Mystery: The Undead Don't Die from Linking the Fire

Chapter 247 Skipping Class Comes at a Price

Audrey hesitated before speaking:

"Um, Karura..."

"Please call me Fire Keeper," Carla interrupted her, correcting her.

Audrey noticed that Carula seemed to have a deep attachment to this word, and nodded slightly.

"Yes, Fire Keeper."

Carla smiled and said gently:

"Lord Ember, what would you like to ask?"

"Where is this place?"

Audrey pondered for a moment and then asked.

A hint of nostalgia flashed in Carula's eyes as she softly said:

"This is the site of the fire-lighting ceremony, where the thrones of the Lords of Cinder stand."

"And what you have to do is bring back the kings who have abandoned their thrones to their rightful thrones."

"Pass the fire..."

Audrey fell silent. She remembered that Ember had once told her that linking the fire was his destiny.

Does this mean that everything she is experiencing now is likely Ember's past? And why did Carula go to such great lengths to create such a dream? And what does this have to do with Ember?

Audrey was filled with questions, but she didn't voice them aloud. Instead, she asked softly:

"Cut...Fire Keeper, what should I do next?"

"You can try exploring Firelink Shrine, or talk to other people there to gather useful information, but most importantly..."

Carula offered some constructive suggestions, but then pointed to the extinguished brazier in front of her:

"You need to retrieve the Spiral Sword and rekindle the campfire."

"A spiral sword?"

Audrey was a little confused, but she quickly remembered the campfire she had encountered before, on which a spiral sword was also stuck.

In other words, only a fire with a spiral sword stuck in it can be lit?

But where is she going to find the Spiral Sword?

Audrey suddenly remembered the tall knight she had met in the square, kneeling on one knee, with a spiral sword stuck in his chest.

Audrey asked hesitantly:

"So, I have to go back to the plaza, pull the sword out of the knight's chest, and bring it back here?"

"Yes."

Carula smiled and nodded. "What you're doing is what we usually call skipping class."

Audrey blinked. So, shouldn't she have used psychology to become invisible and skip class? Should she have dealt with all the zombies she encountered along the way? With the help of psychology invisibility, it shouldn't have been difficult to ambush and kill those zombies from behind.

But the knight who looked very strong made Audrey, who had never had any real combat experience, a little apprehensive.

So she silently kept all of this in mind, but didn't immediately return to the plaza to try and pull out the spiral sword. She remembered what Karula had said: she could explore the Firelink Shrine first and talk to the others.

The fire-lighting ritual site is circular in shape, and all areas within it are interconnected.

On the second floor of the Firelink Shrine, on the back of the five thrones, are engraved the names of the throne holders, from left to right:

The deep, dark church – Saint Eldridge.

Rudauth the Exile.

The last of the bloodlines—the Holy King of Lothric.

Watchers of the Abyss.

The City of Sin—Yom, the Giant King.

The five thrones are arranged symmetrically from left to right.

Apart from the throne of "Rudauth the Exile," where a gaunt old man sits, the owners of the other four thrones are not on their thrones; these owners are the "Kings Who Abandoned Their Thrones."

What Audrey has to do now is bring these four people back to their thrones.

In addition, although the arrangement of the thrones seems to follow a certain pattern, they are not strictly symmetrical in size.

The throne belonging to 'Rudolph the Exile' is the smallest, followed by 'The Watcher of the Abyss', then 'Saint Aldrich' and 'The Holy King of Lothric', whose thrones are larger and located on the far right. The throne belonging to 'Yom the Giant King' is the largest.

Audrey guessed that this might be related to the size of these "Lords of Cinder," as she had seen "three" of them in her dreams—

Aldridge, Yhorm the Giant King, and the Watcher of the Abyss.

Yhorm is a giant, so his size is naturally far beyond that of ordinary people, and it is normal that his throne is the largest.

Only the Abyss Watchers, who resemble the Fusak people, who are rumored to be descendants of giants, are still taller than ordinary people, but within a normal range.

Even so, it couldn't explain Audrey's doubts.

For example, there seem to be many Abyss Watchers, so one throne probably isn't enough to accommodate them all.

