Suddenly, she smelled a foul smell in the air.
very familiar.
There was a strong fishy smell in it, as if something had died and been trapped inside, fermenting and rotting for a hundred years.
Chapter 101 Fei Che Holy Spring
A strong sense of warning arose in my heart.
Neither of them forgot that they were now "conscious entities in ghost state". They could travel to any corner of the projected scene. As long as the projection could cover it, no obstacles could stop them.
But this is limited to "seeing" and "hearing". They cannot touch the objects here and have no sense of touch; they also cannot touch the drinking water here and have no sense of smell or taste.
Therefore, the appearance of this stench was very unusual. They couldn't help but wonder in their hearts, what on earth could... break through the barrier of the projection and transmit the stench to more than a hundred years later.
"How disgusting..."
The tomb exploration team was also disgusted by the stench. After discussing for a while, they decided to wait here for a minute to see if the smell would become lighter.
A minute passed, and maybe it was a psychological effect, Lazuli said: "It seems to have faded a little."
Others obviously don't think so, but their time is limited after all.
No one knows when the Dragon Tomb will be separated from the Holy Spring again, so they must get enough valuable treasures before anything happens.
So they endured the stench and went through the gate, holding lanterns and moving carefully through the dark but tidy tomb tunnel.
"It's very neat here." Young Bar-Gallant whispered in the crowd.
Normally, no one would notice him. But in this silent environment, this sentence was too obvious. Many people stopped and the lights and candles almost hit his face.
Young Barr was a little embarrassed and raised his hand to his chest: "Don't you think these tunnels are very artistic?"
Many people curled their lips, looked at his brother Heiler, then looked at the tunnel, and in their hearts they agreed with Bal's statement.
It's very neat here.
All the tunnels were either perfectly circular or very regular squares if viewed from a cross-section. Although the walls seemed to be made of a soil-like material, they were extremely solid and hard, and there was almost no dust accumulation.
"There's so little dust...which means the air here isn't circulating very well." Frost Dragon Xim stretched out his hand and wiped it on the ground, then said with a cold face as he looked at his still clean fingers.
Some people didn't understand what he said and looked indifferent, but those who knew the matter looked a little serious.
They had tested the air inside before coming down and found no major problems...the test results didn't seem to be for a place with poor air circulation.
But the air circulation on the ground will not be so clean. In this situation, where does the air they breathe come from?
The dragon tomb left by King Kyle gave them a warning from the very beginning with its unique mystery. They advanced more carefully and gradually began to discover murals carved in intaglio in the tunnels.
There was nothing special about the contents of the murals; just some seemingly meaningless landscapes and scenes of the kingdom training its army for battle.
But the soldiers in that army were a little different... With long necks, tails, and wide wings, they were sure they saw something - a dragon! Those warriors on the dragon's back must be the Dragon Riders!
Many people were excited, and the team began to buzz about the ancient legends they knew.
Some people still have fantasies, thinking that there might be dragon eggs sealed by fossils in the deepest part of the tomb. If they can hatch the dragon eggs, the glory of the ancient dragon kingdom can be reproduced.
This was definitely one of the most optimistic guesses. Hitzfeld noticed that Heiler shook his head slowly after hearing the discussion. Obviously, he did not agree that the next expedition would be so simple.
He thought there was something wrong with the smell.
The lack of air circulation could explain why the stench lingered for so long. But no matter what the smell was from, and no matter how many years it had been sealed, if he remembered correctly... the interval between each opening of the tomb was several decades. He didn't care what it was... whether it was a person who strayed in or a wild animal, after so long, the fermentation and decay should have ended, right?
He also had his doubts about whether the air was really not circulating. Although he didn't understand mechanical engineering, he had studied the Dragon Tomb for a long time. He knew very well that in order to make a lifeless behemoth move underground at such a fast efficiency, the creation technology involved was simply beyond the imagination of modern people.
That is ancient technology, a lost civilization. Just as these walls that look like mud are actually a more solid and mysterious material, there must be sophisticated mechanisms inside these materials, between the layers and gaps. It is these mechanisms, those tiny parts, and the interlaced rotation of gears that provide power for the Dragon Tomb itself, allowing it to continue swimming around for so many years.
If this inference is valid, then it shouldn't be so closed.
There will always be gaps between the mechanisms, it is impossible for them to be sealed completely.
He walked to the front of the team and explained his ideas to Lazuli, Shim and others, who also fell into deep thought.
