MWM Chapter 533

Leo furrowed his brow.  

“Master Baldir, why is this happening?”  

“This situation suggests that the second Elder Scroll is not in our world. It may have been taken into one of the Daedric realms, where its tracking is hindered by the power of a Daedric Prince,” Baldir replied after a moment of contemplation.

“In a Daedric realm, that could be troublesome,” Leo thought to himself. Even with his current strength, entering a Daedric Prince’s Oblivion realm would be extremely dangerous. In their own realms, Daedric Princes gain a substantial power boost, while his own abilities would be suppressed.

“Let’s check the location of the next scroll,” he said, hoping that the one in the Daedric realm wasn’t the scroll he sought. He wanted to find all the Elder Scrolls before deciding on his next move.

Baldir nodded and cast the locating spell a third time.

“This one is in the hands of a slumbering female vampire, in a cave beneath the Daedric statue in the Pale Hold.”

This time, there was no interference. Baldir managed to pinpoint the location of the third Elder Scroll using the crystal sphere.

“Vampire?” Leo was momentarily surprised. He knew that this world had vampires and werewolves, but after all this time, he had never encountered one.

According to legend, the origin of vampires in this world traces back to Molag Bal, the Lord of Domination and Harvest of Souls, a Daedric Prince.

Molag Bal holds dominion over submission and enslavement in the mortal world. His primary desire is to sow conflict and discord among mortals, thus harvesting their souls under his dominion.

His Oblivion realm is called Coldharbour, a place where the land is filled with sludge, the sky is aflame, and the air feels frozen.

Molag Bal once attempted to invade Nirn, aiming to merge the continent of Tamriel with Coldharbour during the Second Era, but he ultimately failed.

He holds a particular hatred for Arkay, the god of life and death.  

One day, in Tamriel, he brutally assaulted a Nedic woman named Lamae, who worshipped Arkay.  

Lamae was found by a group of nomads, but despite their care, she eventually succumbed to death.

Yet on the day of her cremation, she suddenly rose and savagely slaughtered the nomads who had saved her.

Vampires like Lamae, the first generation directly created by Molag Bal, came to be known as the Daughters of Coldharbour.

Afterward, she spread vampirism throughout Tamriel, transforming many others, as a way to mock Arkay.

Leo had read a different version of this story in another book, with slight variations in the details, though he felt the second version was closer to the truth.

In the second version, Lamae did not die from the assault. Instead, her wounds healed rapidly, a phenomenon that terrified the local Nedic people.

Fearing that Lamae carried a contagious disease, they attempted to burn her alive.

But when Lamae awakened, she had gained the powers of a vampire and was not about to submit. In her anger, she slaughtered everyone around her.

Afterward, she was horrified by what she had done and by the changes to her body. She pleaded for Arkay’s forgiveness, but he rejected the transformed follower.

Desperate, Lamae’s perspective shifted, and she began to spread the vampire curse among Arkay’s followers in revenge.

After that, many mortals, seeking eternal life and supreme power, willingly entered into pacts with Molag Bal to become vampires.

“Continue.”

Leo gestured for Baldir to proceed with the search.

He intended to locate all the Elder Scrolls and then retrieve them all at once.

Baldir cast the locating spell for the fourth time, but this time, the crystal sphere remained motionless.

“It seems that in this era, only three Elder Scrolls exist.”

Without waiting for Leo to ask, Baldir provided an explanation.  

As the legends suggest, the number of Elder Scrolls is not fixed in any given era.

Sometimes there is only one, while at other times there may be a hundred. In this era, it seems there are only three.

“Only three, let’s hope my luck isn’t that bad.”

Hearing that there were only three Elder Scrolls in this era, Leo’s expression tightened.

A one-in-three chance—a 33% probability—that the Elder Scroll he needed, the Elder Scroll of the Dragon, would be in the Daedric realm.

That probability was a bit high.

The Pale Hold, atop a snow-capped mountain in a remote northern region, with a few standing brass towers looming over the area.

“So, this is the Alftand Ruins?”  

Leo descended slowly from the sky to the snowy mountain below.

After learning the location of the three Elder Scrolls from Baldir, he did not linger.

His primary goal was to obtain the Elder Scroll of the Dragon, to learn the Dragonrend shout, which could be used in the future against Dormammu.

Once he had mastered that, he could take time later to explore the deeper magical mysteries with Baldir and the others on Artaeum.

Not just object-locating spells and time magic—Baldir and his colleagues had even developed spells for finding people and other rare magics, all worth studying.

“It looks like others have been here before, though it doesn’t seem to have gone well for them.”

On the snow-covered mountain, he spotted some makeshift tents and frozen corpses, along with a man-made walkway leading to the steep cliffside entrance of the Alftand Ruins.

It was clear that this secluded Dwemer ruin had been discovered by an expedition team, but the harsh environment had taken a severe toll on them.

Following the pathway built by the expedition, Leo pushed open the brass door and entered the ruins.

The Dwemer ruins were filled with large machinery, mostly powered by steam and made of brass, giving them a rugged yet mysterious appearance.

It resembled the steampunk aesthetic that had once been popular in his previous world.

As he ventured deeper into the ruins, he observed many signs of excavation and various supplies brought in by the explorers.

After a while, he encountered a disoriented Khajiit wielding an axe.

When the Khajiit saw him, he raised his axe and charged, muttering crazily under his breath:

“Oh, who do I see? A hairless one, trapped here by the storm like poor J’zhar. Did you steal J’zhar’s skooma? Give it back! Give it back!”

“A skooma-addicted Khajiit. Let’s see what happened to your expedition team.”

Leo frowned as he knocked the axe out of the Khajiit’s hands and grabbed him by the neck, using a soul-searching spell to read his memories.

Moments later, he twisted the Khajiit’s neck and tossed the body aside.

“So, it was an old Imperial scouting team.”

Leo’s face showed a hint of understanding.

He had gleaned from the Khajiit’s memories a rough idea of what had befallen this expedition team.

(End of chapter)

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