Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The fault caused by the detonation was a perfect relay station after simple modifications. The explorers did the final preparations in the place before they slowly descended underground through the temporary lifts.

Around a hundred warriors who were responsible for exploring the way and small demon beasts, of which there were multiple times more, were sent into the tomb first for preliminary surveying. After they ascertained that the environment was safe, the researchers went inside in batches.

Li Yao was given an interactive brainwave receptor that looked like an antenna and two biochemical chips that looked like contact lenses.

When he stuck the antenna to his forehead softly and put the biochemical chips on his eyes, after a beep, a lot of information immediately appeared on his retina, as well as instructions for him and the general map of the Mausoleum of Chaos.

The underground space that was outlined by bright green strokes was dozens of times larger than Li Yao had expected. It had multiple floors as well as countless pathways and independent rooms, which made the tomb look like a splendid underground palace.

The pulley span quickly as the lift slowly descended. Li Yao felt like he was an ant with a thread tied to his waist that had been tossed off a cliff thousands of meters high.

After passing through a narrow, vertical pathway, they found themselves in a space more than five hundred meters both in length and width. The dark walls around seemed to boast an uncanny attraction force that absorbed all light rays and sound.

They seemed to have fallen into an abyss, and it was not until three minutes later that the lift landed on the ground again.

The ground was dry and firm, refined out of a certain unknown rock material. Li Yao breathed deeply in relief when his feet finally stepped on the ground again.

When the mutated fireflies danced randomly in the enormous space and sprayed the cold florescence in every direction, everybody was deeply attracted to the bones of an enormous creature at the center of the space.

There was no telling what the creature used to be. Its thick bones jabbed at the ceiling, forming a dense primitive forest. Illuminated by the florescence, the bones were emitting bright green, metallic colors. Several of the bones were dozens of meters long and thicker than the main guns of many crystal warships.

Li Yao squinted and observed the walls around him.

Dozens of iron rings had been nailed to the walls, bound by huge chains that were connected to every part of the bones. After forty thousand years, all the chains looked as good as new. Even the tiniest stripes on them were still clearly visible.

However, all the chains showed signs that they had been pulled hard. Some of the iron rings had even been yanked out of the wall, leaving holes and cracks on the wall. Some other chains looked like noodles as they had been stretched to their limits.

Claw traces several meters deep were everywhere on the walls. Many thick talons had been broken and embedded into the walls.

On one of the walls, there was even a dent dozens of meters in diameter, as if an enormous battering ram had hit the wall brutally once before.

Li Yao closed his eyes and imagined what had happened forty thousand years ago.

A ferocious animal hundreds of meters long had been locked in this place with chains for some reason.

The ferocious beast must have struggled hard in agony and ripped apart many chains and magical equipment that had been carved with rune arrays.

In the meantime, the animal also left appalling traces on the wall. It was in such excruciating pain that it did not stop even when its claws were broken and embedded into the wall. It simply continued bashing the wall hard with its head.

What was it that put the enormous beast in such pain?

Some sort of experiment?

Several paleontologists and historians discussed with each other near the corpse of the enormous beast.

One of the paleontologists seemed to be assigned the task to study the enormous beast. He immediately began to work with his assistants.

In the meantime, Li Yao, who had a lot of experience in fighting, noticed something weird very quickly, too.

The bones on the torso of the enormous beast had a lot of fractures, but they did not collapse inward but protruded outward.

It appeared that something had crawled into its stomach and gone on a rampage before crawling out the same way.

Li Yao swallowed hard and felt for the first time that he might not necessarily be secure during the exploration of the Mausoleum of Chaos even though his real capability was close to the Nascent Soul Stage.

Taking a deep breath, Li Yao led a few researchers further into the vast space under the guidance of the arrowheads on his retina.

After they passed through a long pathway, the scenes that unraveled in front of Li Yao made him have the illusion that he had stepped into the cosmos.

The boundless space just now had already left them with the impression of the splendor and magnificence of a palace.

However, compared to the temple in front him, it was nothing more than a matchbox placed next to a skyscraper.

They could not see the boundary of the temple at all. Standing above the temple, they discovered that there were stairs that went straight down. Its end was wreathed in vague, gray mist.

The gray mist was fluctuating as if a living creature. It could not have looked more mysterious.

Li Yao finally understood why Yuchi Ba risked recruiting so many newcomers for the operation.

The Mausoleum of Chaos was too vast. However many explorers there were, they would be like salt in the water and would be dissolved instantly, leaving no trace.

