by Feng Yue
Behind the steel wall, the lancers took off their lances once again. They slowly raised their hands, getting ready to throw again.
“If you have any good tricks, let them all out! We’re facing the alchemy puppets made by Romulus at their golden age. They’re the two-hundred-soldier Romulusian formation! They can flatten the Chainsaw Fraternity’s heavy artillery group!”
Ye Qingxuan’s words extinguished the last bit of Baro’s wishful thinking. Of the power and weapons that the Chainsaw Fraternity sold, the cost of hiring a heavy artillery group was enough to bankrupt an entire merchant city-state. Their performance also proved how terrifying the killing machine made of pure money was!
“How rich were these guys to have guards like these?!” Baro complained. There was a flash of pain. He pulled out a bone flute and played harshly but Sam was faster.
The copper mountain rumbled and the Foehn wind swept through. Red wind surged along the tunnel instantly. Within it, a roaring melody shot out. It was filled with wild aggression. Hundreds of formulas rose from the music theory one after another. They combined and changed until finally transforming into something complex yet detailed.
Under the music theory, dirt was burned into lava. It climbed up Sam’s body and quickly cooled down into blocks of sharp black rock. Sam instantly became a flaming giant radiating terrifying heat.
Mazeppa! This was the music score written by Saint Liszt according to the legendary hero Mazeppa. He had come back to life and received holy power. He wielded the four elements of earth, water, fire, and wind. He was unstoppable on Earth! The flames transformed into the hero’s stallion and the violent winds became his wings. The iron rumbled in his hands, singing highly.
Sam roared and rode the melody, charging forward! The next instant, he faced the Romulusian formation. Before him, the lances shattered in the air. His black rock armor was damaged but quickly regenerated seemingly endlessly. The long lances pierced his giant hands but the steel wall was crumbling under the deafening rumbles as well.
Countless shards flew out. Sam crudely grabbed at the clay puppets that were not able to escape and threw them at the lancers. In his hands, the clay was melted into lava by fire formulas. They fell and splattered in all directions, melting the clay puppets in the vicinity.
Next, Sam took a deep breath and the black giant’s chest swelled. His exhale was an extremely cold gale of wind. The ghastly white wind instantly shrouded the formation, freezing the clay puppets.
Following Baro’s flute music, the roaring deep within the earth grew more and more dramatic. Something huge seemed to be coming. Within the formation, Sam retreated under Baro’s cries. Then, the tunnel’s walls shattered. A yawning mouth emerged from the side and, brushing past Sam, rushed toward the formation.
The mouth was more than a dozen meters wide. It easily swallowed everything and returned into the wall, the giant body following. After a few good minutes, it finally faded away.
The crack formed from its appearance and disappearance was dozens of meters deep. Sam and Ye Qingxuan were rooted to their spots.
“What was that?” Ye Qingxuan was stunned. All he knew was that this was a projection from the aether world.
“It’s the great king earthworm that the School of Dragon Rock has raised in the aether world for centuries.” Baro’s face was pale. “It’s sixteen kilometers long. The entirety can only be summoned by Scepter musicians. It’s known as the ‘snake that can wrap around the atrium of the world’.” He sadly put his bone flute back. The instrument was covered in fissures and would not last much longer.
Sam removed Mazeppa’s effect, revealing horrific burns all over him. Thankfully, Miller could heal them. Otherwise, they would all have to go home.
After this mess, none of them looked down on the Romulusian relic anymore. No one knew what kind of person needed all these creepy clay puppets as guards… However, they soon understood.
-
“This is a large-scale public cemetery!” Inside the large underground square, Baro looked into the distance. He used his night vision to see endless rows of stone coffins standing on the ground. They had seen more than a thousand coffins along the way and there were most likely even more!
When Ye Qingxuan saw this public cemetery, he was silent for a long time. Then he took out a crowbar and walked toward the nearest coffin. Baro tried to stop him but Ye Qingxuan had already pried open the coffin.
Amidst the muffled scraping, the coffin was activated. Dust that had settled over the centuries rose up and the dried bones were revealed under the light. The skeleton slept in the coffin, its mouth open as if in a smile. There were no traps, poisonous snakes, or beasts.
