wait a minute." I suddenly said outloud without thinking.

"Aren't this armors?" I said with a dumb face.

And they all just look at me with a weird gaze before confirming it.

"Ah, yeah." A plain reply from sir Hugo.

"It is master Lucas." confirm by sir Kiel.

"And what about it?" Father said.

Is what they said to me after I ask them that questions.

"This are the armors from the templar Knights each one of this is a precious treasure and they're in a good condition we can still used them." I excitedly said as I hurriedly removed their armor I guess a few wash is enough to clean it.

"Although what you said is true but Master Lucas I just want to remind you that we can't used them outside. Once the church saw that we are using their templars armor they would definitely retaliate against us." Hugo said with dismayed.

"Who said that were going to wear them as it is. We're going to used this armor as a material for forging our own armor. We will melt all them although we might lose half of them in the process it's still made out of Ignium ore. Even a full frontal attack from you sir Hugo would not be enough to destroy it in one moved." I said excitedly as I also saw their complexion brighten up by my idea.

"I never thought of doing that, all I wanted to do is to hide this evidence from the church since I'm sure that they don't have an idea about this place." Hugo said as he excitedly joined me in removing the Ignium armor from their body.

Ignium ore is also known as the hardest material known to man it would take an immense amount of heat just to melt this ore into a sludge.

At the same time this Ignium ore is a good conductor of aura and very popular to knight profession.

An armor made from it can increase the defense of a knight by several times as Ignium becomes stronger once it was exposed to the aura of a knight.

It's like there was a special forcefield created on its surface everytime a knight uses his aura that act as an added protection to any attack from other knights aura or a wizards mana. Since Ignium ore has the capability to repelled any energy attacks.

While physical attacks works best on destroying this armor it would still take some time before he can completely destroy it.

Although it is true that Ignium ore can repelled any energy attack It's still a mortal material after all. It still have it's own limits therefore it still break.

It can only deflect and ignore any attack below the Intermediate rank, once the power of that attack surpassed this strength then the force field it generates around it's wearer would fail and it would receive damage from it.

Though what's good at using this unique material is about its durability. Because even if the force field  it generates failed then the hard armor alone is enough to protect its wearer. Since it could still absorb half of the forced from the attack lessening the damage that it's wearer would get.

"It's just a shamed that more than half of this armor would not survive the reforging process and would eventually end up as a junk material." Kiel said suddenly with a regretful tone as we finished collecting the 30 Armors made out of Ignium.

"We all know that, but this is the safest way to keep all of this a secret and besides we just didn't gain this armor alone, we also found this fantastic place." I said to him as we put all the armor on one side of the room.

But after we collect all their armor we still haven't found anything that could give us a clue on what are this people doing in this place.

"Yeah it's indeed a fantastic place master Lucas, but have you forgotten that they also died in this room because of an unknown creature." Sir Anton said as he carefully inspect our surroundings.

"We don't even know if that creature is still here. We can't be complacent and just ignore the reason of their deaths." He added as he takes a closer look on the remains of the people from the church of Agatha.

"Or we would end up just like them."  sir Anton said in a whisper as all of us quickly change our expression.

"Anton is right Lucas, we can't be assured as long as we haven't found the creature that killed them, then this place is still too dangerous for us to explore." Father said suddenly as he broke the atmosphere around us.

"Your right father, I shouldn't be impulsive about my decision. But I'm still wondering on why is this the only glass tank that broke off and the other didn't?" I said as I stares at the other glass tank in the room.

Over all there is 12 glass tank in this room and each tank contains a different creatures, some have wings while others don't, some have claws and even have tentacles.

All of them are inside of this glass tanks full of unknown liquid but none of them shows any activity nor damage to their tank.

Only this one specific tank is broken for an unknown reason. And even if all the 30 people attack this tank at the same time, there should be some damages on the other part of the glass but no its only focus on one part that have a huge hole.

"It might be because of this." Father said as he pulled out a huge and thick shield behind a fallen table it seems like he hides it earlier before we arrive.

"A shield?" Kiel said in perplex.

"Father how could a shield damaged that glass?" I ask with amusement.

"Wait, that looks familiar." suddenly said by sir Hugo.

"It-It can't be is that really it?" Sir Anton ask with bewilderment.

"The shield of obedience!" Hugo said suddenly in surprised.

"How did it end up in this place?" Hugo ask my father in shocked.

"The Shield of Obedience one the sacred treasure of the church of Agatha?" Excitedly said by sir kiel with a crazy look on his face.

"The shield of obedience?" ask by both Michael and I at the same time as we looked at each other with a puzzled gaze.

"Both of you probably haven't heard about this treasure but this shield is not just an ordinary shield since it was created a long long time ago and it was considered as one of the sacred treasure of the church of Agatha." Father explain to us as he saw our puzzled gaze.

"Even the three biggest empire on our continent coveted this sacred treasure for it's value is immense." He said as he explain to us the importance of this huge ass shield. 🛡️

"But I thought that thing was lost by the church a long time ago?" Hugo said as he immediately touches it with great care.

"I also don't know the story behind but it seems like the church have lied to us, just to stop the 3 empires from coveting this treasure." Father said to him with a grave voice.

"But how could it be possible?" Exclaimed by sir Hugo as he stopped touching the shield and seriously look at my father.

" They even have a great story on how did they lost this sacred treasure and they even lost a lot of their templar knights in that venture." Hugo added as he said it unbelievably.

"You mean their story about the lost shield?" Michael suddenly ask out of nowhere.

"The story of the lost shield is that it?" I said while trying to remember that story that I have read on the old  propaganda books of the church.

It tells the story of how the church of Agatha have sacrifice it's huge force to calm down the anger of an unknown creature that suddenly shows up in the southern continent after the fall of the kingdom of Aqua.

They even narrates that it was the perpetrator of the magic beast riot that causes the downfall of the kingdom of Aqua. And in order to suppressed this monster the church have decided to seal this creature using the holy powers of 300 high priest but the sealing ritual have failed.

They have no other choice to defeat this creature but to send an army together with the strongest weapon they have that includes a shield that can protect them from any attack.

Yes, you all heard it right its an OP shield capable to defend from any attack no matter how strong the power behind that attack is.

But the only problem they encountered is that the unknown monster have find out that it cannot defeat them by any means so it decided to flee to the sea.

But before it fleas towards the sea it decided to attack one last time by taking the human who holds the shield hostage onto its mouth.

Although it is true that it cannot kill the human. The unknown monster must have thought that once it drop the guy holding the shield in the far sea then it won't have any problem anymore.

But what everyone didn't know is that the shield is also not just capable to defend. It can also release a devastating attack by using huge amount of mana that only a mana crystal can provide.

The knight that hold that shield have activated this attack mid air and it managed to kill this unknown creature but everything is already too late as they are already at the middle of the sea when it happens.

So the people on the land only saw a bright white light that lighten up the dark night for several moments before everything goes back to its calm.

After that night only pieces of the huge carcass of the unknown creature was found and the knight and it's shield was forever lost in the sea.