by <unknown>
Many other individuals who were much smaller were kneeling on the ground around him and worshipping him.
If the place below was indeed Chaos' tomb, the hero in the pictures carved on the gate of the tomb was doubtlessly 'Chaos' himself.
Chu Zhengqing explained to Elder Nether Spring, "The first picture seems to depict Chaos, as a 'human being', swallowing a kind of mysterious liquid. It seems to be a very important experiment or ritual."
In the second picture, there was still a human being whose limbs were all stretched out. But the body of a person had grown vivid feathers, scales, claws, tails, and horns.
Although it was just a stationary embossment, one could not help but feel that countless ferocious beasts were sealed inside the man's body and would be woken up at any moment.
"After drinking the mysterious liquid, Chaos has grown features of multiple kinds of demons," Chu Zhengqing said.
In the third, fourth, and fifth pictures, the features of demons became more and more obvious on Chaos. They were more and more disordered, too. He seemed to have become an amalgamation of countless types of animals, raging, roaring, and fighting against endless foes.
What was weirder was that, among his foes, there were both Cultivators in long robes riding their swords and hideously-grimacing demons. One could not tell the stance of 'Chaos' at all.
Even more shockingly, in the sixth picture, Chaos, who was now showing the features of hundreds of types of demons, exploded like a balloon that had expanded too much.
As a result, in the seventh picture, Chaos turned into split translucent materials that looked like jellyfish.
Chu Zhengqing and the specialists studied for a long time but could not figure out what it meant. "What's the meaning of this? Is it indicating that 'Chaos' died of mental derangement?"
"We will know the truth as soon as the gate is opened," Elder Nether Spring said. "How long will it take?"
A short and ugly expert who was adept at traps placed multiple metal balls on various parts of the bronze gate. He picked out tiny bugs from his ears and made them crawl along the edge of the gate. He said in a low voice, "It won't take long. A very serious accident seems to have taken place in the Mausoleum of Chaos, which killed everybody outside. The gate was sealed in a hurry, too, and is not flawless.
"Such barriers have been found in many tombs over the past forty thousand years. Their structure is not rare. As long as we—"
The specialist seemed to have heard something and tilted his head. The metal balls that were on the bronze gate all rolled rapidly along the bumpy spiritual stripes. They passed by and crashed into each other, turning into streaks of silver brightness. In the end, after a 'bo' sound, they melted like ice and turned into mercury-like liquid!
The liquid metal seemed to be alive. It zigzagged and soon filled every gap among the spiritual stripes!
Crack!
Behind the bronze gate, in a place that sounded far, far away, a dull, mechanical noise echoed.
Then, the deafening noises of running gears reverberated. The bronze gate was shivering slightly, and even the figures on the pictures of the gate seemed to be twisting weirdly!
Chapter 910: Mutation Black Gas! |
The anomaly of the bronze gate raised the wariness of all the soldiers of the Nether World Watch. Even Elder Nether Spring, one of the best experts of the Blood Demon Sector, was also gazing at the twisted embossments without blinking.
The tombs and relics of ancient experts were the favorites for both Cultivators and demons. If they could find a few legacies inside the bomb, they might be able to make a significant breakthrough in their training. However, such places were mostly full of traps, and the explorers might get killed should they be careless.
However, the studies of the specialists and the prospecting over the last few days had reached the same conclusion—the Mausoleum of Chaos was closed because of an extremely gory accident in which everybody inside the mausoleum was instantly killed.
Maybe, it was because the leakage of a very tough virus that caused the mental derangement and mutation of the researchers, who killed each other until none remained.
Under such circumstances, Chaos died a rather hasty death, and there were not many followers who could finish setting up the traps for him.
It was also one of the reasons why Elder Nether Spring dared explore the place in person.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The sounds of spinning gears and rubbing chains behind the bronze gate sounded closer and closer. At first, they seemed to be from the core of the planet, but right now, they were echoing right inside everybody's ears, making the explorers feel that it was not just the bronze gate that was being twisted but also their internal organs.
Before the gate was fully opened, some of the relatively weak specialists were already gagging.
Huala!
The next second, the bronze gate suddenly collapsed.
"Aim all the fireflies and searchlights at the bronze gate. Everybody, retreat ten meters!" Elder Nether Spring commanded.
Dozens of searchlights captured and smuggled from the Heaven's Origin Sector, with crystals as cores and enhanced by hundreds of light-concentrating rune arrays, were aimed at the bronze gate at the same time. In the meantime, countless bugs that were much larger than normal fireflies and had crystals embedded in their heads and bottoms flew to the top of the bronze gate, too.
The radiance generated by them illuminated their surroundings like daylight. Even so, the brightness was still heavily refrained above the bronze gate, as if the black fog that was flowing out of the bronze gate was devouring all of it.
With the help of the light that had been suppressed to the minimum, one could vaguely see that the bronze gate had descended about five meters. Then, it revolved anticlockwise three times and clockwise two and a half times. In the end, after a 'clang' sound, the pivot of the gate seemed to have opened, and the bronze gate split apart like a blossoming flower, retreating into the depths of the rocks.
