Chapter 157: The Primeval Civilization 1

“Be careful!”

For some reason, Daphne felt deeply uneasy.

Still, all she could do was remind Kent to watch himself.

“I will.”

Kent felt a warmth in his heart at her concern. He gave her a reassuring answer, then slipped into the underground passage.

The moment Kent entered, however, he sensed that something was wrong.

A faint pressure lingered in the air.

It was extremely subtle, but Kent had encountered something similar before—

in dragon blood.

Had his perception not been unusually sharp, he might never have noticed it at all.

Still, the pressure was far too weak to hinder his movements, so Kent did not become overly concerned.

Even so, a massive two-handed greatsword appeared silently in his hands.

The instant Kent poured battle aura into the weapon, the blade began glowing with a golden-yellow radiance.

At its tip, a tongue of battle flame several dozen centimeters long sprang to life, bathing the entire passage in brilliant golden light.

Kent looked at the sword and gave a faint, surprised smile.

So this greatsword belonged to the metal element.

Metal-element weapons were renowned for their sharpness, while metal-element battle aura possessed some of the greatest destructive power among all affinities.

Once such battle aura entered an opponent’s body, it would tear through flesh and meridians like countless needles stabbing from within.

Still, Kent merely found the discovery mildly interesting.

Now was hardly the time to study the sword.

With its golden radiance lighting the way, Kent continued deeper into the passage.

He appeared to be moving quickly, but his mental power remained extended ahead of him at all times.

The slightest sign of danger would immediately trigger a response.

The tunnel itself was enormous—more than five meters high and roughly five meters wide.

Its floor had been worn remarkably smooth.

That detail reassured Kent somewhat.

Clearly, people had traveled through this passage on a regular basis.

It was not some ancient tomb that had remained sealed for thousands of years.

Before long, Kent reached the first underground chamber.

There was little inside.

Only a few iron cages and assorted pieces of equipment had been left scattered around the hall.

Yet the moment Kent examined the cages more closely, surprise appeared on his face.

Magic formations had been engraved directly into the metal.

And judging from the runes used in those formations, they were extraordinarily ancient.

They belonged to an era predating even the great War of Gods and Demons.

On the continent, that distant period was known as the Primeval Age.

Kent studied one of the cages for a moment.

Then, almost instinctively, he decided to put it into his spatial ring.

But the instant his mental power wrapped around the cage, his expression changed.

His mental power seemed to freeze.

It was as though the cage rejected magical influence entirely.

Kent’s eyes widened.

“Deep-Sea Heavy Iron?”

He immediately recognized the material.

Deep-Sea Heavy Iron possessed an extraordinary natural property—

magic negation.

It was virtually immune to magical effects.

And yet, paradoxically, its ability to conduct magical power was exceptionally high, comparable even to magic silver.

Magic silver, however, was extremely soft.

Deep-Sea Heavy Iron was the exact opposite.

It was astonishingly hard, almost comparable to adamantine, while possessing a melting point considerably lower than adamantine’s.

Its only major flaw was its weight.

It was absurdly heavy.

Because of this unique combination of properties, Deep-Sea Heavy Iron had always been considered one of the most valuable magical metals in existence.

Kent stared at the enormous cage before him.

It stood more than three meters tall and enclosed roughly two cubic meters of space.

And the entire thing—

every bar, every joint, every section of its frame—

had been forged from Deep-Sea Heavy Iron.

Disbelief filled Kent’s eyes.

A cage made from such a priceless anti-magic metal...

What kind of creature had once been imprisoned inside it?

Kent did not take the cage with him.

He had already realized that this chamber was little more than a dumping ground for discarded objects.

A thick layer of dust covered everything.

That alone told him that no one here had recognized the true value of these items. Otherwise, something forged from Deep-Sea Heavy Iron would never have been carelessly abandoned in a place like this.

Even during the Primeval Age, Deep-Sea Heavy Iron had been one of the rarest and most precious magical metals.

According to ancient records, it could only be found in certain places more than ten thousand meters beneath the sea.

As for exactly where those deposits had once been located, countless years had passed, and such information had long since been lost.

By the Ancient Age, Deep-Sea Heavy Iron had already become one of the legendary materials believed to have vanished from the world entirely.

Kent decided to leave it for now.

He could examine this pile of discarded relics carefully on his way back.

At that moment, faint footsteps began echoing through the passage behind him.

Someone was coming.

Kent immediately quickened his pace and continued deeper underground.

Dozens of doors lined the walls surrounding the chamber.

Each one had a small viewing window set into it.

Kent hurried from door to door, looking inside.

It took only one glance for him to understand what these rooms were.

Cells.

Behind the first door was a massive two-headed lizard.

Kent immediately recognized it.

A Two-Headed Lizard, an eighth-rank dark-element magical beast.

