The Blood-Weeping Tomb, the Sorrow of the Universe

Don't forget, there are more than two players in this Trials of "prosperity".

Rewind a little, before the arrival of [Prosperity], deep within the Sighing Forest, several figures, shrouded in thick fog and surrounded by countless writhing giant pythons, staggered out of this treeless forest.

But if there are no trees left, how can you know you've left the forest?

That's because what they were standing on now was no longer the decaying leaves formed from the shed skin of the Twisted Night Python, but muddy red soil that could draw blood with a single step!

The environment before these people had changed, turning into an endless blood-red wasteland. In the center of this land, which was already covered by nothing, there was a bright and conspicuous Blood Lake, its waves surging!

Zuo Qiu stared An Jing at the crimson lake water that was constantly rippling before him, his shock and fear lingering for a long time.

Who would have thought that there was a lake churning with corrupt blood in the heart of the Sighing Forest?

Who would have thought that the so-called Blood Rot Tomb was not a stone tablet standing on the ground, but a pyramid-shaped mausoleum that hung upside down in the sky, requiring pilgrims to look up and "Decay" to gaze upon it!

The upside-down pyramidal tomb resembled a giant, floating spike, with countless facets, each etched with indistinct characters of Decay by rotting black blood.

After all the putrid black blood from all the surfaces has flowed through all the words, this putrid blood will gather at the tip of the pyramid, turning into a single drop of viscous blood filled with hissing and wailing, which will drip into the Blood Lake below.

And when the Blood Lake overflows, filled with the ever-accumulating thick blood...

Sighing Tide then erupted.

The stagnant blood surged into the barren land, propelling the dense power of Decay outwards. The mist rising and evaporating from the thick blood grew ever denser, its color fading as it spread, until it gradually transformed into the familiar Sighing Tide that players knew as the mist reached the forest.

When Zuo Qiu and An Jing arrived at this place, they happened to encounter the end of a wave of Sighing Tide. However, even the tail end of this blood-red mist almost broke through their defensive barrier, causing the two of them to die on the spot.

The Historian held a page from a book by Erudite Poet, which he had found somewhere. His face was pale and his body was tense, but even under such immense pressure of death, his eyes still shone with a thirst for historical truth.

He kept searching for the weakest point of the crimson tide, trying to break through the mist to reach the depths of the Blood Lake, but he failed after trying for a long time.

In this moment of Sighing Tide, probably no one can go inside.

"Puppeteer, help me! I can't hold on any longer. This is the last page of the Holy Light Great Wall. I've used up all my resources. It's your turn now!"

An Jing, just as its name suggests, was extremely An Jing. The Mature Sister Puppet did not make a move, but instead frowned and looked to the other side.

Zuo Qiu was getting anxious and tried to remind her again, but An Jing just made an An Jing gesture.

The Historian's breath caught in his throat. Following the Puppeteer's gaze, he discovered that not far beyond the Blood Lake, in another direction, there was a person—a living person—who had simply opened his arms and jumped naked into the horrifying Blood Lake.

The warrior's scars and mangled flesh were so conspicuous that the two of them recognized him instantly!

Poison!

That poisonous bird that left the player's party at the very beginning and set off for the depths of the forest!

In this Decay sanctuary, this "Decay" Believer embraced Him completely in a way that neither of them could comprehend.

Zuo Qiu's pupils constricted sharply upon seeing this, and he exclaimed in surprise:

"He's gone mad! He's gone mad!"

He actually dared to step into this Blood Lake?

Is he out of his mind?

The rumor about it being "Decay" is false!

How could someone bathe in corrupt blood and still come back alive?

Even Lin Xi is out of the question!

"What rumor?"

Curiosity flashed in An Jing's eyes as she turned around and quietly took over the defensive duties.

Suddenly, countless control threads burst forth from the mouth and nose of the wandering puppet, then lashed out around the two people, transforming into a semi-transparent "cocoon" woven from the threads.

The surging tide of Decay flowed silently past the seemingly fragile cocoon wall, as if the space enclosed by the silken cocoon contained only air and no living creatures.

Zuo Qiu's eyes gleamed as he watched this miraculous scene.

"[Silence] is indeed adept at hiding himself; truly brilliant."

"It's just a trivial skill, far less exciting than the history you're talking about. Tell me, I'm very curious about that rumor you mentioned."

It's just a rumor.

After Lin Xi, the Chosen of God "Decay Gods," emerged alive from the Blood Rot Tomb and reached the summit, a voice rang out in the "Decay" channel, saying that anyone who could bathe their entire body in the corrupt blood of the Blood Rot Tomb would receive His reward.

But it was all fake.

"Interesting. I can tell from your genuine shock at seeing this place that it must be your first time here. How come you are so familiar with this Blood Rot Tomb?"

This lake of stagnant blood is clearly formed from the blood dripping from the final tomb above us, and that floating final tomb is very likely the place that will bear witness to His descent. So, where is the falsehood?

"This is my first time here, but I do have some Memory of the Blood Lake Blood Rot Tomb know that no one has ever come out of it alive."

