Chapter 271: The Main Tomb Chamber

The cultivator who had just been restrained finally caught his breath, in a state of confusion, as if he had just performed logically coherent absurdities in a strange dream, only to wake and find them all real; his hands were bound by his comrades, he followed passively, and a Green's holy symbol for exorcism now hung around his neck.

"I think, actually, we don't necessarily have to go in right now." Green felt a pressure acting upon him, perhaps a psychological effect from knowing that thousands of tons of water lay directly above their heads.

Like the feeling before results were announced after a poorly performed assessment, countless details hinted at a vague prediction of the outcome, imparting some ill omen.

The specific form of manifestation might differ, but in any case, it would surely be the kind one did not wish to see; combined with the burnt smell now in the air, one could imagine the scene inside would certainly not be pleasant.

"What else? Turn back the way we came, before figuring out where that thing appeared from?" Kraft sorted through his memories, confirming he had filed the map on the wall into a storage place within his mind for later use.

He observed the great door before him; this heavy stone door opened toward the corridor, its clean surface unadorned, with no locking mechanism or point of leverage. The fit was quite good, and on the side one could find the clay-like sealing substance used in coffin gaps, hardened after being scorched.

It must have been to prevent entry from this side, rarely opened, or perhaps the design never considered opening it again, locking away forever what one did not wish to see again in a space without sunlight, like sealing a coffin shut.

But the coffin had been opened, and so had this door.

A funnel-shaped drill hole entered from the center; chisel marks pierced through the cross-section of the stone door, about a hand's width, using something inserted to push open the top stone behind it.

"Shall I go first?" Seeing Green hesitate slightly, Kraft proactively suggested.

Although the smell was quite terrible, he felt nothing strange, yet this peculiar odor seemed familiar, as if he had smelled it somewhere before.

He recalled for a moment and realized it was outside the dome fire at Dunling University; that scorched, carbonized scent could not be completely removed even long after the burning had ended.

Kraft thrust the torch forward, then stepped into the doorway, crossed the fallen stone slab, stood in place for a few seconds; nothing happened. He turned, raised the torch high, and beckoned to the others.

The back of the stone door was far more exquisite; two tall guardian statues stood on either side, one leaning on a sword with a level gaze, the other holding a sphere flat with both hands; the sphere was wrapped at its waist with a gem-encrusted band, with wing-shaped ornaments on either side.

Above the statues' heads, layered arches nested multiple figures: the outermost layer depicted commoners in different attire and a saint leading the crowd; the next layer showed little angels scattering flower petals to bestow blessings; the inner circle held heavenly guardians wielding weapons; the central portion had been destroyed, simply smashed to pieces.

Green, who followed in, saw this arrangement and his expression became quite dramatic, not even bothering to notice the strange looks exchanged between the cultivators.

"What is that?" Kraft pointed at the sphere in the statue's hand; anything capable of replacing a weapon in hand likely indicated a non-simple identity.

"An apple."

"An apple?"

It sounded like some industry jargon; in any case, it was hard to connect it with a sweet-and-sour fruit one could stuff into one's mouth.

"The common name is indeed that; the formal title is 'Orb,' or you could also call it..." The priest paused, seemingly feeling the evidence was too overwhelming, leaving no need to seek other possibilities, and continued speaking.

"The King's Apple."

The mystery that had lain before them for so long was unveiled; they had spent a long time, verifying through both physical evidence and documents from multiple angles, until this moment when freshness had long vanished, leaving only the helplessness that comes when the most absurd result is confirmed.

"You rarely see it, because for most of the time it only appears alongside two other items—the scepter, and the crown."

"The crown and scepter are symbols of a monarch's power, while the Orb... is generally handed to the king by the Church." He directly avoided the Orb's symbolism, unwilling to mention it specifically.

"To be precise, it has always been bestowed by the single person in the entire kingdom who best represents authority."

【Archbishop】

Though they had long been united in appearance but divided in heart, it was undeniable that the history of royal power and divine power on this land was one; they rose miraculously in that era, sharing the spirit and body of Norse, and also sharing common secrets.

They appeared in each other's memories: the kingdom recorded in the Church's murals, and the clergy carved into the reliefs here, including the most authoritative figure.

If the royal family had already sunk deep into the river of chaos, then the Church had certainly done far more than merely wet its shoes.

Looking back, the Church's upper echelons, especially the Archbishop, had become extremely suspicious in their hesitant attitude toward further proposals to search the sewers for heretics; even if they had not ventured in themselves, they at least knew part of the inside story.

"Listen, I do not want to hear anyone talk about these things, anywhere." Green's intimidating gaze swept across the faces of all the cultivators, meeting each of their eyes in turn. "No matter what you think, believe me, that will only be a huge trouble."

But the cultivators' minds had already been completely churned into a mess by what they had seen; they nodded only subconsciously.

As they entered and spread out, the area was partially illuminated: a roughly circular space about the size of a small chapel hall, supported by a hemispherical vaulted ceiling.

It should originally have been spacious, reflecting the status of the tomb's occupant, but the intruders clearly had no intention of maintaining cleanliness, making the environment quite chaotic.

Numerous wooden tables had once been assembled here; after losing their utility, they were split apart on the spot and added as part of the fuel to the burning and destruction process, becoming part of the charred carbon piles; most of the smell detected outside originated from this.

The ash piles consisted of wood charcoal, a large quantity of black carbonized material of unknown original form, and a small amount of calcareous components; after repeated burnings, they grew larger and larger, as if things within the carbon fire were crawling outward under high heat.

The few intact long tables were soaked with an oxidized, greasy sheen; within the gaps formed by cutting, a rotting reddish-brown color showed through.

Those people had left in great haste; perhaps they no longer cared whether everything was tidied up, simply leaving some tools directly on the tables.

Kraft found a bone saw, two orthopedic forceps, and several singed retractors, all large-sized, slightly deformed due to incorrect technique or overuse.

There were also several surgical and dissection knives with chipped edges; in this era, blade replacement was not an option, so they could be considered completely scrapped.

Not ornate but quite solemn, a coffin stood in the center of the stone chamber; beside it leaned a humanoid figure draped in a black hooded full-length robe; beneath the fabric, the body was thin and tall, with no rise or fall at the chest.

Green dared not take risks; he first had a cultivator shoot an arrow with a crossbow, and only after confirming no reaction did he cautiously approach.

Kraft stopped him, pointing at the figure's upper limb resting on the ground; the sleeve folds showed a suspicious, slight rhythmic change, yet it did not resemble movement producible by arm muscle groups.