82: The Silent Golden City

"Brother Feng! Brother Feng, slow down! Don't pull me! Let me pick up a couple of things! Just two!"

Wang Dalong was being dragged by Lin Feng, his entire body practically sliding along the gold-paved ground. As he ran, he twisted his body, trying to reach for the readily available golden masks and wine cups around him, his eyes filled with agonizing regret.

He had never seen so much money in his life! These weren't just cultural relics; this was a mountain of gold! Taking any single piece out would mean never having to worry for the rest of his life!

"Wake up!" Lin Feng growled, increasing the strength in his grip. "Is your life more important, or the money?"

This shout finally pulled Wang Dalong back to reality from his "gold rush." He shuddered, remembering the god-of-death-like man behind them, and immediately shut his mouth, pumping his thick legs to keep up with Lin Feng's desperate sprint.

The corridor wasn't too long, and they soon burst out of it.

The sight before them made Wang Dalong stop in his tracks again—not because of gold, but because of an indescribable grandeur and magnificence.

They had arrived at a massive underground city.

A complete, silent, and resplendent city.

Above the dome, it wasn't rock, but a massive light curtain that emitted a soft white light, resembling the sky. Beneath the light curtain were buildings of peculiar shapes, featuring smooth curves and structures that defied geophysics; some buildings even hovered in mid-air, connected to each other by bands of light.

Without exception, the surfaces of these sci-fi-looking buildings were covered in a regular, thin layer of gold. Under the illumination of the overhead light curtain, the entire city was bathed in a sacred and beautiful golden glow.

A wide golden avenue stretched from their feet, cutting through the entire city and leading toward the tallest, most magnificent spire at the very center.

"Oh my god..." Wang Dalong was completely speechless.

Subconsciously, he pulled a spare small action camera out of his tattered camera bag and tremblingly pressed the record button.

"This... this is a monumental discovery..." he muttered to himself, the lens slowly panning across the city's panorama. "This will overturn... overturn all of history..."

Compared to his shock, Lin Feng was much calmer.

His gaze quickly swept across the city.

The further they went in, the more high-tech the architectural style appeared. Gold was no longer just crudely piled treasure but had become a functional, orderly coating covering the building surfaces.

This detail immediately made him think of a possibility: at some distant point in time, the civilization of the Maya people, or rather their ancestral civilization, had experienced a cliff-like regression. They had suddenly lost a vast amount of advanced technology, leaving behind only an obsession with gold and some residual memories.

The golden items haphazardly piled in the corridor might have been created in the most primitive way by later, regressed Maya people, imitating their ancestors' style to offer as sacrifices to this "City of God."

"Brother Feng, that bastard didn't catch up?" Wang Dalong asked, looking back nervously while filming.

The path behind them was empty; there was no sign of the Scorpion captain.

"He's injured and needs time to treat his wounds and recover his strength." Lin Feng didn't stop walking. "But this is only temporary; we must find the mission objective as quickly as possible."

"Mission objective?" Wang Dalong was taken aback.

Lin Feng raised his hand and pointed toward the Golden Spire in the center of the city that pierced the sky.

In his vision, and only he could see it, the top of that spire was emitting a faint blue halo representing a mission guide.

"There."

The two no longer hesitated and walked briskly along the deserted golden avenue toward the city center.

Along the way, Wang Dalong still couldn't help himself. Seeing an exquisitely crafted golden eagle-head statue at the entrance of a roadside building, he reached out with quick eyes and hands, wanting to stuff it into his bag.

"Put it down," Lin Feng said without looking back.

"Just one, it's very small..." Wang Dalong argued in a low voice.

"The one ahead is bigger."

Wang Dalong looked up, and sure enough, in a plaza not far ahead stood a golden Feathered Serpent God statue that was taller than he was. He suddenly felt that the eagle head in his hand wasn't so great anymore and reluctantly put it back where it belonged.

But after a few more steps, he saw a row of fist-sized, high-purity gold bricks embedded in the outer wall of a building.

He couldn't move again.

"Brother Feng, just one piece, I'll pry one off as a souvenir..."

Lin Feng stopped, turned around, and looked at him like he was an idiot. "We are currently running for our lives. Every extra kilogram of weight you carry is an extra bit of danger that we'll be caught. Once we've investigated the situation here and dealt with all threats, you can take whatever you want from this city. Now, throw away all the junk in your bag and only keep the essentials!"

Wang Dalong was jolted awake by these words, his face flushing slightly. He looked at his stuffed backpack, then at Lin Feng's sharp gaze, and finally gritted his teeth, dumping out all the useless items—even the small gold nuggets he had picked up earlier.

"Fine, fine, I'll listen to you. Life is more important," he grumbled.

The two continued forward.

The deeper they went into the city, the stronger a localized, eerie feeling became.

It was too quiet.

In the entire city, aside from their own footsteps, no other sound could be heard. No sound of wind, no sound of water, and certainly no signs of any biological activity.

It was like a massive, magnificent tomb.

"Brother Feng, you say... where are the people here?" Wang Dalong finally asked the question that had been circling in his mind for a long time. "In a city this big, there should be people, right? Why can't I see even a ghost of a shadow? There isn't... there isn't even a single corpse."

Lin Feng shook his head; he didn't know the answer either.

This city was as if someone had pressed the pause button on time; all the residents had evaporated collectively in an instant, leaving behind only this empty golden cage.

They walked in silence, the oppressive feeling of being surrounded by the unknown and dead silence feeling even heavier than the threat posed by the pursuer behind them.

Finally, they reached the massive plaza at the center of the city.

The Golden Spire stood at the other end of the plaza. It towered into the clouds, its body covered in strange patterns that reflected a divine radiance under the light of the curtain.

They crossed the plaza and ascended the steps leading to the spire.

The spire's doors were wide open, as if waiting for their arrival.

The two entered the tower. The interior was hollow, allowing them to see from the ground floor all the way to the top. Countless bands of light wove through the inner walls, forming a dynamic and incredibly complex 3D star chart.

In the very center of the tower was a circular platform suspended in mid-air.

Lin Feng led Wang Dalong onto the floating staircase leading to the platform.

The moment his foot stepped onto that circular platform...

The cold, familiar system notification sound exploded in his mind.