And then there's Yhorm the Giant King. Although his throne is the largest, it's still nothing compared to his enormous size. Even if you brought him here, he probably wouldn't fit in.

Since Carla went to great lengths to create this dream, she certainly wouldn't make such a basic mistake.

So, is there some reason she doesn't know about?

Audrey really wanted to ask Carula for clarification, but she thought she could ask someone else first.

For example, Rudauth, the only exile to sit on the throne.

Audrey searched the entire Firelink Shrine, but found only five "living people." Besides Karula, the Fire Keeper, there was only the knight with his head bowed whom she had seen at the beginning, Ludotus on the throne, an old woman, and a blacksmith.

The one with the highest status among them should be Rudauth the Exile, the Lord of Cinder who sits on the throne.

Audrey stood below Rudauth's throne and politely asked:

"Hello, sir, are you Mr. Rudauth?"

"Oh, what a polite little girl."

Rudauth seemed to finally notice her, and said with a sigh, "Before becoming the Unburnt Ashes, the Seeker of Kings, you must have been a well-educated noblewoman. It turns out it's not just short people like me who are bound by this curse..."

"Ah, sorry... I was a little distracted, but you guessed it, I am Rudauth of Courland."

"You may not believe it, but I am the Lord of Cinder who once linked the fire, and this body that is still burning with the embers is irrefutable proof."

"If you look closer at this mangled body, you should be able to see it clearly, right?"

Hearing Ludovic's seemingly self-deprecating tone, Audrey subconsciously glanced at Ludovic's lower body—

There was nothing there.

Yes, although he was the King of Cinder who sat high on the throne, Rudolph had lost his legs.

Audrey actually had some guesses about this.

Because in the vision she saw when she entered the dream, only three of the five new kings appeared:

Saint Aldrich, the Watcher of the Abyss, and Yhorm the Giant King.

The Holy King of Lothric and the Exile Ludaws are not among them, but perhaps that's not always the case—

For example, Rudauth the Exile.

The other four Lords of Cinder relinquished their thrones, but Ludows alone sat on his. This does not mean he did not relinquish his throne; he may have been forced to return to it.

Because in one of the images, Audrey saw a knight dragging a person with only an upper body back to the Firelink Shrine. And that person with only an upper body might be Ludows…

In other words, Rudolf's legs may have been broken by "Residual Ash" and then dragged back.

He may also want to relinquish the throne like other Lords of Cinder, but his luck seems to be running out...

Although this was very likely the truth, Audrey wisely refrained from asking directly.

Even in a dream, even if Rudolph in front of you is just a product of your imagination, it's never good to rub salt in someone's wounds.

Audrey carefully chose her words and asked:

"What do you know about the other Lords of Cinder?"

"Other Lords of Cinder..."

Rudauth glanced at the other thrones on either side and said in a complicated tone:

"Although we are both Lords of Cinder, we linked the First Flame at different times and had little interaction before, so my knowledge of them is quite limited; I've only heard some stories about them. Of course, if you really want to know, I can tell you some things."

Audrey immediately adopted a humble and eager-to-learn attitude.

Ludows glanced at the throne to his right and said softly:

"Eldridge, rumored to have been a clergyman of the White Church."

"Originally, he was an agent representing Lothric in researching the Flame of Sin in the City of Sin. His mind was affected by the Flame of Sin, which gave him a cannibalistic fetish. As a result, he was dismissed and imprisoned in the Cathedral of the Deep, where he was used as a tool to deal with the undead. Those undead would be sent to Eldridge's mouth as 'sacrifices' along the Road of Living Sacrifices."

"Years of cannibalism and the influence of the Deep caused him to lose his human form and turn into a lump of mud, but the accumulation of his soul also gave him the power to become a Lord of Cinder. Lothric conferred upon him the title of 'Saint,' and he was buried in a coffin deep within the Cathedral of the Deep after the First Flame was lit."

"Cannibalism?"

Audrey felt a chill run down her spine. Such behavior was simply intolerable to the world! In the Kingdom of Rune, he would have been sentenced to death a hundred times over! But in this world, in order to pass on the flame, such a person was instead crowned a 'saint', which was absurd and bizarre.

