Chapter 216: Murals
Following closely behind Gao Zhen and the rest, Yi Chen soon entered the temple’s interior.
From outside, the entrance looked completely dark, so Yi Chen had expected that to change once they made their way inside.
However, that didn’t happen.
Only the subtle grey light coming from the entrance behind him illuminated the marbled floor a few feet ahead; the rest of the interior remained blanketed in absolute darkness.
SLAM!
The iron door behind him slammed shut the next instant and, with that, even the little light that was illuminating the interior was taken away from them, leaving the four of them in complete darkness.
"Stay alert!" Gao Zhen exclaimed immediately.
"Yes, Madam Gao," They responded, simultaneously raising their guard.
With no clue as to what they might encounter now, it was only natural for them to be on their guard. Especially so when nothing was visible to them.
SASH!
Just then, their attention was attracted by a blue light. It came from a wall torch that had suddenly flared up. Its blue flames slowly danced in an eerie fashion.
"This..."
With narrowed eyes, Gao Zhen was about to walk toward the torch to investigate, but before she could do that, another similar torch ignited a few meters away from it.
SASH!
Together, they illuminated a greater area, making Gao Zhen and the others notice a portion of a large mural that was painted on the walls that held the torches.
However, since the light was still dim, they were unable to clearly perceive what the murals were depicting.
In less than half the time it took for the previous torch to light up, another blue torch flared up.
SASH!
It was closely followed by another.
SASH!
And another.
SASH!
.
.
Soon, the entire temple hall was illuminated by these blue wall torches lined across the temple’s curved walls that were in the shape of a cylinder from above.
"What’s this..."
Yi Chen couldn’t help but mutter as he slowly rotated his body while standing at his spot, his eyes completely fixed on the murals painted on the walls all around.
Gao Zhen and the others also had a similar expression of disbelief plastered on their faces, and they too started scrutinising these paintings.
’A war...’
After a cursory glance, Yi Chen understood the theme and started observing it with greater detail.
Two races clashed with swords and various martial techniques.
One had fairer skin and looked similar to humans. The other had pitch-black skin, fangs protruding out of their lower lips and sharp horns on the sides of their heads.
’Demons?’
Looking at the familiar features he had seen in many artworks in his previous life, Yi Chen was immediately able to understand the identity of the race in the paintings.
However, that wasn’t the case with Gao Zhen and the others.
A totally confused expression was present on their faces as they observed the black-skinned creatures with curiosity and horror evident in their eyes.
The demons were on the winning side, wielding enormous, intimidating weapons, much larger than themselves. Using those weapons, they were portrayed as slaying a large army of human cultivators.
Blood was splattered all around, heads were either squashed by the heavy weapons or were decapitated by the sharper ones.
A bunch of those demons could be seen with a proud expression, holding several strings in their hands.
These strings were hairs of the cultivators they had slain and were attached to the heads, which were dangling like puppets, just a few inches away from the ground, which looked more like a pool of blood.
Almost all the human cultivators were either killed or depicted as fleeing, and only a few of them could be seen standing their ground and putting up a tough fight while the headless bodies of their comrades were scattered around them.
Seeing this ghastly scene, everyone’s expression turned grim.
Even though they didn’t know them personally, belonging to the same race had made them want to root for them.
But alas, rooting wouldn’t change what had already been depicted in those murals.
By the time they reached the last mural on the walls, all the humans had been killed, and an army of demons was dancing and smiling with grotesque smiles around a mountain of human corpses that was set up on fire.
"...Madam Gao," Yi Chen’s voice sounded the next moment.
"Y-Yes..." She answered after a short second, forcefully turning her head away from the graphic murals towards his eyes.
"The ancient cultivators who left these legacies for us...were they humans or..."
At Yi Chen’s question, Gao Zhen pursed her lips and answered with knitted brows.
"...I don’t know. I’ve never heard of such creatures from the cultivators who had successfully explored other ancient ruins."
She paused for a second and continued.
