Mage Legend
Chapter 143: Episode 49: Temple (Part 2)

Chapter 143: Episode 49: Temple (Part 2)

This place is unlike the halls outside; there’s not the slightest hint of dampness on the ground. Instead, a warm heat massages Lynch’s soles through his soft boots. As they entered the path represented by the right hand, the mercenaries behind suddenly became very quiet, even holding their breath with caution. For a moment, the mage felt as though an elite unit of Dark Elves was behind him.

At the beginning of the path, there was nothing on the walls of the passage. But after walking for a while, Lynch saw alcoves appearing on both sides. Most were long rectangles, extending a palm’s depth into the wall. If they were intended for torches or lamps, there seemed to be too many of them, yet they weren’t fit for paintings or most sculptures either.

As they continued deeper, Lynch finally understood the purpose of these alcoves: for storing various prosthetics. Surrounding them were prosthetics crafted from wood, stone, and various metals, neatly placed in these alcoves. Some were completely corroded by time, turning into useless debris and garbage, while others still reflected a bit of light or sparkled through embedded gemstones. Most prosthetics were arms, with only a few being legs. The arm sizes varied, with the largest large enough to be hung on the shoulders of Hill Giants and the smallest only two palms in length.

Lynch initially thought they were prosthetics for Halflings or Dwarves, small races, but when he approached to re-evaluate the size of those artificial arms, he confirmed that they were indeed crafted for infants or young children.

If it was for children born disabled or losing arms in accidents, crafting these small prosthetics could be considered a goodwill gesture from the Limb Temple people. However, through Finder’s introduction, Lynch learned that these fanatical followers often cut off children’s limbs to "evolve" them.

Nothing in the world is more evil than harming these innocent children.

So now Lynch struggled to suppress the nauseating feeling of vomiting, silently walking beside Zilvra. He handed his magic wand to his left hand—where he wore thick gloves to cover the glow of Refined Gold—and placed his right hand on Zilvra’s shoulder.

The Drow woman made no response, merely slowing her steps a little to allow Lynch to catch up easily.

The ragtag troops following the mage—either the lowest slaves of the Dark Elf Family or mercenaries hired by Batana for this mission from the underground mercenary corps—did not care about whether this task would bring them "honor" or "blessing," only concerned with fetching as many benefits as they could. Seeing that the Dark Elves ahead did not look back at them, they pulled out cloth bags from their waists and swiftly looted the wall holes—after all, many prosthetics were adorned with precious gemstones, some even directly carved from precious metals.

The passage continued to extend downward, but the slanting gradient grew smaller and smaller. Just when Lynch wondered if this passage was leading to Abyss Hell, a resting hall appeared before their party.

However, upon reaching this resting place, Matron Batana did not appear the least bit relieved; instead, she seemed somewhat exasperated. In front of her, only six Trolls cowered in one corner of the room—the first squad of scouting members did not manage to make it here. The other four passages had completely dealt with them, freeing them from a life of slavery.

Yet this room did not have any further paths. Anyone merely needed to lift their eyes to fully take in the view at a glance: the passage through which they came, four stark walls, and along one wall, a number of rounded stone pedestals which, due to prolonged contact with the users’ behinds, had become very smooth. Apart from that, there were six sculptures in the center of the room.

Lynch looked at these six sculptures with some frustration, involuntarily downgrading his evaluation of the Limb Temple by another notch: how could they shamelessly display such "uncreative, tasteless, and artless" statues? Arranged, the six statues formed a mutilated human body.