Chapter 63 - Burial Grounds (IX)

Editor: Kitty

When the mechanism activated, the three people glanced into each others’ eyes in surprise. Duan Li was the first to move. He headed to open a hidden door. As they expected, beyond the hidden door was no longer a familiar tomb vault, but a dark pa.s.sageway. It appeared endless, and they did not know where it led.

“It’s a mechanism.” Duan Li immediately stepped through the hidden door and walked into the pa.s.sageway. He took out a flashlight and shone it into the depths of the pa.s.sageway. It seemed endless, and he could not see where it led. When he shone the flashlight on the walls of the dark pa.s.sageway, he found some mounted torches, but the lights were extinguished. This pa.s.sageway was obviously not the same as the pa.s.sageway that Luo Jian was trapped in before.

“There is no danger.” Duan Li checked around a little, turned around, and squatted at the side of the hidden door. He waved and indicated for Luo Jian and Feng YuLan to come over there quickly. Then, Luo Jian pushed Feng YuLan to let him go first.

The hidden door in the tomb was comparatively narrower than normal, and only one person could pa.s.s through it at a time. Also, because the hidden door was fixed in a lower corner, one generally had to squat down to crawl through! Every time Luo Jian pa.s.sed through the hidden door, he silently complained about it, and he had no idea why the people who built the tomb conceived of such a troublesome hidden door.

But soon, Luo Jian knew why the hidden door was built in this way.

At that moment when Feng YuLan pa.s.sed through the hidden door without trouble, when he also squatted on the opposite side to beckon for Luo Jian to come over, when Luo Jian just squatted……! Suddenly, he heard the vibration sound of the mechanism underground start once again! And right as he heard the sound, the hidden door suddenly fell automatically! Luo Jian watched as the hidden door closed quickly. Feng YuLan, who was on the opposite side, only had time to reach out and shout at him. After that, the thick hidden door shut firmly.

Luo Jian was completely shocked by the sudden action. Instinctively, he immediately tried to open the hidden door. There was something like a b.u.t.ton on the side of the hidden door. Every time someone pressed it, the hidden door would open. After every team member had pa.s.sed through the door, they could close the hidden door themself by pressing the b.u.t.ton on the opposite side.

If the door was deliberately left open, it would automatically close after a few minutes.

However, Luo Jian had not met such a situation before, where no one had touched the mechanism and the door would automatically close! Luo Jian, of course, desperately pressed the b.u.t.ton on the wall to try to make the hidden door open again, but for some reason, the hidden door’s mechanism became extremely slow. Regardless of how many times Luo Jian pressed the b.u.t.ton, the door remained firmly shut. It was only when the vibration of the underground mechanism that Luo Jian heard stopped that the door opened with a rumble.

However, behind the open door, there was neither Feng YuLan and Duan Li, nor was there a new dark pa.s.sageway! It was an area that Luo Jian was extremely familiar with; it appeared to be an exact replica of the tomb vault Luo Jian was in.

It was exactly the same as what Luo Jian had seen previously: the three coffins were placed side by side, and the murals on the wall still told the story of the evil ghost. Luo Jian understood that he had returned to the terrible array once again. He returned to the six tomb vaults that were placed in an infinite loop.

“What the h.e.l.l is going on?” At this moment, Luo Jian was a little frightened. Although the number of secret chambers he experienced was considered not little, he was still inexplicably scared of this situation because he was suddenly alone and Duan Li and Ah Lan were missing. There were only the three coffins accompanying him in the pitch-black tomb.

Luo Jian swallowed his saliva. He felt that he could not remain here to wait for his doom. He remembered the vibration sound that could only be heard when the strange mechanism was activated. Because of this sound, the hidden door suddenly closed automatically. Even after much thinking, Luo Jian did not understand what had occurred.

Therefore, he went back to the mural and looked at the circular array formation that was needed to use the mechanism. At this time, Luo Jian found that the array formation had reverted to its original formation. Previously, after Luo Jian turned the array formation, there was a new pa.s.sageway behind the open hidden door. However, the open door closed within a few minutes, and the array formation automatically turned back. After looking at the array formation for a long time, Luo Jian thought that if he turned it again, he might be able to find Ah Lan and company.

After his interest was aroused by this idea, Luo Jian immediately placed his hand in it and tried to turn the array formation again. But this time, Luo Jian found that he could not turn it to the right, but he could turn it to the left. The rotation of the array formation was in a different direction than before.

After turning the array formation to the left for one and a half rounds, there was the sound of the vibration that came from the starting mechanism underground. After the sound stopped, Luo Jian ran to open the hidden door again. Sure enough, after opening the hidden door, there was a pa.s.sageway that seemed to stretch endlessly, but he didn’t see Duan Li and Feng YuLan. After a moment of hesitation, Luo Jian crawled through the hidden door and entered the dark pa.s.sageway.

Not long after Luo Jian climbed through the door, it closed, accompanied by the sound of mechanism starting.

