"Could it be a large tomb?" Lucy whispered, "Some of the Human Lords like to build large tombs."
"Hmm... It doesn’t seem like it." Jones hesitated, "The scale of these ruins is at least fifty square kilometers. And that’s just the surface. Now it seems there are obviously many layers. If so, it could be five hundred square kilometers. What kind of lord could build such a large tomb?"
Jones emitted another sound wave and then continued forward, holding the fire stick.
It had to be said, being part of the Blood Clan made exploring such underground ruins incredibly convenient. At least much more convenient than for other races.
At the same time, Andrew and Turuk finally entered the ruins.
Touching the stone bricks on the wall, Andrew softly uttered their name, "Magic Prohibition Stone."
"Magic Prohibition Stone?" Turuk asked softly, "What is that?"
"One of the greatest inventions of the Krimasha era, something specifically designed to restrain magic. Actually, it’s not just the Magic Prohibition Stone; there is also a series of other materials related to ’Magic Prohibition.’ With these things, Krimasha gained the upper hand in wars against other races, and even held their own in wars against Heaven and Hell. Of course, that was provided they had magic power. Once they lost magic power, they would collapse entirely. This was also the most important reason why the Krimasha era ended." As he spoke, Andrew began to carefully advance, inch by inch. The path he took was exactly opposite to the one Jones had taken earlier.
Turuk lit a fire stick and cautiously followed behind, "Master, since these stones are so important, should we just take some back?"
"It’s useless. Luo Ge Xian Ni already has these. No matter how they are studied, they can’t be replicated. As far as I know, there is a ’core.’ Only by obtaining that ’core’ can the core mystery be unlocked."
"So, our goal is the ’core’?"
Andrew paused, then turned to roll his eyes at Turuk, "Boy, don’t overthink it. Our goal is to take what we can. Who knows if the ’core’ is here? Krimasha has plenty of secrets."
Turuk widened his eyes, looking around.
Leaving the previous space and moving forward, Jones entered another enormous space. Yes, enormous.
It was pitch black all around, with only the fire stick in Jones’s hand providing the only source of light. Although he couldn’t see anything, Jones could clearly sense that the surroundings were extremely spacious.
He slightly opened his mouth to emit another sound wave. This time, what appeared in his mind was no longer the crisscrossed underground passages, but an underground city?
To be precise, Jones didn’t know how to describe it.
He felt as if he were in a city. Every building in this city was at least ten stories high. Because they were so densely packed, they were all squeezed together. And Jones stood on the balcony of one of these buildings’ tenth floors. Above him was the dome, connecting all the rooftops and capping the entire city.
"Is this really an underground city?" Dora was stunned.
Jones said nothing and walked directly into a nearby room.
It was a small room with a two-room structure inside. Stepping on the ground made a "rustling" sound. Apart from "sand," there was nothing inside.
Examining closely in the light of the fire stick, Jones pointed to a pile of sand-like things with a certain outline and said softly, "This should have been furniture."
"Furniture?" Dora craned her neck.
"Because it had been left here for too long, it had all decayed and turned to dust."
"Yes, I have things that have been left too long and have turned out too." Lucy spread her hands and said.
"Aunt Lucy has things that have been kept for tens of thousands of years?" Dora was shocked.
"Is that so strange?" Lucy retorted.
After thoroughly searching the whole house, Jones soon found some well-preserved metal artifacts from the "dust."
Among them were two well-preserved metal knives and forks. The rest seemed to be parts of domestic items.
It seemed that this was indeed an underground city without a doubt. At least it could be confirmed that during the Krimasha era, people once lived here.
After searching a few more rooms, the situation was generally the same. In the span of ten thousand years, most materials had already decayed, and only the metal remained. Even most of the metals had already decayed badly beyond recognition.
"Let’s keep moving towards the source of magic," Jones said to Lucy, "This place is just too big. It’s not easy to find anything of value. But we can first figure out what the source of magic is."
Lucy looked to the side, paused, and then pointed forward, "The nearest source of magic is over there. Maybe we can start with a small one."
"Alright, let’s do that."
Following Lucy’s direction, Jones carefully groped his way forward with the fire stick.
That source of magic was indeed the smallest in Lucy’s perception. But in fact, that was very normal. According to Lucy’s perception, the largest source of magic should be located at the core area of this "underground city." The farther out the source of magic was, the smaller it was. Jones and his team were still on the outskirts of the ruins.
After going down a flight of stairs and passing two corridors, Jones’s party entered a room.
With just one glance, neither Jones nor Dora, nor even the Great Lich Lucy, could move.
It was a room approximately ten meters long, wide, and high.
In the dim light of the fire stick, Jones could clearly see in front of them a hovering, gigantic eyeball. The diameter of the eyeball was about as tall as Jones. It had two pupils, both blood-red in color. Around the eyeball were numerous long tentacles, sticky like an octopus. Unlike an octopus, these tentacles were more numerous, thinner, and longer. Countless tentacles extended in all directions, sticking to the walls and supporting the hovering eyeball.
At this moment, the eyeball was blinking, looking at Jones’s party standing at the door.
In Jones’s magic sight, realized through Lucy, the so-called source of magic overlapped with the figure of the monster in front of them.
In an instant, Jones got goosebumps and froze.
Dora was so frightened she took a cautious step back and covered her mouth.
Showing no concept of fear, Lucy took a step forward.
The giant eyeball slowly lowered from mid-air, facing Lucy directly.
"Goo-goo-goo, goo-goo-goo?"
"Gah-gah, gah-gah-gah?"
"Woo-wah, woo-wah-woo-wah?"
Lucy continuously made various strange sounds at the eyeball.
"Aunt Lucy, what are you doing?" Jones was stunned.
"I’m trying to see if I can communicate with it using beast language." Lucy turned her head and answered.
"The language of magical beasts. Hmm... actually, it might not even be called a language since it can only express simple meanings. It’s easy to learn, the only downside is there are too many types, about twenty thousand or so."
Jones broke into a cold sweat, becoming a bit speechless, "So are you planning to try all twenty thousand types?"
"Relax, I don’t need to try every single one. I’ll just try the most common thousand or so. Gah-gah-gah." Smiling, Lucy turned back to face the giant eyeball monster.
However, in an instant, the eyeball monster moved. Several tentacles swept swiftly towards Lucy.
With a "thud," Lucy’s entire body, or rather her entire skeleton, was swept away, leaving only her skull suspended in place. The rest of her "parts," along with her robe, were smashed against the wall and scattered apart.
Jones and Dora were instantly stunned.
It all happened so fast that the two members of the Blood Clan hadn’t even had time to react.
In shock, Lucy’s skull slightly lowered, "Huh? Where’s my body?"
"Run—!" Jones suddenly screamed, grabbing Dora and turning to flee.
"What about Aunt Lucy?"
"Don’t worry! She can always go back to her phylactery!"
Behind them, all of the eyeball monster’s tentacles were rapidly stabbing towards Lucy, or rather, Lucy’s skull.