Hera’s slight annoyance at everyone following her to Deakoshara quickly vanished. Not just because she didn’t really mind the company, but also because it didn’t last long. The truth of the matter was they had already discovered pretty much everything that they could discover in this area.

The path had been thoroughly analyzed. Every step, every route, everything. It was all double, triple, and quadruple checked. The outpost, which was located to the northeast, didn’t have anything else to be found. The only thing was there was the stone tablet Shane found inside a hidden piece of the wall, together with what was left of an old book that was completely destroyed.

All they could tell was the layout of the structure. It was two stories tall, three if you counted the basement. The ground floor had three separate rooms: one being a small entrance large enough to fit a table and a couple of chairs, then came a small bathroom, and the third was a mixture of an armory with a bedroom, likely the barracks.

The only reason they could tell it was a bedroom was because of the stone dais that the Naga used to sleep. What confirmed that this was such a place was the presence of a skylight going across the entire structure in an arc that followed the sun. Generally, instead of covering their entire bodies with pillows or something soft, they would just keep it on the ground to absorb the heat from the stones. And according to every dungeon and information they recovered about the Naga people, they would only use pillows or something of the sort to rest their heads.

The basement was just an open room, much smaller than the outer walls of the structure, and it was likely a storage area. The second floor, on the other hand, had a very obvious objective: it was a lookout tower. With massive windows on all sides, it allowed anyone who was in there to see in all four directions.

Yet, in the middle of that second floor was the same gap following the sun that could be seen in the bedroom. But it wasn’t as if it would be easy to fall from that hole. There was a small wall around that gap, about half a meter tall, in the areas that were not completely destroyed. The fact that this entire structure was still standing and people could walk up to the second floor was a testament to the Naga architects.

But even they could not overcome time. It had been far too long since their civilization was gone, meaning that any markings, paintings, and even the minor details made of stone were no longer there. Maybe if there was some metal in the structure, that could have survived this long. Still, considering the constant barrage of poison, it was hard to believe that would be the case.

Once they confirmed that there was nothing else to be discovered in that area, even using Ariadne’s echolocation, the Empress used another skill from her relic, asking which direction she should go in order to find the “weapon” mentioned in the Naga tablet.

The answer came after she spent about half her mana pool, sending her east, toward the thick jungle and, even further away, a lake of green water. Not a mossy green that someone could imagine being the cause of algae or something more natural, but a radioactive green that screamed of “poison.”

Hera was pretty sure that if she was able to swim there without an issue, there would be nothing in the room that could harm her, not when the subject was poison.

The problem was that getting there would take some time. She was going to travel alone, but not really, through a dense forest. And just flying with Nimbus didn’t seem like a good idea. They still had no clue if there were any flying predators in the room. And even if it wasn’t a special creature or the apex predator of the region, the possibility of monsters at level 69 being around here was very much real.

Because of the wide range of levels on layer 21, every time someone was exploring a new room on this layer, it was generally the accepted idea to expect to find a monster at the highest level limit at any time.

She started her trek, surrounded by the titled blades. Nimbus, Livy, Viper, Crimson, and Vulcan all walked alongside the Empress, making sure to help each other every time they found a more complicated obstacle. Lurize was in his beetle form, moving ahead. He was a half-Venom Spirit, someone who should be immune to anything that they could find here.

But the fact that he wasn’t a full Spirit also made him somewhat vulnerable to extremely strong poison. This wasn’t something they had ever tested, just something the Royal tutor knew by instinct.

Traveling across the jungle was as hard as Hera imagined, but it was a lot of fun. Braving a path through the thick foliage, using a machete to cut down branches and vines that could hinder their progression, the Ophidianite had a huge smile on her face, feeling like the main character of one of those old movies about archaeologists recovering lost idols from temples.

The titled blades had a similar feeling. After all, those movies were among the favorites of a few of them. But even then, they were all careful not to get too excited and risk getting caught in a trap or something.

The rest of the court was also doing their part, but instead of traveling through the dense areas of the jungle, they were hovering above the canopy. One of Hera’s new skills, [Magnetic Rule], allowed them to be up to 50 meters away when active. But right now, they were just around 10. Twiggy floated directly above the Empress, while the rest of them formed a perimeter, staying 50 meters apart in every cardinal direction, all of them connected by the chains from [Blade Accord].

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This wasn’t just so the Empress would have eyes on a radius of 100 meters around her, but also so she could cast the Sonar spell from any point in those chains. The existence of the chains was also there to protect her court. If a flying predator were to appear and try to snatch one blade away, the chain would tether them, which could stop them from being captured.

Strangely enough, despite all the worry, all the skills, and all the eyes they had across the jungle, there was nothing. No sign of life anywhere. Not even bugs were around. The only proof they had that this wasn’t a dead room were the plants that stopped their movements.

