Chapter 367: Tomb (2)
Translator: Leo Editor: Leo
Two long-extinguished torches were hanging on the walls on both sides. Angele walked down for about five meters and a brown door appeared in his front. He heard the blood giant killing the guards, but there was no dead body on the floor.
The door was made of wooden planks and there were large gaps between each of the plank.
The arched door had the height of an average human being.
Angele tried to push the door, but it did not move.
There was a keyhole on the left. He raised his right hand and put the tip of the dagger in the keyhole. The tip of the silver dagger melted and went into the keyhole, turning into the key.
*CRACK*
The wooden door was unlocked.
Behind the door, there was a yellow sacrificial altar and there were two burning candles standing on their stands. Their orange light brightened the area.
In the center of the altar, there was a thick book with a red cover lying on a wooden stand.
Angele made sure that there was no one behind him. He stepped into the door and closed it.
He wiped the thick white dust off the surface of the book and revealed its title: The Book of the Dead.
The characters were written in the ancient language and they looked like a terrifying black skull with two horns.
‘The Book of the Dead?’ Angele looked a bit confused. ‘Some people will compile their greatest achievements into books before passing away and this is definitely one of them, so what the blood giant said was correct—this is someone’s tomb…’
He opened the book and saw a colorful picture on the first page.
It was a cavalryman with red heavy armor and a war horse. Burning flames surrounded the cavalryman’s body and he was raising a white scimitar into the air.
There was a short sentence written under the picture: Burning Knight Orlando, his bravery shall be remembered.
The rest of the book recorded the knight’s achievements and how many wars he had served in. However, Angele had never heard of any countries mentioned in it.
There was no valuable information in the book and Angele returned it onto the wooden stand.
He glanced around and saw two tunnels leading to the same exit. The torches inside the tomb were still burning and the bright light warmed the place up.
A rotten smell permeated the air, it was mixed with the intense smell of pine oil. The only sound in the tomb came from the flames on the torches.
Angele turned left and passed through a short tunnel, reaching another wooden door on the other side
He unlocked the door quickly with the same trick.
Behind the door, there was a spacious hall.
There was a stone staircase on the other side of the hall, the stairs led to another altar with a plate on it. Yellow flame was burning on the plate.
There were six small caves on both sides of the hall—each side had three caves. Inside each cave, there was a book with a red cover on top of a small platform.
There was a total of six books lying on the inclined wooden stands quietly.
In the center of the hall, there was a rectangular stone coffin, small pieces of red rubies inserted into its edges. Each ruby had the size of an eyeball and was reflecting the light from the flame.
Angele slowly stepped into the hall while checking the surroundings carefully. Suddenly, he noticed that someone was approaching him from behind.
*CLANK*
Angele quickly created a silver shield and blocked a large axe coming from behind.
The center of the shield was dented—it turned into a ball of metal liquid and was absorbed by Angele’s skin.
Angele quickly stabbed backward using a dagger without turning around.
However, he did not hit anything.
Angele was surprised and he noticed that another strike was coming. He blocked the slash from the axe again with a metal shield.
He quickly took several steps forward and turned around, the appearance of the enemy was finally revealed.
It was a skeleton standing beside the wooden door.
White bones formed the skeleton’s body and it was holding a rusty black war axe with both its hands. The skeleton was running toward Angele, its bones shaking as it moved.
‘A skeleton soldier?’ Angele hesitated. ‘A skeleton soldier that’s not controlled by a wizard that knows necromancy?’
The skeleton soldier charged at Angele as he thought, swinging its axe down again.
*CLANK*
The blade of the axe slashed across the surface of the shield, but sending sparks in all directions was all it managed to accomplish.
‘Interesting…’ Angele already scanned the skeleton soldier using the biochip. The soldier was like a muscular mortal using a large war axe and it could only deal eight to ten degrees of physical damage.
Raising his right hand, Angele pointed at the skeleton soldier.