"This is not a conflict." Lazuli suddenly said, "There must be a gap, and the air is not completely blocked. It just happens more slowly."
"As for the stench... I tend to think that it was some unlucky beast that accidentally slipped in during the last 'floating period' of the dragon tomb. But it knows nothing and is running around in here. It may have died in the traps or died of exhaustion and thirst."
"And its body is deep in the tomb, and because of the lack of air circulation, it rots very slowly?" Xim interrupted him, "Excuse me, this is impossible with the temperature here."
The Frost Sky Dragon occupies the North, and he knows very well the conditions needed to prevent meat from rotting.
It is either extremely cold or completely sealed, a sealed space where not even a trace of air can get in.
As long as there is a slight opening for air to circulate, there is no possibility of preservation. The corpse of the beast should have been crumbled into pieces over the years, and it shouldn't smell so bad.
"What else could it be?" Lazuli said impatiently, "I think you are scared. If you don't want to follow me, you can go back early!"
"I wonder if it could be - maybe it's a wild animal that lives here?"
Young Baal suddenly squeezed his head out from between Heerle and Shim.
"Bal!"
"No need...let him speak."
All eyes were on him. Bal was not nervous but excited. He continued, "It's like this... Since the air here is not completely blocked... I mean, we have only explored such a small area after all, there may be a lot of space down there! Then maybe the air down there will be much better, and there may be enough environment for living things to survive..."
"Are you kidding?" Xim frowned. "Even if breathing is not a problem, have you ever thought about what they eat?"
What Bal meant was that there were groups of animals living and reproducing in the tombs!
This is simply crazy!
"Maybe they eat bugs," Baal said immediately, "or maybe they are bugs themselves, or maybe more than one kind of bugs have sneaked in, and their food is also thriving here."
"Stop!" Sim raised his hand.
He felt that he had to warn this brat, otherwise if he continued talking, what they might face was not a mysterious and dark tomb but a zoo as expected.
Moreover, he had never smelled anything so smelly, even if it was the corpse of an insect or a wild animal.
He didn't think it was a beast.
It's a bit like an evil seed... the smell wafting from the depths of a nightmare.
However, the evil nightmare needs to rely on people's dreams to exist. The Dragon Tomb Puppets usually hide underground most of the time. There is no one there, no dreams, and no environment for those dirty things to survive.
Lazuli had no intention of discussing with these cowards. He seemed to be much more familiar with the structure and passages inside the Dragon Tomb than anyone else. He walked forward on his own and stopped in front of a big door.
Hitzfeld felt the force on his wrist suddenly increase.
Yes... If she was holding the woman's hand, she might unconsciously increase the force. Because they had seen that door before - in the mechanism manuscript that Wright-Sally gave them.
This was the door, the intricate door with a circular outline, a hollow circle in the middle, and fourteen family crests carved in the surrounding rings.
It was intact now, and Hitzfeld glanced quickly to the upper left corner and saw the place where the manuscript drawing had been chiseled away. The emblem was a bird holding a thorn in its beak.
Chapter 102 Fei Che Holy Spring
"This is the 'Fourteen Shields'."
Staring at the fourteen patterns on the door, Lazuli stood there talking to himself.
"No wonder no one knew about the records of the Dragon Tomb. I have always wondered how they could conceal the news to such an extent. It turns out that it is related to the fourteen shields... Then everything makes sense."
"What are the fourteen shields?" Hitzfeld looked at Xia Yibing.
"It seems to be an alliance organization that originated from Longguo." Xia Yibing also had a confused look on her face. "The time is a bit too early. I mean the time when this organization disappeared... Only a few ancient books mentioned this word. We all speculated that it was an ancient aristocratic alliance."
"So the Thorn Birds turned out to be a member of the Fourteen Shields?"
"I don't know. No records mention which families the fourteen shields belong to. We're not even sure if they're made up of families."
But one thing is very clear, that is the Thorn Birds... the Igor family must be inseparable from this organization.
Because that emblem is too similar to the family emblem that the Igor family still uses. Both are a bird holding a thorn, but there are slight differences in style.
This discovery made both of them feel depressed, because they were now unsure whether Russell was the embodiment of Alwin's will.
It turns out that the Igor family’s roots are not in Sara. They migrated to Sara from the Dragon Kingdom... Does Sara know this?
If Sarah didn't know, it would be very dangerous for her to trust and use the people of this family. No one knew whether Russell's killing of all his relatives was a trick or a token of loyalty, and whether he was using this opportunity to return to Dragon Country and secretly implement his plan.
