Chapter 61 - Burial Grounds (VII)

Editor: Kitty

“Let’s not think about anything else right now and decide on two main objectives. First, we should follow the clues to find the main tomb. Second, we should find our new teammate.” Luo Jian rubbed his chin as he thought. He glanced at Duan Li and said to him, “You also should have had a note when you woke up, right? Can you show me?”

Duan Li looked back at Luo Jian, waved his hand, and handed over the printed paper. Luo Jian took it and read it. The content was very similar, but there were still some differences. At least this time, Luo Jian finally understood the reason why he had directly unlocked team battle mode despite the number of people in his team being insufficient.

“Dear Mr. Duan Li.” While taking a look at it, he read it aloud. Luo Jian said with a wry smile, “Congratulations on entering the chaos chamber battlefield. We welcome you back as a player. Since your strength is very inconsistent with your team’s comprehensive strength, the secret chamber has taken extreme measures to improve your team’s comprehensive strength at the highest efficiency. Your team will get huge rewards after this team battle, but whether you can be the winner depends on your fortune.”

Luo Jian flicked the note in his hand, and his eyes fell on Duan Li: “It seems that the reason why we can open up the team battle mode is you.”

Duan Li also smiled: “No, no, no, it’s not only because of me, but also because of that ‘Oracle’.”

“Do you know what exactly the ‘Oracle’ is?” Luo Jian slightly frowned. It seemed that a lot of useful information could be procured from Duan Li.

“Of course, because I…… Once upon a time, I was also someone with the t.i.tle—Oracle,” Duan Li said. He seemed to recall something, and his tone carried a tint of regret: “The Oracle is a t.i.tle given to the strongest players by the secret chamber. If your strength is at the peak and the secret chamber recognizes it, you will be able to obtain that t.i.tle.”

“The strongest?” Luo Jian and Feng YuLan said the same words at almost the same time. Then, they both stared at Duan Li in a different light.

Duan Li waved helplessly: “With what kind of eyes are you looking at me? Even now, when I’ve turned back into a player and returned to the secret chamber, the secret chamber will give me the t.i.tle of the ‘Oracle.’ That is to say, there are two Oracles in our current team. This is also the reason why we could directly open up the team battle even though we are short in numbers. The two of you are basically equivalent to cannon fodder, so there is no difference between having you as teammates or doing without you.”

“F*ck! Cannon fodder! Then, from the very beginning, didn’t we get implicated to enter this secret chamber because of you?” Luo Jian suddenly felt that his life was hopeless and his future was dark.

“Don’t worry, cannon fodder,” Duan Li consoled, “I’ve dealt with a person from the enemy team before. He’s not my opponent at all, so I’ve estimated that the total strength of the enemy team should be equal to the combined power of two Oracles. As for the two of you, your power value is negligible. Both of you are merely cannon fodder.”

This time, Feng YuLan finally could not bear it. He stared at Duan Li with a black face: “Even so, it is not necessary for you to mock us for being cannon fodder.” With that, Feng YuLan pulled off Duan Li’s mask, grabbed his cheeks, and began to pull them.

Duan Li did not have any objections regarding Feng YuLan’s actions, but this hindered his speech, so he grabbed Ah Lan’s two claws and embraced him. Then, he smiled proudly at Luo Jian. This action of his almost angered Luo Jian to the point of raising his knife to disfigure the other half of Duan Li’s face.

However, Duan Li soon became serious and said to both Luo Jian and Feng YuLan, “Now, I have a very important thing to say. Listen carefully—once a player is crowned as the Oracle, the secret chamber will open h.e.l.l mode for this player.”

“h.e.l.l mode? What is that?” Ah Lan looked up and asked.

Duan Li pondered for a while and replied, “After becoming the Oracle, every secret chamber experience will be a team battle. Even if you are alone, you will be forced to join a certain team. In addition, more than two stalkers will be sent to hunt you. If you can easily escape from them, their numbers will increase.”

Hearing this, both Luo Jian and Feng YuLan were shocked, and Luo Jian said, “Heavens, this is more than being implicated. It’s like we’re being cheated and sent to h.e.l.l as a result! According to what you say, aren’t there four or more stalkers coming to kill us because we have two Oracles in our team?”

Duan Li, with a dignified look, replied, “To be exact, they’re not coming here to chop you two down, but to cut down me and our lovely new teammate, whom we have never met before. However, both of you will be somewhat implicated, and we also have to divide some effort to deal with the enemy team, so I can only say that we are in a very dangerous situation.”

Luo Jian could not help but bite his lower lip and become fl.u.s.tered. Obviously, his mind was in a state of confusion, but he tried to calm himself down and said, “Well, let me ask you a question first.”

“Sure, ask away.”

“The Oracles will automatically unlock h.e.l.l mode, but it won’t be open forever, right?”

“No, h.e.l.l mode will end after about three team battles,” Duan Li answered, “This type of h.e.l.l mode is actually a test for the Oracle, to a.s.sess whether they have the ability to pa.s.s the final secret chamber test.”

“The final chamber test?”

Duan Li laughed. He seemed to be very ambitious as he replied, “The test to find out whether one can return to reality. There will be no need to escape from the secret chambers again and no need to enter these bulls.h.i.t s.p.a.ces again and again. This is the final secret chamber test. As long as I pa.s.s this last test, I can completely return to reality.”