*CHI*
The long red hair on his head started growing; the hair covered the skeleton soldier’s body within seconds and trapped it on the floor.
*KA*
The skeleton soldier thrashed around several times, but it could not move at all. Its war axe was still in the air.
Angele’s hair looked like a red spider web, the skeleton soldier trapped in its center.
He walked to the skeleton after making sure that it could not do anything.
Angele touched the skeleton’s rib cage.
It was cold and hard. The edges of the ribs already started decaying and Angele’s hand was covered in the white dust from the bones after he touched it.
The skeleton was still struggling and making noises. Angele reached into the skeleton’s empty chest, but there was nothing inside, just like its appearance suggested.
He then focused on checking the skeleton’s skull.
Obviously, there were no eyeballs in its eye sockets, and there were some black worms crawling there instead.
‘What energy does this skeleton soldier consume? Why is it moving?’ Angele went around the skeleton solider and put his fingers into its eye sockets.
As expected, there was nothing inside.
‘This thing does not know how to check its opponent’s strength, but it was not damaged by the radiation of my elemental mentality wave… Interesting…’ Angele kept thinking.
‘What if I do this?’ He cut some of the skeleton’s bones into pieces and stabbed the dagger into its chest.
The skeleton soldier was still just struggling.
‘So, this thing won’t simply die… then what about…’ Angele aimed at the skeleton soldier’s skull with the right index finger.
*CHI*
A silver needle stabbed into the skeleton’s forehead and penetrated its skull.
The skeleton was still struggling—it seemed like the attack did not damage it.
‘There must be a core…’ The silver needle returned into Angele’s skin and he looked at the skeleton.
Blue light dots appeared in front of his eyes.
‘Zero, scan the target for me. Adjust the effective range when necessary.’
‘Scanning…’ A ray of blue light was released from Angele’s eyes after Zero reported back and it dropped on the skeleton’s body.
The blue ray moved from the skeleton’s skull to its feet quickly.
‘Scan completed. Unknown gene change detected. Visualize it in your sight?’
‘Sure.’ Angele’s eyes flashed again as he finished the order.
A blue light screen appeared in his sight.
A hologram of the skeleton started spinning on the light screen.
The image shifted several times—from the surface of the backbone to the stem cells, and to the cross-section of the bone’s stem cells.
Angele could see the cross-section of the cells clearly on the hologram.
He gasped after he noticed what was inside the cells.
The cells were filled up with black triangular magic circles and those circles were blinking in a breath-like rhythm.
Each of the magic circles was built with three basic points and each of the points looked like the shape of "&".
‘That’s… incredible...’
Angele knew that runes like these ones would probably lead him closer to the ancient bloodline wizards.
The cells from different parts of the skeleton were being displayed on the light screen and they were all filled up with the simple magic circles.
Angele crouched and used the metal string to recreate the triangular magic circle on the slate. He carefully put down the three "&" on the magic circle.
The circle looked exactly like the one he found in the cells.
He took out three regular magic stones from the pouch and dropped them on the three signs quickly.
*CRACK*
The three magic stones cracked together after the third stone was dropped on the last sign. The stones turned from black to white and translucent.
The center of the magic circle slowly turned dark and it looked like a deep hole leading to the abyss.
*CHI*
An eye suddenly appeared in the center of the magic circle. It was an eye with black pupils and it had the size of a small fish. The eye looked like an eye from a mortal, but its size was increased.
‘What is this…?’ Angele looked at the magic circle, confused. The eye was glancing around, but nothing happened.
‘If the magic circle inside the bone cell of the skeleton is the foundation of the whole thing, something similar should happen after I powered the circle up with magic stones.’ Angele’s brow furrowed.
‘Wait, there’s another possibility…’ He searched through his memory. ‘Maybe the triangular magic circle is just an agent and it has different effects on different things. It can power up the skeleton soldier when it’s applied to a dead man’s bones. I powered up the magic circle with magic stones and the effect must be related to magic stones…’