Chapter 3354: Road Money

Sparks flew from the metal collision, the chains snapped in response, and the shovel in Xia De's hand turned into dust and vanished.

"The basic rule of this wasteland: opening all graves requires a shovel, and this place also counts as a special grave."

Xia De explained his actions, then unfastened the chains and pushed open the gate with a creaking sound. The noise seemed to ring directly within their souls, and a layer of goosebumps immediately rose on Miss Liyade's skin.

"Stay close, be careful."

Xia De and Miss Violet were still walking in front. The temple courtyard inside the fence was merely dotted with a few tombstones, with nothing worth examining. They had originally intended to walk straight up the steps toward the temple gate, but just then, the clanking of chains and heavy footsteps came from the right side of the temple building.

As the group looked over, a tall figure slowly emerged from the corner. It was a humanoid creature three meters tall, wrapped entirely in a tattered black cloak, with a black iron coffin strapped to its back, the coffin bound to its body with chains.

Its left hand gripped one end of the chains, while its right hand held a massive iron shovel matching its height. Aside from its stature, it didn't look much different from an ordinary human. Although the cloak had a hood, it wasn't wearing it, and its head featured four eyes arranged in a row.

"This is the Gravedigger of the Underworld Coffin."

The Hound warned quickly, then took its daughter and hid beneath the skirt of Miss Liyade, who was at the back of the group.

The Gravedigger's four eyes looked at the group at the gate:

"You are all grave robbers!"

The voice sounded like someone scraping fingernails against glass, and then it continued to walk toward the group at a steady pace. The massive iron shovel in its hand was coated in black light, and at the same time, the coffin strapped to its back began to shake violently, as if something were about to emerge; this undoubtedly meant it was preparing to attack.

Miss Violet and Sister Belun were both about to raise their hands to fight, but were stopped by Xia De:

"No time to fight it; we need to maintain our condition to face the situation inside the temple. Now that we've come this far, I think we should try to see what kind of power this really is."

He raised his right arm, the back of his hand facing forward, his palm facing his right eye. As his Qi was activated, the golden Death Saint Emblem on the back of his hand immediately appeared, and as he lowered his arm, the emblem was branded into Xia De's right eye.

【Outsider, remaining uses of the Death Mark (2/3).】

Even though no one had taught him how to use this power, controlling it now felt as easy as manipulating the Great Expansion Cards. Xia De swept his arm forward, and a massive black scythe burning with black fire appeared out of thin air, slicing the tall "Gravedigger" in half at the waist.

The entire process met with no resistance, and not only was the Gravedigger's body severed, but the coffin on its back was also cut in two. The broken corpse and coffin fell to the ground, turning into a puddle of black dust.

"Truly... pure death."

The demigod Great Witch couldn't help but exclaim, then saw the mark on Xia De's hand fading. The mark became a bit paler, and the power contained within it was indeed astonishing.

"The Marquis of Ghouls let us go, the Swollen Lady and the Gravedigger have temporarily exited, there are no more road blockers."

Xia De didn't dwell on his achievement, but said to his companions.

Except for Miss Violet, the others dared not comment on the power Xia De had just used. The moment that black scythe was swung, they felt as if they had seen a death in this land of the dead that was purer than the place itself.

Because the Gravedigger was only severed at the waist and didn't die as miserably as the "Swollen Lady" who exploded entirely, some things were left behind after it vanished.

Teresa and Miss Liyade picked them up. First was a string of gold bracelets threaded on a blood-stained hemp rope; the style of the bracelets was identical, eleven in total. Added to the four burial items remaining, the total number of burial items became fifteen.

And these burial items were the least valuable things the two young ladies picked up, because Teresa was clutching a large handful of "Soul Tears." This soul material, most precious in the world of the living, she had found eight of this time.

Added to the one remaining with Miss Violet, she now had nine tears to support her one-third of a soul in using demigod-level power.

Miss Liyade held a small metal coffin in her left hand, and the iron shovel the "Gravedigger" had been holding in her right.

The shovel had originally been longer than Xia De, the tallest person present, but after Miss Liyade took it, it shrank to a length suitable for her stature.

Xia De checked it briefly and found the mark of the 【Angel of Requiem】 on the handle. This item might have originally belonged to the fourth angel of the ancient God of Death. Miss Violet continued to flip through the 【Eternal Sleep Scripture】 and found some records regarding this shovel:

"In this wasteland, this shovel can be used an infinite number of times... but we are all leaving, what use could this have?"

