Chapter 257: Prayer and Stone Coffin

"Earthquake?"

At the first moment the ground began to tremble, Xia De thought of the terrible future of encountering an earthquake underground. But then he realized that this was not an earthquake, but the maze itself was trembling.

Observing carefully, the surrounding walls moved slowly, some turned in place, while others leaned toward the middle, and the sound of stone bricks rubbing against the ground was sharp and harsh.

Miss Annette, who was walking at the front, changed her face:

"Someone is manipulating that Document-level Relic 【Maze Candle】; we are finally going to encounter a Ringed Ringed Shushi. Quick, follow me, don't fall behind."

But even so, the speed of the maze wall changes exceeded the expectations of the three.

After running forward for a few steps, the wall beside them suddenly swung toward the side, directly blocking Miss Miss Beiya, who was walking at the end, behind the wall.

Xia De, who heard the sound, very rationally didn't try to find Miss Miss Beiya behind the wall, but continued to run forward with Miss Annette.

Didn't expect that after turning the fork in front, a piece of blood-red fog surged up:

"It's Qi-shu!"

Miss Annette shouted, and her right hand took out a pinch of powder from her pocket and sprinkled it forward. But doing so had no effect; instead, a few bats with red eyes flew out from that blood fog:

"This is not the Silver-Eyed One's Qi-shu, Detective, retreat temporarily, I will deal with it."

Xia De then retreated back to the fork in the road behind him, but the maze walls were still changing constantly. Xia De retreated, but Miss Annette didn't retreat, and seeing that the two were about to be separated by the wall in front:

"Detective, don't follow me, we will act according to the original plan."

She only left this sentence and rushed into the blood fog in front of her.

Xia De wanted to follow, but stopped. The light of the Silver Moon flew out from his hand, but couldn't leave any traces on the wall that rose in front of him. He tried to shout a few times, but didn't get any response from behind the wall.

Xia De, who was alone, stood in place without moving, listening to the harsh noise coming from everywhere. For a full two minutes, all the walls stopped moving completely. In the new maze, the three were separated, and there was silence all around. Xia De held the golden necklace around his neck tightly with his left hand, but his face was not panicked:

"Sure enough, I encountered this situation."

In the plan formulated before breaking into the ruins, it was already thought that the three people would be separated for various reasons, among which getting lost in the illusion created by the maze candle was the most likely situation.

And in this situation, Miss Annette and Miss Miss Beiya arranged for Xia De to find a relatively safe place to hide and wait for the two ladies to solve the trouble before coming out.

They seemed to think that Xia De, who was alone, had weak strength and should protect himself, and not think about doing more things. The significance of Xia De following in was only to help solve that mirror that attacked the "other me". But now that the mirror matter was over, in the two ladies' thoughts, Xia De not having to face the final battle was actually a good thing.

"But now..."

He looked at the passage in front of him and walked a few steps to the fork in the road:

"Where exactly to go?"

He touched the door pendant on his chest, but now was not a good time to use this:

"Feel whether you can find the location of that 【Maze Candle】."

【Can find it, but you can't touch it. The maze formed by this Relic is not a real hallucination; otherwise, people outside the hallucination would shoot directly, and you would have died long ago. This is close to an incomplete Maze-Lock; the way to leave is only for you to find the exit of the maze.】

"Incomplete Maze-Lock?"

Xia De frowned and thought for a while:

"This is troublesome... clearly encountered an attack just now, why didn't anyone come to sneak attack me?"

He stood in place and waited for a while, then was very sure that no enemy really came to find him.

"Could it be that in the depths of the maze, there are only the stranger from the Blood Spirit School and the Silver-Eyed One? Seeing that I am too weak, so they don't intend to bother with me at all?"

Placing his hand on the maze wall, there were still no new discoveries. Xia De certainly wouldn't be willing to wait here like this, but because of the current situation, it was even more impossible to use divinity.

【You have other ways.】

"I noticed you used an affirmative sentence."

【Your emotional fluctuations are too small.】

In such an environment where one is alone, being able to have a voice one can trust to talk to oneself is really not bad. Although the "other me" is the price of gaining power, it will entangle with the soul for a Ringed Ringed Shushi's life. But at least, this means Ringed Ringed Shushi will absolutely not be lonely.

Taking a deep breath, the stuffy, moldy air rushed into his nasal cavity, and Xia De said in his heart:

"Since there is no way to crack the maze, why not change the way of thinking. The ruins belong to the mortal sect of the 【Innocent Creator】, so will the sect leave some convenience for the future new sect?"

【You don't have the divine arts of that deity; wanting to call the resonance of the same source of power probably won't be very simple.】

She reminded in a low voice.

"Yes, no divine arts, but I have last words."

