The Paladin in the Abyss-Chapter 679 - 703: Demon God Temple

Chapter 679: Chapter 703: Demon God Temple

Lancelot didn’t get any valuable new intelligence from these survivors, but they did like the idea of seeking refuge in the Temple of Lord Wu’an. The group dealt with the enemy corpses in a rudimentary way, slightly concealing the traces of battle, and then hurriedly left.

The size of the team had doubled in an instant, naturally increasing the risk of being discovered, but the situation Lancelot was worried about did not occur. The Hell Generals probably believed that the massacre had eliminated most of the threat and that one or two fish slipping through the net were not to be feared. Furthermore, with the Demon coalition army outside the city looking poised for a strong offensive, they had pulled all their forces to block the city gates.

The main purpose of the Volcano Fortress was military, and its interior was less than half the size of Twin Bridges Town; roughly twenty minutes later, the group arrived at the Temple dedicated to the worship of ‘Lord Wu’an’ Grazzt. Unlike other bigwigs in the Abyss, Grazzt paid very close attention to the material plane, often providing mortals with dark assistance or guidance and demanding their service and payback in return. Of course, in the material plane, worshipping an Abyssal Lord is inevitably a very covert activity, but there are no such constraints in the lower planes, and the former owner of the Volcano Fortress, Visuvius, was a subordinate of Grazzt, making the faith in Lord Wu’an tantamount to a state religion there.

Of course, as a demon, the temple of Lord Wu’an naturally had nothing to do with words such as solemn, austere, or sacred. Lancelot realized this at first glance of the temple. It was a gigantic structure built of obsidian, shimmering with a dark light, its front shaped very much like the lower body of a woman with legs spread. The entrance door had been smashed by Demon doors, but Lancelot could easily imagine its originally wrinkled door frame.

Passing through that desecrated entrance, everyone entered an even more bizarre space. Clearly, a great fire had just raged here, with the temple’s interior furnishings charred black, but from the shattered crystal chandeliers on the floor, the shadows of square painting frames on the walls, and the charred remnants of sofas that only the frames remained of, it was still evident that the decorations here were once extremely luxurious.

The only thing not destroyed by the fire was the Obsidian statues that could be seen everywhere, most of which depicted blush-inducing lovemaking scenes. But upon closer inspection, one could find unsettling details in these statues concerning the number of participants, races, genders, and instruments.

“This place is really not bad.” The Elf Priest gave an unexpected appraisal, “Just from an artistic standpoint, those statues are very exquisite…”

“Damn, Elves, I never noticed how twisted you were before!” Bruto’s face scrunched up like a mop upon hearing this, “Don’t forget you’re a Priest of Shuni!”

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“The core tenets of Lady Flame include the appreciation of beauty and art.” Alamir shrugged his shoulders, “Even though the content they exhibit is somewhat heavy, they are just exquisite statues, you can’t deny the emotions invested into them by their creators. Of course, they do indeed… display some very private desires.”

“How does Shuni view desires?” Lancelot became curious upon hearing this, “Are all desires acceptable in the eyes of the Lady of Passion?”

“First of all, the Goddess doesn’t believe there is a distinction between good and evil in desires. If you can satisfy your desires in a harmless way and without going against the will of others, then there’s no problem,” Alamir explained seriously, “In fact, desire is one of the most important sources of art. Without desire, art would be dull and mechanical. The birth of great works is always driven by desire, as priests of Shuni, we can appreciate any form of art and find pleasure in expressions that are either delicate, rough, frank, or abstract.”

“Nice words,” Bruto snorted by the side. “Why can’t you appreciate the way I look with the Transformation Ring on?”

“…Goddess above,” Alamir said with a forlorn expression, “I beg of you to grant me a pair of eyes that have never witnessed that scene.”

Atop the central dais of the great hall, there lay a Serpentine Greatsword embedded in a stone base. Lancelot guessed it was the altar symbolizing Lord Wu’an, but at the moment, a complete human skin, seemingly peeled from a Succubus, was draped over it, an act that had clearly ‘desecrated’ the altar.

Generally, purifying an altar would usually result in blessings from the symbolized entity, but Lancelot certainly wasn’t mad enough to purify the altar of an Abyssal Lord. In fact, just by approaching the Serpentine Greatsword, he had felt an intense discomfort, as if his skin were cracking and his bones becoming fragile. Any injury sustained in this environment would be magnified. Fortunately, there were no enemies present, and after wreaking havoc, the Demons left contentedly.

Gayka seemed quite familiar with this place. She walked up to the desecrated altar, turned a candlestick on its base, then pressed it downward. A low rumble emitted from some concealed mechanism beneath the floor, and a stone wall with a crucified Angel relief split open to reveal a secret chamber hidden behind.

“Ah, a temple of an Abyssal Lord, how could it not have a secret chamber,” Bruto crossed his arms and stepped into the secret room with everyone else, only to jump up like a startled cat the next second. “Moradin above, what in the world is that!”

Not just Bruto, the expression on almost everyone’s face was unsightly. In the center of the secret chamber, atop a large bed, there was a skinned, bloody female corpse. The horns on the skull, bat-like wings on the back, and backward-bent legs indicated the deceased was a Succubus, likely the source of the skin draped on the altar.

“Ah, seeing this scene really is infuriating,” the mother of the Carrions lamented, “We Tanari can’t match the skinning skills of the Bartez… But if Klaira’s body is here, does it mean they haven’t found the entrance to the underground palace?”

“Another secret door?” Bruto asked with a twisted face. “Aren’t we already in a secret chamber…”

“Of course, this secret room is just a decoy, even filled with some cheap jewels to increase its credibility, causing intruders to think they’ve discovered all the secrets,” Gayka said, lifting the bedsheet expertly, searching for some mechanism underneath the corpse, “I’m worried the Demons might come back, so I didn’t move Klaira’s body, keeping everything as is… Ha! Found it! Stand back, everyone, the bed is going to rise…”