243: Tomb

The crisp snap of the jade tile shattering beneath Wei Ziqing's feet was exceptionally piercing in the silent palace, immediately alerting the people in the main hall.

"Wei Ziqing?!" Lu Jianchuan's voice was the first to ring out, accompanied by hurried footsteps. Shortly after, the figures of Shen Mingyuan and Cynthia appeared at the entrance of the corridor.

They immediately saw Wei Ziqing frozen in place, the jade tile beneath his feet spiderwebbed with cracks.

"Don't move! Keep your center of gravity absolutely still!" Cynthia shouted sternly, her eyes quickly scanning the floor and the surrounding structure.

The deep red light of Shen Mingyuan's goggles flashed as an ultrasonic scan swept across instantly. "The space below is hollow, and the depth exceeds my current detection range! The floor structure is completely brittle; it won't hold for long!"

"Rope! Get the rope, quick!" Lu Jianchuan shouted to the armed personnel behind him, while simultaneously moving to unfasten his own emergency rope.

However, in the split second as Lu Jianchuan grabbed the end of the rope and Shen Mingyuan and Cynthia were about to move forward to find a more stable anchor point or a way to reach him—

*Crack—Crash!!!*

The already precarious jade tile beneath Wei Ziqing's feet finally gave way under the pressure and shattered completely! Before he could even let out a full cry of alarm, he plummeted downward along with the shards of jade, vanishing into the dark hole!

"Wei Ziqing!"

Below the opening was not a vertical shaft, but a steep, smooth stone slope. As Wei Ziqing tumbled and slid rapidly, his heart pounded so hard it felt like it would leap out of his throat. The sensation of weightlessness and the impacts from the friction against the slope left him dizzy and disoriented.

"I can't just fall like this!" His survival instinct and the reactions he had honed during his training instantly overwhelmed his fear. In the chaos of the descent, his right hand reached for his waist—and the belt responded to his will immediately!

A faint light flowed, and a biomass armor with a plain white base, black patterns, and gold edges instantly covered his entire body!

The neural enhancement and sense of balance brought by the transformation allowed him to barely adjust his posture mid-air.

Immediately after, he reached back with his right hand, gripped the hilt of the slender blade that had popped out of the "scabbard" behind his waist, and pulled it out with force!

Below was still pitch black, its depth unknown. Wei Ziqing gritted his teeth, focused on the blur of the stone wall beside him as he slid, and slammed the long sword into the side of the rock wall!

*Clang—Screeech!!!*

The bone sword ground violently against the rock, unleashing a series of ear-piercing sparks and a tooth-aching scraping sound! His downward speed slowed, but the powerful inertia continued to drag him down, the blade carving a long, deep gouge into the rock.

One deceleration wasn't enough! Wei Ziqing took advantage of the momentum to adjust, driving the sword deeper into the rock wall again. His body was nearly swung sideways by the immense force transmitted through the hilt, and his descent slowed further.

He repeated this three or four times, with each collision and friction between the bone sword and the rock wall consuming a massive amount of kinetic energy. Finally, after sliding down an unknown distance, his falling speed dropped to a bearable range.

*Thud!*

With a muffled sound, his feet landed heavily on the solid ground at the bottom. The immense impact forced him into a half-kneeling position, his knees hitting the floor as his armor clattered against the ground. The bone sword in his hand finally stopped its friction against the rock wall and went silent.

The surroundings were pitch black, with only the flowing shimmer on his armor and the faint fluorescence from the scabbard behind his waist illuminating a tiny area around him.

He panted heavily, his heart still racing, but at last... he had stopped.

He looked up toward the long-unseen opening he had fallen from, seeing only absolute darkness.

Wei Ziqing caught his breath in the pitch-black underground and stood up by leaning against the rock wall. Looking up, the slope he fell down was steep and long; it was impossible for him to climb back up the way he came on his own.

"I can only move forward and hope there's another way to circle back up..." He steadied himself, the faint light from his armor becoming his only reliance in this absolute darkness. He identified a direction and chose a path that looked like a naturally formed rock fissure, stepping into it carefully.

Before he had gone far, the sound of gurgling water reached his ears. The passage began to slope downward, and a clear underground stream gradually washed over his ankles.

The water was ice-cold, making a pleasant sound in the silence. By the faint light of his armor and scabbard, he could see nearly transparent small fish and shrimp swimming between the rock crevices, bringing a faint spark of life to this deathly silent underground.

He waded through the water, which grew deeper until it reached the shins of his armor, maintaining that depth without rising further. The current seemed to point deeper into the cavern.

After walking for about fifteen minutes, three forks appeared ahead, leading into three dark tunnels. The stream flowed out from the middle one.

"The middle it is, follow the water." Wei Ziqing didn't hesitate much and chose the center path.

This waterway passage was longer and more winding. Just as he was starting to doubt if he had chosen the wrong path, the space ahead opened up, and the stream flowed into a relatively dry stone chamber with obvious signs of artificial carving. At the end of the chamber was a tightly closed stone door.

Wei Ziqing stepped forward and pushed with force, but the stone door remained motionless, incredibly heavy. He looked around; the stone walls were smooth, and he saw no obvious mechanical buttons or triggers.

