Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Zoro and the others followed the direction indicated by the Old Ancestor and finally arrived at the foot of the mountain. They also found a long ravine in it, as if the Old Ancestor had specially left a mark to guide them.
Following the mark, the few of them finally saw the cave. Upon closer look, there were also many worm carcasses at the entrance of the cave.
Although the cave was dark and oppressive, Zoro had a lot of trust in his Old Ancestor. He believed that there would not be any danger inside, so he went in directly.
This did not mean that Zoro had completely let down his guard. The few of them were still in a tense state.
There was only one path in the cave, so Zoro and the others could only follow this path in. Soon, the path became wider and brighter, and finally they came to a wide stone room.
The smell in the stone room was very unbearable. Lily kept retching, She had to cover her mouth and nose with her sleeve before she could manage to move forward.
A few candles had been lit up in front of them, emitting a faint glow. Everyone could see clearly what were hanging on the walls, which included the bones of animals of all sizes and even the bones of humans.
In the middle of the stone room, there was a circular platform. In the surroundings, all kinds of items had been placed. The few of them thought that they were used for worship.
‘When they were unprepared, a corpse suddenly came into view.
“ah!” The sudden appearance of the corpse gave Lily a shock.
Zoro quickly walked closer to the corpse. He found that the corpse had died not long ago. Looking at its wound, it seemed to have been injured by sword energy. If he was not wrong, he should have been killed by the Old Ancestor.
This meant that the person who had died was the mastermind behind everything, The sudden and strange disease must have had something to do with him.
From Zoro’s perception of him, this person should be a Mage of the Divine Power Realm.
After checking the corpse on the floor to make sure it had no breath at all, he checked the surroundings.
From the way the corpse lay on the ground, Zoro realized that the person had wanted to run forward before he died. Looking ahead, Zoro found another stone room.
Upon entering the new stone room, Zoro was shocked. There were all kinds of poisonous insects on the floor, but they had all stopped breathing. In the center was a bamboo basket, and it looked like something had been placed inside.
Zoro quickly walked over, preparing to check it out. When he saw what was inside, Zoro could not believe his eyes.
He had thought that there would be the carcasses of all kinds of poisonous insects inside, and even live poisonous insects. However, he had not expected that under the carcasses of a large number of poisonous insects, there would be a little baby. It seemed to be just a little over a year old.
The baby was naked but more than half of its skin had been covered by the carcasses of poisonous insects. The areas that had been covered were all dark red, but there were no poisonous insects on his face. He was still sucking his fingers, and his chest was moving up and down. He seemed to be asleep.
The image of a baby with poisonous insects was too bizarre. Zoro really had no idea where this baby had come from. Could it be that someone had been using this baby to cultivate some secret technique?
Seeing that Zoro had not come out after a long while, Charles and Kathleen hurried into the stone room. They too were frightened by the scene in front of them.
“What’s wrong with this baby?” Kathleen was shocked and she quickly asked Zoro, wanting to get an answer from him.
“Everyone, don’t touch him first. Let’s see if we can find other clues.” Zoro asked everyone to look for other clues just in case.
Charles first went to search the body of the dead Mage. As expected, he found a notebook in which detailed what he had done in the past few years. This notebook could explain everything that everyone had seen.
It turned out that the magical power this Mage cultivated was not ordinary magical power, but a type of black magic, a kind of unorthodox magical power.
And this Mage was not from this place. Many years ago, in order to avoid the pursuit of enemies, he had no choice but to hide here.
And he had been pursued because of a secret manual on black magic.
The Mage had not wasted the time he spent here at all. He had been studying the secret manual on black magic day after day and had made great progress. He had actually advanced and became a Mage of the Divine Power Realm.
However, the method he used was not an orthodox method. He used poisonous insects to absorb the blood, energy, and even life of other living creatures before injecting the energy of these living creatures into his body.
The strange disease in the village where Aaron was previously had been caused by this Mage.
And those in that village, who had not moved elsewhere, had all contracted this strange disease and lost their consciousness, becoming puppets for the Mage to increase his level.
They would subconsciously walk to this place, which was why Zoro did not see any corpses in the village, as if everyone had disappeared.
In this stone room, there was a place filled with a large quantity of bones. It looked like they were all human bones. They should have been the villagers from Aaron’s previous village.
The group of bandits had been infected with the strange disease, but they did not die because the Mage saw that they knew some martial arts. Hence, although they had been infected with the strange disease, he had allowed them to retain their consciousness and also given them a portion of magical
power to help him do work.
That poor baby was a puppet which the Mage had carefully selected, but he was an upgraded version of those bandit puppets.
The Mage had used a series of tragic methods to turn the baby into a Body of Ten-Thousand Poisons, so as to make him into a new puppet to work for him.
In the beginning, the bandits had no intention to kill Zoro and the others. It had been because they had received the Mage’s orders to make them into new puppets.
There was only so much information recorded in the book. After Zoro had read it, he felt a lingering fear. At the same time, he also had some clarity.
If the Old Ancestor had not intervened, he would have become one of the many puppets.
“What should we do next?” asked Kathleen.
“We have to take that child away, we have to bring him home,” Zoro said firmly.
From the records in the notebook, the child had come from Aaron’s previous village. In other words, this baby was most likely a descendant of the Nicholas family.
Even if he was not, he was a life after all, Zoro and others could not stand by and do nothing.
Moreover, the Old Ancestor would be able to tell if he was a descendant of the Nicholas family clan, so it would be fine to bring him back.
In the ancestral hall of the Nicholas family clan, Romo watched Zoro and the others through the Visitation Talisman and affirmed Zoro’s decision. After all, Romo was also very interested in the baby..
