Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Indeed, the Humerus Wyrms were no Assassins. Their entrance would be accompanied by immense dragon menace and death aura. If it was a large-scale legion, their presence would definitely be no secret. Not to mention that there were Legendary powerhouses in the four teams, an Archmage or a Warrior—or even a common man—would also be able to sense their abnormal presence.
“What do you think, Master Felic?” Hoffman turned to look at Lin Li after hearing Claus’ and Joseph’s suggestion.
“I have no objections,” replied Lin Li readily. He had become more and more interested in this purported mausoleum. He wondered what other discoveries were waiting ahead of him…
The four forces got on the same page very swiftly. They decided not to delay any longer.
They went off to prepare their men immediately after they left the room. They solved each of the magic gears and traps very quickly under Angelano’s instructions along their journey, managed to pass through long corridors that were filled with deadly traps, and got to the entrance leading to the next level.
However, the journey towards the next level was extraordinarily long. The team had to travel what seemed like thousands of meters to exit from the door of the pathway. However, the men who first stepped past that entrance were immediately stupefied when they saw the scene before them.
The fourth level of the mausoleum was unlike the previous three levels. The environment there did not seem manmade. It was instead a gigantic and gloomy canyon. No one knew whether it was a natural environment. The door which the men walked out of was situated in the wall of the base of the canyon. They had to use the illumination spell to see that the walls on both sides were so tall that they could not see the ceiling.
Lin Li, however, was not as surprised as the other men. After all, he was a man who had seen an underworld-like Osric’s mausoleum. The only thing that concerned him was the massive death aura that was even more pungent than in the Shadowglen near Alanna, where the Undead creatures congregated. This reminded Lin Li of the log he had read in the room about the Humerus Wyrm Legion.
The pathfinders came out from the passageway, and got into a defensive formation immediately. The higher-ups from the four forces gathered together again. They looked into the darkness of the deep canyon, and no one made the suggestion to advance. These powerhouses at the peak of the Legendary-realm could all sense the oppression and terror emitted by that death aura.
The men gasped when the illumination spells lit up the space around them. The space around the door of the passageway was considered rather clean, but if they looked a little further, they would see that the path ahead of them was filled with a huge amount of skeletons. It was like a path that was made of skeletons. Those skeletons did not belong to the High Elves, the humans, or any other races of intelligence. They belonged to a particular type of mammoth.
“Erm… Should we continue with our venture?” Claus asked. His voice was filled with uncertainty. It was clear that he did not expect the canyon to be such a perilous one. No one would be able to imagine what type of Undead creature would be produced by the massive death aura. Even if it was just a Humerus Wyrm Legion, it definitely would not be one with a small size.
It was common for an adventure in a relic site to be risky. However, if the risk was not proportionate to the rewards, it would be a silly thing to persist in it. That was what Claus was thinking about. No one would want to do a losing business. Everyone could tell that there was a huge risk underlying that pungent death aura, and they wouldn’t be surprised to see a terrible Undead creature that was unknown to Anril.
Their concerns were not invalid. No one could see Brahere as a kind being after they met a monster like the Whispering God. To them, Brahere was a lunatic crazier than Highlord Osric. God knew what other freakish deeds he had done.
“Master Felic, what do you think of this?” asked Hoffman uncomfortably. Although he expected the mausoleum of a royal High Elf to be something different, he realized that things were way off his imagination.
“F-Felic… Why don’t we retreat? This place is seriously daunting…” cried Angelano in a shaky voice. He hid behind Lin Li before the latter could even say anything. To him, being beside Lin Li would be the safest after his Alchemy Colossus. He nearly stuck his whole body onto Lin Li.
Lin Li was hesitant when he saw the scene in the canyon as well, but he felt too indignant to retreat.
“Let’s look at the situation first,” replied Lin Li after a moment of hesitation, and sent a Warlock’s Eyes into the deeper regions of the canyon.
Lin Li’s reasonable action reminded the rest of the men to use logic. No matter what dangers lay ahead of them, it would only make sense for them to assess the situation before making any judgment. If it was not worth the risk, they could naturally leave the place. Yet, if there were huge benefits ahead of them, they should be reassessing if the risk was worthy of the rewards. Hence, the other mages cast their Warlock’s Eyes after they saw Lin Li did that.
An invisible bunch of Warlock’s Eyes flew past the ghastly skeletons, then through the pitch-black canyon, and finally reached an incredibly spacious region. At this time, all of these mages could not help gasping.
That spacious region did not only contain a huge amount of magical beast skeletons, but was also littered with many graves. The largest and most extravagant grave in the center caught everyone’s attention. One could guess from the plenty beautiful decorations outside the grave that it was a grave that belonged to a royal High Elf. What was more important was its massive magical waves which the mages could sense through their Warlock’s Eyes. It was likely that it came from incredibly valuable funerary items buried underneath.
