Chapter 80 - Missing Treasures (Patreon)

As someone who was devoted to her Religion, Mellisandre wasn't really that keen on the worldly possessions like Valkorion was or even Gotrik was. Both of them were "obsessed" with money for different reasons altogether.

For the Dwarven Slayer, even though the Slayer Cult was a powerful faction, they were not sponsoring their Slayers with money. They needed to make their own fortune during their journeys through the world, and due to that, they often acted as Mercenaries and Adventurers.

For Valkorion, the reason was equally understandable because, as someone who was born into the fallen noble house, Mellisandre thought that he wanted to restore his house or something along those lines.

Even though, sometimes, she was doubting that this was the reason, but she didn't have any real proof of that. 

Valkorion was indeed a bit obsessed with money, that much he could admit to himself because he wanted to gather as much as possible for his future endeavors.

Now that the presence of the Cult of the Dammed was confirmed and, it was most probably that they were here in much greater numbers than they had anticipated. Still, on the contrary, both Gotrik and Valkorion were rather eager for that fact.

Even Valkorion was surprised by the fact that he was eager to confront the Cultists from the Cult of the Dammed. It was something that he wasn't really keen on admitting, but he was too a bit of a battle maniac and loved fighting against powerful foes, especially in a situation that seemed to be desperate and lost.

It was filling him with adrenaline and a sense of purpose and excitement. 

It was no wonder that it was something that was within his Valyrian Blood, because the Valyrians, especially the Pure-Blooded Valyrians, thrived in the fire of the combat that made their blood boil in anticipation.

Gotrik Gurnisson, on the other hand, was already rushed towards the combat because the Dwarven Slayer lived for the idea of combat, and the Undeads and the Cultists of the Cult of the Dammed were just a new type of foe for the Dwarven Slayer to slay.

"We should proceed cautiously... the number of the Cultists should be higher than anticipated, but fortunately, we are heading only to the middle parts of the Pyramid, which would correspond to the Middle-Level of the Izalith of the Chaosflame Covenant."

Mellisandre stated cautiously because when she noticed that the Cultists even left the guards here, it was made clear to her that the presence of the Cult of the Dammed maybe even more significant than she had initially predicted.

Yet, at the same time, she was confident that they would be able to handle it rather easily with the current setup of the Beyonders they had and their Sealed Artifact. Not to mention, she herself was carrying part of the Will of the future Lord of Light, and if she went all out and used it, then not even the Middle Sequence Beyonders would last one second in front of her.

However, that would also render her powerless, and either Gotrik or Valkorion would be needed to carry her out of the Undead Catacombs Asylum because it would deplete her mental power, and she wasn't really that powerful to use it without any side effects.

Still, Mellisandre thought that even then, it was an absolutely wondrous Sealed Artifact because, aside from the complete exhaustion, there were not any side effects.

"As you wish, Priestess."

Gotrik, while eager for combat and killing some Cultists from the Cult of the Dammed, wasn't really stupid to ignore the warnings of the red priestess. Something was telling the experienced dwarf, that the red priestess knew far more than she was telling about this place.

As a member of the Red Temple, she was also the one who was most knowledgeable about the Cult of the Dammed and for sure knew about their capabilities much better than he, who was a member of the Slayer Cult.

Valkorion just took the warning with a nod of his head because he implicitly trusted Mellisandre enough not to take them to their deaths. He knew that she must be far more knowledgeable about the situation of the Cult of the Dammed, so they slowly started descending into the deeper parts of the pyramid. 

It wasn't really that surprising that most of the places in the pyramid were already cleared by the cultists from the Cult of the Dammed, and there were not any rogue Undeads like there were supposed to be. 

Though they occasionally came across corpses of the cultists from the Cult of the Dammed that were killed by the Undeads that were in the entire Chaosflame Covenant, but surprisingly, there were not many of them.

Actually, there were far fewer of them than any of their trio anticipated previously.

During the next half an hour, they came across several more patrol teams from the Cult of the Dammed, but most of them were too weak to face them in direct assault and were swiftly disposed of.

And like previously, neither of them had anything precious on their person, which, while infuriated Arcturus a bit, made him understand that the goons of the Cult of the Dammed won't have anything precious.

Though even the entire pyramid was cleaned out of everything precious and surprisingly enough, it seemed that there were indeed some valuable things, it appeared like they had been transported out already.

"The Cult of the Dammed must be here already for some time... look."

Arcturus said as he pointed at the wall, which seemed to be half destroyed because it looked like someone had torn out something from the structure of the wall itself.

"It seems that the Cultists were the ones that were taking everything valuable from this place, or else this place wouldn't be this kind of desolate. According to the history records, the Chaosflame Covenant was one of the richest Beyonder Organizations in the world, and Firelink Shrine was considered one of the most prosperous regions in the known world at that time, with the Izalith being called most often the Crown Jewel of the Western Essos."

Hearing what Arcturus said made a lot of sense to both Mellisandre and Gotrik, though the red priestess looked visibly angry at the sheer thought that the Cult of the Dammed was siphoning wealth from this place for who knows long.

"They indeed seemed to be here for some time... god knows how many treasures and amounts of riches they managed to get out of here."

For the Cult of the Dammed, getting their hands on large amounts of treasures was never good because they were one of the most dangerous Beoynder Organizations in the entire world, if not the most dangerous though appear according to Mellisandre, that one was certainly disputable.

"Whatever... we should get going. We are already close to our destination; the vaults for the Extraordinary Ingredients are located just three floors down."

Mellisandre stated that they were already very close to the place where Extraordinary Ingredients were being stored in this pyramid, which was also the place where Mellisandre was supposed to obtain the Extraordinary Ingredient for 'Him'.