Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence.

Chapter 463 The Key and Method to Solve the Maze
"While the blasphemers summoned an army of the dead and defiled this sacred land, it was we who, when you so-called guardians were nowhere to be seen, rushed in, with swords, with blood, with our lives! We stopped the undead from dragging you, these long-dead 'high' elves, into eternal enslavement!"

"We did what you proud ghosts should have done but didn't! And what did we get in return? Threats and insults from you old ghosts who don't even know the facts! Calling us reptiles? Calling us defilers? Calling our dwarf brothers who helped us stone bastards?!"

He spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, his expression utterly contemptuous: "Pah! I think you long-eared people deserve it! You deserve to have your ancestral graves dug up by the dead! You deserve to be dragged out by those skeletons and made dogs! You arrogant, stupid, ungrateful ghosts should be forever mired in death, not even worthy of being purified! Help you? I fucking regret it now!"

Every word Durmst uttered was like a red-hot branding iron, searing into the soul of the female elf gravedigger, long frozen by ancient hatred and arrogance. His undisguised contempt, his blatant curses of "deserving to have her ancestral graves desecrated" and "deserving to be treated like a dog," completely ignited the powder keg!
On the high platform, the translucent spirit suddenly froze. Then, like ice mist swept by a hurricane, it began to tremble violently and uncontrollably! Not a trembling of sorrow, but an extreme rage that seemed to tear its own spiritual structure apart!
The eerie blue light surrounding her instantly became blinding and chaotic, like an out-of-control aurora storm! The frost that had been merely frozen on the ground now spread and thickened wildly as if it had a life of its own, making a teeth-grinding "crackling" sound, and instantly covered the nearby stone pillars and broken crystal coffins, turning the entire hall into a ghastly blue.

"You...you...!" The female elven gravedigger's voice lost its previous coldness and clarity, becoming sharp and distorted, like countless shards of ice scraping against each other!
The ice spikes that had gathered above her head were no longer a static threat, but rather surged, multiplied, and split violently like boiling water, instantly transforming into a terrifying forest of countless huge, sharp ice spears that gleamed with the chilling light of death, hanging above everyone's heads!
The air in the entire tomb was completely sucked out, replaced by an absolute chill strong enough to crack steel and freeze blood! The invisible pressure crashed down like an ancient iceberg, making everyone feel their bones groan and their souls about to freeze!

It was a boundless, destructive rage originating from a legendary existence! It was as if, in the next instant, the entire elven collective graveyard, along with all the "defilers" within, would be completely buried and crushed into the finest ice dust by this endless ice!
Under this suffocating, apocalyptic, terrifying pressure, Su Li raised an eyebrow, sensing a hint of surprise.

This was the first time that this proud and sharp-tongued female elf hadn't immediately retaliated after being insulted. The old woman's anger was like a volcano about to erupt, suppressed to its limit. Given her temper and previous behavior, she should have already hurled back the most vicious Elvish curses, or even smashed those ice spears down! But she didn't! Aside from that distorted "You…", she seemed to have fallen into a state of rage to the point of speechlessness?
She was furious, but... she was avoiding Demst's insults!

Was it that she couldn't refute those facts? Or was it for some reason that she couldn't bring herself to kill Durmst directly?

A thought flashed through Su Li's mind like lightning. He suppressed the biting chill and the oppressive force on his soul, and roared at Demst, "Demst! Don't stop! Keep cursing her! Curse this ungrateful old hag awake! Curse her high and mighty pointy ears until they're deaf!"

Durmst shivered from the sudden chill and oppressive aura, his teeth chattering. He was about to shrink back when he heard Su Li's roar. He paused, then saw the lord's unusually determined and urging gaze. Years of tacit understanding made the eccentric Mor Knight instantly realize—the lord must have discovered something!
"Ha! The lord has ordered it, so I, Demst, am going all out!" Demst suddenly straightened his back (though he shrank back a little from the cold), his expression instantly switching from one of utter despair to a classic, roguish grin, a mix of roguishness and utter recklessness. Pointing at the chaotic blue light on the platform, his voice booming with a mocking tone that could infuriate anyone, he began his "performance":
"Oh dear! Look! Look! Is this old devil furious? He's trembling like a leaf! What's wrong? Did I hit a nerve? Did I poke at your noble, prideful, and self-righteous elven throat?" He deliberately dragged out the tone, imitating the haughty tone of an elf, which was both comical and grating.