Although they were unaware of what the funerary items were, they could infer from those great magical waves that the reward from excavating this grave would be a tremendous one. This discovery increased the intensity of their breathing. No one mentioned retreating anymore. They proceeded to control the Warlock’s Eyes to observe the surroundings carefully, hoping to find more valuable clues.
The discovery of the grave, however, immediately created great doubt within Lin Li. He remembered from the blueprint provided by the Glittergold Trade Union that Prince Brahere’s grave was located on the last level of the mausoleum. Even if there were no blueprint, it would not make sense for anyone to put his coffin in the middle level of a mausoleum.
However, if the grave did not belong to Prince Brahere, which other royal High Elf would it belong to? It would be outrageous for two royals to be buried together in a mausoleum due to traditional beliefs. Such a burial would be incredibly disrespectful to Prince Brahere and any other royal he were to be buried with.
Of course, one would only need to look at the tombstone to find out who the owner of the mausoleum was. However, it would be too easy if they could do just that. Many people had the same thought, but none could translate the High Elves Print on that tombstone.
Although all the mages (even those who had no experience with High Elves’ language) could pronounce the printed characters, they had no idea what they meant.
The characters meant different things in different contexts. Hence, knowing how to pronounce the text was merely reading the text.
Lin Li was no different. His study of the High Elves Print was futile in helping him understand the meaning of the writing on the tombstone.
However, Lin Li knew that he was not the most proficient in understanding High Elves Print in the Tower of Dusk. Hence, he turned to look at Basel. He had a glimmer of hope when he saw Basel moving his lips as though he was reading the words on the tombstone. Lin Li asked, “Master Basel, could you translate those words?”
“I can’t understand everything there. I can only guess parts of it, and it might not be accurate,” said Basel as he shook his head gently.
This was better than not knowing anything. Initially, Lin Li felt disappointed when he saw Basel shaking his head, but his spirits were lifted when he heard his words afterward.
“Could you tell me what you can understand from it, then?” he asked Basel.
“Immortal, king, rest, this place… Here rests… Immortal King? Here lies Immortal King!?” Basel first did a word-for-word translation before stringing the ideas together. It was an unbelievable one.
This gave Lin Li a huge shock. Could this be Immortal King’s grave? It did not make sense to him. Although the Immortal King was a royal of the High Elves, he definitely had a higher status than Prince Brahere. The Immortal King was like a god of the High Elves. How would he be buried in Prince Brahere’s mausoleum?
Most importantly, the Immortal King was known to have nearly reached the level of divine. He even killed one of the Dragon Aspects—Azardas, the Dragon of Destruction. Even if the Immortal King could not achieve immortality, or if he had suffered severe injuries in his battle with Azardas, he would not have been buried here without a word.
Frankly speaking, Lin Li would never believe that Immortal King would be buried here. However, why would there be those words on the grave? Even if Basel made errors in translation, he felt that this grave had to be related to the Immortal King.
Lin Li would never want to stay in the incredibly dangerous canyon even if he knew that there were valuable treasures here. However, the possibility that this place was related to the Immortal King made Lin Li waver.
The existence of the debris of the stars, the last words of Norfeller’s ex-master, the statue of the Immortal King in the Scar of Death, that eccentric inheritance in the Sky Castle… All of them made Lin Li doubt his relationship with Immortal King. Lin Li could not think of an answer, but he realized that he seemed to have a foot in anything related to the Immortal King. Lin Li even suspected Immortal King to be one of the reasons why he suddenly transmigrated from the Endless World.
Hence, Lin Li had decided to dig deeper into that grave. It did not matter if Immortal King was really buried there.
The other men were as shocked as Lin Li when they heard about the possibility of the Immortal King being in that grave. After all, the Immortal King had been portrayed as god-like in historical records and all sorts of legends. With his status among the High Elves, it would be absurd for him to be quietly buried with another royal.
However, it did not matter if that grave was authentic or not. It was true that it emitted massive magical waves. The thought of the treasure within that grave eliminated every thought of retreating.
Hence, the leaders from the four forces got into an agreement very quickly. They were set to advance and pass through the canyon to uncover the treasures in the grave!
Yet, the team faced a problem when they set off. According to what had been agreed upon, the frontliners should be made up of people from the Mithril Alliance and the Caesar Family, but now the Mithril Alliance’s strength had yet to recover. Hence, Joseph rejected the prior agreement to let his men lead the team.
Joseph was not finding trouble with the team. His was the only one out of the four forces that did not use the Life Potion. Hence, it was true that their injured men were still lagging behind in terms of recovery.
This left the Caesar Family as the main bulk of the pathfinder team. Since Claus owed the Tower of Dusk a favor, he did not have the cheek to let anyone from the Tower of Dusk or Glittergold Trade Union fill in this gap. He could only unwillingly prepare to send more of his men over.