The bronze gate was no more. The pathway below the gate extended deep underground, vertically like a shaft. Naturally, nobody was able to tell what was down there when they were standing aside.
"Hundred Feet, explore the environment!" shrieked Swirl, the butterfly demon.
One of the soldiers of the Nether World Watch immediately walked out of the team. There were barely any features of human beings on his body. He was more like a hybrid of an enormous spider and a centipede. He had two long limbs in front of his body, and more than ten red, complex eyes were grown among the villus and the end of the limbs.
Hundred Feet extended his limbs. They seemed to have been refined by special genes for the purpose of reconnaissance. When his limbs, which were almost three meters long at first, were fully unfolded, they became more than ten meters long. Connected by more than ten joints, he could move his limbs freely in the most complicated tunnels.
Hundred Feet extended his limbs that were brimming with complex eyes into the dark hole on the ground.
Despot and Swirl, the two captains of the Nether World Watch, both placed their hands near the head of 'Hundred Feet' and connected to his brain with synthesized neurons, sharing his vision.
"Judging from the soundwave detection in the beginning, the pathway is at least twenty kilometers long, with many footholds on the wall to help everybody go in and out. But the wall of the hole is extremely smooth. It is impossible for ordinary people to go inside without the help of tools."
"Dark fog is everywhere inside the pathway. Although the complex eyes of 'Hundred Feet' have been specially refined and trained, it is impossible to see more than a hundred meters away."
"Huh. What's that sound?"
At the end of the pathway, deep down the underground, deafening noises that sounded like a surging hurricane suddenly flooded up like a spring!
"Watch out! Don't get hurt!"
Swirl tackled Hundred Feet to the ground while a cluster of ball lightning was qu
ickly expanding between the two enormous horns on the head of 'Despot'.
Almost at the same time, the sound of the hurricane had already reached the entrance of the hole. After a boom, a large cluster of black gas charged out like a volcanic eruption!
"Ahhh!"
The last section of the limbs of Hundred Feet had not been pulled out of the shaft yet, which was hit precisely by the black gas. He screamed miserably, and his complex eyes suddenly bulged like abnormal tumors, only to explode one by one a moment later!
Hundred Feet screamed in the excruciating pain.
Swirl was quick enough to react. She waved her butterfly wings, and a stream of colorful brilliance circled around the swollen limbs of Hundred Feet. The limbs were immediately cut off, but like vipers whose heads had been chopped off, they writhed violently on the ground before they finally melted into a pool of pus!
The black gas soared up and enshrouded most of the fluorescent fireflies. The brightness of half the fireflies immediately died down while they withered and fell into the shaft like hailstones.
In the meantime, the other half of the fireflies were shining even more brightly than before. Amid hissing sounds, their wings and limbs grew crazily, and they significantly expanded in scale, turning from the size of a thumb to the size of almost a palm!
The enlarged florescence fireflies were like flash bombs that had grown wings. They turned extremely brutal, bloodthirsty, and hungry. With earsplitting shrieks, they dashed to the soldiers of the Nether World Watch through various directions!
"The fireflies are out of control!" one of the explorers exclaimed.
Most of the subordinates of Elder Nether Spring belonged to the Insect Clan. As their name suggested, they were all experts in manipulating insects. All the insect-type demon beasts were like arms and fingers under their control.
But right now, the fluorescent fireflies, which were refined with the blood of the soldiers of the Nether World Army and were essentially part of their organs, would not listen to their commands!
At the critical moment, 'Despot', the Hercules beetle, bellowed and blew out a ball of lightning between his horns. It was then detonated in the middle of the mutated fluorescent fireflies, turning into an enormous electric web more than ten square meters large. The mysterious blue electric arcs confined all the florescence fireflies inside!
Zi! Zi! Zi! Zi!
Despite the boundary of the intense electric arcs, the florescence fireflies were not killed instantly. They were still struggling hard and almost tore apart the electric web several times.
"Huh?"
Despot's shell was shaking and producing rattling noises. The demon cores that were embedded into his body were glittering, and the electric arcs that he released turned from deep blue into crimson!
Under the surging crimson electric arcs, most of the florescence fireflies were finally electrocuted into dry corpses and blown into ash, but some ten fireflies that were particularly vigorous were not electrocuted. Instead, they further mutated in the electric arcs, with sharp thorns growing out of their body and their mouthparts expanding into what seemed to be shining caltrops!
"What?"
Despot seemed to feel humiliated. Bloody steam was popping up from his face that was covered in black armor. His arms bashed each other brutally like two rushing crystal trains. The super demon core at the center of his breastplate that looked like a mirror suddenly shinned, changing the electric arcs that he was letting out from crimson into pale white.
Finally, all the mutated fluorescent fireflies were killed.
"Spray the stabilizing drugs, now!" Swirl commanded anxiously.
A few soldiers of the Nether World Watch that were like rice-puddings quickly moved forward.
They were all wearing multiple layers of fully-enclosed protective suits, even including the anti-poison equipment from the Heaven's Origin Sector. They were also carrying several huge, silver, high-pressure bottles on which a lot of rune arrays were shining brilliantly.
