binnovel Chapter 536
Chapter 536
"No!"
Zhang Hao's voice rang out, calm and resolute.
He straightened up, his golden-red eyes scanning the surroundings in the dim light, his gaze sharp as a hawk's.
"The space... has been completely transformed."
This place... is no longer the entrance.
His gaze finally settled on the somber shadow of the monument ahead:
"This is... the true location of the 'Boundary' Monument?"
Or rather... have we entered the first layer of space within the 'Thirty-Three Non-Human Realms'?
"First floor?"
Wu Tianzhen immediately grasped the key information and looked up.
Although the darkness here is dim, it is not absolute. One can vaguely sense that the sky above is not infinitely high, but rather there is a kind of oppressive, rocky "top".
He looked around again. In the dim light, he could see the outlines of huge stone pillars supporting the space. The ground seemed to have been simply repaired, with rough stone slabs laid on it, but it was covered with a thick layer of dust.
"This place is like... a huge underground palace?"
Or... the starting point of some kind of passage?
"bright!
There are words!
Yi Sa, who had been silent and wary, suddenly spoke, pointing to the bottom of the deep shadow of the monument.
Everyone stared intently at it.
Sure enough, near the base of the huge stone tablet, just like the bronze tablet outside, there was an extremely faint, ominous, eerie green light flowing through it!
The light outlined several huge and distorted ancient characters.
Although the light was dim, the grotesque strokes were exactly the same as those of the "Thirty-Three Non-Human Realms" that we had seen before!
At this moment, however, the path of the flowing green light below the inscription seemed to be more concentrated, faintly illuminating a small area around the base of the stele.
"Go over and have a look!"
Without hesitation, Xie Xiaohua took out a powerful flashlight from her backpack and turned it on with a snap.
A bright beam of light pierced the dim darkness and shone directly at the huge stone tablet.
The beam of light, like a spotlight on a stage, instantly illuminated the area around the base of the stone tablet.
The stone tablet is still made of that ancient material that is neither gold nor stone, but has a bronze-like texture, and it is covered with huge and deep engravings.
Under strong light, a thick layer of grayish-white dust can be seen covering the surface of the stone tablet.
However, it was not just the stone tablet itself that attracted everyone's attention.
Around the base of the stone tablet, the ground illuminated by the dim green light and the flashlight beam, as well as some of the lower stone tablet bases... were clearly covered with something!
It's a mural!
No, to be more precise, they are rock paintings!
Using some kind of sharp tool, the original patterns were deeply carved into the hard stone walls and stone slabs on the ground!
These rock paintings have extremely rough and archaic lines, full of a primitive sense of power.
The image is vast and complex, covering a considerable area.
Due to its age, many areas are covered by thick dust, or the rocks themselves have weathered and peeled away, making them appear mottled and unclear.
But those exposed parts are already shocking enough!
Jie Xiaohua's flashlight beam moved slowly, like an archaeologist brushing away the dust of history, revealing the ancient secrets carved in the stone little by little.
The first relatively clear image:
Countless tiny, simply drawn human figures knelt on the ground in dense rows.
Their posture was incredibly humble, their foreheads pressed tightly against the cold ground.
In the direction they were kneeling in worship stood a gigantic, distorted shadow.
The shadow was depicted in an unusually abstract way, and only a vague outline of a giant human figure could be made out. However, the head of the figure was carved with countless wildly dancing lines that resembled venomous snakes or tentacles!
At the foot of the shadow, countless tiny patterns representing "human beings" were piled up, their postures distorted, as if they were enduring immense pain.
Above the shadows were incomprehensible, distorted symbols, exuding an extremely unsettling, blasphemous yet majestic aura.
"Offering sacrifices..."
Wu Tianzhen's voice carried a hint of coldness:
"They are worshipping some... indescribable, enormous being."
Using one's own kind... as a sacrifice?
The flashlight beam moves.
The second image:
There were still a large number of humanoid figures, but their postures had changed.
They gathered together around some huge, complex, furnace-like or altar-like objects.
Some human figures have their hands raised, seemingly in prayer;
Other human figures lined up and headed toward the entrance to the furnace or altar!
What's even more chilling is that the human figures already inside the entrances are depicted in an extremely bizarre way.
Their body lines became stiff and straight, with unnatural turns at the joints, and their movements had a stiff, puppet-like quality.
Their heads are depicted as abstract symbols that are non-human, resembling skulls or the mouthparts of some kind of insect!
"Actively...enter?"
Wu Tianzhen gasped, pointing at the human figures lining up to walk towards the entrance of the cauldron:
"Were they...voluntary?"
To...send myself in?
"Turn into...that kind of thing?"
He looked at the stiff, inhuman-looking patterns and felt a chill creep up his spine.
"look here!"
Wu Tianzhen's flashlight beam landed on a rock carving next to the cauldron pattern.
There were several smaller, but equally distorted symbols engraved there.
The structure of these symbols differs from the huge, ferocious characters on the stone tablet; they are closer to an ancient hieroglyphic script.
"This...this seems to be..."
Wu Tianzhen frowned, carefully examining the symbols, her fingers unconsciously tracing their strokes in the air.
"'Tao'...'End'...'Transformation'...and...'Non-human'?"
His voice grew increasingly uncertain, but the chill in it grew ever clearer:
"'Inhuman'... that word has appeared again!"
Judging from the images... could they be pursuing some kind of 'ultimate' 'transformation,' and the way to achieve this... is to actively become 'non-human'?
"A good beginning and a good end..."
Wu Tianzhen's voice rang out again, carrying a chilling quality that seemed to pierce through the fog.
His gaze did not fall on the few small symbols that Xie Xiaohua pointed to, but instead landed on a rock painting next to him that was mostly covered in dust, but whose outlines were still discernible.
In that painting, a stiff-bodied "person" with a head resembling a non-human symbol stands on a high place, while below are still countless kneeling, normal human figures.
At the feet of this "non-human" creature was a ring, inside which were several extremely simple symbols. One of them was strikingly similar to the character "终" (end) that Jie Xiaohua had identified, while another resembled an ancient pattern representing "completeness" or "cycle".
"The 'good death' they seek is not the natural end of life."
Wu Tianzhen's voice echoed in the deathly silent space:
"Instead, through some kind of ritual, they transform into this... 'inhuman' existence."
In order to obtain... some form of 'eternity'?
Or... power?
His gaze swept over the enormous, distorted shadow and his fellow humans being offered as sacrifices:
"And all of this points to the being that is being worshipped."