Even if he is Believer in "Decay", to this land where "Decay" has accumulated and settled over millions of years, he is nothing more than a piece of white paper with only red stains on it!

He actually wanted to use this viscous, Decay blood to color himself? Ha, what a fool's dream.

Such a thin piece of paper will not be stained by any color if it jumps into this lake, because once the white paper falls into the water, it will be dissolved and crushed by the thick blood plasma, turning into Decay ash that accumulates on the side and becomes part of this barren red earth!

Otherwise, where do you think such a large area of barren land came from?

Over the millennia, countless Decay pilgrims have attempted to gain His protection by leaping into the lake, only to be crushed here by this viscous blood, washed away into the bleeding soil beneath our feet.

What we are stepping on is not just mud, it is clearly the blood and flesh of tens of thousands of Decay Believer!

This isn't soil, it's flesh and blood...?

The Puppeteer was somewhat shocked. She controlled the wandering puppet to lift its foot and rub the soil beneath its feet. Seeing the black blood seeping out and reaching above the instep, she was startled and her gaze narrowed slightly.

This is Faith.

This obsession with Faith was so fanatical that countless unknown pilgrims embellished the Decay history with their relentless deaths.

No wonder the Historian, even with prior Memory, risked everything to come in and take a look, because what the two of them were seeing before them was living history, a history where flesh and blood and Faith were intertwined.

Witnessing it firsthand is far more impactful and authentic than Memory about it.

Silence fell again until the surrounding mist began to dissipate and the thick blood in the Blood Lake began to accumulate a new round. Only then did the Puppeteer break the silence. She raised an eyebrow and looked at Zuo Qiu with interest, saying:

"Your Memory couldn't possibly be something Lin Xi shared with you, could they?"

Zuo Qiu sighed and shook his head:

"I'm just a Historian with a score of 2300. Apart from knowing this name, I have no connection whatsoever with that Chosen of God. My Memory..."

It's the Man in the Coffin.

An Jing was taken aback for a moment, then suddenly realized.

"It was actually the History School that devoured the Man in the Coffin?"

So, Lin Xi has taken the blame for a huge mess for you guys!

Almost everyone believed that he had received the gift of "Decay" and then killed the person who had guided him.

"No, the 'disappearance' of the Man in the Coffin is indeed related to us."

But their deaths... have nothing to do with us.

?

An Jing clearly felt that this statement was contradictory, but her doubts were soon resolved by Historian.

"The History School has always wanted to fill in the history of the underground, but this work cannot be separated from the study of the Sighing Forest. The history of [Decay] has always been scarce. It is said that only the [Decay] text carved on the Blood Rot Tomb records some history about [Decay], so everyone is eager to find a way to reach the Blood Rot Tomb."

Long before the Man in the Coffin appeared, we had identified several paths by consulting a few books, but we gave up after many attempts because the path into the Sighing Tide was too dangerous.

We don't want to become history before we understand all of history.

However, we never imagined that there would be someone who was even more obsessed with exploring history than the History School, and this crazy organization was the Man in the Coffin.

This organization, with only a hundred or so Decay Believer, actually wanted to pave a path to the Blood Rot Tomb with their own lives in order to ensure their names would be 'etched in history'!

They used a so-called range overlap method to continuously narrow down the scope, and then used the deaths of different members as markers to gradually approach the Blood Rot Tomb.

To be honest, even if all six players in a Trials were in Man in the Coffin, their exploration range would be a drop in the ocean compared to the vast Sighing Forest, making it an almost impossible exploration.

But Destiny favors the madmen. Even these lunatics themselves didn't expect that when almost Man in the Coffin was wiped out, one of them, a lucky one, actually found the location of the Blood Rot Tomb!

Moreover, he witnessed a self-sacrificing pilgrimage ritual of a "Decay" Believer there.

He was terrified by this suicidal pilgrimage and began to flee without a word. Once he had retreated to a safe zone free from Sighing Tide, he hid, intending to wait patiently for the Trials to end before spreading the explosive news.

And then, the most ironic thing happened.

A Filth and Decay player, succumbing to Greed, somehow discovered his hiding place and then killed this Man in the Coffin —the only one who knew the path to the Blood Rot Tomb —simply for a finely carved magic lamp in his hand.

The History School never saw the Man in the Coffin; they almost all perished in the Trials of finding the route.

But the History School was also fortunate, because during one of our Trials, one of our [Memory] Believer killed a [Filth and Decay] teammate who tried to rob him, and then unearthed everything about the Man in the Coffin from his Memory!

However, since the Man in the Coffin only exists in the Memory of Memory, we cannot fill in all the details. Despite our best efforts, we have only found the part about the Blood Lake.

So we pretended to be the Man in the Coffin and released clues, hoping to use the deaths of those fanatical Faith to complete the route. After that, Lin Xi successfully arrived here.

An Jing was stunned and somewhat at a loss because of this absurd historical truth. She looked at the Historian in front of her, opened her mouth, but did not utter a word.

That's how history is, isn't it?

In the past, our stories were passed down from person to person, and we have remembered them. In the future, others will remember our stories.

All I need to do is verify the story's authenticity and make its details more vivid.