Chapter 485 - 456: Arthropod Monsters! Underground Secret Chamber

Chapter 485: Chapter 456: Arthropod Monsters! Underground Secret Chamber

A dense SKITTERING sound, like a tide of death, surged from all directions and quickly surrounded Roland.

His eyes sharpened as he instantly locked onto the sound’s source.

It wasn’t coming from the crumbling ruins, but from the desolate, desert-like earth beneath his feet.

Countless tiny bulges were moving rapidly just beneath the surface, closing in to encircle him.

’Hiding underground, are they?’

Roland’s eyes narrowed. Instead of retreating, his right hand shot out like a bolt of lightning and gripped the hilt of the sword at his waist.

SHING!

The Moonlight Longsword slid from its sheath.

But he didn’t swing it. Instead, he gripped it in a reverse hold and, with unstoppable power, plunged it straight into the earth at his feet.

BOOM!

Blood-colored Fighting Spirit, like a long-suppressed volcano, surged furiously down the blade and into the ground.

The ground in a radius of dozens of meters trembled violently and swelled upward before exploding with a tremendous bang, sending sand and dust flying everywhere.

Countless dark figures lurking beneath the sand, like an anthill doused with boiling water, were brutally forced from their hiding spots by this savage power, flung into the air with clouds of dirt.

They were thrown into the air, only to come clattering back down to the ground.

In an instant, Roland found himself densely surrounded by over a hundred bizarre creatures.

They were the size of hunting hounds, their bodies covered in thick, dark carapaces that looked as if they were forged from molten rock and metal. Hideous in form, they possessed multiple pairs of sharp, jointed limbs.

Most striking of all, the surface of their hard carapaces was not a monotonous dark color, but was instead covered with countless fine, crimson veins that throbbed like blood vessels.

They gave off an ominous aura, one teeming with restless Energy.

The moment these arthropodan monsters appeared, they let out piercing shrieks and pounced at him from all sides, completely heedless of their own lives.

Roland’s expression was calm. With a flick of his wrist, the Moonlight Longsword sliced a cold arc of light, sweeping toward the first few creatures that lunged at him.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The shattering carapaces he had expected did not materialize.

As the blade struck their dark shells, it produced a series of sharp clashes, like metal striking stone, and even threw off blinding sparks.

Although the blows left deep gashes and sent the creatures flying, the few that were hit scrambled back to their feet a moment later and renewed their assault.

’Oh? They’re surprisingly tough.’

Roland raised an eyebrow.

The monsters’ defensive capabilities were indeed beyond his expectations.

But that was the extent of it.

He stopped holding back. His condensed, immense Blood-colored Fighting Spirit erupted like a physical flame.

With a single movement, he transformed into a blood-red Residual Shadow and charged headfirst into the swarm of monsters.

The nature of the battle changed in an instant.

Roland no longer relied on wide, sweeping slashes, instead concentrating his Power into the very tip of his sword.

The Moonlight Longsword seemed to come alive in his hands.

Every thrust landed precisely in the gaps between the carapace plates or drove deeper into the gashes he had already made.

With muffled squelches, the hard carapaces were cleverly pried apart and pierced. His Fighting Spirit bored into the monsters’ bodies like a venomous snake, instantly extinguishing their life force.

Roland’s figure weaved through the horde, the glint of his sword a dance of death wherever he passed.

At times, a single horizontal sweep would cleave three or four monsters in half at the waist, like a scythe through wheat.

At others, with a flick of his wrist, the sword’s tip would lash out like a striking viper, instantly shattering the cranial joints of several monsters.

And at others, he would use his terrifying Power to simply kick a lunging monster, causing it to explode in mid-air in a spray of dark fluid and shell fragments.

The efficient slaughter was like an autumn harvest.

In the space of just a few dozen breaths, the once-dense swarm of monsters was thinned out like leaves in a gale, their numbers drastically reduced. The ground was littered with shattered carapaces and grotesque, severed limbs.

However, just as Roland was about to finish off the last of the arthropodan monsters, something strange happened.

On the corpses of the monsters—both those not quite dead and those freshly slain—the crimson markings on their carapaces suddenly began to glow with a blinding light, flashing erratically at an unstable frequency.

A heart-stopping, violent wave of Energy, like that of an erupting volcano, instantly saturated the battlefield.

’Energy overload? A final, desperate counterattack? Or...’

Several thoughts flashed through Roland’s mind in an instant.

He couldn’t be sure which it was, but the rapidly escalating sense of danger was undeniable.

In such a dense cluster, facing it head-on, regardless of the cause, would be anything but wise.

Better to be cautious than reckless.

His mind made up, Roland acted without a shred of hesitation.

He tapped his toes lightly on the ground. The [Source Law Engine] within him roared to life. His Blood-colored Fighting Spirit was no longer used for attack but instead wrapped around his entire body like a loyal guardian, generating a powerful reverse thrust.

WHOOSH!

His body, as if freed from the bonds of gravity, shot into the sky like a streak of blood-red light. In the blink of an eye, he had ascended dozens of meters and came to a stable halt in mid-air.

At almost the exact same instant he left the ground...

BOOM! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!

A fireworks display of pure Destruction erupted on the ground below.

The corpses of the hundred-plus arthropodan monsters, along with those still clinging to life, exploded violently in a chain reaction, like a field of simultaneously lit powder kegs.

A scorching shockwave of Flame, mixed with frenzied shards of Energy, swept out in all directions like a crimson tide, instantly engulfing the recent battlefield.

It became an absolute kill zone, a violently Burning wasteland ravaged by turbulent Energy.

