While Christine was making her way back to the mansion, she spotted Sherry at the corner of the street. At the moment, he was leaning against a sturdy stone wall with a bored expression, looking around in an absentminded manner, completely oblivious to the fact that Christine had already emerged onto the street.

Thankfully, his objective wasn't to monitor Christine in the first place. Otherwise, he'd be doing an utterly terrible job.

"Brother Sherry!" Christine called out as she waved at him with a smile on her face.

Only then did Sherry return to his senses, then approached her with a slightly embarrassed expression.

"Why did you follow me here?" Christine asked in a curious voice.

"Oh, no reason, I just felt like it," Sherry replied with an awkward smile.

Christine didn't ask any further questions, and the two of them made their way back to the courtyard.

At this point, the sun was about to set. A sunset in the desert was a very unique sight to behold. The sun was hanging over the horizon like a giant ball of pure light and heat, but at the same time, the heat that was trapped within the grains of sand on the desert was quickly receding, and the air temperature was gradually falling as a result.

Sherry snuck a glance at Christine as the two of them walked together side by side.

While he was looking around in an absentminded manner earlier, the scene where Christine had been speaking earlier was playing repeatedly in his mind. The determined look that she wore at the time had left a lasting impression on him.

"Regardless of whether Brother Erwin is dead or alive, I will be sure to find him, regardless of the price that I must pay. You have my word on that."

Right at that moment, Sherry couldn't help but be a little drawn to her determination.

He knew that Christine's determination definitely partially stemmed from the fact that she harbored romantic feelings toward Erwin. 

However, he didn't care about that. In fact, he wasn't even jealous of Erwin, not in the slightest.

For some reason, he was suddenly reminded of Tina, and he also suddenly made a realization: some things were the same, while some things weren't the same.

After returning to the mansion, Christine gathered Sherry, Lanyon, and Georgina together to discuss what they were going to do next.

Firstly, Christine gave everyone a recount of the theory that Elder Nachi had just revealed to her.

Sherry and Lanyon were enlightened to hear this, but at the same time, they were also a bit skeptical about the reliability of this theory. In contrast, Georgina was very optimistic, and he joyfully stated that Erwin and Onean were definitely already out of harm's way.

Christine didn't spend much time explaining what the Lodais Organization was, but she assured everyone that the information from the organization was definitely reliable. After a brief discussion, Lanyon and the others all decided that they were willing to trust Christine's judgment on this matter.

This was the only piece of good news that they had received for quite some time now. Thus, all of them were silently praying for Erwin and Onean, while also doing everything in their power to convince themselves that Nachi's theory was correct.

Furthermore, a thought occurred to Lanyon. He recalled the ore shop that he had accompanied Christine and Erwin to back in Tewadedan. Thinking back now, he realized that the shop most likely also belonged to this mysterious Lodais Organization.

In the end, it was decided that everyone was going to wait for a few days in Madeira, and that they would only decide on their next course of action once there was further news from the Lodais Organization.

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That night, Tolk arrived with a group of horse-drawn carriages as promised.

These carriages weren't the same as the carriages that had brought Christine and her group to the mansion. Instead, they were clearly far more luxurious. Each carriage was being drawn by four conch horses, and there were glowing blue rings on the conch shells of these magic beasts, as well as specks of light that occasionally shimmered and gleamed. With the night scenery as a backdrop, the conch horses looked as if they had come straight out of a dream.

Once night fell, these conch horses were supposed to go into the shells on their backs to sleep, but somehow, Prince Yamoyan was able to train these magic beasts in such a way that they continued to work diligently even at night. One could only imagine that the measures he employed had to have been quite "special".

As for the carriages, one could clearly tell that they had been constructed specifically to please Prince Yamoyan. Virtually all of the parts of the carriages that could be plated in gold were clad in gold plating, and even the rims of the wheels were giving off a dazzling golden sheen. The parts of the carriage that weren't plated in cold were painted over with high-end dark black paint, and the color scheme of black and gold was very unique, but also quite visually impactful.

At this point, Christine, Sherry, Lanyon, and Georgina were already waiting in the guest hall. Christine had told them that it was best not to have too many people attend the dinner banquet, so it was ultimately decided that only the four of them would be attending.

"Shall we go, Christine?" Tolk was sitting in the lead carriage, smiling as he waved the top hat that he was holding. At the same time, he was yelling in a very loud voice, and that, coupled with his thuggish demeanor, completely ruined the image of nobility that the top hat was supposed to instill.

Christine was wearing a tight-fitting burgundy dress, and she emerged from the mansion before giving Tolk a faint smile. Tolk was so mesmerized by her beauty that he could only gawk at her like a spluttering goldfish with bulging eyes.

Having visited Madeira on multiple occasions in the past, Christine was aware that the air temperature plummeted sharply during the night, so she made sure to wear a dark brown robe over her dress. Dark brown and burgundy were both very bold and heavy colors, but they did nothing to stifle her youthful exuberance and vivacity, which seemed to be able to overpower any color combination.

Sherry and the others were all dressed in formal wear, and upon emerging from the mansion behind Christine, all of them immediately had their attention drawn to the glowing conch horses. None of them had ever seen these creatures before.

Even Georgina's unicorn wasn't as eye-catching as these conch horses in the night.

On the way to the dinner banquet, Christine and Tolk were chatting casually with one another, while Sherry and the others were taking a different carriage, and all three of them were feeling rather uneasy. After all, they had no experience when it came to dealing with important figures, particularly not one that was as notoriously ruthless as Prince Yamoyan.