The shovel was a divine item with obvious miraculous elements, while the small coffin Miss Liyade found was an alchemical item, and it was the "spatial item" the Outsider had been thinking about ever since arriving in this world.

The only true alchemical spatial item Xia De had seen so far was the coffin he had given to Sylvia as a Year-End Festival gift, but that was a real coffin.

Aside from that coffin, even the Chosen of Space had not yet succeeded in creating stable spatial items in the Sixth Era, where spatial conditions were quite poor—though they had produced quite a few unstable "spatial bombs" during their attempts.

The interior space of the small black coffin was about twenty cubic meters, far inferior to the gift Xia De gave Sylvia. It wasn't empty inside, but filled with a mountain of various bones, but no one dared to touch them; a quite strong curse was attached to every bone in the coffin, whether it was the Gravedigger's curse or the effect of the coffin itself.

Lifting the curse was not impossible, but there was certainly no time to do so now. Thus, the coffin and the shovel, which might serve as a weapon, were temporarily held by Miss Liyade. After finally confirming everyone's condition, the group under the temple steps looked up together, and Xia De took the lead and walked up.

There were thirteen steps in total, and every step taken seemed to echo within their own souls.

The heavy black stone gate at the end of the steps was currently closed, and the double doors featured a relief of an angel with six wings spread, the seam of the door being the center line of the angel's body. And at the angel's chest, which was the center of the gate, a skull was embedded.

This was similar to the situation underground, but this time it wasn't a "Soul-Casting Skull." After Xia De pulled the door knocker on the side of the skull, green flames suddenly erupted from the skull's eye sockets.

It moved, not like an undead, but even like a living thing. The black skeleton sized up the group at the top and bottom of the steps, then revealed a subtle expression, and the content of what its mouth moved to "say" was also easy to understand:

"Road money."

"What?"

Xia De asked in surprise.

"Road money, priced by the number of souls, five burial items per soul."

The skull repeated. After being stared at by its green-flaming eyes, everyone felt as if their souls had been seen; it was counting the number of souls here:

"Quite a large number, five living people, one cat, two dogs, forty burial items."

"Wait a minute, the cat is..."

"No matter which direction you pass through this Gate of the Dead, it makes no sense what form you are in now; the truth of the soul will be revealed when crossing the threshold, so do not attempt to use transformation magic. Forty burial items."

It used fluent Common, but if one listened carefully, one could understand that the air was not actually vibrating; it was actually using soul vibrations to communicate with Qi and elements at the soul level.

The cat wanted to meow at the gate, but Xia De hurriedly stopped it. Although he never charged money for his ferry across the Styx, there were indeed many legends in traditional stories about "fees" for the path of the dead:

"If our group piously wants to go to the ancient god's temple for worship, is there a fee for this too?"

The green-flaming skull retorted:

"Do you really want to come here to pray? I know you want to return to the world of the living; do not lie in front of me."

Xia De then looked at Miss Violet; currently, the total number of burial items in everyone's hands was only fifteen, not even reaching half the required amount.

Xia De thought again and reactivated the mark on the back of his hand toward the gate. But not to attack, but whispered:

"Look, I'm one of your own too, can you make an exception?"

The skull on the gate stared at the mark for a while and actually agreed:

"Alright then, I'll give you a discount, four burial items per soul, thirty-two in total. The scepter carried by that young woman can count as two items, no lower."

But even so, the number of burial items was only sixteen; although it had reached half of what was needed, it was still not enough. Xia De would not do the thing of abandoning companions, and because he was unclear about the situation inside the temple, even if Xia De didn't leave with them, he at least had to follow them in to see.

Seeing that they had reached the final step, it would be too ridiculous to be stopped by "money."

Teresa then whispered:

"Let's go dig for burial items; we still have one shovel brought from the hut, and there's this indestructible shovel, we can dig for as many burial items as we want."

But before others could object, Miss Liyade spoke first:

"Better not do that.

We originally dug up other people's graves just for self-preservation, to leave this place, and the Hounds also said that digging too many graves makes it easier to be watched. Now that we have reached the final step, and are standing right in front of the ancient god's temple, digging graves... it's better not to do it."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 3355 =====