Chapter 66 — The Sphere
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Hetty had finally sensed that magical signature directly ahead—perhaps only one more junction remained. After roughly estimating how far the group had advanced and how the Dark Mountains' terrain lay in this region, Gao You concluded that they were now at the very heart of the mountain.
The Gondorian expedition of that age had likely hollowed out an entire section of the mountain to build their impossibly vast facility.
What could possibly be here, worth constructing a monstrosity of a facility like this to study or to guard?
But whatever was here, in the end they had abandoned the place.
Hetty replenished the energy of the light sphere from her illumination spell, and the orb, which had begun to dim, once again lit up a large surrounding area. Gao Yang saw ahead a neat corridor built of grayish-white "stone slabs," its walls inset with magic-crystal lamps that no longer functioned, along with a number of tightly closed doors; at the far end directly ahead stood a copper-forged door carved with the emblem of an eye and a triangle.
The copper door was not fully shut—it stood open with a wide gap. Gao Yang activated his danger-sense ability and detected no traps or poisonous gases or similar latent threats behind it.
But that was still no reason to let down their guard. Before pushing the door open, Hetty first summoned a faintly glowing rune shaped like an eye. The rune drifted slowly through the gap, and at the same time a subtle light stirred in Hetty's eyes.
"Inside is a round, empty room—very large, with many broken long tables and shelves... I can see pipes all over the walls, and in the center of the room is a sunken pit... In the pit there's a strange spherical object, and from the exact center of the ceiling I can see a good number of iron chains and tools hanging down."
Frowning, Hetty described what she saw—but suddenly she let out a low gasp, and the magic broke off.
"What happened?!" Gao Yang looked at Hetty, instantly tense.
Hetty rubbed her eyes, her tone deeply embarrassed: "I hit a wall."
Gao Yang: "...Uh, is there anything that looks dangerous or like a trap?"
Hetty shook her head: "No. It looks like just a laboratory, only many times larger than any I know, and with a great many devices I can't make sense of. Also, I've confirmed the magical signature is coming from that sphere in the center of the room—but it's an energy form I've never encountered before."
With confirmation that there were no traps or runaway ancient magical automatons inside, Gao Yang breathed a quiet sigh of relief. As for the strange energy form Hetty had mentioned, that could only be studied carefully once they were inside.
Two sturdy soldiers stepped forward and, together with Knight Byron, heaved against the ancient, dust-sealed copper door. Under the force, the rusted, weather-eaten hinges gave out a screeching, grating sound; in that silent, enclosed space, the turning of the door's pivots seemed jarringly shrill, carrying far, far down the corridor.
Hetty instinctively tightened her grip on her staff and glanced back at the dark corridor, as though at any moment some indescribable ancient monster might be roused from the shadows by the sound of the copper door opening and come lunging out—but in the end, nothing happened.
The door swung open. Gao Yang stepped inside and soon saw what Hetty had seen: the great circular hall, the damaged long tables and storage racks distributed around it, the magical conduits on the walls, the sunken floor at the center, and, lying in that pit, a large ball that looked like stone.
Gao Yang approached the sphere and roughly judged its diameter at about a meter and a half. Its shape was quite regular—setting aside its rough, uneven surface, it was almost a perfect sphere. Its material resembled stone, yet under the glow of the illumination spell it gave off a faint metallic sheen.