Chapter 237 — The Doomsday Sanctuary
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 3
Soon the soldiers discovered more supply warehouses, and the contents of most of them had already been consumed to the last by someone; only a small portion remained, and judging by the thick dust on those sealed crates, they had gone untouched for many years.
Even with the protection of magical power, such supplies could not last a thousand years—even if the packaging remained intact, the contents within had long since rotted and spoiled. So Gao Yang only gave these things a rough inspection before losing interest in them.
After making a round of the corridor outside the great hall, the party reached the corridor's end, where the paths converged, and a staircase slanting upward extended from the junction of the corridors to the upper level of this secret facility.
"It seems there's more structure above," Heddy said, raising her head to gaze at the dim space at the top of the stairs. This ancient facility possessed an astonishing energy system, but no energy system, however advanced, could wholly withstand the erosion of time; the lights in the upper region were clearly dimmer than those below, as though something had gone wrong with the power supply—the glow was not only faint but highly unstable. Heddy summoned a wizard's eye and sent it up; a moment later she nodded. "There's no danger above."
The exploration party advanced along the staircase and soon reached the upper level of this hidden facility, and at the top of the stairs, a heavy metal door blocked their way.
"The magical lock on the door has failed," Heddy said, quickly locating the magical mechanism that controlled the door's locked state. Several dim runes were inscribed at the center of the door, but these runes no longer responded in the slightest to external magical stimulus. "Now it's just an ordinary iron door—it can be broken down directly."
Two soldiers stepped forward at once and aimed their thermal ray guns at the lock at the center of the door; after several successive blasts of searing rays, the magical mechanism at the door's center was burned and melted open: without magical protection, even an advanced ancient magical mechanism was nothing more than a chunk of metal with a not-so-high melting point.
Gao Yang placed his hand upon the door, and by the mighty strength of a legendary knight, he slowly pushed open this door that had originally required a magical device to move.
Creak—
Accompanied by a shrill screech of metal friction, the ancient door, with a history of thousands of years, slowly swung open to both sides, and a stale, musty breath leaked out from the space within. But a fine, faintly cool mist suddenly appeared out of thin air and encircled the company, sealing off all those potentially harmful vapors.
Gao Yang glanced back and saw Tyr giving a casual wave of her hand, the power of the water element quietly flowing between her fingers.
He did not tell the siren lady that every soldier's armor in fact carried a long-lasting "breeze shield" effect; instead, he smiled and thanked Tyr for her kindness, then strode through the door.
The next second, the scene before his eyes left him stunned where he stood.
Within the door was a large semicircular chamber, with rows upon rows of seats arranged neatly along the curve, and upon those rows of seats were arrayed, one after another, corpses!
These people had clearly been dead for many years, but because the entire facility was shrouded in a magical field that slowed decay, they had not crumbled into bare bones with the passage of time; instead, they had become something akin to desiccated remains. They wore the mage robes or short robes of the ancient Gondor Empire, and this attire was enough to make clear who they were:
They were the personnel who had remained stranded inside this ancient facility after it was sealed!