Chapter 427: The Runaway Fortress

“This fortress is alive. The power of the Chariot won’t affect it.”

Wang Yu rubbed his chin. He’d expected a simple verdict—either that his Chariot’s power could shatter the fortress or that it couldn’t—but instead, he’d arrived at an entirely different conclusion: Roland’s creation was a living being.

“A living fortress?” Avia was equally surprised. Of all people, she knew best how outrageous Wang Yu’s Chariot could be. If even that couldn’t touch it, then they had no way of breaking in by force.

“Wait—no. Not the whole structure is alive.” Wang Yu frowned, feeling the Chariot’s senses spread across the stronghold. “From the gate to a small inner chamber… that part doesn’t register as living matter.”

The Chariot’s power swept through the walls and corridors, relaying every trace of information back to its wielder. The fortress, it turned out, was mostly alive—but not entirely.

“Then…” Avia tilted her head. “Want to take a look?”

“Let’s.”

Wang Yu smiled faintly. With the door in his mindscape, he wasn’t too worried about traps or hidden wards. As long as his mental energy held out, nothing inside could threaten him.

They approached the massive front gate, which was familiar, weighty, and grim. Once upon a time, he’d stood here and shattered Roland’s Key with a single punch, destroying Yule’s and his own path to Roland’s secret vault.

He had never been interested in treasures, not really. Curious, perhaps. What drew him back was a potential connection that he sought. This fortress, left behind by Roland, the man hailed as the greatest wizard in human history, was tied somehow to Selene, the astrologer who had once dreamed of building a “utopia.”

“If I don’t deal with these absurdities now, trouble’s just going to come knocking anyway,” he muttered.

That change in attitude had taken root after the battle with the devils. Wang Yu no longer avoided trouble—he would hunt it down instead. Before some hidden force could drag him into another mess, he preferred to strike first and end it on his own terms.

He pressed his palm against the cold metal of the gate. According to Yule’s old notes, this door recognized the Key that granted access—Roland’s personal authorization card.

But this gate, and the small chamber beyond it, were not alive. And no matter how sturdy they might be, the Chariot’s power could command and twist them by force.

A grating shriek echoed through the still air as the thick doors began to move. Even without Roland’s Key, the Chariot’s power was opening the gate, inch by inch. Beyond the threshold, a dimly lit chamber began to reveal itself.

A sharp, brittle sound snapped through the silence. Wang Yu’s eyes flicked up in surprise—then the entire fortress began to tremble. The sound had come from within the living structure itself.

“Damn it, it’s running!”

The surge of resistance pounding against the Chariot’s power told him everything. The fortress had detected his intrusion and was trying to escape.

“Leave the treasure behind!”

He tightened his control. The section of the fortress already seized by the Chariot remained locked under his command. No matter how violently the fortress strained, it couldn’t reclaim them. Its struggle only grew more frantic. The tremors shook the air, the walls groaned, and the entire structure howled.

A thunderous crack split the air as the fortress wrenched free. The link between its living mass and the chamber Wang Yu held snapped apart, space itself shuddering under the strain.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the living fortress bolted, launching away at an impossible speed and vanishing from sight in less than half a second.

“…Well, that wasn’t in the plan.” Wang Yu exhaled, rubbing his temple. “Avia, can you track it?”

“I tried,” she said, frowning. When the fortress began to stir, she had opened a Gate of Phases and marked it with a spatial beacon.

“But its coordinates are changing randomly, in no fixed direction. The fluctuations are completely erratic. If this continues—ah, I lost it. My mark’s been wiped out by the void currents.”

Through the Perfect Fractal lens, she watched as the coordinates flickered faster and faster until they blurred and then vanished entirely.

“No luck,” she sighed. “It’s gone.”

“Well, look on the bright side. At least something stayed behind.” Wang Yu gave a helpless shrug. Before them stood the great gate and the small, mismatched chamber that had resisted being pulled away. The living fortress had tried to reclaim it—and failed.

