Chapter 3576

Xia De briefly introduced everyone to each other, and as they set off toward the destination cave, he explained his plan and that the Church and the Prophet Society would be arriving three hours late.

"Mr. Watson, we also encountered the 【Tyranny Club】 yesterday."

Mr. Mortis said this on the way:

"While we were continuing to track that woman who can absorb people's mental energy in the city, we found an envoy from a small East Coast principality, and then accidentally stumbled upon his meeting with those cultists. After we captured that cultist, he was willing to trade a secret for his freedom."

"Star-Falling Beast?"

"Yes, although the information provided was not as much as what you obtained from the cultists, at least it let us know what fell into this sea area."

That is why Xia De believed that the 【Tyranny Club】 was arranged by fate to deliver clues to everyone.

The location marked by Luvia was in a hidden canyon at the foot of the mountain to the northwest of the Snow Mountain, and the cave blocked by the Fatu people was on the side of the middle section of the canyon. If one were searching while flying in the air, the naked eye would not be able to distinguish this cave at all.

When the group arrived, they looked around, and there were no traces of anyone having been here recently. It seemed that neither the cultists nor the prophets had found this place yet; Luvia's divination had saved Xia De a lot of time.

Four people were separated from the witch followers to stay outside the cave, but they were not guarding the entrance; instead, they were observing from afar, and would immediately go to report on the Radiant Messenger if there was any situation. The others walked inward along the cave, and before long, they saw the brick wall blocking the road.

The wall was silently melted by Xi Wei's light, but after the group passed through, the wall was restored by Emilia reversing time, and the traces they left behind were wiped away in the process.

The interior of this cave was also crisscrossed, and many explorers had gone missing here before it was sealed. But Xia De had the route map given by Luvia in his hand, and following Luvia's guidance, they had almost never rested along the way.

Even half an hour after setting off, they saw a withered bone lying on the ground. Out of caution, Flora's followers performed a spirit channeling, and then learned that the person had died about 300 years ago, having starved to death after getting lost underground.

Then they continued to move toward the deeper parts of the cave, and the light summoned by the Ringed Shushi illuminated the strange landforms and natural landscapes in the cave.

Water droplets fell one by one from the stalactites, the underground waterfall in the cave was spectacular, the narrow passages could only accommodate one person, and the hardy plants growing underground made everyone click their tongues in wonder. When jumping down from the underground cliff, Ali flew excitedly to the side to illuminate the way for everyone, while Emilia was very worried that a big snake would crawl out of such a narrow place.

Around ten o'clock in the morning, the group blasted open the rubble blocking the road and arrived at the deepest part of the cave, but it was a black underground lake.

"The passage is at the bottom of the lake. From here on, it's not continuing deeper underground, but heading toward the ocean."

Even Ali could breathe underwater, so the group followed Xia De into the water and then proceeded along the bottom of the lake. Xi Wei was very sensitive to seawater; she sensed that although this underground lake was also connected to the water veins under the Snow Mountain, it contained seawater components.

Claire, while walking on the bottom of the lake, dug out a piece of ore exposed on the riverbed with her bare hands:

"Meteorite iron?"

It seemed they had indeed not taken the wrong path.

Twenty minutes later, the terrain at the bottom of the water extended upward, and they walked out of the water and entered the cave again. Judging from the position, the top of everyone's heads should already be the sea surface, and this passage indeed extended toward the ocean.

Although they did not encounter any danger along the way, Xia De still let the team stop to rest for a while. The space at this time was still normal, and there were no anomalies related to the Star-Falling Beast around, but the road ahead would certainly not be so peaceful.

"There is actually air here that allows ordinary people to breathe. Where does this air come from?"

During the team's rest, Emilia asked Xia De curiously, and Xia De did not know the answer either. But those seemingly sealed underground ruins and ancient tombs always seemed to have air, which was probably some kind of wonderful fate.

The ground of the cave was extremely slippery, but the temperature was actually higher than on the island's surface. After a short rest of ten minutes, during which Miss Ai Si Bo Ge asked Emilia about the coronation ceremony—the "Winter Singer" who often visited the Academy was also very familiar with Emilia—then Megan sent a signal to the ship to inform the group of their location, and the team continued to move forward.

The cave after crossing the underground lake had no forks, but as they continued forward, the range of Xia De's 【Enhanced Spatial Perception】 and other people's perception-type abilities began to shrink due to the influence of unknown forces.

After walking a few hundred steps further, the rough rock walls on both sides were gradually replaced by smooth gray stone walls, which were clearly traces of man-made passages.

"Have people been here before?"