"There had only been mentions of ancient texts, language and then the treasures that are present in these ruins."
"I see..." Yi Chen subtly nodded his head while already concluding in his mind that this tomb belonged to the demon race that was depicted in those murals.
His reasoning? First, the demons were clearly depicted as the winners in the war that was shown in the murals.
If this were a human cultivator’s tomb, then there’s no way that they would have created such murals on their tomb, and even if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have such a glorified depiction of cruelty against other humans.
Along with this, the fact that the ancient language found in this tomb matched the one found in the other ancient ruins further added weight to his already established conclusion.
Also thinking on the same lines, Xie Rou suddenly stated, "Madam Gao...if the language on the black tower which we saw outside matches the texts and scriptures acquired in the other ruins? then doesn’t that mea-"
"Yes!" Zhou Lan immediately exclaimed in realisation and continued, "It must mean that not only this ruin but all the ancient ruins discovered so far have their roots in those dark beings portrayed in these murals..."
’That’s probable...’ Gao Zhen mused with furrowed brows, ’However, there could also be a chance that it was a common language shared between the two races...’
Realising that there would be no end to their hypotheses if they kept going on like this, she sharply clapped her hands and attracted everyone’s attention.
"Whatever the case may be. Whether this ruin belonged to humans or to that dark race, the thing which we need to do now doesn’t change.
Let’s clear this tomb as fast as possible so that we all can return to the Jade City. I’m sure there must be many things pending there which you need to finish."
"Yes!" The three of them nodded with firm gazes in their eyes and, under Gao Zhen’s lead, started walking towards the centre of the hall.
The entire floor, which from a bird’s eye view was circular in shape, was completely empty except for a waist-high pillar erected in its centre.
Arriving beside the pillar, the four of them observed it curiously.
"Is that just for decoration?"
"I think so..."
Xie Rou and Zhou Lan exchanged their views.
Meanwhile, a thoughtful frown was present on Yi Chen and Gao Zhen’s faces.
Unable to come up with an answer on his own, he was about to glance at the pillar’s status panel, but before he could do so, Gao Zhen’s actions resolved his confusion.
Seeing that a black gem was embedded on top of the pillar, Gao Zhen hesitated for a second before placing her hand on top of it.
The very next instant, the gem shone with a blinding silver light, making them all tightly press their eyes.
At that moment, an intense suction force came from the black gem, and Gao Zhen found that more than half of her Qi pool had emptied.
"This!"
Gao Zhen widened her eyes in horror and immediately pulled her hand away, but by then the gem had already sucked the Qi it required.
BROOOM!
The entire floor shook the very next moment.
"What’s going on?"
"The walls are moving!"
To their surprise, the entire floor started descending rapidly.
"It’s descending! Quick! Grab onto the pillar."
Alarmed, Gao Zhen exclaimed while tightly wrapping her hand around it.
The others followed suit and braced themselves for the likely impact.
However, the impact never arrived, and instead, the rate of descent slowed down after a few moments before coming to a stop.
They had arrived at a new place...or to be more precise, a new floor.
"So, there was another hall below it?" Zhou Lan couldn’t help but mutter in surprise as her eyes observed the hall with intense curiosity.
Unlike the first hall, there were no murals painted on the walls, but instead, in place of murals, there were ten doors embedded in the walls.
Each door shone with white light, and in the gap between the equally spaced doors, several lines of characters in the ancient language were engraved on the stone.
Seeing this scene, Yi Chen immediately willed for the door’s status panel to be opened.
=====STATUS=====
Name: Isolated Domain Gate
Remark: Reward and punishment walk hand in hand [Regenerate: 10,000 KP]
================
’Isolated Domain Gate?’
The name was self-explanatory. However, Yi Chen still furrowed his brows in curiosity, wondering as to what was harboured inside these doors.
Meanwhile, with furrowed eyes, Gao Zhen suddenly took a few steps towards the doors and, placing her hand over the characters engraved on the walls, widened her eyes in understanding, "So that’s how it is..."