At first, the more they walked, the less worried they became. That only lasted an hour or so. That’s when the entire court realized the oddities of the room: the lack of bugs and any small critters.

From their experience, only two things could cause the complete lack of life: an environment so inhospitable that nothing could survive, or the presence of a predator so ruthless that even the tiniest of creatures would try to stay away. And considering the presence of vegetation, the latter seemed more likely.

Another possibility was that their weapon, or whatever it was that the Naga created, was causing this. Maybe it was something so destructive that it spooked the animals away. But to Hera, that was just conjecture. Considering something like that, a real possibility would only cause problems. Once she got more information about this weapon, she could change her opinion.

“Hera, maybe we should start to head back? We did promise to return before sundown,” Nimbus suggested, as it had been more than three hours since they started moving. Even then, they had barely covered 8 kilometers.

“Maybe…” Hera glanced up, seeing the small reflection of her tiara against the sun. “Twiggy, can you see anything interesting around us?”

‘There’s a lake 1 km in front of you. Maybe a little bit more, but not much,’ the tiara replied.

“How long would it take for us to get there?” Hera turned to the titled blades.

“If we keep up this pace, maybe half an hour?” Viper replied.

“That means we would still have three and a half hours to get back. And we’re probably going to make better time since we already carved out the path,” Vulcan added.

“Let me check one thing,” Hera pulled Ariadne from her waist and asked, “Is the weapon that the Naga tablet was talking about located in this lake that is around 1 km in front of us?”

She dropped half her mana pool, not wanting to stay without any mana in here. The screen on the side of her relic flashed to life, and a single word appeared:

‘Yes.’

With a nod, the Empress told her court, “Let’s keep going. At least until we reach the lake. I’m not entirely sure if we’re going to see anything there, but at least we’re going to know what we’re dealing with. Besides, next time we get here, we’ll have a route through the jungle.”

Everyone agreed, and they continued moving. This time, they were not enjoying the process as much, not because it wasn’t fun, but because they had to keep an eye out for anything that could be protecting that weapon.

Then again, the Ophidianite wasn’t entirely sure if that was really a weapon. The writing on the tablet had eroded considerably. They could still make sense of the words, but there were a few that were mostly guesswork. “Weapon” was one of those words. Changing two missing letters could also translate it to "Device."

And considering the state of the room, maybe the Naga were not trying to create something to destroy someone else, but to terraform the area. It was absolutely wild to think that an ancient civilization could do something like that, but if they were using magic and not technology, it was much more believable.

After close to half an hour, they arrived at the lake. Just like her court showed to her, the water was a radioactive shade of green. But it was clear. They could see the dirt by the shore and the rocks at the bottom of the lake, at least for a while. Eventually, the water became too deep for them to see anything.

But before anyone could form a plan, Livy quickly stepped forward. “I got this.” She turned into her sea serpent form and jumped into the green lake.

“Livy!” Hera gasped. “Get back here!” the Empress called, but not as a command. She didn’t like using that part of her power.

‘Don’t worry. This is not—’ Livy started to cough inside everyone’s mind. She quickly rushed back and jumped out of the water. The liquid stuck to her skin. “What the fuck?” the Leviathan groaned before throwing up water.

“What happened?” Viper gasped.

“The poison. It’s strong,” Livy replied, still hacking away and trying to steady herself. But with every second, she started to become worse and worse.

“That’s why we don’t jump into lakes of poison,” Hera huffed before dismissing the Leviathan. She was worried that the effects of the liquid could still linger while Livy was inside the palace, so she sent Vulcan after her to check. About a minute later, Forge was summoned again.

That was more than enough time for him to confirm that, no, Livy was no longer suffering the effects of the poison. But she had suffered some damage, meaning she wouldn’t be able to be recalled for a couple of hours.

With a sigh of relief, Hera turned to Lurize. The half-Venom Spirit understood what she wanted and took a few steps into the green water. He wasn’t going to dive like the Leviathan for obvious reasons. Everybody waited for a couple of minutes as the Royal tutor slowly walked to the deeper parts of the lake. But once the water reached his waist, he was forced to return.

‘That’s too much. Even I can’t handle it. The poison here is too concentrated,’ he said in everybody’s minds. Lurize wasn’t struggling like Livy, but he was suffering some damage as he fought off the poison. And it would take time for him to get rid of all the poison.

Hera scratched the back of her head and used [Blade Accord] to wrap some chains around an empty vial she brought along. Making sure not to touch the water, she filled the vial with the green poison. Maybe someone could learn more about this and figure out a way to neutralize this effect.

Once that was over, she paused and took another empty vial and filled that one up as well. Her idea was to see if Alex could do something about the water. If not, she could just test the poison on herself to see how bad it truly was.

Once again, exploring Deakoshara would have to wait. Without something to protect them from the poison, they wouldn’t be able to move around. But this time, they already had one lead. All she hoped was that her luck was a bit better, or worse, than Pandora’s.