Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 41 The Temple
At dawn, Lucia was reviewing the sword moves she had just learned the day before in the courtyard, when she suddenly heard footsteps. Looking back, she saw a handsome young man with gray hair and red pupils in light armor appearing in front of her. The gate of the courtyard.

"Why are you dressed so neatly in the morning? It's not about going to the battlefield." Lucia looked at Aegis approaching, put down the blunt sword used for training, and asked with a smile.

Aegis bowed, and replied squarely: "As the captain of His Highness's personal guard, it is my most basic duty to maintain a state of readiness at all times."

Lucia had nothing to say for a moment, took a deep breath, rubbed the center of her brows, nodded helplessly and said, "That's right."

Ever since he was born, as the captain of his personal guard, Aegis and Guerrell are undoubtedly the two dragons who have accompanied him the longest. Although the two are about the same age and have similar martial arts skills, their personalities and styles are very different. Don't.

Guerrell was dissatisfied at first because he was invited to go to Rodel, and because of her stubborn temperament, she was not afraid to show this dissatisfaction when getting along with her, so she refused people in the Vania Valley. Performance from thousands of miles away.Later, as a series of things happened, the gap between the two gradually disappeared, and they had already returned to the normal mode of getting along.But the facts fully proved that Guerrell probably devoted all his talents in this life to combat skills, except that Lucia told her to kill people and she could quickly respond, and she knew almost nothing about other aspects.

Aegis is the complete opposite of her. He is not as reliable as a young dragon who is only over 200 years old in terms of strategy, wisdom and conduct. Responsibility, it's normal to go out in armor and sleep with a spear in your hand. Lucia has long been accustomed to this. She asked him on the surface just now, but in fact she just gave him a casual persuasion without hope.

Forget it, let him go. Lucia sighed softly in her heart, and said, "What's the matter with coming to see me so early?"

"Just now the Priest of Lance sent a message, saying that if His Highness is free this morning, you can go to the Temple of the Ancient Dragon," Agkisi replied, "In addition, the priest also ordered that His Highness, please dress casually, and don't worry about it. Don't bring any weapons that will reveal your identity—I guess the priest wants to take His Highness around the city?"

"Well, it's possible," Lucia rubbed his chin and said, "Rodel hasn't been out of the house for so long, so it's time to go for a walk."

Thinking of this, he went straight to the hall to change clothes, and then ordered behind him: "Arrange a normal-sized carriage, and we will start when I pack it up."

"Yes."

A quarter of an hour later, an unremarkable one-horse carriage drove out from the Heroes' Gate on the east side of the Golden Temple, and entered the cobweb-like dense streets and alleys of the Royal City.At this time, there were not many pedestrians and vehicles on the street. Even so, the journey took a full three hours. It was not until the sun rose that Lucia finally saw through the car window the building located in Gulong Square in the east of the city. towering temple.

It is a very majestic building complex. A bronze gate more than ten meters high stands at the end of Gulong Square. Solid and thick columns support the majestic and gorgeous quartz eaves. A vivid and vivid ancient dragon relief is carved on the outer wall. The central position is engraved with the pattern of the ancient Elden dharma ring worshiped by the ancient dragon - "Ring of the Beginning".

According to legend, in the era when the dragon god Helaris was the only true god in the world, and the dragon king Platon Shanks was the king of Elden, the initial golden tree still existed in the form of a melting pot of life. The ancient dragons at that time did not believe in today's The Ring of Elden and the Golden Law, but the Ring of Inception and the original law that existed in ancient times.

Reflected in the specific form of the Dharma Ring, the structure of the Initial Ring is different from the triangular distribution of the Elden Dharma Ring in the belief of the Golden Tree. Instead, eleven rings fit together to form a root system shaped like a giant tree. Structure.

This temple is said to be jointly controlled by Lance Shanks and Fur Sanks, but because the latter often fights side by side with Godwin and is not in the capital most of the time, many of the daily affairs of the temple are all left to Lance. Shanks shoulder.

