Chapter 537 : The Sepulcher

เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มี.ค. 2569 06:35

Within the underground mausoleum of Dead Eagle Valley, just as Dorothy and Nephthys were preparing to flee aboard their magnetically levitating flying carpet, Chabakunka saw through their intentions. He immediately commanded the Sand Lizard to manipulate the sand at the palace’s exit, forming an incredibly solid and heavy sand wall, completely sealing off their escape. In an instant, Dorothy and Nephthys were trapped with no way out. At that critical moment, Dorothy’s gaze shifted toward the staircase deeper within the mausoleum, at the unfinished ritual altar, a thought slowly began forming in her mind. “Senior Neph, turn around—now!” “What? Eh!?” Dorothy relayed her message to Nephthys through the information channel. While Nephthys was still confused, Dorothy immediately steered her iron-sand flying carpet into a sharp turn, dashing at high speed in the opposite direction, back into the depths of the mausoleum and directly toward the incoming roaring Sand Lizard. Facing the beast’s gaping jaws head-on, Nephthys was utterly terrified. “Stop! Miss Dorothy, stop—aaaaaah!!” BOOM!! Just as Nephthys screamed in the channel, two explosive blasts erupted on the Sand Lizard’s body. Bursts of flaming sand blossomed like flowers. The twin explosions not only blew apart part of its body but also disrupted its attack on Nephthys. Chabakunka, controlling it from within, was momentarily stunned. “Explosions? But weren’t all the puppets destroyed?” Baffled, Chabakunka looked toward Dorothy. Just then, he saw something startling: a robed figure hovering midair atop a flying carpet-like mystical tool, surrounded by floating explosive charges—the same mining-grade dynamite previously brought by Shihab for use in the mausoleum. These had originally been stored in Karnak for blasting rocks. “That Heaven’s Arbiter Sect Beyonder… she can control those explosives?” While Chabakunka puzzled over this, the explosives suddenly started moving. They split into two groups—one flew toward the Sand Lizard, while the other targeted the sand wall at the mausoleum’s entrance. BOOM BOOM BOOM!! Explosions rocked the mausoleum in quick succession. Both the Sand Lizard and the sand wall suffered continuous bombardment. The physical structure formed from condensed sand crumbled under the impacts. Chabakunka was forced to keep the Sand Lizard still to absorb sand for healing, while simultaneously maintaining the sand wall and repairing it to prevent collapse. Dividing his focus, Chabakunka ordered the Sand Lizard to halt while he concentrated on maintaining the defenses. Dorothy attacked while he defended, resulting in a tense stalemate. But Chabakunka wasn’t idle—he closely observed the explosives flying toward him, trying to decipher how the Heaven’s Arbiter Sect Beyonder was manipulating them. At first, they needed suicide bombers or marionettes to deliver the charges, but now she could directly control them—there had to be a secret. Soon, Chabakunka noticed that a black substance clung to the explosives, a dense black sand. After consulting with the wild spirit Sandtongue, he realized it was a component of the current environment. These black grains were microfine sand particles, clearly derived from the desert surroundings. Though he didn’t know what they truly were or how the Heaven’s Arbiter Sect Beyonder could manipulate them, he now understood their origin, and that was enough. Using Sandtongue’s territory-control powers, Chabakunka attempted to wrest control of the iron sand attached to the explosives. For a moment, the sand holding the charges froze in place, no longer sending them toward the Sand Lizard or the sand wall. The continuous bombardment abruptly ended, and the Sand Lizard, once suppressed, recovered its strength. With a silent roar, the Sand Lizard began moving again, charging on all fours toward Dorothy. Now further empowered by its environmental control, its body had grown even larger, making the once spacious mausoleum feel cramped. Under such pressure, even aboard the mag-lev carpet, Dorothy had little room to dodge, and the sand wall remained unbroken. She was trapped like prey. Just as the Sand Lizard lunged, several figures burst from the sand beneath it, leaping at the beast. A closer look revealed they were corpse marionettes, formerly Shihab’s subordinates whose souls had been consumed. Dorothy had secretly reanimated them, strapped them with explosives, and sent them in as