And after continuing forward, the "Winter Singer" in the dark blue dress said again:

"This is a tomb passage. Because it is difficult to dig ground tombs in the Jibei region, and all traces disappear after a blizzard, the local people have fixed underground tomb areas. The style here is very much like the tomb passages of underground collective tombs dug by the people of the Jibei tribes."

"Have people from your tribe been here?"

"I'm not sure, but this kind of tomb passage is actually very common in many places. Whoever built this place, it must be a tomb."

The plan before departure had actually anticipated encountering underground ruins on the seabed, and everyone did not lack means to deal with the undead. Therefore, the team's formation changed, the "Expel Undead" and "Probe the Dead" sorceries were used by Flora's followers, and the team then continued forward.

As they continued to advance, more characteristics belonging to the tomb passage became more obvious, and this tomb passage was very wide. At the end of the tomb passage was the tightly closed gate of the ancient tomb, with two gargoyle statues standing on both sides in front of the gate. Xia De was originally worried that they would come alive, but fortunately, they were really just statues.

And on the gate of the mausoleum, the scenery of the Fatu Monster Snow Mountain and the symbol of the Fatu people were carved respectively.

"Is this the mausoleum of your ancestors?"

Xi Wei asked Claire again in confusion, and Claire was actually more confused than her:

"I have never heard of such a place, and there is no description of it even in the tribe's legends."

The gate was tightly closed and locked by some kind of ancient power. That was not the power of the Ringed Shushi system, but in front of Xia De's "Key of the Door," this power was also useless.

Recently, he had encountered too many doors that the "Key of the Door" could not open; at this moment, pushing open the two stone gates, Xia De was even a little unaccustomed to it.

The scale of this mausoleum was huge, just as Miss Ai Si Bo Ge said just now, this was not someone's mausoleum but a collective burial.

The information given by Luvia only said to go straight after crossing the underground lake, so Xia De did not know the situation inside the mausoleum either. So after entering the door, Bella performed a divination and changed to leading the team forward:

"Exploring ancient tombs and ancient mausoleums, it is absolutely impossible not to bring a diviner, so it is quite necessary for me to come along on this trip."

The decorations in the mausoleum made Miss Ai Si Bo Ge and Claire feel familiar, and they could both find some characteristics of their respective tribes. And Megan believed that judging from the overall style and architectural features, this should be a building from the end of the Fourth Era:

"Most of the ancient tombs of the Fourth Era today have been visited by the witches of the Fifth Era, so such a complete tomb is really rare."

The clowns actually also had an understanding of this type of building:

"It is the ancient mausoleum style of the northern region in the middle of the Fourth Era."

Of course, if this were really the mausoleum of Claire's ancestors, they would not come here to look for any archaeological discoveries after the Star-Falling Beast incident.

Of course, there was not no danger in the mausoleum, but what they encountered were not ordinary rolling stones or poison gas traps, but tomb guardians left behind by ancient people. Gargoyles, undead spliced together from animal bones, and things like soul echoes were waiting for them in every corner of the mausoleum.

Of course, there would be no lamps to illuminate living people in the mausoleum, so the group continued to let light orbs float around to illuminate, and those creations guarding this place were hiding in the shadows created by these lights.

Not only were they good at sneak attacks, but the composition of these creations was also very interesting; in addition to basic materials, there were cold ice and some metal plates with starry light on the surface.

Megan checked and believed that these metals were forged from meteorite iron, while Vanessa believed that it was not ordinary meteorite iron:

"I felt a strange power from the sky, this should be the power of the stars, right? The people who built this place probably unearthed some special metals near the fallen stars. It's just unclear what the other party meant by building the mausoleum here.

Also, the ancient Fatu people were really rich. Do you know what the price of this kind of meteorite iron containing the power of stars is today? If there is really a vein producing similar metal under the seabed of the nearby sea, the Fatu people were simply living on a gold mine."

Probably because of those "star meteorite irons," the gargoyles and undead in the mausoleum all possessed the ability to emit silver-blue energy, and some powerful undead could even summon energy balls out of thin air to attack everyone. But they did not bring too much trouble to the group; compared to Xia De's encounter in the "Tombstone Wasteland," the exploration here was simply like an amusement park.

The mausoleum was divided into three levels: upper, middle, and lower, and each level was connected by an old-fashioned elevator—the most classic kind. There were too many people in the group, and the elevator could not carry everyone at once, so they took several trips to complete the crossing between levels.

As for flying directly downward, no one suggested such a proposal. In the mausoleum, one must respect the wishes of the mausoleum builder as much as possible; acting rashly could likely bring about unknowable consequences.