Chapter 104: Someone was Here before me

Chapter 104: Someone was Here before me

Before the Warden could react with its left fist, Lothe had already vaulted onto its back. His movements were fluid, light, and completely silent, like a shadow dancing across stone.

He stood atop the Warden’s shoulders, his face ice-cold as he looked down at the glowing azure crystal eye in its head.

The Warden thrash violently, shaking its stone frame to throw him off.

Lothe didn’t lose his balance. He placed his left palm directly against the construct’s smooth obsidian skull, using a trace of his own weight to anchor himself.

In his right hand, his brush moved like lightning.

He didn’t use ink.

He bit his own thumb, drawing a line of deep crimson blood directly across the Warden’s azure crystal eye!

"Seal" Lothe commanded softly.

FLASH!

The blood-ink ignited into a dark, impenetrable film that coated the spirit crystal!

The azure light vanished.

The Warden froze.

Cut off from its visual targeting array and stripped of its primary weapon, the ancient construct’s logic loop completely broke down. It began swinging its remaining left arm blindly into the empty air, smashing chunks out of the surrounding stone pillars while Lothe calmly stepped off its back, landing gracefully three paces away.

Standing behind the blind, thrashing construct, Lothe raised two fingers from his right hand.

Four Detonation Talismans had already been placed around the base of the platform while he was moving.

"End," Lothe muttered.

CLICK.

BOOOOOM!

The four talismans detonated simultaneously at the Warden’s feet.

The shockwave shattered its already-compromised stone ankles. The massive two-meter construct lost its balance, toppling forward and crashing face-first into the basalt floor!

The moment its head struck the ground, the azure spirit crystal in its brow shattered into a dozen glowing blue fragments.

The runes across its obsidian body flickered once... twice... and then died out completely.

Silence returned to the chamber.

Lothe stood amidst the drifting dust, his black robes barely disturbed. He took a slow, deep breath, feeling his heart rate settle back into its cold, steady rhythm.

He didn’t use his Void Spear. He didn’t use his spatial blink.

He had dismantled a Level 6 ancient guardian using three basic talismans, an interference rune, and a blood seal.

Ping!

========================================

[BATTLE REPORT]

• Target Destroyed: Inscribed Slate Warden

• EXP Acquired: +450

• Array Proficiency: +20

• Loot Detected: Cracked Azure Spirit Core (Grade 1)

========================================

Lothe walked over to the construct’s broken head, leaned down, and picked up the largest fragment of the azure crystal. It was cool to the touch, humming with a faint, residual sensory energy.

"Not bad for refining perception talismans," he muttered, tossing the fragment into his storage ring.

Then, his gaze turned toward the stone platform in the center of the room.

The chained wooden chest remained untouched.

Lothe approached it cautiously, his [Qi Sight] peeling away the dust. The iron chains were rusted, but they weren’t locked with a key. They were locked with an ancient, three-character inscription carved into the metal.

Lothe leaned closer, his scholarly gaze narrowing as he translated the faded characters:

"The Path of Trials... is not for the strong..."

"...It is for the recognizable."

Lothe’s brow furrowed slightly.

Recognizable?

He raised his hand and sliced the rusted chains with a simple wind-blade talisman. The chains fell away, clattering against the stone.

He pushed the heavy lid open.

Inside, resting on a bed of decayed yellow velvet, there was no legendary divine weapon. There were no piles of high-grade spirit stones.

There were only two items:

A small, polished bronze mirror, its surface completely cloudy and dark.

A rolled fragment of animal-hide parchment, covered in fresh, wet ink that shouldn’t have existed after thousands of years.

Lothe picked up the parchment, unrolling it under his light talisman.

On the parchment, a map of Sector 1 was sketched in rough, hurried strokes. But what caught Lothe’s breath wasn’t the map.

It was the faint, fresh scuff marks on the floor beneath the platform.

Small. Light.

The unmistakable boot-prints of a human.

Someone had opened this chest recently.

And next to the boot-prints, frozen into the cold stone floor, was a thin, delicate layer of crystalline frost.

Lothe’s eyes narrowed until they were sharp enough to draw blood.

"Nyren," he whispered into the silent dark.

She had passed through this chamber before him. And whatever trial this room represented... she had already cleared it.

—————————————

Far away from the corridor where Lothe had destroyed the Inscribed Slate Warden, inside another isolated section of the Ancient Palace, Qing Lian sat quietly before a row of black lamps.

The lamps floated in the darkness, each one burning with a faint black flame.

There were dozens of them.

Some flames burned steadily.

Others flickered gently, connected to different energy signatures throughout the palace.

Qing Lian had been meditating when one of the flames suddenly trembled.

PFFFT!

The flame went out.

Qing Lian’s eyes opened.

Her black gaze immediately locked onto the extinguished lamp.

For a moment, she said nothing.

Then her fingers tightened around the silver fan resting on her knee.

"That one..."

She stood slowly.

The lamp had been connected to the Inscribed Slate Warden—one of the strongest guardians Qing Lian’s group had brought into the palace.

The Warden had already been destroyed once before.

But that had not been a problem.

The palace’s defensive formation had reconstructed it after gathering enough energy from the surrounding Runes.

That was one of the reasons Lady Gold Lantern had allowed the construct to be used during the expedition.

It was powerful.

It could recover.

It could continue fighting even after sustaining severe damage.

But this time, the flame had not merely weakened.

It had gone out completely.

Qing Lian waited for the usual reaction.

The black lamp should have reignited after receiving energy from the palace’s formation.

It didn’t.

The flame remained dead.

Her expression slowly darkened.

"The Warden was destroyed completely?"

The possibility irritated her.

No matter how powerful the humans inside the palace were, the Inscribed Slate Warden should have been difficult to defeat.

More importantly, even if someone destroyed its physical body, the palace should have recovered it.

For the flame to disappear meant that the Warden’s connection to the palace had been severed.

Its core had been destroyed beyond reconstruction.

Someone had dismantled it.

Not simply overpowered it.

Qing Lian’s silver fan opened with a sharp CLACK!

A faint wave of poisonous Qi spread through the room.

The Emerald Venom Corpse members standing behind her immediately lowered thier head.

Qing Lian looked toward two of them.

"Yue Fen."

A young man stepped forward.

His face was calm, and a pair of green markings ran from the corners of his eyes toward his jaw.

"Commander."

"Mo Ruyan."

A woman beside him lowered her head.

"This subordinate is present."

Qing Lian pointed toward the dead black lamp.

"The Inscribed Slate Warden has been destroyed."

The Emerald Venom Corps members exchanged brief glances.

Some of them had seen the Warden fight.

They knew how difficult it was to damage its armor, let alone destroy the Rune core hidden within it.

Qing Lian’s gaze became colder.

"Trace the remaining energy of its core."

Yue Fen stepped forward and pressed two fingers against the black lamp.

A thread of green Qi entered the extinguished flame.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then the lamp trembled.

A faint image appeared above it.

The image was blurred, but it showed a corridor, broken stone, and traces of purple energy.

Yue Fen’s brows furrowed.

"The energy trail is weak."

"Can you follow it?"

"Yes."

Qing Lian’s eyes narrowed.

"Then do so."

She turned toward the two cultivators.

"Find the person who destroyed it."

Yue Fen and Mo Ruyan bowed.

"What should we do if we encounter them?" Mo Ruyan asked.

Qing Lian closed her fan.

"Kill them."​