1904 Demonic Murals And A Shard

The first room that Lin Mu arrived in was not the entry hallway, as he hadn't exactly entered from there. 

'Though if it's this far deep in the ground, does it really matter where its entryway is?' Lin Mu thought and looked around.

He was standing in what looked like a side room and coming out from it, he found himself in a hallway that extended for quite some distance. 

"It's surprising it has managed to maintain its form all this time." Lin Mu said as he looked at the walls and the weight bearing pillars. 

There was certainly damage spread in the building, but it was still standing. He found many halls and rooms to have collapsed walls, but the load-bearing pillars still managed to hold up the ceiling. Even if the Gravity here was just 10, it was still higher than what a normal building would be able to bear.

And even if one took away the gravity, just the sheer amount of weight that was on top of it should have long since flattened it into a plate. 

Still, it had managed to last this long, making Lin Mu think there was probably something reinforcing it.

His immortal sense traced the walls and found remnants of formations on them. They were carved using immortal Qi itself and had fine channels traced into the walls themselves. 

"The Formations have long since been broken… And yet the building has held up. Astounding." Lin Mu couldn't help but say.

From what he could estimate, the formations had run out of energy several tens of thousands of years ago and then lost their structure a few thousand years after that. By now they were but just a shadow of what they used to be.

"These weren't carved in Dao Script though…" Lin Mu noticed from some of the remnants. 

Since they weren't carved on the surface, they were much harder to make it. It was as if one had written on concrete using a thread, then let it harden, and then poured more concrete on it to seal it all. 

"Interesting… what script is this? Definitely not the common tongue of the Rust Sky world… it's over a hundred thousand years old, so it should be an older dialect maybe?" Lin Mu muttered to himself as he continued to analyze.

But once he arrived in the central hallway, he realized that the script had changed once more. 

"Shamanic Script of the Demons?" This time, Lin Mu could recognize it.

Lin Mu had read it, or rather Xukong had read it for him when the Crown Prince had asked him to translate the tablet. Lin Mu could still not read it of course, but that didn't mean he couldn't recognize the letters either. 

"Senior, can you tell me what do these say?" Lin Mu called for Xukong.

"They don't make any sense," Xukong replied rather quickly.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Lin Mu was confused.

"While they are indeed characters from the Shamanic Script of the Demons, it isn't actually written in any sensible manner. It's like someone randomly wrote letters. They are all scrambled." Xukong replied.

"Scrambled?" Lin Mu furrowed his brows as a few ideas appeared in his mind. "Some of the Encrypting formations and security formations do this, don't they?" He recalled.

"Yeah, it is probably due to that." Xukong agreed.

"I guess when the arrays ran out of energy, the precautionary security system activated and scrambled all of the runes." Lin Mu shook his head.

It was a shame that he couldn't make out what must have been written here.

"But one thing is for sure… This is definitely linked with the temple we saw on the asteroid and it is also linked with the Demonic Tribes of old." Lin Mu said with confidence.

"Quite likely," Xukong replied. "Perhaps that might be the reason why it is here now. It could have been hidden here." He suggested.

"I think so too… after all, no one would be able to come here. Even Transcendent Immortals would be struck at the surface." Lin Mu nodded his head. "Just makes me more excited about what could be hidden here." He said and hurried up.

He passed room after room, finding all of them to be empty.

Rather than as functional rooms, Lin Mu reckoned they were being used as mural displays. As each room had different kinds of murals on them.

Though many of them were destroyed too.

From what Lin Mu made out, they seem to be showing some kind of a conflict. And it wasn't just a conflict between demons and humans like he had seen in the previous murals, it was a conflict between tribes too.

Lin Mu continued to move from room to room as he made out the story. 

"So from what I can figure out… The demons had conflicts with humans, wars happened, and then they lost. Then they had conflicts amongst themselves over some kind of treasure. One tribe kept the treasure and others tried to get it… possibly to take revenge against the humans.

The treasure was originally kept sealed, but the tribes fought against the keeper tribe. This resulted in the treasure getting unsealed…" Lin Mu concluded.

There were more parts to it, but unfortunately, the murals in this area hadn't survived the test of time. 

"This is also the central area, huh… all the murals lead to here." Lin Mu confirmed having checked the rest of the area.

There was an open hall in the center, that seemed to be surrounded by a curtain of energy.

"Strange… it has no Immortal Qi fluctuations." Lin Mu discovered.

If not for that, he should have sensed it being here from the start.

He tried probing it with his Immortal sense and learned that the curtain actually had no substance. It neither blocked him nor attacked him. It was a mix of brown and grey color, that camouflaged with the surroundings well. If there was a mortal here, they would think it was just a solid wall. 

'Just an isolating formation of some kind… No, since there are no Immortal Qi fluctuations, it isn't made from runes. A skill of some kind, perhaps?' Lin Mu reckoned.

Feeling no danger from it, Lin Mu got closer and touched it.

~Ripple~

The strange energy curtain rippled with his touch, as if it were water. There was no repulsive feeling from it either, thus Lin Mu pushed his hand further in.

"It's rather thin… barely a millimeter thick." Lin Mu estimated before walking into it directly.

~shua~

And as soon as he did, he felt the change in the atmosphere. It got heavy, and the gravity also increased.

"At least a hundred times the normal gravity…" Lin Mu narrowed his eyes before spotting a platform in the center.

It was very eye catching with the purple and black light that was coming from it. Not just that, but Lin Mu also felt a force of attraction from it. 

"Is this the treasure that the Demonic Tribes were fighting over?" Lin Mu wondered and got close.

Thankfully, the gravity didn't increase any further and he could move with relative comfort. Another thing was that the function of the curtain was also revealed. It could also filter out the gravity and prevent it from affecting more areas.

It was then that Lin Mu realized that the curtain wasn't just spread around in a flat radius, it was actually in the form of a sphere!

"So the curtain is a barrier preventing the gravity from affecting the rest of the area… but then how is the gravity above this building higher?" Lin Mu only felt more questions popping in his mind.

He also knew that the answers to all his questions lay in front of him. 

As such, he walked right next to the platform and took a closer look. 

The platform was circular and was about two meters in diameter. On top of it was a strange object.

At first, it looked like a swirling mass of black and purple light, but when Lin Mu glanced at it with his Spatial perception, he could actually see a physical object in the center.

It exuded a strange attraction force and made Lin Mu very curious. He was just about to extend his hand towards it when he heard a shout.

"Don't!" Xukong's voice was heard. "It'll rip your hand and suck it in if you touch it!" he warned.

~gulp~

Lin Mu quickly withdrew his hand, thanking Xukong for the warning. 

"What is it? The attraction force doesn't seem to be as bad as you said, Senior." Lin Mu expressed his doubts.

"That's because it has different ranges of effect. Its strongest range is right within a close radius. That swirling mass of light is where it is strongest. And its second strongest range of effect is right above this building, the gravity we felt around the wall." Xukong explained.

"As for what it is… it is a Star Shard."