suicidal traps. Another series of explosions erupted, this time from below the Sand Lizard. Blasted from underneath, it lost balance and collapsed with parts of its body blown off, disrupting its assault. Seeing his attack thwarted once more, Chabakunka doubled his efforts to restore both the Sand Lizard and the sand wall. What he hadn’t expected was that the Heaven’s Arbiter Sect Beyonder didn’t go for the exit. Instead, she suddenly accelerated, soaring deeper into the mausoleum, straight past the still-recovering Sand Lizard, heading toward the rear. Seeing this, Chabakunka was momentarily stunned. Once he fully restored the Sand Lizard, he ordered it to turn and give chase. Looking toward where the Beyonder had gone, he witnessed something astonishing. At the far end of the mausoleum, before the long staircase, at the very altar where he had once performed his ritual, stood a figure. Facing the five burning bronze lamps, arms raised, she chanted in North Ufigan. “Ah… First King of Addus, the Great Founder, Protector of Peace—I beg audience in the name of the bloodline of Baruch! ‘Open, O Gate of Trial, and show the path to the king-to-be!’” Reading from the Royal Sacrificial Book, Nephthys uttered the final words. The moment she finished, the sixth and final bronze lamp ignited spontaneously. With all six lit, the tall stone door at the end of the staircase began to rumble and slowly open, revealing a dark void beyond. “What?! They actually have Baruch’s sacrificial book?!” Chabakunka was shocked. He had never expected the ritual he halted at the last step to be completed by someone else, nor that they would successfully open the entrance to Rachman’s Sepulcher! At once, he understood why the Heaven’s Arbiter Sect Beyonder had flown deeper into the mausoleum. Her true goal was that newly opening door! “Not on my watch.” Burning more spirituality, Chabakunka hastened to restore the Sand Lizard, commanding it to chase after the flying Beyonder. At the same time, he controlled the sand around them to raise dozens of sand serpents—some launched toward the flying enemy, others extended toward the opening door, trying to rebuild a sand wall to block their path. Despite Chabakunka’s intentions, things did not go as he wished. The sand serpents he controlled moved far too slowly to catch up with the high-speed flying carpet. Unlike the mausoleum’s exit, the stone gate that was opening had no thick sand dunes in front of it—only a solid, sturdy staircase. The sand Chabakunka tried to manipulate could not reach the stone gate quickly enough to block it, and the process of forming a sand wall there was painfully slow. Riding the magnetically levitating carpet, Dorothy sped across the entire mausoleum from one end to the other. As she passed the altar, she popped a piece of Devouring Sigil into her mouth and extended her hand toward Nephthys, who likewise reached out. As the carpet flew past, their hands connected, and Dorothy pulled Nephthys up onto the carpet with her. Together, they flew toward the stone gate, broke through the still-thin and unformed sand wall, and entered the darkness beyond the gate. Then, Nephthys shouted loudly. “The Crown Prince enters the Trial!” The moment she uttered those words, the massive stone door—which had still been opening—suddenly halted. After pausing for half a second, it began to close again. Since it hadn’t opened very wide to begin with, the door soon slammed shut with a booming sound. Chabakunka, far behind, grew anxious and rushed forward, but by the time the Sand Lizard reached the gate, it had already closed with a thunderous crash. With a dull thud, the colossal Sand Lizard slammed straight into the shut stone gate. Its immense momentum shattered its head into a cascade of loose sand. Even so, the stone door, crafted from Netherfrost Stone, remained unmoved and utterly undamaged. Thus, the headless Sand Lizard stood at the sealed entrance to the royal hall, dumbly facing the massive stone gate. After a few minutes, its body collapsed into a pile of sand, scattering across the floor. At the same time, the sand wall at the mausoleum’s exit crumbled as well, revealing the path out. With the Sand Lizard gone, Chabakunka—still possessing a body in spirit form—appeared once again in the mausoleum. Accompanied by two wild spirits, he slowly walked across the sand toward the altar, where the six ritual bronze lamps still burned. The scene retained its solemn atmosphere. Wearing a grim expression, Chabakunka looked at the six burning