Pu! Pu! Pu! Pu!
Dark green foam spurted out of the high-pressure bottles and formed a solid barrier around the black gas.
The moment the dark green foam touched the black gas, it immediately simmered and enveloped the black gas, neutralizing it and generating a huge amount of harmless, bright green gas that was spreading afar in the room.
"The black gas that sank to the deepest part of the tomb of Chaos seems to have the effect of overly stimulating the activity of cells. Any living creature that touches it will turn extremely crazy, and their vitality will be drained in an instant!
"Thankfully, the structure of the ancient black gas is relatively simple. It can be neutralized by our stabilizing drugs."
One of the poison specialists was operating a few local artifacts of the Blood Demon Sector and several pieces of air examination magical equipment from the Heaven's Origin Sector, while he observed quickly, "The black gas has been sealed inside the tomb of Chaos for forty thousand years. During the forty thousand years, because of the tectonic movement, the air pressure inside the tomb changed a lot. That's why it is spurting out. I estimate that it will all disperse in five minutes.
"However, inside the tomb of Chaos, there might be residue of the black gas. It is suggested that we spray stabilizing drugs into the cave and neutralize the gas before our exploration."
As he predicted, three minutes later, the black gas was spurting much less forcefully, like a spring that had lost pressure. Five minutes later, there was no more black gas.
Even so, Elder Nether Spring still asked the Nether World Watch to wait half an hour, and he told the specialist to send a piece of air examination magical equipment deep into the shaft with a long, narrow rope.
The rope was ten kilometers long. The result was that no constituents of lethal poisons were detected ten thousand meters into the hole.
Since the tomb had been sealed for forty thousand years, the air was naturally not suitable for breathing. However, since the demons did not have a high demand on the air quality like humans did, and they were all carrying highly-compressed oxygen cylinders, there would not be a problem.
During the half hour while the black gas was being mediated, the Nether World Watch worked on the shaft and established a temporary lift with a solid chain.
However, due to the restriction of the hardness of the material, the chain was only five thousand meters long. If it were any longer, it would collapse because of its own eight.
Many experts of the Nether World Watch could fly and float in midair. Those who could not were mostly able to slither on the wall of the cave like lizards. The lift was mainly prepared to deliver assets.
They planned to establish such a lift every five thousand meters below the shaft. With such a relay system, they would be able to extract all the items of value inside the tomb.
Chapter 911: Inside the Darkness |
Hum! Hum! Hum! Hum!
Half an hour later, the first batch of scouting insect-type demon beasts were thrown into the shaft. The batch of insect-type demon beasts had been specially refined and all boasted advanced optical and sensory organs. Their complex eyes were glittering in the darkness.
One hundred meters, two hundred meters, three hundred meters…
Manipulated by the experts through their secret arts, the insect-type demon beasts dived deeper and deeper.
However, when they were below five thousand meters, all the insect-type demon beasts lost connection with their masters, who could not sense their existence at all anymore.
The same happened to the second batch of insect-type demon beasts. The demon beasts could have been projected to at least a hundred kilometers away while maintaining a feeble connection with their masters. However, in the weird shaft, the connection was always cut off when they reached no deeper than seven thousand meters. No secret arts that enhanced the connection helped.
The third batch to be tossed in were the beast puppets from the Heaven's Origin Sector.
"It appears that the last shelter of Chaos was built with special radiation-proof and wave-proof materials. Together with the special rune arrays, all telepathic thoughts and mental connections are blocked, thereby jamming all communication!"
A few traps and architecture specialists studied for a long time after they sent a few pieces of probe magical equipment into the shaft. Finally, they reached such a conclusion.
"You mean that we cannot learn anything that is happening inside the shaft in the ground?" Elder Nether Spring observed calmly. "Then we will have to send someone down for exploration in person."
Despot, the Hercules beetle, was the first to stand up and requested in a deep voice, "Elder, let me!"
"Your body is too huge. You alone will take up almost half of the room of the shaft. Should there be anything wrong, it will be difficult for you to run away."
Swirl, the butterfly demon, said casually, "Let me go instead."
Elder Nether Spring pondered for a moment and said, "Swirl, you will go. There is no telling what kind of dangers are lurking inside the tomb of Chaos. Other traps can be resolved slowly, but mental attacks will be extremely hard to deal with.
"Swirl is an expert in mental warfare. Your flying ability is better than Despot's, too, and it will be more convenient for you to move inside the narrow shaft.
"Swirl, remember this—"
Elder Nether Spring concentrated his voice into a twisted channel of soundwaves and pushed it to Swirl's ears. "When you're down there, other relics and treasures can be excavated slowly. But you will have to find 'the thing' as soon as possible."
"Understood!" Swirl replied respectfully. "But please give me a description of the asset, Elder."
Elder Nether Spring pondered for a moment and said, "It should be large, complicated information in some form. Perhaps, it will also have an activation switch like a 'key'. In any case, the date is too enormous to have been loaded onto the ancient jade chips forty thousand years ago.