Xia De looked around and said softly:

"The creator of toys always longs to be able to create innocence."

Nothing happened.

Xia De thought for a while, and Priest August's face suddenly popped up. The only missing part of the three major Qi-shu academies in occultism was the content related to prayer and divine arts:

"If you want to invoke the power of a deity, of course you have to rely on prayer." (Note)

Saying this, he closed his eyes and drew the holy emblem of the Old God 【Innocent Creator】 on his chest with his fingers. Xia De used the technique he learned from Priest August and prayed softly:

"The creator of toys always longs to be able to create innocence."

The wind brushed past his ears, and Xia De heard a sigh. Opening his eyes again, a pure golden butterfly flew from his shoulder and flew toward the distance in front of his eyes.

"What element?"

He stared at the butterfly that seemed to be luring him.

【Miracle.】

Xia De knew his plan succeeded.

The vanished sect certainly couldn't guess what kind of Relic someone would use in the ruins, but this butterfly, which was suspected to have a guiding role, had the function of pointing out the correct path.

Xia De followed behind the fluttering golden butterfly and kept walking forward in the maze. Ten minutes later, a stone wall appeared in front of him, which meant he had entered a dead end. But the butterfly didn't stop, but walked straight through the wall and disappeared.

"Is this the exit?"

Thinking suspiciously in his heart, he touched the necklace around his neck, and then lit the 【Bordeaux Candle】 that was running out.

Reaching out to touch the wall in front of him, his hand didn't pass through the wall, but touched a real obstacle.

Xia De was stunned for a moment:

"So that's it."

He increased his strength a bit. Although the wall didn't change, his hand indeed pushed open a stone door. After the stone door was opened wide enough, Xia De stepped forward, his body passed through the wall, and entered the next room.

The maze ended, and the new ruin room no longer had those walls made of large stone bricks, nor were there other Relics blocking the way.

That golden butterfly fluttered up and down in the darkness, and finally exploded into golden light particles in front of Xia De, illuminating this small room with stars and dots.

Different from all the ruin spaces experienced just now, there was only the stone door Xia De passed through here. The size of the space was roughly the same as the space before the first stone door, there were no carvings on the walls, but there was a stone coffin parked in front of him.

This place should not be something that could be entered by normal means. The stone coffin hadn't been moved; it seemed that the people of 【Mercury Blood】 hadn't been able to discover this place.

Xia De hesitated for a moment, confirming that there was nothing here except the coffin, before approaching the ancient coffin. The name was just carved on the stone coffin—Joel Ode Caris, it seemed this was the grave of one of the three people who stayed behind in the ruins.

Under normal circumstances, Xia De wouldn't move other people's coffins at will, but since it was the golden butterfly that guided him here, he could only seek answers in the coffin.

"Sorry."

He apologized to the stone coffin very seriously, and only then pushed the sliding cover of the coffin. Although no one had moved it for more than a thousand years, the sliding cover was still pushed open very easily.

Inside, there were no remains, only an exquisite stone box, a roll of parchment, and a silver ring.

"May your soul find peace."

Xia De said softly. He actually admired the three people who stayed behind until the end.

Then he picked up the parchment roll and found that it was a letter. The text used was still the ancient text on the wall.

The beginning of the letter explained that the person who left this letter was Gina Angela Sewell, the last of the three who stayed behind in the ruins to die. She explained that the stone box was the ashes of Joel Ode Caris, one of the three, hoping that later people would not move it, and prayed for her two deceased companions in the letter.

Finally, on the yellowed parchment roll, the map of the ruins was drawn, and the coffins of the three, secret passages, anti-theft mechanisms, and the locations of some Relics were marked, hoping to help later people.

Of course, the most important thing was the dangerous Relic sealed by the ruins, which was referred to as the Keeper-level Relic 【Corpse Tree】 on the parchment.

Although it was only Keeper-level, it had characteristics such as spatial movement, large-scale collective hallucinations, manipulating the undead, manipulating life puppets, etc. Once this Relic had a problem, it could destroy a city in a short time. But as long as it was not allowed to "eat" for a long time, its power would decline on its own, so it was suppressed in the ruins.

The letter didn't talk about too many more specific characteristics of the 【Corpse Tree】, but repeatedly emphasized that those who entered the ruins should not touch the 【Corpse Tree】. At the same time, once it was discovered that abnormal wood whiskers were gushing out of a companion's wound, it meant that he was infected and should be killed immediately.

And the third item placed in the coffin, the silver ring beside the ashes box, was Caris's Relic. It was not a Relic with the 【Whisper】 element, it was a personal Relic, just an ordinary ring.

Miss Sewell, who left the letter, hoped that later people would not move the Relics of the three; this was the only wish of them as guardians. ===== CHAPTER 258 =====