381: Chapter 381 A bizarre seal, devouring life force!

"What I mean is..."

Princess Xiyao interrupted Lin Xiao before he could finish his sentence.

"I feel like I've seen the operating principle of these statues somewhere before."

She paused, looking down at her palms, her brows knitting together more tightly.

"There's a... very familiar feeling."

Lin Xiao's grip on Princess Xiyao's wrist faltered.

Princess Xiyao was a princess of the Di Peoples Kingdom, having grown up in the deep-sea Royal Court.

Yet, this was the territory of the Heze Kingdom. Why would there be something here that she found familiar, especially something as significant as these statues?

"A familiar feeling? What do you mean by that?"

Lin Xiao suppressed the irritation in his voice and examined the four statues again.

"I can't quite explain it, but Jing Hua might be able to..." Princess Xiyao looked up, her tone becoming urgent. "Jing Hua is the daughter of the High Priestess; she must have seen records of relevant runes. Where is she? Hurry and call her over!"

Lin Xiao looked at Princess Xiyao.

Her expression was very serious, not like she was joking.

He didn't say anything more and immediately opened a teleportation anchor on the spot, simultaneously contacting the personnel remaining on the Astral Express.

At this moment, Jing Hua was leading a portion of her tribespeople to help Wen Yiran organize a large quantity of unclassified equipment and supplies.

This work was exceptionally heavy, and Room 07-01 was filled with busy figures.

Just then, a visitor notification came from the Airlock.

Jing Hua put down the equipment in her hands, walked forward, and opened the inner hatch.

It was a member of the elite force under Xu Shan from Car 03.

After all the team captains on the Astral Express had gone out for combat, Xu Shan and CPUs Kongzhen had each left behind a portion of their men to take on the heavy responsibility of defending the Astral Express, which included guarding the teleportation anchors to respond to emergencies.

"Miss Jing Hua, the Train Conductor requests your presence at the Desert Temple. It's an urgent matter."

The passenger stood in the Airlock, not venturing inside, merely relaying Lin Xiao's words.

"So sudden?"

Jing Hua was very surprised, but without a moment's hesitation, she nodded and agreed.

After explaining the situation to Wen Yiran, she followed the passenger to the roof of Car 07 and walked alone into the portal.

A moment later, a purple light curtain tore a vertical opening in the grass of the oasis.

An arm clad in merman light armor reached out from the light curtain.

Following that, Jing Hua stepped out of the portal.

Her first instinct was to scan the surrounding environment, and the wariness in her eyes was replaced by shock in an instant.

A magnificent twelve-story pavilion unfolded completely within her view.

Four statues stood all around, emitting an unusual aura.

Setting aside the Insect Swarm surging in the sky, those knee-high grasses, the shimmering light reflected in the pools... the appearance of all this in the desert was as abrupt as a scene from a dream.

She subconsciously let out a very soft exclamation: "What is this place? How can there be such lush grassland..."

However, she didn't finish the second half of the sentence, as it was interrupted by a new discovery.

As her gaze delved deeper into the grass at her feet, the countless corpses lying in the midst of the grass gradually came into view.

Jing Hua suppressed her look of surprise and immediately drew her weapon.

"This is the Desert Temple."

Lin Xiao put away the teleportation anchor and walked toward Jing Hua, his tone carrying a hint of helplessness. "It's also the reason I called you over."

Princess Xiyao walked up quickly, standing beside Jing Hua first:

"This temple is somewhat strange. I touched one of the statues around the temple earlier and discovered that the stone used to build it is very peculiar; it absorbs the life essence of anyone who touches it.

Moreover, the special power contained within it is somewhat similar to the rune power of our deep sea. You need to come and see!"

"Absorbing vitality?"

Hearing this, Jing Hua's brows furrowed slightly.

She immediately walked toward the nearest wind statue.

"Careful!" Lin Xiao reminded her from behind.