"Trying to scare people with all these popsicles? Save your breath!" Demst exaggeratedly rubbed his arms to warm them. "Back in the day, when I peed on the Norsca Icefield, my pee froze into icicles before it even hit the ground! Your little tricks are only good for cooling us down! Oh, by the way, you've been lying in this coffin for tens of thousands of years, have you even forgotten what you are? Just a wisp of smoke! A wisp of cold air! You really think you're something special?"

He ignored the ear-piercing screams of the spirits and the increasingly violent icy energy, continuing his rambling, increasingly outrageous pronouncements:

"Guardians? Guardians my ass! Our homeland has been ravaged by the undead! If it weren't for us 'lower,' 'uncouth' humans and Iron Man who can't do anything but hammer iron blocks, your noble relatives would be lining up to tap dance for the Lich King right now! And you, instead of giving us a 'Savior of the Elves' banner, are just putting on airs? Acting all high and mighty? Bah!"

Demst even exaggeratedly made an extremely ungraceful nose-blowing gesture towards the platform (of course, he didn't actually blow his nose): "I'm kicking myself now! If I had known you were such an ungrateful, treacherous, and senile old fool who couldn't even recognize his place in death, we shouldn't have gotten involved in this mess! We should have let those skeletons turn your lousy grave into a public toilet! Let those ghouls come to 'burn incense' for you every day! It would have been much more lively than your current ghostly state!"

“And another thing!” He slapped his thigh as if remembering something, pointing at the female elf gravedigger’s magnificent but ethereal robes. “Your outfit looks impressive, all fluttering around like moldy curtains! But what good is it? Besides putting out some air conditioning and acting as a refrigerator, what else can you do? Oh, right, you can swear! But you only ever use the same few phrases, ‘Stone brat,’ ‘Blacksmith,’ ‘Uncultured’… You keep repeating the same things over and over, without any originality! I’ve heard drunkards swearing in taverns with more creativity than you! With your level of swearing, you couldn’t even out-swear the old ladies arguing at the village entrance!”

Demst's barrage of insults, twisted logic, and vulgar, scoundrel-like abuse rained down on the legendary elven soul, who prided himself on nobility and had guarded his tomb in solitude for millennia. The effect was... devastating.

On the high platform, the chaotic blue light representing the female elf gravedigger suddenly froze! The boiling forest of ice spears seemed to pause. The spirits were no longer merely trembling in anger, but began to convulse almost like spasms! The sharp shrieks of the spirits turned into an even more piercing, broken noise, filled with disbelief and utter humiliation!

"Shut...shut up! You lowly maggot! I want...I want..." Her voice was broken and filled with exasperation, but no real attack landed. The terrifying icy pressure remained, but it seemed to contain a hint of... utter confusion and helplessness from being completely stunned by anger?

Did Demst's "tactical verbal attacks" somehow shake the "heart" of this legendary figure from some strange angle? Or did they completely render her helpless?
Demst was in the middle of a tirade, his spittle practically freezing into ice crystals, his scoundrel-like arrogance threatening to overturn the solemnity of the entire tomb. Just as he pointed to the platform, preparing to launch into another brilliant discourse about the "moldy curtains" and the "old lady at the village entrance"—

Boom! Crack! Crack!
A massive ice spike, as thick as a water bucket and with edges gleaming with a deadly cold light, crashed down without warning from the boiling forest of ice spears! The target wasn't Demst himself, but it struck with pinpoint accuracy less than half a meter from his feet!

The hard, ancient stone slabs covered in thick frost shattered like fragile glass! A violent shockwave, mixed with sharp ice crystals and rubble, swept out like shrapnel!

"Ouch, my god!" Demst yelled, his cocky grin freezing on his face. He was blasted into the air and crashed several meters away like a rag doll, rolling several times before finally stopping.

His armor groaned shrilly, dented and deformed in many places, and countless tiny ice crystals were embedded in the gaps between the armor plates and on his exposed skin, instantly staining the surrounding frost red.

He coughed up a mouthful of blood, staining the ice shards on his chest red, and his face turned ashen white instantly, clearly indicating severe internal injuries.

"You lowly maggots!" The female elven gravedigger's twisted, shrill voice finally erupted, carrying a frenzied rage mixed with a sense of utter rage and suppressed frustration.

"You think...you think that the ridiculous rituals you performed here, sending off some insignificant souls...can absolve you of your overstepping your bounds today?!Can you justify your unbridled insult to the dignity of a guardian?! Don't even think about it!"