Very soon, the virtual image of the entire temple was displayed on his retina through the biochemical chips.

By echolocation, it was estimated that the temple was more than thirty kilometers both in length and width. It was basically an enormous city.

That was just the first floor.

With the guidance of the arrowheads, they groped in the darkness for more than ten minutes before they got down the stairs and reached the bottom level of the temple.

The ground there was not the solid rock plate anymore but moist soil that would make soft sounds when anybody stepped on it.

The edge of the temple was still black rocks. However, a magnificent embossment had been carved after every fixed distance on the rocks.

Most of the embossments were the scenes where bizarre-looking giants were spraying the seeds of life in some weird worlds. Sometimes, the few embossments that were next to each other were telling a complete story.

For example, on one of the embossments, a light gray, giant round plate landed on a scorching planet, and the traces of ancient creatures had been engraved inside the ocean at the bottom part of the embossment.

On the second embossment, many enormous tyrannosaurs were teleported to the planet through cone-shaped rays of light.

However, compared to the fossils excavated nowadays, those tyrannosaurs all boasted extremely strong arms, and they looked more like the Pangu Clan that Li Yao had seen deep inside his genes.

On the third embossment, the tyrannosaurs extended their arms to the ocean. Corroded by a weird force, their arms withered. But a huge amount of bright golden liquid was secreted from the wrinkles of their skin and dropped into the ocean.

That seemed to be the essence of their arms.

On the fourth embossment, the ocean creatures that had absorbed the bright golden liquid had grown primitive limbs and begun to march toward the land.

The four embossments combined seemed to be indicating that the tyrannosaurs paid a price of their arms for the ocean creatures’ ability to move toward the land.

“If that’s true, one of the assumptions about Chaos has been disapproved now,” Chu Zhengqing, the master of the studies of Chaos, said slowly with a solemn face. “Judging from the structure of the temple and its relative position in the entire underground architecture, it should be a temple of sacrifices for the ancient civilization. Since the embossments around the temple recorded so many stories where the Pangu Clan created the world and enlightened the creatures, it is evident enough that Chaos was sort of a ‘worshipper’ of Pangu, too.

“In the history of the demon race over the past ten thousand years, the mainstream opinion has been that Chaos was a mortal enemy for Pangu. These embossments can refute such an opinion.”

Another research said coldly, “Of course, Chaos was not Pangu’s enemy because he was the rightful heir of Pangu! It was because some ambitious, crazy demons betrayed God Chaos that the public opinion about him ended up like this today! What we need to do is excavate everything inside the Mausoleum of Chaos and set the truth to public exactly as it is!”

Chu Zhengqing smiled and walked forward.

A lot of explorers had gathered in the front and established the most basic illumination system.

With the help of the rays, Li Yao was able to see an indescribable object standing at the end of the temple. It looked both like an integrated cockpit and like a weird-shaped, magnificent throne. A bright golden skeleton more than ten meters long had been embedded into the object.

The skeleton must have worn a certain kind of armor, but after such a long time, the armor had already melded with the body.

The upper half part of the body, except for being slightly larger, was no different from that of a human being.

However, starting from the hipbone, the skeleton suddenly shrank and condensed into a thick dragon bone. At the end of the tail, the bone was split apart into more than ten parts, protruding out like the claws of a crab.

Back when the skeleton was alive, it had probably been an existence that was half human and half snake, or half human and half dragon.

Dense spiritual stripes could be found on the bones that were not covered in armor, especially the skull, which was relatively intact. The circles of stripes attracted Li Yao’s eyes and soul like a mysterious swirl.

Quite a few paleontologists and archeologists were already busy working around the skeleton throne. They were cleaning the dust that fell off from the skeleton and scanning every fracture of the skeleton.

“The appearance of the armor and the seat of the skeleton is completely out of place with the style of the building around us and the development level of the civilization forty thousand years ago to our knowledge. It carries an intense air of technology, especially in the zone right in front of the skeleton that looks like a ‘dashboard’. The complexity of the spiritual stripes is extremely hard for us to understand even today.

“It can be assumed for now that the skeleton and the seat it was embedded to were not built inside the Mausoleum of Chaos but moved to this place from somewhere else.

“Its coordinates inside the temple are exactly the center of the golden cut. Based on the architecture rules in the era of ancient Cultivators, it is the most divine position.

“We may assume that the skeleton was the ‘god’ that Chaos believed in!”

Chu Zhengqing circled around the skeleton throne and made his speculation casually.