Rudaus, however, seemed oblivious to Audrey's unusual behavior and continued his introduction:

"Yom, the Giant King, is a descendant of the ancient conquerors."

"With the body of a giant, Yhorm was invincible, helping the people of the City of Sin to repel foreign enemies and expand their territory."

"But the people of the City of Sin are not grateful to Yhorm for this. They are filled with fear of Yhorm because they are afraid that Yhorm's great power will threaten their safety."

"Until one day, the fires of sin descended from the sky, and the unquenchable flames destroyed everything around them. To resolve this crisis, the people elected Yhorm as the king of the city of sin."

"Although Yhorm knew that those who had chosen him as king were not sincere, he still granted their request. However, even Yhorm was powerless against the inextinguishable flames of sin, until he heard a rumor: the flames of sin appeared because the First Flame was about to go out, and that the flames of sin could be extinguished if the First Flame could be reignited. Thus, Yhorm, who was determined to save the people of the sin capital, resolutely chose to embark on the path of rekindling the First Flame."

"The Watchers of the Abyss, the Farron Immortals."

"They are the inheritors of the will of Artorias the Abyss Walker, a group of warriors who have made a pact with the Old Wolf of Farron, sharing its blood, and who monitor the Abyss and eradicate any signs of its corruption."

"To stop the abyss's corruption, they would not hesitate to destroy even a nation. The Undead Legion's individual strength is insufficient; their power comes from the collective. After sharing the wolf's blood, the Undead Legion has earned the right to be called a leader."

"In order to keep the First Flame burning, Lothric used the Undead Legion that suppressed the Abyss as kindling to keep the flame burning."

"at last……"

Rudauth turned his gaze to the highest throne and said in a complicated tone:

"Lothric has two princes, the elder prince Lorian and the younger prince Lothric, who was given the same name as his country."

"Prince Lothric was expected to link the fire even before he was born, but he was physically weak after birth and failed to become the hero wielding the platinum sword as the royal family had predicted."

"Prince Lorian, in order to protect his younger brother, even resisted the mission of linking the First Flame, believing it to be a cursed path. This sparked civil war in Lothric. The knights of Lothric fought each other over their respective ideals, while the two princes hid at the top of the Great Archives of Lothric, waiting for the day when the flame would be extinguished and the era would end."

"It is precisely because Prince Lothric resisted the mission of linking the fire that we, the ancient Lords of Cinder who have already linked the fire, were awakened by the bells and were able to fulfill the mission of linking the fire once again."

Audrey hesitated, then said, "Is this what you mean by 'limited knowledge' and 'only heard some rumors'?"

This word "some" is a bit too detailed!

Of course, Audrey knew it was just a dream, a reenactment of a past legend—

It may not even be a complete reproduction.

For example, Audrey always felt that Carla was full of personal touches, otherwise why would she have given herself the role of the Fire Keeper?

The real Rudolph himself may indeed have had limited knowledge of the other Lords of Cinder.

But this is a dream, and the "Rudolph" before us is merely a product constructed by the dream. And since the dream was constructed by Carla, perhaps everything Rudolph says is just Carla speaking through him.

This led Audrey to speculate further about Carula's motives.

It was clearly impossible to pass the fire back on.

This is just a dream; there's no point in passing on the fire in a dream.

What Karula seeks may simply be to relive the past and reveal the truth of everything to the world.

Everything that happens in the dream serves this goal.

Having figured this out, Audrey stopped worrying about the 'person' who revealed this information and began to analyze the information itself.

Judging solely from the experiences of these five "Lords of Cinder," linking the Fire doesn't seem as glamorous as its name suggests. Instead, it's rife with sordid dealings, with those in power unscrupulously bestowing the title of "Lords of Cinder" upon those with powerful souls, treating them as mere tools for linking the Fire. Even the undead legion suppressing the Abyss was used as kindling…

To reconnect the flame, they even abandoned the abyss. Is reconnecting the flame really that important?

Even before she had truly begun to experience all of this, Audrey had already begun to question it all.

Thinking about this, Audrey suddenly had a feeling—

Perhaps this kind of questioning is exactly what Carula wanted.

Karula wanted to make her, or rather, everyone who entered this dream, have the same question.

(End of this chapter)