Chapter 332: Into the Forest (12)
“If I’m right, the stone pillar is on the altar.”
With that, Everly led Sophia out of the tent toward the altar outside.
As they passed the shelves holding the belongings looted from outsiders, she casually grabbed two multipurpose tactical axes and handed one to Sophia. Both the poll and the handle of the axes had been specially reinforced, allowing them to double as pry bars.
They made their way back up to the top of the altar, where Everly pointed at the long stone slab lying horizontally on the platform.
She had thought its dimensions were odd from the very beginning. Nearly three meters long and narrow in shape, it looked less like a table for displaying sacrifices and more like a park bench.
Moreover, the slab was completely devoid of carvings or decoration. It looked plain, ugly, and utterly ordinary. The altar itself had decorative patterns carved into the stairways on all four sides, yet the very top—the place closest to the deity—held nothing but a featureless block of stone. The more she looked at it, the stranger it seemed.
Once the suspicion took root, the inconsistencies became impossible to ignore. Considering this was a cult film that thrived on gore and bizarre imagery, the puzzle-solving portion was never going to drag on for long. The answer was practically staring her in the face.
Standing before the stone slab, Everly and Sophia each took a side. They wedged the hooked triangular protrusions on the backs of their axes into the crack beneath the slab, shifted their weight onto the handles, and pushed down with all their strength.
Crack… Craaack…