The carriage stopped near the temple, and Lucia jumped out of the car door. Today, he deliberately changed into a set of poorly made steel chain mail, and the dragon scale knife he wore every day was also replaced by an ordinary long sword without any enchanting effects. Looking around, there were no fewer than seven or eight mercenaries, adventurers, and caravan guards dressed similarly to him on the street.

"You guys go back first—" He patted the carriage, and said to the Tempest Knight who was temporarily acting as the driver and Egg Kiss in the carriage, then turned and walked towards the gate of the temple.

In front of the gate of the temple stood two heavily armed ancient dragon belief knights, but their duty seemed to be to maintain the safety of the temple, and they would not question believers who entered or left the temple.In just this moment, Lucia has seen more than a dozen believers coming and going, among them are many knights in solid armor, and there are also citizens in ordinary clothes.

He stepped forward, bowing slightly to the ancient dragon knight at the door, and then walked into the temple along the stone corridor behind the bronze door, and soon arrived at the ancient dragon cathedral in the central area of ​​the front hall.

Walking in through the open oak gate, you will see a space quite similar to the Dragon Church in Sky City. The statue of the ancient dragon carved by huge stones is coiled on the ceiling, and a wide road below leads directly to the front pulpit. There are a lot of seats, and there are nearly a hundred believers in different clothes. The tall and wide floor-to-ceiling windows project clean and clear light, reflecting the faces of the believers, old or young, clearly.

Lance Shanks is standing on the pulpit in the image of a white-robed priest, preaching the doctrines of the ancient dragon belief to the believers.Lucia didn't make a sound after entering, but just found a seat with a good view in the back row and sat down.

"As I said before, the main difference between the Ring of Inception and the current Elden Ring is that the 'destined death' has not been stripped," Lance Shanks's calm and elegant voice echoed in the church, "so in the ancient dragon belief Among them, our understanding of death is not to reincarnate after returning to the tree to live forever, but to return to nature after complete death, to participate in the cycle of life and death in the form of nourishment, and to provide an opportunity for the rebirth of all things with our own demise."

"My lord priest, I have doubts." A knight in golden armor raised his arms with a puzzled look on his face.

Lance Shanks smiled and held out his hand to signal him to ask questions freely.

The knight stood up with a confused look on his face and said, "Master Priest, according to the teaching you explained, death is the end of life, so isn't it wrong to say that returning to a tree can give you eternal life in the golden teaching?"

As soon as this remark came out, many believers present were in an uproar, and everyone's face showed confusion and confusion. If the golden doctrine is wrong, how can the golden law become the rule governing the operation of all things?

"Everyone don't have to worry." Lance Shanks spoke again, calming everyone's flustered emotions with a gentle voice.

"The so-called belief does not mean that we should give up our instinct of self-thinking and unconditionally worship everything in the teachings, but a way of knowing and understanding the world."

"The great dragon god Heraris once had a motto - 'The more you seek knowledge, the more you will discover your own ignorance.' Even the most benevolent and virtuous gods are only walking on the road of seeking knowledge, so why should we Doubt and panic?"

"Now coming back to the teaching itself," she continued, "the different understandings of death in the two beliefs do not mean that they are fundamentally opposed to each other. In the ancient dragon belief, we also believe that returning to the tree is a way to participate in the cycle of nature , and because of the existence of the golden tree, mortal creatures can return to nature itself in a purer and more thorough form after death—as for the reborn soul after returning to the tree, all traces of previous life have been washed away, so Golden belief is understood as rebirth, while Yugulong belief is understood as new life, although there are differences between the two, they can also coexist.”

Hearing this, all the believers felt enlightened, and their faces were stunned.Lance Shanks explained another passage of doctrine and then announced the end of today's preaching. The believers got up and saluted, and then scattered and left.

(End of this chapter)