Cursed Immortality

Chapter 1278: Beneath the Empty Throne

Although there was no clear indication that those profound formations were concealing a hidden chamber or anything else, as far as Jacob could tell, they were put there for a reason. Moreover, those countless color particles were all flowing beneath that throne, which was hard to ignore.

Jacob stood motionless before the ancient throne, and the deeper his Eyes of Judge examined it, the quieter he became.

At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more than an immense seat carved from the same black stone as the fortress itself, but that impression lasted only an instant.

The flames flickered within his hollow sockets as countless colors spread across his vision, and immediately he frowned because the throne wasn’t merely sitting atop the floor, but it was connected to it, and the entire hall!

Beneath the throne, countless impossibly intricate glyphs slumbered inside the stone itself. They were unlike formations, arrays, or runic inscriptions Jacob had ever encountered.

Moreover, each glyph possessed layers, and within every visible line hid countless smaller lines, and within those smaller lines existed even finer structures.

Every time Jacob believed he had reached the foundation, another hidden layer revealed itself beneath, like endless worlds nested inside one another.

Jacob reached the conclusion that even his Eyes of Judge could only perceive the outermost surface, and beyond that everything dissolved into distortion, for even the flaw spectrums became meaningless. For the first time since obtaining the Eyes of Judge, they had reached their limit.

Jacob silently observed for several minutes as he thought grimly, ‘As expected of the place sealing a God. It’s impossible to decipher.’

Jacob wasn’t delusional to think his current self could decipher them; it wasn’t merely that the formations were too complicated; rather, he lacked the qualifications to even understand what he was seeing.

If ordinary Legendary Formations resembled books, then these resembled an entire civilization condensed into a single sentence. Just one mistake and he doubted the hall would even remain.

Yet despite the impossible difficulty, one detail slowly caught his attention. Every visible glyph, every hidden formation, and every incomprehensible array, all converged toward one object.

The empty throne itself!

It was as if it wasn’t being protected; it was the centerpiece, like a key, and with that belief, Jacob slowly circled the throne. But he never touched it; instead, he observed every angle, every carving, joint, and even shadow.

Jacob was so immersed in analyzing the throne that, without his realizing it, hours quietly passed, and eventually he stopped behind it.

Here, unlike the magnificent front, the rear appeared strangely plain, with countless intertwined vertebrae forming the backrest.

Jacob’s gaze lingered before it suddenly turned sharp because one of those vertebrae was different, and it was not visually even, as the Eyes of Judge couldn’t distinguish it from the others.

Instead, it lacked age; every other part of the throne carried the same profound antiquity, but this single vertebra felt almost handled. Even though not recently perhaps thousands of years ago yet compared to everything surrounding it, it was the newest object in the hall.

Jacob slowly extended one finger, hesitating, as his instincts screamed caution, since this was no ordinary ruin and everything here should predate the recorded history of the Legendary Plains.

With one wrong decision, he could awaken powers beyond his imagination or trigger something terrifying.

‘Well, I came prepared this time…’ Jacob thought, but he still hesitated.

With such thoughts, several moments passed, but then he pressed it!

But nothing happened while Jacob remained perfectly still.

‘So, it’s wrong.’ Jacob’s eyes flickered with a hint of relief.

But instead of withdrawing, he carefully applied pressure from another direction, and this time, the vertebra shifted almost imperceptibly.

‘Click…’

The sound wasn’t loud, and it barely existed, yet the entire throne hall responded almost immediately, and a deep vibration spread through the floor; the ancient stone groaned, and dust that had remained undisturbed for countless ages drifted into the air.

The next moment, the colossal throne started to move, but not backward or forward; instead, it slowly rotated, barely a few degrees. Yet those few degrees aligned it with the gigantic eclipsed mural behind it!

The instant both became perfectly aligned, countless invisible glyphs briefly illuminated beneath the floor, not with light, but with absence, as if reality itself were momentarily peeling away.

Jacob instinctively retreated, but nothing exploded, and no attack arrived. Instead, the throne slowly descended without any sound or resistance as though it had never truly rested upon the floor.

When it sank several meters, the stone beneath it quietly parted, and an ancient staircase emerged.

The passage was shrouded in darkness, a terrifying Death Authority emanating from it, and all the flowing particles grew even denser.

Jacob remained motionless as he looked at the dark passage, and he couldn’t help but mutter, “It was a mechanical lock?”

Jacob was skeptical because neither his Eyes of Judge nor his power had solved it; even the countless ancient formations surrounding the throne had remained untouched.

Whoever designed this place had deliberately hidden the entrance behind the simplest method imaginable; a simple mechanism, without any power, only knowledge.

After a moment of hesitation, Jacob descended while remaining fully alert. Each step vanished into the silent darkness.

The staircase wasn’t long either, and soon another chamber revealed itself, and his flaming eyes compressed when he realized what this place was actually hiding

“A treasury!?”

Although it wasn’t enormous, every inch of it radiated wealth beyond imagination, with ancient weapon racks stretching into the darkness, crystal pedestals floating in midair, and gigantic skeletons of unknown creatures resting against the walls.

Countless shelves carried wisdom tomes, black scrolls, metallic tablets, and relics whose origins Jacob couldn’t even imagine. Mountain-sized crystals floated inside translucent spheres. Entire suits of armor stood upright as though waiting for forgotten masters to return.

But despite the unimaginable value of those artifacts and unknown treasuries, none of it could be touched because every treasure, without exception, was imprisoned with layer after layer of translucent barriers enclosing every single object.

It wasn’t just those translucent barriers, but thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands, of ancient suppressive formations that overlapped so perfectly they resembled a single complete existence.

Jacob’s Eyes of Judge immediately focused upon them, and gray flaw spectrums appeared, intertwined, and then disappeared beneath even deeper structures.

‘If I’m not wrong, just touching one seal without a proper method would instantly trigger some kind of security system…’

Jacob was astounded, as this entire place, too complex to even locate its true core, proved impossible to reach, which meant this treasury had not merely been sealed but had been isolated from the world!