384: Chapter 384 Someone's spying? A new discovery!

Lin Xiao already had a rough judgment in his mind.

If these floor tiles were the cornerstone of the entire temple's Rune Array, then its structure was essentially no different from the source essence conversion facility on the fourth floor of the territory.

The existence of this temple itself was a massive rune pathway.

To put it in the most common terms, it was a circuit board.

The mycelium were the wires, the statues were the transformers, and the tens of thousands of civilians lying outside were its storage batteries.

Energy was drawn from the corpses outside through the mycelium and channeled into the bases of the statues.

Then, it was transmitted to the core at the top of the temple through the rune pathways on these floor tiles.

Finally, it powered the triple defense mechanism and the barrier covering the entire desert.

The first floor of the temple was several hundred square meters in area and extremely spacious.

The flashlight beam swept back and forth across the four walls, but he did not find any entrance to a basement, nor did he find any device resembling a core.

Normally, the core of such a large building would be either underground or on the top floor.

For a twelve-story pavilion, if it was a Rune Array, the location where the energy pathways ultimately converged was most likely at the very top.

Lin Xiao stepped out and began searching around the walls.

But he hadn't gone far when a slightly sharp scream came from the other side of the great hall.

"There is an enemy!"

Immediately following that was a series of explosive sounds.

Mixed in were the muffled sounds of metal objects striking wooden structures, the sharp hissing peculiar to the Merfolk, and several crisp cracking sounds of wooden boards breaking.

Lin Xiao and Liu Bi, who was not far away, turned and rushed toward the source of the sound almost simultaneously.

The flashlight beam swayed as they ran, casting blurred outlines along the way.

When the two arrived at the depths of the great hall, they discovered that the place where the sound originated was a spiraling wooden staircase.

The treads were rotten and deformed, but the main structure still maintained its basic integrity.

At the top of the stairs leading to the second floor, three double-bladed tridents were deeply embedded in the rotten wooden banister.

The spear tips had pierced through the wood, causing several places to split directly and scattering a layer of wood chips on the ground.

The Merfolk Guards maintained a defensive posture, the scales on their necks all standing on end.

Princess Xiyao stood at the very front, her breathing slightly rapid.

"What happened?" Lin Xiao swept a glance at the darkness above the stairs; there was nothing there.

"When we were inspecting this area, we saw someone peeking at the top of the stairs."

Princess Xiyao retreated behind Lin Xiao, her voice still carrying a trace of panic, "The opponent ran very fast. Just as we launched our attack, he disappeared into the shadows at the corner of the stairs."

"Someone?" Lin Xiao asked in surprise.

"Yes, but also no; it looked like a person," Sergei, who had witnessed it firsthand, added, "But its speed was much faster than a normal person. I saw with my own eyes that it paused for a moment at the corner, and then suddenly vanished!"

"Could you have misseen it?"

Lin Xiao looked around the dilapidated great hall.

"This place doesn't look like it could be inhabited..."

As he spoke, his gaze fell back to the stairs.

Stepping a little closer, he could clearly see that the surface of the treads, which were covered in a thick layer of dust, did not show any footprints or strange markings.

To be safe, Lin Xiao took out the spirit realm lens from his backpack again and placed it on the bridge of his nose.

Looking at the surrounding scenery through the lenses, his field of vision instantly switched to gray and white.

The shielding effect he had felt outside the temple had completely disappeared.

Furthermore, after entering the temple, some kind of unobservable restriction had been lifted.

The outline of the interior of the great hall unfolded clearly in the lens, and the runes on the floor tiles displayed dim light patterns in the gray-white field of vision, clearer than what was visible to the naked eye.

Looking around, his vision did not capture any red light clusters left by any living creatures.

The first floor was very clean, clean in every sense of the word.

Lin Xiao raised his head and looked toward the darkness above the stairs.

His gaze passed through the lenses, crossed over the rotten staircase banister, and landed on the entrance to the second floor.

There... seemed to be a cluster of red light hiding there!

It seemed to have noticed Lin Xiao's gaze.

That thing only stayed in the gray-white field of vision for less than a second before disappearing into the deeper darkness.

The outline was not very clear, but it could be roughly identified as a humanoid form.

"There is an abnormality upstairs. It looks like a person, but it is definitely not a living creature!"

Lin Xiao took off his glasses, his voice lowered while his speaking speed noticeably increased.

"Everyone remain vigilant. If you encounter anything that moves, control it first and then kill it. Do not give the opponent a chance to breathe!"

"Understood!" everyone responded in low voices.

Lin Xiao flipped his hand to take out the terminator, the axe blade reflecting a cold light under the illumination of the flashlight beam.

He stepped onto the stairs leading to the second floor, with Liu Bi and the elite team members following closely behind, and the Merfolk Guards bringing up the rear.

Although every step was taken cautiously, the wooden stairs still creaked under their feet.

Some treads had already split with obvious gaps in the middle, and looking down through the gaps, one could see the dim ground of the first-floor hall.

Tian Xiwei stopped at the back of the team and raised her weapon, the seal ring, to her chest.

A small cluster of light lit up at her fingertips.

Subsequently, layer after layer of translucent light shields enveloped Lin Xiao and the other passengers who were leading the charge.

Not long after, they reached the second floor.

Lin Xiao stepped onto the last step and swept the flashlight beam forward first.

Immediately, his footsteps paused, and he signaled for everyone behind him to "stop advancing."

The area of the second floor was equivalent to the first, but it was no longer an empty hall.

But looking around, the place was full of mummified corpses, kneeling on the floor in rows, their postures almost completely identical.

Their hands were clasped in front of their chests, their heads slightly bowed, as if they were performing some kind of solemn and long prayer ritual.

Unlike the corpses lying on the grass outside, these mummified corpses were better preserved; their flesh and tissue had not completely rotted away, as if they had been drained of moisture from the inside by some kind of power, turning into a layer of dried, dark brown skin tightly wrapped around their bones.

Traces of mycelium could be clearly seen on the floor.

Grayish-white mycelium emerged from unknown cracks, spreading across the floor in all directions, piercing into the bodies of each mummified corpse from their knees, elbows, and between their clasped fingers.

Lin Xiao gripped his battle axe and left the staircase entrance.

He raised his flashlight, and the beam swept through the kneeling crowd.

Strangely, under the lens, everything was silent; he did not see any red light clusters.

"Temporarily safe, everyone come up." He beckoned to those behind him.

Yimu walked out from the crowd, stepped on the creaking stairs, and onto the second floor, her pupils glowing with a faint blue light.

Just as she stood still, her footsteps faltered, and her gaze fell on a few mummified corpses kneeling in the front row.

On that skin, which had already dried into a dark brown color, one could vaguely see a few fragments of fabric that had not yet completely rotted away.

Judging by the material, it was not the linen found on the previous corpses, but a more expensive brocade.

That was some kind of high-grade fabric woven with gold and silver threads; even after over a hundred years of wind erosion, one could still recognize the metallic luster reflecting faint light under the flashlight beam.

Yimu squatted down, her fingertips hovering over the piece of brocade fabric hanging from the shoulder of one mummified corpse.

"These people, judging by their attire, are not civilians."

"Such luxurious brocade is the exclusive textile craft of the Heze Royal Court; civilians are not qualified to touch or wear it, and violators would be subject to whipping."

She stood up, her voice carrying a complexity that was difficult to distinguish as shock or some other emotion.

"They... are the royal nobles of Heze!"