"A mechanism? I don't know how to find those things..." he muttered. Being alone in a dangerous situation, he couldn't afford the caution of an archaeologist. "Sorry about this, Professor, but it's an emergency."

He reached back and, with a *shink*, drew the bone sword from his waist. The blade shimmered with a dark luster under the faint light. He took half a step back, concentrated his power, and swung the sword in a fierce horizontal slash at the seam of the stone door!

*Squelch—Clang!*

The sharpness of the bone sword far exceeded ordinary metal. The first strike left a deep gouge in the heavy stone door, sending stone chips flying. This was followed by a second and third strike, each heavy and powerful! After a few slashes, the area where the stone door was bolted was forcibly hacked open, creating a massive gap.

He delivered a flying kick to the damaged door.

*Boom!*

The stone door toppled inward, kicking up a cloud of dust. Simultaneously, the accumulated water in the passage outside immediately surged through the gap and poured into the space behind the stone door.

Wei Ziqing stepped over the ruins of the stone door and entered. This appeared to be a burial chamber with a regular layout. In the center of the room sat a massive stone coffin. Simple cloud patterns were carved onto the surface of the stone coffin, and its lid was tightly closed.

"Is this... the final resting place of that 'King'?" Wei Ziqing stepped closer, using the light to examine the stone coffin and the empty burial chamber. He felt a bit creeped out. "Should I kowtow and say sorry for the intrusion..."

While Wei Ziqing was fully focused on trying to identify the contents of the wall carvings, the water from the passage continued to pour into the burial chamber through the gap in the stone door he had kicked open.

The water spread across the level floor, and a portion of it silently flowed toward the base of the stone coffin.

If Wei Ziqing had been observing closely at that moment, he might have discovered that the base of the stone coffin was not completely solid. Instead, it had extremely hidden, minute holes or cracks that blended in with the patterns of the floor tiles.

Following these ancient and ingenious guiding structures, the water quietly seeped beneath the base and was then injected into the sealed interior of the stone coffin through some internal siphon or pipe design.

*Creak... Boom!*

The heavy lid of the stone coffin was suddenly pushed upward by a force erupting from within, sliding to the side and slamming heavily onto the ground!

Wei Ziqing was startled so badly his whole body jolted. He instantly jumped back half a step, holding the bone sword horizontally in front of him.

Inside the sarcophagus, a "humanoid" figure clad in ancient stone armor slowly sat up from the water-filled coffin! The armor was of an ancient style, wrapping the entire body airtight. Spikes grew at the joints, and the helmet's face was nothing but darkness, showing no features. Its movements were slightly stiff, yet it carried a heavy sense of oppression.

"Holy crap!" Wei Ziqing's scalp tingled as he blurted out, "I knew it! I really should have lit a candle in the southeast corner before coming down!"

The stone-armored humanoid stood up completely and left the stone coffin, the turbid coffin water trickling out from the gaps in its armor. It seemed to "fixate" on Wei Ziqing. In the next instant, it charged directly at him with heavy yet swift strides! It had no weapons, but its spike-covered body was the perfect lethal instrument; it looked like it intended to grab and impale him directly!

"In your dreams!" Wei Ziqing's combat instincts were triggered. He nimbly dodged to the side, avoiding the frontal collision, and swung his bone sword toward the joint of the stone humanoid's arm armor.

*Clang! Squelch—*

The bone sword was exceptionally sharp, actually leaving a deep slash on the seemingly solid stone armor. The stone-armored humanoid's movements faltered.

Wei Ziqing seized the opportunity, utilizing the high-speed mobility granted by the hero shadow armor. His figure moved like the wind, and sword light flashed repeatedly! He no longer struck head-on, instead specifically targeting the gaps between armor plates and the joints. These few strikes were precise and swift!

*Crack! Crash—!*

Finally, after several strikes on the same weak point, the heavy armor on the stone humanoid's chest was pried open and shattered, peeling away to both sides!

However, inside the armor, there was no expected skeleton or mummy. Instead, there was a mass of tangled, writhing grey-green plant matter that seemed to have invisible tentacles! This plant core seemed to sense its exposure and immediately "flowed" out of the shattered armor, hitting the ground with a *splat*. It then began to frantically cling to and spread across the water flowing on the floor as if parched, quickly absorbing the moisture and seemingly expanding in size.

"Plants? Not a corpse?" Wei Ziqing was stunned. He warily poked the still-absorbing plant mass with the tip of his sword, but it did nothing but writhe.

He looked back inside the opened coffin—it was empty, containing only some accumulated water.

"Looks like this isn't the main guy..." He had just breathed a sigh of relief when he suddenly heard a series of tooth-aching "creaks" coming from deeper within the burial chamber.

His heart tightened as he gripped the bone sword and looked toward another open doorway at the back of the burial chamber.

Inside was an even vaster space. By the faint light and the reflection from the water's surface, he could see rows upon rows of more similar stone coffins packed tightly together.

And now, because the pouring water had already spread inside, many of the stone coffins' lids were being pushed open and moved from the inside!

One, two, three... more and more spiked stone-armored humanoids were slowly sitting and standing up from those coffins, dripping with water. Their featureless "heads" seemed to turn in unison toward the direction where Wei Ziqing stood.