“As expected.” Ye Qingxuan reached out and carefully took the burial sword from the dead. He waved it lightly but cracks snaked across the blade as it corroded and weathered quickly. “These are all Romulusian civilians.”
He looked around at the densely packed coffins. “If I guessed correctly, the statuses of the dead will get higher the deeper we go. There may be soldiers, generals, priests and…even their king, Augustus. The Romulusians are pagan and worship the family flame. They believe that the souls of their ancestors live in the flame. Their ancestors’ bodies are buried here so foreigners can’t taint them.”
“But didn’t you just have fun tainting it?” Baro murmured. However, his eyes quickly lit up. “What about musicians? Where are the graves of the musicians?” Hearing that, the eyes of the other two brightened as well.
It was difficult to track the King of Yellow but the cemetery would not move around. This trip would not be made in vain if they could find some classical music scores, precious instruments, or alchemy equipment.
“Musicians?” Ye Qingxuan laughed and shook his head. “First of all, you have to know that ancient Romulus specialized in alchemy but the instruments were all handed down the family. The sons inherited their fathers’ business. Other than damaged or extremely meaningful instruments, they’d rarely be buried with their owners. Literature and scores are archived in their temples and rarely spread amongst the public.
“Secondly, there are so many coffins here. Are we going to open each one to find which is a musician?”
“They’re all together?” Baro furrowed his brows. “Musicians are buried in these public cemeteries too?”
Ye Qingxuan nodded. “In Romulus, musicians are just another job. They were known as the ‘black marquis,’ and were couriers. They had high status but were still only civilians. Only nobles, priests, elders, philosophers, and Augustus had the right to be buried alone.”
“Philosophers?” Baro was stunned. “Why? Are they more useful than musicians?!”
Ye Qingxuan pursed his lips. “It’s because they’re too annoying during life. No one wants to be their neighbor in death. Would you want that?”
Baro was speechless.
“Shall we continue?” Ye Qingxuan put on his backpack again and extended his perception threads, walking to the front. They passed by many more traps but it was obvious much time had passed without maintenance. The mechanics of the traps had all rusted and could not be opened. Some doors were unmovable as well. Sam had to forcefully destroy them.
The more they walked, the more amazed they were at the scale of this underground palace. They had walked two levels down but they still saw coffins and rooms for descendants to worship in. According to their judgements of the burial items, they were still civilians. However, they were richer. Many of the burial items were jewelry cost thousands. However, musicians could only use these things as chant consumables. Of course, they could fill the emptiness in Sam’s wallet. The others, some took for the memory.
When they opened the next door, they saw ruins littered on the ground and heard whistling wind. The well-prepared Baro huffed. His figure shook and a lizard-like scale demon emerged from the shadows. It stuck its head out and smacked its lips like an alligator.
Crack. A cracked stone monkey shattered all over the ground. The scale demon sp
at it out in distaste and disappeared back into the shadows. However, Ye Qingxuan’s group’s attention fell onto the corpse amongst the ruins. It was still fresh and the blood had not dried yet. He had probably died a few dozen minutes before their arrival.
340 The Eye of Resentmen
“It’s a Revelations musician,” Ye Qingxuan said after scanning the corpse. “His frame looks to be about twenty-seven years old. The design of his amulet seems to be from the south. And the thing in his hand is…a shovel.”
Ye Qingxuan pulled out the broken spear-like thing from the corpse’s hands and nodded. “He’s probably an exploration scholar from the School of Geological Studies. Geological exploration and underground relics are the stages Exploration scholars are most experienced in. It’s not strange that he would be before us.”
Rising, he looked around. It was a large room with six side doors that probably led to six different places. Straight ahead, there was a tunnel that stretched into the distance. Finally, his gaze landed above the door frame. The dust contained the obvious mark of a monkey. The stone monkey had probably been there originally. If an intruder entered, it would jump down to tear him apart.