lamps, then at the distant, tightly shut stone door. He let out a cold snort. “The ancient Baruch king’s refining trial has a time limit. If the challenger fails to pass in time, they will be expelled from the sepulcher. When that happens, the royal gate will open on its own. “You lot... you’ve only entered another prison. I’ll be watching to see how long you can last in there.” Muttering to himself, Chabakunka sat cross-legged on the altar. With his two wild spirits standing guard, he closed his eyes and entered silent meditation, waiting for the royal gate to open again, waiting for his prey to emerge from that prison. As Chabakunka meditated, one of the six burning bronze lamps before the altar silently extinguished. … After dashing through the stone gate at the last moment, Dorothy quickly slowed the carpet, looking back nervously at the closing door. Just in time, the Sand Lizard slammed into it as it shut. The sand from its shattered head sprayed through the narrow gap, dusting both Dorothy and Nephthys, even seeping into Nephthys’s veil. “Pleh! Pleh! So much sand got in—blegh!” Spitting out sand, Nephthys grumbled. Meanwhile, Dorothy gradually lowered the carpet’s altitude. By the time Nephthys had mostly cleared the sand from her mouth, the carpet had landed successfully. As they stepped onto the ground, both felt a deep chill seep into their bones. “Ugh… so this is the inside of Rachman’s Sepulcher? It’s so dark—I can’t see anything. That coffin freak from Kapak’s hometown… he’s not going to break in, right?” Nephthys looked around the pitch-black surroundings with unease. Dorothy, brushing off her clothes as she stood up, replied. “Unlikely. That guy had to go through a whole ritual just to get in—he can’t brute-force his way through. We should be safe in here… at least for now.” Brushing off the sand, Dorothy regarded Rachman’s Sepulcher as a temporary safe haven, a solution she came up with when the situation against Chabakunka turned dire. Chabakunka had nearly completed the ritual to open this sepulcher gate, needing only the final step. So Dorothy decided to finish the ritual herself, open the gate, and hide inside temporarily. Since Nephthys had been the one expected to operate within the mausoleum, she’d been carrying the Royal Sacrificial Book all along. Dorothy provided cover so Nephthys could reach the altar and complete the ritual. Then, with traps delaying the Sand Lizard, the two of them slipped inside and sealed the door. This whole plan was devised to buy Dorothy time. Though the coffin shaman was formidable, she believed that if given enough time, she could find a way to defeat him. “Phew... anyway, let’s check out the inside of this place. If there’s danger in here too, we’re really in for it…” Taking a deep breath, Dorothy began exploring the darkness. Before long, she found her magic box, retrieved a gas lamp, and lit it. The surrounding space began to brighten. Under the lamplight, Dorothy gradually saw more of her surroundings. She pulled out several more lamps from the magic box, lit them, and used magnetism to make them float and illuminate the room. The space wasn’t very large—square-shaped and fully sealed with pitch-black stone. The stone was incredibly smooth, with no engravings on the walls or floor, and emitted a faint coldness. At the center of the room lay a stone sarcophagus about 2.5 meters long, made from the same black stone as the tomb. It had no scratches or markings. Around the sarcophagus was a large ritual array. This array glowed dark red, inscribed with intricate symbols and glyphs all related to Silence, exuding a sinister aura. Around it lay five skeletons. On closer inspection, Dorothy saw the ritual array had been drawn in coagulated blood. On one wall of the chamber, similar dried blood markings remained, not a formation this time, but writing in North Ufigan. Dorothy approached and tried to decipher it. Much of the text had flaked away, but with some reconstruction, she could make out parts of the message. “Confessional Record… Sixth Generation King Refining Trial… All 87 successors failed… To be king, one must possess the might of a king. Power is the reason and foundation of kingship. Addus must not be without a king. For the prosperity of Addus, for the lasting reign of the Baruch dynasty, for peace across the land—we had no choice but to commit a grave sin, to invoke heretical rites of the secret faith… to desecrate the First King… The Six Palace Priests…”

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