Coincidentally, the people in the projection were also discussing the fourteen shields.
This is what Heiler said to Balkop: "It's normal that you don't know this thing, because it is too unpopular. Its history dates back to before the existence of Queen Severi, and it was absolutely a taboo word during the queen's reign."
"Why is it taboo?"
"Who knows... Maybe they offended her. Some say they were suppressed and exterminated by the queen for a long time, but now it seems that it is not that simple... They are not all dead, but secretly became the queen's assistants."
"During their most glorious period, the Fourteen Shields were almost the uncrowned kings of this country." Lazuli, who was at the front, suddenly said, "They existed in the form of a chamber of commerce, controlling the economic structure of a country. Even the king had to count their support when recruiting soldiers. Their power was beyond the imagination of today's businessmen."
"What kind of legends are those from barbaric times?" Shim frowned. "Are you trying to tell stories to your children?"
"I'm just telling you that this place, the Dragon Tomb, might have been secretly built by this organization for King Kyle."
Lazuli turned around, and his originally serious and rigid face suddenly revealed a weird smile.
Hitzfeld noticed that only the young man Bal in the crowd reacted to this smile. He shuddered noticeably, as if he felt... thought of something terrible.
She didn't think he was being neurotic.
This is a place where the supernatural exists. The sixth sense is not pseudoscience - "spiritual perception" is real. Xia has even acted purely on intuition more than once.
Perhaps Baal's spiritual perception was more acute, and his will extended to the depths of the dream world in his ignorance, and was touched by a mysterious communication, and instinctively came to a feeling - [Lazuli-Deka is very dangerous. 】
"Do you think that's something he's allergic to?" she asked the woman.
"Not at all." Xia Yibing was staring at Lazuli at this time, watching the man's every move.
"Have you ever thought, Esoon," she whispered, "that this drama is moving a little too smoothly?"
indeed.
Hitzfeld feels similarly.
Just as the hot spring dragon was about to gain something, the other two dragon guards caught up.
Considering that traveling takes time, they should get the news much earlier than Wenquanlong is "sure".
Who revealed the news to them?
Even if it was that Haierle who found out that something was wrong with the hot spring dragon, how could he be sure of the authenticity of the news? How could he convince others to believe him and send out a large army to pursue it?
All this was hard to explain, so she was inclined to think that there was something wrong with Lazuli.
Perhaps the Longwei family was annihilated because of him. He still had the ambition to take the treasure for himself, and he was also the one who started the civil strife.
What happened next seemed quite ordinary... As Lazuli broke through the doors one by one, the team quickly entered the real dragon tomb space, which was the "first floor of the dragon tomb" mentioned by Eugenie.
There is gold everywhere here.
Piles of gold coins lay at his feet, reflecting the light of lanterns and torches.
They are not particularly bright, because most of them are not pure gold. There are all kinds of coins, and the most common one is "Serah".
Hitzfeld now knows a lot about lost history. She knows that Sera is the abbreviation of the Sera gold coin. This kind of coin has the highest value because it is backed by a powerful regime and its casting process is the most exquisite of all metal coins.
There were at least hundreds of thousands of Sera, not to mention the golden banknotes, gems, pearls and antiques in the pile of money. The first floor of the Dragon Tomb alone was enough to make a person rich enough to rival an entire country.
The team stayed here for a while, and people expressed their praise and admiration for these riches as much as possible, and continued to move forward with their longing for tomorrow.
Everyone was in a good mood because even if they didn't continue exploring, just sharing the treasure on the first floor was worth the trip.
Who would mind having too much money?
They couldn't help but start to imagine what the second floor, the third floor... and even the fourth floor that was said to be forbidden to outsiders would be.
The second floor was soon opened.
Here, they saw a more abundant and shining world: huge golden statues stood on both sides, holding spears and shields, guarding the jewel throne at the end of the road.
The whole thing was made of a kind of white jade, and the edges and armrests were inlaid with gems and pearls. Each piece was bigger than a fist and constantly reflected colorful light under the firelight.
Then, they opened the third floor.
As Eugenie said, the third layer of accumulation was weapons and armor.
Tens of thousands of suits of armor, tens of thousands of shields, and racks of swords, spears, and crossbows.
What amazed and excited people the most were the huge saddles. It was obvious that these equipment were not prepared for ordinary soldiers. Everyone knew that they were for rearming a dragon cavalry corps!
So what will the fourth layer be?