“Wait, you mean that you have previously experienced this test before?” Luo Jian suddenly recalled that Duan Li had called Xing Yan ‘captain.’ He immediately understood something and asked, “I thought I heard that your former team was destroyed. Is it because of this…?”

Duan Li was silent for a while and took a deep breath. He slowly said, “Long ago, when I was a player, I was in a very good team, and all five of us were experts. I could say that…… of the five people, we were all Oracles.”

Duan Li took a glance at Luo Jian and smiled: “The Stalker you are acquainted with, Xing Yan, was the captain of this team. That was our crowning moment. We had experienced three extremely chaotic team battles. When we were about to face the final challenge, we lost. The last Stalker that the secret chamber sent was powerful to an extremely terrifying extent. In the last team battle, our whole team was crushed. I was lucky to escape the fate of being made a Stalker by the secret chamber because I held certain special props. However, I still couldn’t escape the punishment for failing, so I became the way you saw me before.”

“If so, why did you sign this symbiotic contract with me?” At this time, Feng YuLan suddenly opened his mouth. He frowned and broke free from Duan Li’s arms as he indicated that he did not understand: “It was because you could gain the chance to be a player again and redo what you failed previously, wasn’t it? But surely, you don’t want your team to be wiped out again, right? Unless you have another prop that will help you escape the punishment of being killed?”

“I don’t.”

“Then why?”

Duan Li took a look at Luo Jian and Feng YuLan and said, “The reason why I made the decision to become a player again is because of the two of you.”

“Us?” Luo Jian and Feng YuLan looked at each other: “As you said before, we are just cannon fodder.”

“No, you are variables.”

It seemed that Duan Li did not want to continue talking about it. He stood up and said to Luo Jian and Feng YuLan: “In fact, you don’t need to worry. Because you are newbies, you can’t always be on the same team as the Oracles, and you can’t follow me to the final test. Therefore, the secret chamber may forcibly separate me from you next time, and the symbiotic contract will naturally also be dissolved. You will soon return to experiencing the proper secret chamber scenarios. As for me, I will have nothing to do with the both of you.”

Feng YuLan felt that the situation had become even more inconceivable. He immediately stood up and angrily questioned Duan Li, “That is to say, I am only your temporary chess piece? I’m just a springboard you used to return to the secret chamber?”

Duan Li did not speak. He reached for the mask on his head and put it on again. Then he answered, “Correct.”

“Then…… What you said to me before is all but a joke?” Feng YuLan became furious suddenly, reached out, and grabbed Duan Li by his collar. All this happened so suddenly that it was unreasonable! But Feng YuLan seemed to have a hunch. He knew that Duan Li’s purpose was not ordinary. How could a newbie like him, akin to a new-born calf, enter his line of sight?

Duan Li lowered his head, looked down at Ah Lan, and smiled. He closed the gap between them and kissed him in front of Luo Jian! This sudden move made Ah Lan so frightened that he could not move and also gave Luo Jian a scare. When Duan Li finally loosened his grip, neither of them had come back to their senses.

“Only this is true,” Duan Li said.

After a period together, although the team was full of discontent, the three people set out, temporarily together. Following Duan Li’s suggestion, the three people decided to go to the main tomb vault first. They left the small tomb vault and began to advance through the intricate and complicated tunnels in the tomb.

Duan Li had said: “We don’t know who the new teammate is or what kind of strength he has. He may cause us more trouble, so don’t worry about him first. It’s more logical to find out all information and clues while we can at this point in time.”

Luo Jian had agreed with what Duan Li had said. Feng YuLan did not have any objections, so the three people set out. The tomb was very large, and the terrain was complex. The three of them did not know where exactly the main tomb was. However, Luo Jian noticed a clue from Duan Li’s secret chamber note because the content on the back of his note was as follows:

[After the last funeral accompaniment was forced into the tomb, the entire clan disappeared overnight. After that, the seasons pa.s.sed, star signs changed, the hills trembled, and mountains swayed. The entrance of the tomb was sealed by falling stones. No one could enter or exit.]

The implications of this paragraph made people wonder many different things. Luo Jian then asked Ah Lan, “From all the clues we have at present, can you guess who is the owner of this huge tomb?”

“Isn’t it the poor clan heads who were sent to the tomb as tribute and buried alive?” Ah Lan also began to think.

Duan Li cut in with a sentence: “I think what Luo Jian wants to ask is who was the tomb built for at the very beginning?”

Ah Lan seemed to understand something at that moment, but he still felt puzzled: “Let’s organize our minds and start from the beginning of the situation. At the beginning, this group of people all believed in a certain G.o.d and thought that the G.o.d attached themself to the clan head. Moreover, they took the clan head as a funeral accompaniment. But just merely thinking about it this way, it’s very illogical. If the G.o.d was attached to the clan head, why did they treat him like a funeral accompaniment and bury him while he was still alive? It appears as if they wanted their G.o.d to die.”

“Maybe it was a G.o.d of death,” Duan Li interrupted again.

Luo Jian put forward his idea: “I think that no matter what G.o.d these bulls.h.i.t clansmen believed in or why they wanted their G.o.d to die, we can conclude that this tomb was built for that G.o.d.”

“It’s the G.o.d’s tomb.” It seemed as if Ah Lan was muttering to himself.

But what Feng YuLan did not know was that his words immediately added a terrifying and mysterious brilliance to the huge and complex tomb.