“There aren’t any actual obstacles other than the clay puppets so he was probably careless.” Ye Qingxuan sighed. He placed the body into an empty coffin outside and closed the lid. The good thing about dying in a cemetery was that there was an abundance of coffins.
“Dust returns to dust; dirt returns to dirt. What must leave should not be kept.” Ye Qingxuan drew a holy emblem on the coffin and performed a short funeral for the trial participant. This was probably the first of them to die and served as a warning. Everyone gathered their spirits, not daring to be careless. Who knew what else they would run into? There would definitely be stranger things as they went.
Other than Ye Qingxuan’s perception threads, Baro would also let out a dozen white pathfinder rats every now and then. These rats were not very strong and had short lifespans, making them efficient. He could let out hundreds at a time without feeling the pressure. One was a bit stupid and died from rolling down the steps but the others were okay.
However, everyone’s expressions grew uglier as they went. How could there be such a long staircase in the world? They had been walking for ten minutes! Baro’s legs had turned to jelly but they could not even see the lower level.
Ye Qingxuan made a rough calculation and furrowed his brows. “We’ve descended for a few hundred meters. Even if there were a sh*t ton of ancient Romulusians, they wouldn’t make such a meaningless structure. This design doesn’t have any meaning either.”
“An illusion?” Thinking, firelight surged in Sam’s hand. The heat spread and the rest prepared to shield against the attack. Sam looked as if he wanted to destroy this section of steps. Modifications musicians were great. Performing highly destructive music scores was as easy as drinking water.
However, Ye Qingxuan stopped Sam just as he was getting ready. “It’s useless,” Ye Qingxuan stated. “I’m a Revelations musician and I came in unknowingly. If it’s an illusion, it must be large-scale with multiple fulcrums. It may be on our bodies. If you destroy it brashly, it might lead to more changes that make us sink in further.”
Hearing this, everyone fell silent. They did not have any better ideas and it felt strangely uncomfortable to hear this guy say he was a Revelations musician.
“So do you have a good idea?” Baro asked.
After a moment of silence, Ye Qingxuan smiled yet grew serious. “Nope.”
The other three tried very hard not to explode. Baro glared. “Then what are you pretending for? You’re a Revelations musician and you led us into an illusion but now you don’t even know what to do! You’re useless!”
“Calm down. It was a joke to lighten the mood.” Ye Qingxuan waved with a smile. “My specialization in Revelations is recognition and explanation of music theory, not illusions. But don’t worry…” His tone suddenly changed and he pulled out a palm-sized velvet pouch. One could vaguely see some small balls inside. Ye Qingxuan grabbed the string and swung the pouch around casually. However, something foul and cold spread as the pouch swung. It was almost tangible malice.
“This is…” Thinking of something, Miller stepped back with a pale face. “That’s the Eye of Resentment. You made that sh*t?”
Hearing Miller’s words, Sam and Baro’s expressions changed too. They stepped back instinctively as if the pouch contained a demon.
The Eye of Resentment was technically just a universal chant consumable. Any music score could be added in to be reinforced. It was named like this because it was made from a fossilized eyeball that expressed resentment and wails from the underworld.
This chant consumable must be personally made by the user in order to be effective. However, it was forbidden by the Sacred City because the production process was too cruel and went against all ethics. How cruel was it? Well, it was developed by dark musicians. Its biggest function was not breaking through illusions. Instead, it turned into a fulcrum itself and embedded into the illusion. Through this fulcrum, it could taint the entire illusion. Any illusionist knew how troublesome a foreign fulcrum was in their illusion.
“I can’t help it. I had to make up for my weaknesses,” Ye Qingxuan said nonchalantly. He took the dried eyeball from the pouch and weighed it. The pupil still rolled in the eyeball. When it met someone’s eyes, it radiated with an almost tangible resentment. Thinking of the bloody ritual recorded in the files, Sam and the others looked away, not bearing to look.
“Oh right, what date is it?” Ye Qingxuan suddenly asked.
“September th—” someone replied reflexively but was cut off as if someone muffled their mouth. The voice was gentle like a woman’s.
Thus, Ye Qingxuan chuckled. “What’s your name?”