Her spirit fluctuated violently, and the forest of ice spears above her head trembled wildly. Clearly, her attack had missed its target not by her own will, but by some rule or instinct that forcibly distorted its direction at the last moment. She was unable, or rather, bound by some invisible contract, to directly kill the Knight Mor, who had once "bestown favor" upon the souls of the dead here!
Durmst lay sprawled on the ground, wincing in pain, feeling as if his internal organs had shifted out of place. He struggled to lift his head, wiping the blood and ice from the corner of his mouth, and managed to force a fawning, scoundrelly smile that was more like a grimace than a cry:
"Ouch... Ouch! Respected... cough cough... Guardian! Calm down! Calm down!" He coughed up blood and shouted in an extremely exaggerated tone, "I was wrong! My damn mouth deserves to be hit! You... you really... you were truly awe-inspiring, unprecedented! I almost went to see the old god Mor to report on my duties!"

He struggled to get up, but the movement aggravated his injuries, causing him to gasp for breath in pain. He could only prop himself up and bow repeatedly towards the high platform, his movements appearing extremely comical due to the pain and cold: "Misunderstanding! A huge misunderstanding! I wasn't cursing you! I was cursing those skeletons! Those undead scum who deserve to go to hell a thousand times over! It was them! It was that black-hearted lich named Old Jasper! He defiled the holy land and disturbed the spirits! He made such a mess of this place!"

“He still has a subordinate named Mhava who is hiding outside with a large number of undead, eyeing this place covetously. We…we are on your side! We’re here to help you clean house!”

Despite the excruciating pain, Demst spoke rapidly, attempting to shift the focus of his hatred entirely onto the undead: "Look outside! That Black Knight Mhava, and that grotesque dwarf monster beside him, conjured by necromancy, they're not quite dead yet! They're the real blasphemers! They want to break in and continue their destruction! If you freeze all of us 'friendly forces' into popsicles, who will help you deal with them?"

He took a breath, his eyes becoming "utterly sincere" (at least that's what he thought), and threw out his most important bargaining chip: "Honorable Guardian! If you'll be merciful and let us go to deal with those undead scum, I, Durmst Mor, swear on the honor of the Mor Knights! Once this is over, I will immediately bring all my brothers, no! I will invite the entire Mor Priests Order of the Blackwood Territory!"

"Just like we've been doing here for the past year! Seriously and properly, we'll hold the most solemn Mor Realm deliverance ceremony for every disturbed and defiled spirit here! Let them rest in peace! Let this sacred place return to tranquility! We guarantee to do it ten times, a hundred times better than last year!"

Durmst practically roared out his last words, then stared anxiously at the chaotic, icy blue light emanating from the platform. He had staked his last bet—the peace of the departed souls. This was the only thing he could think of that might move this stubborn, proud, yet dutiful old ghost.

The entire tomb fell into a deathly silence. Only the sizzling sound of the cooling lava pit, the groans of the wounded, and Demst's heavy breathing could be heard. The high-hanging forest of ice spears ceased its boiling, but the biting cold and terrifying pressure remained. The spirit of the female elven tomb keeper remained silent, her eerie blue light flickering violently, like the intense internal struggle within her.

Anger, humiliation, duty, and Demst's final promise about "sending off the dead" clashed fiercely in the depths of her eternally frozen soul.

Time seemed to freeze once more. Everyone's heart was in their throat. Su Li gripped his spear tightly, his palms clammy with cold sweat. Seranville held her breath. Gerson, forgetting his pain and anger, stared wide-eyed at the platform.

After what felt like an eternity, the cold, sharp voice finally rang out again. Although it still carried a chilling edge, it lacked some of the violent killing intent, and instead possessed a complex and incomprehensible sense of repression.

“…You lowly…opportunists…” she seemed to be struggling to control her tone, “take…your promises…and those…stinking moles who only dare to plot in their burrows…get out immediately…clean up the…filth outside…if…you fail…or dare…deceive me…I promise…I will make your souls…wail…in this icy hell…for ten thousand years!”

As soon as the words were spoken, the suffocating forest of ice spears that had hung above everyone's heads vanished instantly, as if wiped away by an invisible hand. The terrifying pressure of ice receded like a tide, and although the tomb remained cold, the soul-freezing despair had disappeared.

But upon hearing this, Su Li stepped forward and did not immediately agree to her conditions.

He clutched his aching chest, hot blood seeping from between his fingers, but his eyes were unusually sharp, like a wounded eagle still locking onto its prey. He forced himself to stand upright, his gaze piercing through the swirling dust and cold air, staring directly at the fluctuating, ghostly blue spirit on the high platform.

"Wait." Su Li's voice was low and hoarse, yet carried an undeniable penetrating power, clearly reaching everyone's ears and interrupting the female elf gravedigger's fading attention.

The azure light suddenly solidified, and a cold gaze refocused on him, filled with displeasure at being interrupted and scrutinizing him.