The power of the explosions was astounding; each detonation was comparable to a complete Middle Ring Spell.

Even high in the air, the searing heatwave, carrying waves of destructive Energy, made Roland’s skin tingle.

He looked down at the churning sea of fire below and couldn’t help but click his tongue in astonishment.

’Each self-destruction is that powerful... If I had stayed on the ground and been caught in the center of such a dense chain of explosions...’

A chill went down Roland’s spine.

’Even with my current Constitution, if I couldn’t fully evade it... I might not have died, but I would’ve been flayed alive.’

’Thank goodness the [Source Law Engine]’s amplification of my Fighting Spirit allowed me to easily levitate and dodge.’

The flames gradually subsided, revealing a scorched, smoking ground that looked as if it had been thoroughly plowed over.

’So... this must be the core area of the Whispering Forest Collection. The place where Adventurers and Merchants traded thousands of years ago...’

After an explosion as devastating as a magical carpet bombing, the already dilapidated ruins had been completely flattened. There was hardly a single structure left standing above ground level.

As far as the eye could see, there was only a stretch of scorched, hardened earth.

The ground, like black glass, still gave off wisps of acrid smoke and a pungent, burnt odor.

A few lingering flames flickered stubbornly in the cracks of the scorched earth, illuminating the absolute silence and desolation.

Roland could only shake his head in resignation. He had hoped to find some rare herbs or minerals in the ruins of this old gathering place, something to aid his Body Refining Technique or Body Tempering Technique.

Retracting his Fighting Spirit, he slowly descended from the sky, his feet landing firmly on the still-scorching, blackened ground.

Sensing the Fighting Spirit he had just consumed to stay airborne, Roland couldn’t help but make a mental comparison.

’Augmented by Fighting Spirit, I can use bursts of power to leap and hover, but I’m still a long way from soaring freely and moving with the agility of a bird.’

’It seems that, in terms of flight at least, simply using Fighting Spirit pales in comparison to assistive flight Magic.’

As he mulled this over, Roland began to walk.

’Well, I’m here anyway. Might as well see if there’s anything to find.’

’It’s not like it’ll take much time.’

With that thought, Roland began to search carefully across the cracked, unusually hard ground left by the explosions.

"Hm?"

Just as he was about to give up, thinking this expedition had yielded nothing but a kill count of over a hundred, his gaze suddenly sharpened.

Not far from the edge of the blast’s epicenter, the intense shock and vibration had caused the scorched, hardened ground to collapse, revealing a narrow, bottomless fissure of Darkness.

Seeing this, Roland immediately strode over and crouched down.

He cautiously extended his Perception Power downward like a tendril, probing into the fissure.

As his Perception delved deeper, his brow slowly furrowed and a look of surprise crossed his face.

’It’s... hollow down there? And the space... it seems pretty big.’

Upon sensing this, several possibilities flashed through Roland’s mind.

’Could it be the abandoned laboratory of some ancient Caster, sealing away dangerous experimental records or creations? Or maybe an altar for a secret cult’s rituals, inscribed with forbidden Runes? Or...’

’...the final resting place of a solitary, powerful expert, containing a lifetime’s collection and secrets?’

Whatever the case, in a land so steeped in legend, a deliberately hidden underground space always suggested both opportunity and danger.

After carefully probing the area again and again with his Perception and confirming there were no signs of life or any obvious residual Energy traps, Roland stopped hesitating.

He precisely inserted the tip of his Moonlight Longsword into the edge of the fissure and gave it a light pry.

CLANK!

With a resounding noise, a huge, rusted iron plate—its edges so corroded they seemed to be rotting away—was flipped open, revealing a downward passage large enough for a person to enter.

The heavy lock and complex internal mechanism that had once been attached to the plate were still faintly visible, but after a thousand years of erosion, they had become little more than a pile of rusted scrap, their protective function long gone.

A wave of stale air, thick with the smell of old dust and faint mold, wafted up from the opening.

Roland snapped his fingers. A stable, soft sphere of light appeared at his fingertips and hovered beside him like a loyal Elf, dispelling the Darkness in the entryway.

Without hesitation, he leaped, landing lightly in the Darkness below.

The drop was short, only about three or four meters, before his feet touched solid ground.

The sphere of light followed, slowly illuminating the dust-sealed space.

It was an underground chamber, roughly a few dozen square meters, with walls of coarse but sturdy stone.

Unlike the devastated ruins outside, this place seemed to have been forgotten by time, preserved in an eerily pristine state.

Several tall wooden shelves stood against the walls. Though covered in a thick, velvety blanket of dust, their structure remained sound. Neatly arranged upon them were various items wrapped in oilcloth or leather, their exact shapes obscured.

Wooden crates were stacked neatly to one side, the boxes themselves intact and their sealing marks still faintly visible.

A short distance away stood several metal weapon racks, from which hung a few pieces of Armor and some weapons.

Everything was arranged as if its owner had only just left and might return at any moment to tidy up. Only the uniform, heavy layer of dust covering it all silently bespoke how long this place had been sealed away.

This was clearly a small warehouse, one that had miraculously avoided being looted or destroyed.

However, Roland’s gaze did not linger on the shelves and crates.

The moment the sphere of light stabilized, his eyes were immediately drawn to the deepest part of the chamber, directly opposite the entrance.

There, beside the far wall, a skeleton clad in tattered rags sat leaning against the stone, its form long since turned to white bone.

The ravages of time had stripped away all its flesh, but the skeleton had miraculously remained perfectly intact.

Even more eye-catching, however, was what its skeletal hands, crossed before it and half-shrouded by tattered cloth, seemed to be...

...clutching something tightly.