The Paladin in the Abyss

Lancelot pulled out his hand half sword Frostslash from under his cloak and took the lead, running forward.

As he passed Alamir, he swung his longsword, startling the Elves. The plain sword blade struck the iron chain that was holding him, and to everyone's surprise, it cleanly cut through the chain as thick as a forearm, leaving only half a foot of chain still attached to the collar around the elf's neck.

Alamir stared blankly at the smooth cut, until Bruto pushed him to snap out of it. Too much had happened today, and he found himself distracted several times.

The Elves shook their heads, disdainfully threw the chain that symbolized their enslavement aside, and quickly followed the three Succubus who had already run into the passage, towards their freedom.

The group quickly ran up the stairs, but halfway up, Lancelot and Bruto suddenly stopped, causing Kalalin, who was right behind them, to bump into them.

"What are you doing? This body really is hard to balance..." the Scholar muttered in dissatisfaction, but then noticed the odd expressions on Lancelot and Bruto's faces, staring intently at a nondescript spot on the outer wall of the passage. Stay updated via empire

"What's wrong, what's wrong?" Alamir also came up to look, following their gaze, "There's no secret door there, I'm quite sure."

"Do you feel it?" Lancelot ignored the confused pair and asked Bruto directly.

"Of course!" Bruto answered excitedly, "It feels as clear as if there's an extra Goblin in my trousers!"

"What did you feel? What is behind this wall?" Kalalin was beginning to understand.

"Gemstone!"

"Gold!"

Lancelot and Bruto answered in unison, exchanging glances and smiling knowingly.

"What are you talking about?" the Elves were getting anxious, "Let's hurry and escape from here."

"Listen to me, Alamir," Lancelot turned to look at the Elves, his face serious, "You've been enslaved for ten years, right? It's time you received the compensation you deserve."

"I feel there's a large amount of gold behind this." Bruto excitedly slapped the wall, "The stone can't block our Dwarf intuition, there's no mistake!"

Alamir and Kalalin finally understood what the two meant, and the Elves lowered their heads to recall the structure of the Succubus Palace, then suddenly realized:

"Behind this... It must be the interior of the treasury!"

"Haha, I would have guessed it even without you saying," Bruto chuckled, pulling out his hammer.

"Are you planning to rely on that?" Kalalin looked at Bruto's hammer, worriedly asking, "Are you sure this isn't a load-bearing wall?"

"I'm not sure, and I don't care either." Bruto shrugged, glancing at Kalalin, "Do you care?"

"No, I don't care either," Kalalin stepped back two paces, "Go ahead."

"Don't be reckless, using that hammer, I'm afraid every mouse in the Succubus Palace will be shaken enough to know what you're up to," Lancelot cautioned, "Use your shield, the fin of that Shark Lizard has the effect of breaking through rock and soil,"

"Ha! I almost forgot, thanks for the reminder!"

Bruto pulled out a shield made from the back armor of a shark beast from beneath his robe, with its dorsal fins polished into the shape of a blade edge, flickering with a dim spiritual light in the dim setting, signaling the extraordinary nature of the object.

He proudly displayed the shield to everyone around him and then pressed it tightly against his body as he smashed into the wall with great force.

With a muffled boom, the entire wall he expected to fall did not collapse. In fact, apart from a bit of dust shaken off, the wall seemed unchanged.

"Ah, it must be this Transformation Ring that's making my strength lesser," Bruto tried to cover his embarrassment as he reached to remove the ring on his hand, "Watch me change back and try again."

"No, there's no need," Lancelot pointed at the wall, "Look over there."

Following the direction he pointed, they finally noticed a deep crack on the wall; it had been made by the sharpened fin of the shield.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Don't smash anymore, just use your shield to draw a door-sized square on the wall."

Bruto, surprised, looked at his shield, shrugged his shoulders, and according to Lancelot's instructions, pressed the shield against the wall.

The sharp fin, which belonged to the shark beast, sank into the stone wall's surface as easily as a bread knife into butter. Bruto moved the shield like a glass cutter, tracing a square shape on the wall.

The Dwarf then pushed against the cut area, but the wall remained immovable. He shook his head in resignation and spoke:

"It won't budge, this wall is too thick."

"I'll take it from here," Lancelot stepped forward, starting with a Soundproof Barrier spell, then stood quietly in front of the square Bruto had cut, quietly beginning to gather his energy.

The Transforming Ring only changed his physical appearance; his body's interior remained as that of a human.

True Qi roared out of his Dantian, rushing through his Meridians like a flood, bringing infinite power to Lancelot's body.

Succubus Lansna let out a delicate-sounding roar, her palms striking forward powerfully, hitting right inside the square Bruto had just traced.

The wall emitted a sound like an explosion, and the impacted area sent out a visible airwave, forming a deep indentation but still stubbornly refusing to break open a passage to the treasury.

Lancelot would not stop there, as his palms delivered one blow after another, like waves slamming against a rock, cracking sounds emerging continuously.

Finally, after more than a dozen strikes from Lancelot, the wall groaned and collapsed with a crash, revealing a large hole before everyone.

Alamir looked at Lancelot's superhuman strength with awe and was speechless. The wall had a thickness of more than three feet, and while the fin on Bruto's shield only made a cut less than six inches in depth, the rest of the wall had been forcefully shattered by Lancelot's tremendous strength.

What further disconcerted him was that Lancelot was still in his Succubus form. Over the past decade, he fought up close with Succubi daily, so he had seen all sorts of states of these demons, but the sight of this Succubus in a horse stance, continuously slamming the wall, was particularly jarring.

But now, no one cared whether Lancelot damaged the image of Succubi because everyone was blinded by the dazzling gold light.

Behind the large hole was a room filled with treasures, with piles of gold coins nearly transforming it into a swimming pool of gold. Gemstones of every hue were scattered everywhere, and both luxurious and finely crafted artifacts were easily seen. Armors and treasured swords sparkled with a brilliance, as if shouting:

"Hey! Look here! I'm a treasure! Quick, take me out of this forsaken place!"