“Guardians of the Elves,” Su Li said, slightly out of breath but with a steady tone, “clearing out the blasphemers is our common goal, and also the only way for us to leave this place. But the problem is—”

He pointed towards the entrance to the tomb chamber, where the faint sounds of battle and energy fluctuations from the illusory battlefield of the "Battle of the Longbeard" could still be heard.

“This distorted space outside, this cage made of the ancient memories of the elves, traps everyone, including us and the undead. The elven phantom guards will attack any intruder indiscriminately. If we rush out now, we will not only face Mhawa and the monsters around him, but also the relentless siege of the entire 'elven army.' Besieged on all sides, how can we fulfill your request? How can we ensure the complete elimination of those blasphemers?”

He paused, staring directly at the two cold flames deep within the spirit: "You demand that we cleanse the filth, yet you place us in a hopeless situation where we are doomed. Is this fair? Or is it that all you need is for us to go out and die so you can find the next 'tool'?"

Su Li's words went straight to the heart of the matter, pointing out the most fatal dilemma at present—how to carry out the mission safely and effectively in this memory labyrinth that is hostile to all living things?
The azure spirit on the platform fell silent. Its flickering light revealed its inner turmoil. Clearly, Su Li's questioning was not unfounded. After a moment, the cold voice rang out again, carrying a hint of barely perceptible annoyance and… a trace of compromise:
“Cunning human, you are right about this awakened memory, full of hostility towards the living…” Her voice seemed even more ethereal, as if maintaining the communication was also draining her strength. “To truly leave this cage, we must quell the anger deep within this land, we must purify the deepest sources of hatred imprinted in this space.”

"What source of hatred?" Su Li immediately pressed, a guess already forming in his mind.

"The legends of those short, stout dwarves!" The female elf tomb keeper's voice suddenly rose, filled with deep-seated hatred. Even across countless ages, her hostility towards the legendary dwarf warriors was clearly discernible.

"In this solidified memory of the War of the Longbeard, there are the phantoms of three legendary dwarves. They commanded the filthy dwarven army, they caused the most horrific carnage, and their existence is the most stubborn cancer in this memory space! They are also the key nodes in maintaining this cyclical cage!"

Her words made the faces of Gerson Grayrock and the other dwarves turn extremely ugly, but no one dared to refute her at that moment.

“To open the cage…” the female elven Soul Keeper continued, her voice carrying a strange rhythm, as if revealing an ancient rule, “you must delve deep into the battlefield to find and completely purify the illusions of those three dwarven legends! Defeat them and erase their… mark on this space!”

"And then?" Su Li pressed on, "After defeating them, how do we obtain the token to leave? We can't possibly come back to you carrying the illusionary remains of three dwarven legends."

“…Foolish!” the female elven gravedigger scoffed. “When you successfully purify a dwarven legend’s illusion, at the end of those three paths that are constantly getting lost and looping at your entrance, where the image of the sacred tree was originally located, a small portion of the real remains of the corresponding legendary dwarf will appear.”

"Those were the spoils of war from the Battle of the Longbeard, when we defeated the dwarves. It was with the power of these remains that we elves used the mystical abilities of arcane and magical arts to create this labyrinth and mimic their phantoms from the Battle of the Longbeard."

"Those are the solidified remnants of hatred preserved deep within the memory of this land. Bring back the remains of those low mounds... and give them to me..."

Her spiritual light shone faintly, and a silver-green light slowly floated out, eventually landing in Su Li's hand: "This is a faded leaf from the Sacred Tree of Aetherarian. It can distinguish friend from foe, ensuring that you and your army are not attacked by elven illusions."

“Each piece of debris can be exchanged for a faded leaf from the Sacred Tree of Atherarion. When all four leaves are put together, they become a token to guide you out of this distorted spacetime. It will temporarily disable the cycle of space and point you to the only true exit…”

The conditions are clear, yet incredibly difficult! Venture deep into the perilous elven illusion battlefield, amidst attacks from countless guards, to find and defeat three legendary dwarven illusion warriors! After defeating each one, immediately return to the end of the previously "failed" path to retrieve the corresponding dwarven legendary remnant! Finally, return here with the three remnants, exchange them for three leaves, and only then can you leave!

This is almost an impossible task! Especially considering the team has already suffered heavy casualties and is exhausted!

"Well...humans?" The female elven gravedigger's voice carried a hint of cold mockery. "Do you dare accept this deal? Or would you rather stay here, keeping this old ghost and those undead company forever?"

The pressure returned to Su Li and his team. Should they accept this perilous challenge, or be trapped and die in the cracks of this time and space? There was no third way.

(End of this chapter)