It was considered an extremely powerful high-level magical beast.

Kent’s eyes sharpened.

He had definitely come to the right place.

He quickly moved on to the next cell.

As far as magical beasts were concerned, however, Kent was not particularly greedy.

He already had the Dragon Turtle and Big Nose.

Compared with those two, ordinary high-level magical beasts were hardly enough to make him lose his composure.

Kent inspected more than a dozen rooms in succession.

Without exception, they contained valuable captives.

Some held high-level magical beasts.

Others contained young human women.

There were even dwarven craftsmen imprisoned among them.

Meanwhile, the footsteps in the passage were growing louder.

They were getting closer.

Kent began to feel pressed for time.

“Hm?”

As he passed another door, he suddenly stopped.

He had sensed an extremely faint fluctuation of magical power.

Kent immediately looked through the viewing window.

The room was empty.

There was nothing inside at all.

That only made the situation stranger.

Kent let out a soft sound of surprise.

He closed his eyes.

Slowly and carefully, he extended his mental power into the room.

The instant his perception touched the strange fluctuation, Kent sensed something unusual.

His brows drew together.

He recognized this feeling.

He had sensed something very similar from Niu Niu before.

It was—

spatial magic.

Because Kent had accidentally managed to cultivate a trace of Origin Power, his mental perception had become exceptionally sensitive to magical fluctuations of every kind.

Ordinary people might have completely overlooked such a faint distortion.

Kent would not.

Whether it was concealed magical energy, elemental abnormalities, or even magical traps, he could usually detect them with remarkable ease.

And now, inside this seemingly empty room, there was unmistakably a spatial disturbance.

Something was hidden here.

“Holy hell!”

Kent continued probing deeper with his mental power, only to be stunned by what he discovered.

A curse escaped his lips before he could stop himself.

Everything inside the room was an illusion.

The seemingly empty chamber was nothing more than a false image concealing the truth.

Beyond the doorway lay an entirely separate dimensional space.

And a self-contained extradimensional space of this kind could only have been created by an existence at least on the level of a god.

As for how vast that hidden space truly was, Kent had no idea.

The moment his mental power entered it, an immense pressure crashed down upon his consciousness.

Alarmed by the possibility of danger, Kent immediately withdrew.

Even so, what little he had sensed was enough for him to reach one conclusion with absolute certainty.

This place had not been built by humans of the present age.

It had existed since the Primeval Age.

In the Ancient Age, the Underdark had once been one of the most famous adventuring regions on the continent.

Its abundant mineral deposits, countless magical beasts, and vast unexplored territories had made it a paradise for adventurers.

At the same time, the Underdark had possessed little in the way of law or order.

It had become a haven for criminals, fugitives, prisoners, bandits, and every other sort of dangerous individual.

Beneath the cover of perpetual darkness, many things could be done far more easily than on the surface.

And most adventurers lived by a simple rule—

strength spoke louder than anything else.

For such people, the Underdark had been an ideal place to survive.

And wherever large numbers of adventurers gathered, supply stations and trading posts would naturally appear.

The more Kent thought about it, the more likely it seemed that this underground complex had once been one of those ancient supply bases.

“Elder!”

A voice suddenly pulled Kent out of his thoughts.

“We got the information out of them!”

Kent turned.

Several of the Grand Elder’s guards were hurrying toward him.

The moment they saw him, one of them reported excitedly,

“There are three dark elves being held here. One male and two females.”

Kent nodded.

“Release everyone imprisoned here.”

He gestured toward the surrounding cells.

“Take all the high-level magical beasts with you as well. Then bring everything before the Grand Elder and let him decide what should be done.”

Kent might have been an Honorary Elder, but he knew better than to make every decision himself.

Some matters were better left to the Grand Elder.

There was no reason for him to offend people unnecessarily.

“Yes, Elder!”

The dark elf guards answered eagerly.

Their excitement was understandable.

High-level magical beasts and magical beast eggs were extremely difficult to obtain under ordinary circumstances.

Yet this underground prison contained dozens of them.

And these guards were members of the Grand Elder’s personal retinue.

Once everything had been confiscated and distributed, there was a very good chance that some of those spoils would eventually find their way into their hands.

The guards immediately went to work.

High-level magical beasts were brought out one after another.

Magical beast eggs followed.

The imprisoned humans and dwarves were released and escorted outside as well.

As for the three captured dark elves, all of them were still unconscious.

They were carefully carried out by the guards.

Those three dark elves were more than mere prisoners.

They were evidence.

Concrete proof that humans in Salt City had secretly abducted and imprisoned members of the dark elf race.

That alone was enough to provoke a serious conflict between humans and dark elves.

What sort of storm would follow from this discovery was impossible to predict.

But as far as Kent was concerned—

that was no longer his problem.