“Re…be…umph!” a voice said with difficulty. She seemed to be struggling against Ye Qingxuan’s questions but answered involuntarily until her voice was forcefully cut off in the end.
“Seems like there’s more than one, huh?” Ye Qingxuan’s smile grew colder. He slowly raised the eyeball but there was no eyeball in his hand. It was just a glass marble.
“Sorry, you should know what I’m going to do to you if you’ve already accepted the ‘hint,’ right?” he asked lightly. “I try not to torment girls so why don’t we all take a step back? You remove the illusion and I remove the hint. Otherwise, you know what happened to Mr. Simon. You don’t want to be disabled like him and only be able to enter the men’s bathroom in the future, right?”
Pained cries repressed anger but Ye Qingxuan’s expression suddenly went slack. He rolled the marble in his hands. The girl’s moans of pain sounded again. She seemed to be enduring immense pain.
“You want to undo my hint? Seems like you have a mind musician with you…” Ye Qingxuan arched an eyebrow. “Sorry, I haven’t learned other skills but unless you’re at the level of my ‘teacher,’ don’t even think about undoing my hint.”
He had used the marble in a hurry to attract their attention and put the hint and imagery in, but Lola had taught him personally and it was not easy to undo. They needed more than ten minutes. During these ten minutes, Ye Qingxuan could use the marble as a medium to do whatever he wanted in the mind of the Illusionist lady. It was her fault for being so worried at Ye Qingxuan’s Eye of Resentment and staring at Ye Qingxuan’s hand for so long.
“Enough, Rebecca. Your illusion can’t stop them so just let them in.” It was another familiar voice.
Ye Qingxuan chuckled. “Another friend? Mr. Colt, what are you doing now?”
“Come look and you’ll know.” The illusion disappeared with Colt’s voice and all returned to normal. There was still a staircase before Ye Qingxuan but it was only three steps. They had been walking on these three steps for a dozen minutes.
There was a large hall below the steps. The empty room was held up by a single pillar. Colt and five other familiar figures stood before the large door at the
end of the hall. Ye Qingxuan had seen these musicians during that night. Amongst them, Rebecca from the Voodoo Crypt stared at Ye Qingxuan. Her face was filled with anger and hatred.
Smiling, Ye Qingxuan tossed the marble over. Another female musician—Arianna—caught it. After checking it, she destroyed the marble, ending Ye Qingxuan’s hint.
The two other musicians glared at Ye Qingxuan’s group. They hid in aether in their sleeves in preparation.
Between them, Colt leaned on a cane. He glanced at Ye Qingxuan and said, “I didn’t expect you would come after us.”
“We’re not first place, after all.” Ye Qingxuan chuckled. “I didn’t think you’d be nice enough to wait for us. Let me guess, did you run into something difficult?”
“Let me repeat myself.” Colt turned, revealing the door behind him. “Come over and see for yourself.”
The prepared musicians guarded the door behind him and glared. They were not welcoming Ye Qingxuan over. Instead, they seemed to be waiting for Ye Qingxuan to willingly fall into their trap.
341 Hades’ Door
Miller wanted to speak but hesitated.
Baro grabbed Ye Qingxuan’s shoulder. “Don’t go. Who knows what they’re planning?”
“Don’t worry.” Ye Qingxuan glanced at Colt and smiled. “Mr. Colt isn’t like that, right?”
Colt smiled without replying. Coldness was hidden inside his emerald eyes.
“Stay here. I’ll be back soon,” Ye Qingxuan said to Sam. “If there are any problems, don’t worry about me. Kill Colt first.”
Sam nodded.
Putting down his bags, Ye Qingxuan walked toward the five musicians. Colt watched as he moved forward step-by-step with an unchanging expression. In the silence, Ye Qingxuan’s footsteps suddenly stopped. He stared at Colt; Colt stared back at him. They exchanged meaningful gazes.
In the short pause, faint animosity appeared in everyone’s eyes and the atmosphere tensed. However, Ye Qingxuan’s smile did not change in that suffocating moment. In the end, Colt sighed regretfully and took a step back. There was a faint sound in the air as if something had disappeared.