Jing Hua tilted her head slightly to look, a faint curve appearing at the corner of her mouth: "Rest assured, I will be careful."

Princess Xiyao stood a few steps away, watching this scene, and turned her head away.

Jing Hua did not touch the pedestal directly.

She simply extended her right hand, lightly placing her index and middle fingers on the surface of the pedestal, which was covered in half-grown moss.

The moment her fingertips touched the rock, her body was enveloped in a layer of blue-purple light.

That light was the manifestation of the rune power within her body.

Relying on her rune power, Jing Hua was resisting the eerie aura within the stone statue.

One could see that the air around the two fingers she had pressed against the pedestal was slightly distorting, and several extremely thin black lines emerged from the surface of the stone, spreading toward her fingertips.

Those black lines were very fast, but the moment they touched the blue-purple light, they were repelled.

The next second, Jing Hua's finger joints closed slightly.

One rune after another floated out from her hand, of various shapes, emitting a faint glow.

She flicked her fingers gently, and the runes sank directly into the surface of the stone statue, like pebbles falling into water, stirring up a faint ripple.

The pedestal began to vibrate.

The grass underfoot swayed gently in the tremors, and the mottled, cracked lines on the statue suddenly lit up for a moment.

The film of light covering the temple weakened slightly for an instant during the vibration, and then immediately returned to its original state.

Jing Hua withdrew her hand and took half a step back.

Lin Xiao was already standing behind her, one hand firmly supporting her shoulder.

Her breathing was slightly rapid, and the layer of blue-purple light on her body was slowly receding, but there seemed to be no signs of injury on her hand.

"Are you alright?" Lin Xiao asked with concern.

Jing Hua shook her head, took a deep breath, and said solemnly: "Superior Being, do you remember the [Nail of the Cold Heavens] we saw in the deep sea?"

The hand Lin Xiao had on her shoulder tightened for an instant.

"I remember."

Xi Muyuan, the last ruler of the Di Peoples Kingdom, had used the souls of thousands of mermen to transform into a giant ice spike, piercing the main body of the deep-sea Superior Being and sealing it within the abyss rift.

Jing Hua explained with a serious expression: "The Nail of the Cold Heavens is a rune seal constructed using a special technique, and the statues before us are extremely similar in construction to the Nail of the Cold Heavens. More accurately, they are enhanced versions of rune seals, and they have multiple layers of protective mechanisms applied to them."

"But the Nail of the Cold Heavens is an ice spike." Lin Xiao frowned slightly, recalling the image of that giant ice spike piercing the seabed, reaching from the sky to the earth. "This thing is stone. You're saying... they are the same?"

"Whether it's ice, stone, or metal, for a rune seal, these are all just carriers."

Jing Hua organized her words as she recalled, her speaking speed increasing slightly. "The operating principle of the Nail of the Cold Heavens' seal is to convert the souls of the deceased into energy to maintain the seal's operation, while the four statues of this temple..."

She raised her hand, pointing to the bones entangled by mycelium beneath the pedestal.

"...use a more direct, more violent method to absorb the vitality of all living things. It's not souls, but the purest life essence—the very vitality that you, Superior Being, often mention."

"It's actually that cruel?" Tian Xiwei gasped softly on the side, looking down at the festering wound on her fingertip that was still slowly healing.

She understood now why touching the statue resulted in that.

"Absorbing the vitality of all living things?" Lin Xiao murmured.

His gaze followed the direction Jing Hua pointed, landing on the statue's pedestal.

The surface of the pedestal was covered with a layer of mottled fungal mat.

That fungal mat did not grow naturally; it emerged from the stone cracks at the bottom of the pedestal and spread all the way up, clinging to the surface of the sculpture like some kind of root system. The furthest parts had already climbed to the knee position of the statue.

And in the surrounding grass, one could vaguely see some gray mycelium.

Starting from the statue's pedestal, they extended in all directions.

The further out they went, the paler the color of the mycelium became.

And at the end of every strand of mycelium was a withered corpse.