“What is actually happening in this d.a.m.ned place?” It seemed that Luo Jian could not open the hidden door again after it was closed. Because he could not find the b.u.t.ton that opened the hidden door, he had to follow the pa.s.sageway, but after walking for a long time, he still did not see the way out. When he accidentally kicked something with his feet, he took out a flashlight to shine on the ground and found that he had kicked an altar lamp.

A very familiar looking altar lamp.

Luo Jian felt a chill that permeated his entire body. He squatted down, picked up the altar lamp, and studied it carefully with the light of the flashlight. He was shocked to find that this was the altar lamp previously left behind by Feng YuLan! After they were poisoned by the monster, Duan Li took them away and left the lamp here.

This was the pa.s.sageway where they walked around in circles and met that monster!

“Darn, I’m back here again.” Luo Jian was emitting cold sweat, and the flashlight in his hand began to tremble unconsciously. The round light shook on the wall. Now he had no way back. There was a terrible monster wandering in this pa.s.sageway, which he had been trapped in. Maybe the enemy team member that Duan Li had mentioned before was also here.

What to do? What should I do? Luo Jian’s brain was filled with these questions as he mulled over it. He was not Duan Li. He did not know how Duan Li escaped from the narrow pa.s.sageway. He could not return to the tomb vault with three coffins and murals. Luo Jian had lost all his teammates now. He was alone and had to face an unknown enemy in the depths of the darkness.

There was absolutely no way to retreat. If one was afraid but did nothing about it, they would only continue to grow even more afraid. Luo Jian thought about it and decided to put out the light of his flashlight. He took out the first phosphorite from his pocket. He remembered Ah Lan said that the monster was very sensitive to light and sound. At this time, it was best to reduce his sense of existence. After doing all that, Luo Jian slowly walked on.

This pa.s.sageway remained in the state that made whoever was in it to walk around in circles. After walking for a long time, Luo Jian realized that the sound of his footsteps was gone again, but he was not as surprised as when he realized it the first time. He tried to hold his breath as he gripped the phosphorite in his hand. He used a hand to support himself on the wall as he walked slowly forward. About ten minutes later, Luo Jian arrived at the place where Feng YuLan first woke up. It was an area with a pool of water and five big pots.

As Feng YuLan said, all five pots were opened. One of them was broken. Strange black liquid spilled out and all over the ground, and much of it had flowed into the pool. The pool occupied a large area, and under the shroud of darkness, the water in the pool was also black.

The pool was probably specially designed to be in the tomb because they knew there would be groundwater. In this humid environment, there was the possibility of water condensing in the tomb. When the tomb was built, these kinds of cisterns and water diversion channels were specially built. In addition, Luo Jian saw what the slip of paper mentioned: this tomb was connected to an underground cave. There was not much to say about having an underground cave here, but there must be an underground river or something similar. Maybe the cave could even be connected with the river outside……

“If I follow the current, I may be able to go out.” Luo Jian was enlightened and immediately squatted beside the cistern to see the direction of the water flow. The pool was not big, and the water did not seem to be stagnant. The water formed a small whirlpool as it moved, and sometimes water would splash out and splatter all over the ground. Luo Jian expected there to be a channel under the pool for the water, but where did the channel lead to? The pa.s.sageway was neither big nor long. Was there enough s.p.a.ce for a person to swim in it? If he could not come out to take a breath, Luo Jian would drown.

Luo Jian squatted beside the reservoir and hesitated for a long time. During the time he was hesitating, something unexpected happened again! Once again, Luo Jian heard a sound from behind him. It was the sound of a pot shattering. When he decisively turned back to take a look, he found that of the four intact big pots, one of them had shattered somehow. The liquid in it was immediately spilled all over the floor, and something that looked like a black meatball fell out from it.

This unexpected incident scared Luo Jian so much that he felt cold and all his hairs stood up. He immediately took out his knife and squatted at the edge of the pool, looking around cautiously. The light of the phosphorite was too weak, so Luo Jian, who had become used to the darkness, gradually began to learn not to judge what occurred with merely his eyes. He was extremely focused as he listened to all of the surrounding noise, to take in small and even more miniscule noises.

Just when he felt so nervous that the hand holding the knife began to tremble, his keen intuition felt that there was something coming at him from the right at a speed that no human could match. Although it was too dark for him to see clearly, he felt something akin to a murderous intent, so he swung his knife to resist it!

Luo Jian felt that his blade really had blocked some kind of attack, but it didn’t matter what it was because when that thing charged over, the force of its collision was very strong. Although Luo Jian resisted the attack, his stance was unstable, and he was directly knocked backward toward the pool of blackened water behind him.

Water is something gentle, but similarly, it can also be something cold. When the water rose over his head, Luo Jian seemed to be able to clearly feel death itself. The G.o.d of death waved his cold sickle and mercilessly reaped all forms of life.