At the end, there is an uncovered door. Inside the door is darkness, and nothing can be seen. Only the air of death keeps coming, whistling in the ears like a sinister wind.
Froud closed his eyes, the power of his soul vibrated between his eyebrows, and ripples invisible to the naked eye rippled out.
After a while, Froud opened his eyes and said: "The specific situation inside is unknown, but there is no soul left, and there is no breath of living things."
After confirming that there were no living creatures or undead threats, Froude and Angel stepped inside the door.
The gloomy death energy inside became even more intense. Even without any energy drive, various ghost cries were spontaneously heard in the ears, as if there were a large number of resentful spirits whispering.
Angel was not affected, but Froud's eyebrows kept beating, looking like he was suffering and enduring.
Seeing this, Angel took a step forward. As the steps fell, an invisible spiritual force field enveloped him and Froud.
Under the protection of the mental force field, Froud finally breathed a sigh of relief: "This must be the place where Lady Silla sleeps. The residual resentment is extremely strong. Just standing here can trigger the accumulated emotions in my soul."
Deathly."
If it weren't for Angel's protection, Froud wouldn't have lasted long here. Once he inhaled too much resentment, he would have only one end, and that would be corruption.
"So, it seems that this place is more suitable for practicing soul tricks than Star Lake Castle." Angel muttered as he stretched out his hand, and a bright ball of light slowly rose from his palm.
The light ball rose to the top of the head, and the brilliant light immediately dispelled the darkness and illuminated the surrounding area.
This is an advanced level of the radiance spell, the level 1 cantrip radiance spell.
Under the illumination of the radiance technique, they could already clearly see the situation within a dozen meters nearby. Within the illumination range, there was nothing special. The ground was unusually smooth, with obvious traces of polishing, which was artificially created.
Directly in front of them, at the edge of the light, they could vaguely see a staircase.
"It seems that this place is bigger than imagined." Angel muttered in a low voice, and ten light balls created by the radiance technique appeared in his palm at the same time. With a flick, the light balls flew in all directions.
The dark cave was like a skylight that opened to direct sunlight, instantly brightening up. Even the deep dark corners were replaced by light.
When the light completely replaced the darkness, they finally saw clearly the scene in the huge cave.
The area of the cave is very vast, even if two or three Star Lake Castles are placed there is no problem. The entire cave is very flat, with an altar-like high platform directly in front of it, and a large number of regular rectangular stone platforms placed near the altar. On the edge of the cave
There is a small black cave every few meters in a circle. Other than that, there are no other artificial traces.
Froude frowned and looked around for a week, and finally fixed his gaze on the high platform.
"This high platform..." Froude pointed to the high platform that was like an altar: "The death energy on it is extremely strong, as if it were real."
No need for Froud to say, Angel had already sensed it.
Although to the naked eye, the high platform seems to be empty, the aura of death, decay, and silence is extremely conspicuous. It can even be said that all the death energy in the entire cave is emanating from the high platform.
, there is...the source.
"It always feels a little strange here. Let's split up first to see if we can find anything. Finally, we will go to the high platform." Angel did not go to the high platform to explore the source of the dead energy immediately, but planned to split up with Froud to take a look first.
The situation inside the cave.
Froude nodded. He was also very confused about this cave. Why is there such a cave here? Who built it? What is it supposed to do?
Angel exerted a mental force field on Flood, and then he went to the left side of the high platform, while Flood went to the right.
Angel first used his mental power to sense it. The only things worth exploring on the left were the rectangular stone platforms and the small caves on the edge of the cave.
He walked to the rectangular stone platform.
These rectangular stone platforms protrude directly from the ground. Regardless of their height and shape, they look like workbenches in a laboratory.
The rectangular stone platform also has objects placed on it like a workbench.
A skeleton.
To be precise, they are mutilated human skeletons.
It is a left-hand skeleton, which has been completely dried up. Under the erosion of the strong dead air, brittle cracks have appeared on the skeleton, and it is estimated that it will weather if touched.
Angel investigated through both physical and mental vision, and found that the left hand skeleton seemed to have traces of energy infiltration when it was living. However, he was not sure that he had not fully learned the skeleton knowledge applicable to wizards.
You can ask Flood later.
When there was no other discovery, Angel went to another rectangular stone platform.
Like the previous stone platform, there is also a broken skeleton placed here, but here it is smaller, and it is the right palm bone.
Judging from the metacarpal bones, the knuckles are clear and not missing, and there are also traces of energy being moistened.
Angel recalled the previous left hand, which seemed to have a larger metacarpal than the right hand, so it probably did not belong to the same person.
Immediately afterwards, Angel went to other rectangular stone platforms. Each stone platform had incomplete skeletons with different parts, some of which were not human.
After looking at the rectangular stone platform, Angel went to the small cave dug out on the cave wall.
He had already used his mental power to investigate the situation in the small cave before, and now he just came to confirm again.
After reading it, Angel was sure that the result was the same as the mental vision: the small cave was not big, only two meters deep inside, and there was a complete human skeleton sitting in each small cave.
Angel looked around the caves. There were small caves every few meters, and there were a total of 360 caves in total.
In each cave, there is a human skeleton sitting in the same cross-legged posture.
This is definitely not normal.
Angel seemed to have thought of something, his eyes suddenly turned dark, and he silently walked back to the central high platform.
After a while, Flood also came over.
Froude: "The stone platform is full of broken bones, including humans, humanoids, and some non-plane aliens. I feel that maybe a transcendent person has done some secret research here. Because, all
Their bones all have traces of the use of energy during their lifetime, so they should not be mortals."
Froude's judgment was similar to what Angel thought. Angel pondered for a moment: "If it is really the secret research of extraordinary people, it would be normal for humans and humanoids to appear here. However, there are bones of alien creatures.