“What’s lost is lost,” he said, stepping forward. “Let’s see what’s left—and whether it’s worth anything.”

Passing through the narrow opening the great door had yielded, Wang Yu found himself in a surprisingly ordinary space: a small study connected by a short hallway. Its furnishings were simple, even familiar.

“This style…” he murmured. “Why does it feel so familiar?”

He frowned, staring around the room—the desk, the shelves, the faint scent of ink and parchment. The sense of déjà vu nagged at him.

“Let me think. There was the study in the woodland cabin, the Nightblades’ study…” Avia teased, poking his cheek as she began listing the places he’d been, hoping to jog his memory.

“Oh! Right, Skyborne City!” Wang Yu clapped his hands together. “That study belonging to the tower spirit who called himself Malfurion. The layout’s different, that’s why I didn’t place it at first, but the feeling’s the same. They share something… something of the same age.”

He drew out the chair and sat before the desk, observing the room from that vantage point and letting his senses expand.

When the Chariot’s power unfurled naturally through him, augmented by the sharp perceptions of a grand knight, it could discern even the faintest of details. What others might dismiss as a mere impression was often something deeper they couldn’t quite make out.

“Even this desk,” he said quietly, running his hand across its smooth wooden surface. “The material confirms it. Whether or not these two rooms are directly linked, they were built in the same era.”

His fingers brushed along the grain, the Chariot’s power tracing the texture, density, and the delicate structure beneath the varnish. For someone who had spent years serving as his own alchemical workbench, Wang Yu’s familiarity with materials bordered on instinct.

“The founder of Skyborne City must have been connected to Roland in some way,” Avia mused. “That much isn’t surprising. The greatest alchemist, Merlin, and the greatest wizard, Roland, both hailed from that same era, when humanity still fought the creatures of the Abyss. They were likely equals in their time.”

She paused, frowning slightly. “But what is strange is how little they left behind. Merlin, Sulla… even taking the chaos of their era into account, their legacies are sparse. You, Wang Yu, have seen more of Roland’s traces than of either of them.”

“Exactly.” He nodded. “Compared to Roland, Sulla and Merlin feel like people who simply vanished. They left almost nothing about themselves behind—no contradictory legends, no questionable records. Just the same polished stories, universally accepted.”

Avia tapped her chin lightly, her gaze distant.

“Right. And a place like Skyborne City, built by Merlin’s line, shouldn’t have been uninterested in Roland’s legacy. Even if the city itself didn’t care, there must have been scholars up there who knew of his Key. It makes no sense otherwise.”

Her words drew a thoughtful silence from Wang Yu. He began to see the web of omissions for what it was: a pattern.

“In all the libraries of Skyborne City,” he said slowly, “I never saw a single book bearing Roland’s name. Not even in Malfurion’s study.”

He went on, “Even Samuel Hayden had a copy of the Dark Codex, gifted directly to him by Roland,” he went on. “Yet Skyborne City, a grand repository of knowledge founded by his peer, had nothing. Not a word. That’s… very strange.”

Avia frowned. “Unless Astartes intentionally concealed those records.” She tilted her head. “But why? Out of pettiness? Or ignorance? It’s supposed to have top-level access to everything.”

Wang Yu rubbed his temples. “Maybe. But the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. There’s just not enough to go on…”

Avia laughed softly. “Well, let’s focus on what’s actually here, shall we?”

Seeing his eyebrows knit tighter and tighter, she patted his shoulder and gestured toward the desk. Wang Yu nodded and opened the notebook lying atop it, only for Avia’s voice to catch suddenly in her throat.

Her eyes were fixed on the open doorway. Though its appearance hadn’t changed, the feeling it gave off had. Its substance was fading, the material itself dissolving into air.

“What—hey, wait,” Wang Yu began, turning toward her.

But before he could finish the thought, his peripheral vision caught the words written on the first page of the notebook, words that froze him where he sat: “Of all the people I have wronged in this life, Samuel, my dearest friend, you are among them…”

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