Chapter 710 — Deep Underground
Blade of Dawn · Page 4 of 4
Crooked walls stretched away before his eyes, their surfaces still bearing half-ruined magic-net units; somewhere in the distance a surviving magic-crystal lamp seemed still to be working, casting a glow that flickered bright and dim. These modern creations born of "Cecil technology" appeared here in the dark lair of the End of All Things, and that lair itself was built upon a still more ancient and mysterious ruin—all of it gave Bade a poignant sense of eras colliding. He shook his head, carefully skirted a few slick vines, and pressed on through the corridor now claimed by the roots of giant trees, vines, and moss.
At the same time, he sharpened his vigilance, keeping constant watch over the state of his own mind.
In the depths of this underground palace there existed a strange power the pastors called "divine echoes." It might be the erosion of reality brought on by the dark druids' study of forbidden knowledge, or it might be a power the palace had possessed from the beginning; the deeper one went, the more pronounced its influence became. The mentally weak would begin to hallucinate in the middle levels, their minds flooded with terrible and twisted knowledge, and deeper still, even flesh and limb might mutate—strange and impossible to guard against.
In theory these forces were all suppressed at the very lowest level, and for many years they had shown no sign of actively seeping outward—but heaven only knew whether, after such a cataclysm, the wards of this ancient ruin still held. Bade was not afraid to die, but he had not come all this way merely to throw his life away.
He arrived at the council hall.
This was where the sect's priests deliberated matters, and this hall, along with the whole level it occupied, was also the place he had most often visited as a mid-ranking priest.
He vaguely caught some sounds—it seemed someone was whispering—but when he strained to look, there was only a tangled knot of roots where the sound had come from.
The "communication device" he carried at his chest was running; runes and crystal gave off a faint light. Bade groped for a "button" on its surface and, in the manner the soldiers had taught him before he set out, pressed the switch and lowered his voice: "This position is the council hall. Beyond this I'm not very familiar with the way. Should I keep going down?"
No answer came from the communication device—only a hollow, low rushing sound.
On the surface, Gao Yang, Amber, and the others stood beside the magic-net terminal, above which a holographic image of the underground palace's depths was being projected.
In the glow cast by the lighting devices, the surroundings just ahead of Bade were clearly visible.
The image had not moved for several minutes, but Bade's faint breathing still came through normally, which meant he was still alive.
Amber scratched her hair, her face full of puzzlement: "Why is he just standing there without moving?"