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The carriages were traveling toward the central district of the city, and at this point, the activity in the lively and bustling market had already died down. Most of the shops has already closed for the night, and there were also far fewer pedestrians on the streets. There were only a few pubs that were still open, but there weren't many patrons in those establishments at all. That was a clear indication that the dry booze being served in the city really was very difficult to stomach. Overall, the nightlife in Madeira was very bland and monotonous. Perhaps this was one of the contributing factors to the immaculately maintained law and order in the city.

Upon arriving at the center of the crossroads in the market, the coach drivers tugged on the reins in their hands, and the conch horses that were drawing the carriages all drew to a halt in front of a large stone statue, which depicted a half-eagle, half-human hybrid creature.

Sherry, Lanyon, and Georgina immediately poked their heads out of the windows of their carriage, wondering why they had stopped here.

As a result, they discovered that they weren't the only group of people here. In addition to them, there were also many other carriages parked nearby, and all of them were also being drawn by conch horses. One could only presume that those carriages were also carrying guests who had been invited to Prince Yamoyan's dinner banquet.

What was rather strange was that all of the carriages were parked in an orderly fashion around the statue to form a uniform circle.

Following their arrival, Tolk and the other subordinates of Prince Yamoyan who had been tasked with bringing the prince's guests here emerged from their carriages one after another, then each pulled out a golden dagger strapped to their waists before plunging the daggers into the octagonal stone foundation that the statue was sitting on.

Sherry and the others were standing quite far away, so they couldn't see that there were actually some hollow slots on the runes that were engraved onto the stone foundation.

The wielders of the golden daggers all turned their wrists at the same time, and the daggers acted as a series of keys to activate a hidden mechanism.

After that, the stone statue began to move as if it had sprung to life.

In the blink of an eye, the statue's right wing had already spread open, and it was giving off a bright golden glow in the night.

What was even more unsettling was that the eyes on the top half of the statue's face, which was humanoid, had transformed into a pair of glowing Loonies, while a sinister smile had appeared on the eagle's beak on the bottom half of the statue's face, presenting a very harrowing sight to behold in the night.

However, the scene that unfolded next was even more intriguing. One of the carriages suddenly began to sink into the ground, and shortly thereafter, all of the carriages around began to also descend one after another.

Having attended many of Prince Yamoyan's past dinner banquets, Christine was naturally already accustomed to this, but Sherry and the others were looking around with flabbergasted expressions, feeling both a sense of intrigue and alarm at what they were seeing.

Christine poked her head out of her carriage to give Sherry's trio a reassuring look, telling them not to panic.

Only after the carriage that Sherry and the others were in had sunk underground did they realize that there was an entirely different area here.

There was a circular ramp with an even slope from high to low underground, and every single carriage was actually being supported by a flat plate. The distance by which each plate had to descend and the rotational angle had to be calculated extremely precisely, and one couldn't help but wonder where Prince Yamoyan had tracked down such skilled artisans in the desert to pull off such an impressive feat of construction. In its final form, the plates were all linked to one another, forming a complete ring-shaped carriageway.

A huge number of Nightglow Stones were situated on either side of the carriageway as if they cost a Loony a dozen, illuminating the area to be as bright as day. On the stone walls on either side of the carriageway, there were golden snakes with red forked tongues positioned at intervals of several dozen feet. Even though the snakes were only statues, they really were able to flick out their forked tongues. The flicking motion was also accompanied by a hissing sound, and it was truly a spine-tingling experience to be surrounded by these statues.

After that, the carriages began to travel downward one after another.

First, they passed through a long and flat, but rather narrow path. At this point, they were no longer on the slope, and the people in the carriages could clearly feel that the carriages were no longer tilted at an angle.

The dozen or so carriages stopped in front of a large stronghold that was constructed from wood, and it was truly like an underground world.

Every single connective point of the stronghold consisted of the most primitive wooden structures that fit together seamlessly and were immaculately organized. Meanwhile, the top of the stronghold was supported by a collection of vertical wooden beams to prevent the stronghold from collapsing under the weight of the sand above it.

As it turned out, this was the earliest and most primitive version of Madeira.

The stronghold was split up into two camps, one on the left and one on the right, resembling a pair of large dams. If one were to look down at the structure from above, it would appear like a pair of hands that were in the process of pushing a stack of chips forward on a betting table.

Between the pair of "hands" was a waterfall, except there was no water, only flowing yellow sand.

Sherry, Lanyon, and Georgina were completely rooted to the spot by this spectacular sight, and they were so stunned that they were at a loss for words.

Among the guests who had emerged from the carriages, many of them were regulars here, and they all glanced at Sherry and the others with derisive sneers as they passed them by, clearly denouncing Sherry's trio as a bunch of hillbillies.

Christine gently clapped her hands together a few times to draw the trio's attention to her, then led them toward the foot of the waterfall.

Sherry's trio followed along obediently behind Christine, climbing up the staircase in front of the left half of the stronghold.

There was also a staircase in front of the right side of the stronghold that also led to the foot of the waterfall, and the choice of which one to use was purely dependent on personal preference. 

Inside the barracks of different sizes and heights on either side of the stronghold, bright lights were visible, and loud voices could also be heard.

This was where all of Prince Yamoyan's subordinates were gathered.

In contrast with the city of Madeira above the ground, which was virtually lifeless during the night, this underground city was one that never slept.