Chapter 237 — The Doomsday Sanctuary
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
The space on the opposite side of the magic gate—or rather, this hidden section of the facility—was far more vast than Gao Yang had imagined.
There was not merely the one great hall they had first seen; after the soldiers widened their search, they soon discovered that beyond the hall lay an encircling corridor structure, and along the outer side of that corridor, room after room stood in rows.
The furnishings in these rooms were complete—tables, chairs, equipment, and every manner of living or research implement remained in place, unlike the outer rooms, which had been stripped bare.
"Nothing here has been carted off either," Heddy said, looking into a room they had just opened—it appeared to have been a place for many people to gather and dine, with long tables and chairs, and neat rows of water basins visible in the corner, though no water could possibly still flow through them now. "And the condition of these things... it's far better than outside."
"The entire facility seems to have been subjected to a large-scale magical effect; everything decays at an exceedingly slow rate," Gao Yang said, looking down at a long table near at hand. The table bore mottled patches of rust, yet the table itself remained sturdy and intact. "...Though there is still a considerable degree of corrosion."
Tyr wandered in her wriggling fashion among the long tables, her fingers brushing across the dust-laden surfaces, and said thoughtfully, "This place feels as though it is ready to be put back into service at any moment—as if, the instant someone returned, life could begin again."
Gao Yang made no reply, but walked in silence among those long tables already beginning to rust. Just then, a squad of soldiers who had gone ahead to scout suddenly returned to the room, and their leader came before Gao Yang: "My lord! We've found a warehouse up ahead!"
"Take me to see it."
Gao Yang soon arrived at the warehouse the soldiers had discovered, and the sight within made him frown.
This was a place for storing goods; neat stacking platforms and various signs whose lettering was no longer clearly legible could still be seen in the warehouse. But what made Gao Yang frown was that the goods originally packed on those platforms had been broken open.
A great many wooden crates had been pried open, and emptied boxes and jars were piled in every corner. Some piles were fairly neat, but others had simply been left scattered across the entire room. Apart from this disordered "packaging," not a single useful item of material remained in sight.
"This..." Heddy gripped her staff the instant she saw the scene in the warehouse, and she instinctively turned to Gao Yang. "Ancestor, this..."
"Someone has been taking supplies from here!" Gao Yang voiced the only possibility. "There has been activity here—at least for a time after this facility was sealed, there were still people active here!"
"How is that possible!?" Heddy was astonished. "Wasn't this place abandoned and sealed a thousand years ago? Weren't all the people evacuated?"
"That was my assumption as well, but look at these supplies, consumed down to nothing—if they had been consumed before the facility was sealed, no logistics manager would have allowed a warehouse to end up like this," Gao Yang said, pointing at the haphazard piles of empty crates and jars. "This is plainly the result of continued consumption after the facility was sealed—and I fear it went on for a very long time."
Heddy could not help swallowing. "This... is truly unsettling..."
Tyr, meanwhile, asked a question: "If there were still people here after the facility was sealed, then where are they now?"
Gao Yang shook his head. "I don't know. But if those who worked here were human... then no human could live a thousand years."