It reminds me of a certain ethnic group."
"The Karabits," Froude agreed softly.
What Karabit people love most is to study creatures, especially alien creatures.
Angel nodded: "Maybe it's a Karabit wizard doing experiments here."
Flood: "It is possible, but judging from the situation on site, this place has been abandoned for a long time, and there are no traces of any experimenters, so this speculation cannot be confirmed."
Angel nodded. There was no more information about the skeleton on the stone platform, so he could only put it down for the time being.
Angel: "What I pay most attention to are the skeletons in those small caves."
Flood recalled for a moment and trembled slightly: "Those skeletons are all intact, but they are all sitting in the same cross-legged posture, which makes me feel a little creepy."
After a pause, Froud asked curiously: "Why do you care about those skeletons?"
Angel pondered for a moment: "The distance between each small cave is the same, the inside is the same size, the skeletons are all human, and they are in the same posture. Everything follows a unified standard. This reminds me of
Already..."
Angel hesitated for a moment before he revealed the word in his heart: "Ritual."
Ritual. Froude muttered this word softly. Ritual science in the Southern Territory was not pursued by extremist sects like inscription literature, so he had heard of it, but he had only heard about it and had little contact with it.
However, he knew that basically all sacrifices had something to do with rituals. Some schools of thought even believed that rituals, like inscriptions, were born out of demons, but rituals were born out of the relationship between demons and believers.
sacrificial ceremony.
"I once came into contact with the prayer ceremony from Anada, and later learned some basics of rituals from Greya." Angel recalled some of the ritual content taught by Greya: "I have not become a controlling ritual being.
Before, there was little freedom in rituals, and everything had to be done according to rituals."
"The rituals of ritual are very strict and rigid norms. For example, in the sacrificial ceremony, the positions of the presenters must be dispersed ten times the distance of the tributes. All the presenters must be three meters apart, and the two presenters must be separated by two.
The position must be 90 degrees..."
"It is precisely because of the existence of these regulations that the ceremony can be carried out completely. And the existence of the small cave here, in my opinion, is an absolutely strict regulation."
After listening to Angel's explanation, Froud also understood why Angel valued the small cave.
If it were just a ceremony, it would actually be nothing. But unfortunately, human bones were used in the ceremony.
Regardless of whether this ceremony uses human sacrifice or dead human sacrifice, it means that this is a sacrificial ceremony.
Sacrifices naturally have to have a target, and the targets of using humans as tributes are generally demons, evil gods, monsters with divinity that feed on humans, or alien giants that are hostile to humans.
Otherwise, there is no need to use humans as tribute.
And whether these are demons, evil gods, or beings from other worlds, they are not easy to deal with, and they are all the focus of the wizarding world.
There is such a sacrificial ceremony here, and it really needs to be taken seriously.
"Since the rituals are all human bones." Angel turned back and looked at the nearby high platform: "Then this high platform is undoubtedly an altar."
"As for who the sacrifice is for in this sacrificial ceremony, you can find out just by going up there and taking a look. There must be clues there."
After Angel said this, he took the lead in stepping onto the steps of the altar.
With every step he took, Angel could feel the death energy washing away at the mental force field more violently.
However, although the death energy here is very strong, it is not controlled. It is just an unconscious impact and will not cause any damage to the mental force field.
There are thirty-six steps in total, which exactly corresponds to the number of small caves, which once again confirms the standardization of the ceremony.
When they came to the top of the altar, what they saw was a bone altar built with the dead bones of the deceased.
There is nothing on the bone altar, but the death energy here is the strongest.
Angel guessed that Mrs. Silla might have been staying on the altar before, so the aura of death and undead here was so strong.
Froude walked around the altar and saw no other abnormalities. In other words, if they wanted to find clues, they could only search from the bone altar.
But at first glance, it is difficult to get clues on this bone altar. Not only is there nothing, but the altar is pure white and has no lines.
Angel stretched out his hand and touched the bone altar.
When the cold feedback came from his fingertips, Angel's eyes froze slightly.
"This bone altar has no energy left." Angel said slowly.
The bone altar is built with the dead bones of the deceased. The dead bones of the deceased are semi-finished magic materials in the wizarding world, and they must contain extraordinary properties.
But now, the dead bones of the deceased have become mortal objects without any extraordinary properties, which means...
"The ceremony has been carried out."
Now that the ceremony has been carried out, what exactly is this ceremony? Is the ceremony a success or a failure? Why is Mrs. Silla here?
When Froude's head was full of questions, Angel's palm suddenly exerted force, and the bone altar fell apart instantly.
After a "crash" sound, the bone altar broke into pieces and fell to the ground.
As the bone altar was broken, the ground at the top of the altar was revealed.
"Hey, there's a symbol here!" Froud looked down and saw a strange symbol clearly carved by humans in the center of the ground below the bone altar.
After Angel confirmed that there was no energy left in the bone altar, he used his mental power to explore and discovered the symbol. Therefore, he shattered the bone altar to reveal the symbol.
Angel had never seen this symbol before.
It is very regular and can be divided into three parts. The outermost is a concentric circle. Inside the concentric circle there is a standard ritual hexagon. Inside the hexagon, there is a symmetrical serpentine symbol.
This symbol is like two symmetrical and curved crickets. If you look closely, it is imprinted in your mind. It seems to be alive, twisting and twisting.
"Although this symbol doesn't seem to have any extraordinary signs, it is vaguely related to the surrounding death aura." Angel sighed: "Unfortunately, I have never seen this symbol."
The symbol inside this hexagon is obviously the key clue, and may directly point to the object of sacrifice.
Angel looked at Froude opposite, wanting to see if he knew.
Flood shook his head: "I've never seen it either. However, it doesn't matter if you haven't seen it. We can invite foreign aid..."