From bone collectors to the supreme ruler of humanity

Chapter 134 Beast Guardian Hall

The gap inside the stone gate was very small, only allowing one person to pass sideways. After squeezing in, Lin Yan first pressed himself against a thick stone pillar, without rushing to go further in.

The stone pillars are cold and rough, with many colorful reliefs of fairies flying over the sky carved on their surface. However, they have been eroded by time and are now blurred, with only the outlines barely discernible.

The roof of the hall is about three or four zhang high and is domed. Seven fist-sized luminous pearls are inlaid on the top. Although they only emit a faint white light, in this deep underground place, this light is enough to illuminate everything inside the hall clearly.

Lin Yan used the cold white light of a few luminous pearls to survey his surroundings. This burial hall for concubines was several times larger than the two small stone chambers outside combined.

Inside the hall, more than twenty stone coffins were neatly arranged along the four walls. Most of the coffin lids had been overturned and were lying on the ground. Some of the coffin lids were broken into several pieces. The burial objects inside the stone coffins had long been looted, and even the bones had been scattered outside the coffins. Several yellowed female skeletons lay haphazardly on the dark red floor tiles, covered in dust.

Lin Yan shifted his gaze from the scattered bones to the exit opposite the main hall.

The door was exactly the same as the previous two, about two zhang high, and now it was wide open. Through the doorway, one could vaguely see some light coming through. After passing through this door, one should be able to enter the Hall of Guardians of the Hundred Beasts.

Just as he was about to move over, his peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of a bright red spot in the corner of the wall to the left of the doorway, which seemed out of place with the color of the floor.

Look closely.

There were several overturned stone coffins piled up over there, their bodies stacked haphazardly together, leaving a small, narrow space between the coffins and the wall. There was a large pool of bright red blood on the ground that had not yet congealed.

Someone is hiding over there, and they are seriously injured.

Lin Yan walked over and found a person lying in the corner between the stone coffin and the wall. The person's face was ashen, and there was no trace of true energy or spiritual energy flowing through their body. They had been dead for some time.

The corpse's abdomen looked as if it had been struck by a giant claw, with three gruesome lacerations still oozing blood.

It seems these people have already entered the third hall; judging from the state of the corpses, it must have been less than an hour ago.

Lin Yan didn't turn his head to look at the corpse on the ground again. Concealing his presence, he quietly slipped into the room.

Behind the doorway was a very short passage, only about three or four zhang long. After entering, there was a huge space. The entire hall was circular, with a diameter of at least a hundred zhang. The walls and floors, which stretched from the entrance to another giant door on the opposite side, were all paved with dark red stone slabs, just like the burial hall for the concubines.

However, unlike the second hall, there were no luminous pearls embedded in the ceiling. Lin Yan looked up and saw three semi-transparent stone slabs embedded in the dome. There were intricate light patterns flowing on the stone slabs, like an ancient formation continuously operating, gathering the light patterns and casting them down to provide some light for the entire hall.

In the very center of the circular hall, ten enormous bronze mechanical beasts are neatly arranged.

Nearby were six mechanical beasts resembling fierce tigers, with two rows of barbs on their backs, each barb about half a foot long. At their joints, bronze gears and interlocking structures gleamed coldly under the illumination of the magic array above their heads.

The six tiger-shaped mechanical beasts lay crookedly on the ground, some with their heads missing, others with missing arms. One of them had its claws stained with blood, and even had fragments of internal organs hanging on them. The previous corpse must have died at its hands.

Behind the fallen mechanical beast, Lin Yan sensed five chaotic auras.

Lin Yan withdrew his gaze and slowly crouched down close to the base of the stone pillar, using this movement to completely hide his body in the shadow of the pillar.

Those people must not have noticed him, otherwise they wouldn't have been completely unresponsive.

He squatted down and activated his [Qi Observation] technique, probing in that direction. As his senses expanded, the situation deep within became clear to him.

Three zhang behind the six tiger mechanical beasts stood three even larger mechanical bears, each over two zhang tall, with a bronze mirror the size of a washbasin cast on its chest, its limbs as thick as pillars, and its bronze claws bent into hooks at the tips of its fingers.

The last one stood at the deepest part, its body half a head taller than the three bears. Its body was bluish-black, and the outline of a human face could be vaguely discerned. Although the details were not very clear at the deepest part of the hall, the sense of danger that this bronze beast brought to Lin Yan far exceeded the sum of the previous nine.

The five people used the overturned mechanical beast as cover in front of them. Lin Yan roughly sensed their auras: one was at the mid-stage of the third rank, and four were at the early stage of the third rank. Each of them was in poor condition, and all of them had some injuries.

The most seriously injured among them was a man with his left arm in a sling. He was the mid-stage third-rank among them. His breathing was heavy and disordered, and his true energy circulation was obviously sluggish. Lin Yan estimated that this man probably couldn't even exert the strength of the peak early stage of the third rank.

Lin Yan concealed his aura, suppressing it to the lowest possible level. His Yanwang Heart Sutra was inherently focused on introspection, and with his deliberate control, the five people were all preoccupied with how to deal with the mechanical beast, and none of them noticed the aura lurking behind the pillar.

He shifted his position, finding a side view that allowed him to see the other side more clearly, and he could vaguely make out the outlines of those people.

The man with his left arm in a sling was leaning against the innermost side, surrounded by four others who were talking in hushed tones.

Too far away, Lin Yan couldn't hear what they were saying, but he could see their occasional hand gestures and the occasional shoving between them, their tone clearly anxious.

Lin Yan did not rush closer, but instead focused his senses on their bodies, waiting for their next move.

After waiting for about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, the group talked for a while. The one who was most seriously injured, leaning against the inside, stood up, propped himself up on his knees, and said something. The other four people fell silent and looked at him.

He raised his hand and pointed to the doorway in front of him, then to the five people remaining on his side, and then held up three fingers.

The man said a few more words. Although Lin Yan couldn't hear what he said, he could roughly guess what he meant by the way the man's eyes moved back and forth between the faces of his four companions.

Two of the remaining four nodded, and the tall, thin man followed suit. Only the short, stocky man hesitated for a moment, glanced at the mechanical beast in front of him, and then slowly nodded.

This is arranging the order of the challenges, who goes first, who follows behind, and who provides support. They must have considered the area behind that doorway as the only way out and planned to force their way through.