Chapter 32. Shriek in the throne room

We crossed the gate of the castle and the sight of the walls made my scalp twitch, by the strip where the metal mesh descends, you could see that it was not in marble or azurite, after seeing it I am almost 100% sure that this castle will be the pain of every assailant, between the inner and outer layers of marble and azurite, just hidden below, you could see slightly and surely only in that strip, a black rock with some specks of a very dull red.

 That does not come from the sea, if my memories from the forums are correct, it is volcanic abyssal rock, this rock comes from the interior of LAZ, speculations mostly, this could come from Tilum itself.

 The special thing about this rock is how extremely durable it is, dense, with almost zero breaking point and worst of all, it also has a certain amount of elasticity, in case you were missing something, it is an excellent insulator, so breaking it using melting methods or by temperature variability is also an illusion.

 In other words, it's the fucking hardest rock to break, especially with artillery attacks.

 So if someone locks themselves in here and can barricade the door, it's almost impossible to gain access.

 Leaving the hidden wall, the interior was nice, not like a palace, but still being more than beautiful enough for a castle, you have to differentiate them strongly, one has a purely defensive function, while the other is a symbol of royalty, still being somewhat defensive but not focused on it.

 We continued following the butler, passing through several corridors, leaving us in a large room, this consisted of several chairs around a long rectangular table, on it there were several fruits along with glasses.

 The whole room was well furnished, with other small tables and some games, such as chess or checkers.

 Inside the room there was also a group of sirenoids of both genders with mugs in their hands, ready to serve us if necessary.

 They all had a smiling and calm face, they seemed experienced in this kind of situation and service.

 Since we had nothing to do, we sat down.

 I entertained myself playing chess with Irina, who beat me on a couple of occasions, while the others were having an arm wrestling contest with the Bulls, well all except for Balthazar, who had taken momentary control of the formation so that we only needed to get into the right position to access his power and escape.

 He has better compression of space magic, this way he can keep it in lethargy, while the rest of us can entertain ourselves and move around, for our comfort and above all, not to make anyone too suspicious.

 Although it was offered to us on several occasions we did not eat anything or drink, Gong believed it was because we did not trust each other, but we told him it was something personal, something due to our race and reason for wearing the mask, technically we had not lied, but he did not want to upset things because of that passive.

 This wait lasted for about two hours or so, only then a group of about 4 guards knocked on the door and set out to escort us.

 For some reason on this journey, from the surface so far, we had been surrounded by guards, I didn't necessarily take it offensively, with all that may be out there, I didn't see it as too excessive, in the guild I belonged to, guests were made to strip and after confirming no weapons, were offered access, even then, factions like wargs, which possessed good hunting and tracking instincts were always around just in case something happened.

 A meeting used to take several days to prepare, excessive but effective.

 After a few minutes of walking, we found ourselves in front of a large double door, the murmur of voices could be heard through it.

 The gate was forged in various metals which I could not recognize, but I did recognize the mana flooded patterns, which also occupied the walls, this was the throne room and it was heavily defended.

 5 sirenoid guards, with full armor and tridents, all good quality equipment, greeted us upon arrival, the leader of the gate guard, which was easily recognizable because on his shoulders he had an additional decoration in the form of a small golden trident that accentuated his armor, along with a metallic spine that was slightly raised, after the greeting he gave a single blow of his trident on the ground, hearing the blow, the guards moved towards the gate.

 With a loud creak the heavy doors began to open, further illuminating the hallway and giving us a magnificent look inside.

 A quartz-white hall, elongated, giving at the far ends the door and its opponent the throne.

 The central area, until almost reaching the throne was a small pond where several fish swam placid and oblivious to visitors, on the sides several tables with various fruits, without any chairs.

 Next to the tables there were several dozens of beings, from sirenoids to many other races, among them I recognized a trio of Bulls, some of them even taller than the massive Gong.

 All present had only a couple of coincidences, all wore armor or decent clothes, of good quality and looked at us with curiosity.

 The throne also of the same material as almost most of the room, was not particularly extravagant, detailed with some reliefs but no petty, ostentatious trifles.

 On it a young sirenoid with golden hair, all her scales were of a dark gold, giving a strong contrast with the white background, wearing light blue silk clothes and under this a metal armor, being similar to chain mail, but with parts attached to plates of the same metal.

 To his left was a rather stout sirenoid, large but not as large compared to a Bull, his scales of a red with pinkish hues, a spartan beard and a piercing gaze. He wore heavy plate armor, he was also the only one with a helmet in the room, his trident was also large and I could tell quite a bit heavier than those used by normal guards.

 Obviously the sirenoid on the throne was the little emperatrix and if I understand it right or judge it right, that has to be her most loyal general, although as in her case, I have no idea of the name.

 We began to cross the room, I must say that in the end I was not so nervous, although it is also part of the fact that my attention was divided in the ecstatic magic of space, so I was not aware of every detail in the room, the feeling of space intoxicated you without being able to let go of it.

 It was only when we reached the middle of the room that a panicked female shriek echoed through the room, waking me up completely and almost activating the teleportation formation.