Throne

No matter how bad I feel, I have to go in.

Moreover, the areas where the strategist feels uneasy are often the key to breaking the deadlock.

The space inside the stone gate was much more spacious. After the three of them went in, they went from Yu Xing leading the way to walking side by side. Yu Xing and Carlos protected Lin, who was the weakest, in the middle. Their flashlights shone on the ancient stone walls, and some colorful murals gradually appeared on the walls.

I don't know what kind of pigments were used to paint these pictures, but after more than a thousand years, the colors haven't faded at all and are still bright and vivid. The things recorded on them are easier to understand than those on the stone gate. Most of them are war records, and there are also scenes of soldiers escorting grain and weapons.

If one didn't know anything about the demon daoist, they might mistake this for a king's tomb.

"I can't reach Shi Jiu. Mai's signal seems to have been cut off." Carlos snapped out of his reverie, thinking that Shi Jiu hadn't spoken in a long time. He tried calling out to her, but Shi Jiu didn't respond.

He then realized that the signal seemed to have disappeared after entering the stone gate.

"Completely out of contact?" Yu Xing murmured. Anyway, their group had already lost most of their equipment due to the interference of the timeline, so now they could just pretend that the equipment never existed.

"It's also possible that Shi Jiu is in danger," Lin remained pessimistic. "Or perhaps Shi Jiu has become a ghost and doesn't want to deal with you anymore."

"I hope she and those who remained are safe," Yu Xing offered a half-hearted blessing. "Let's go, this group is breaking up faster than I expected."

If the timeline were correct, the team wouldn't have fallen apart so quickly. It's just that the overlapping timelines made it easier for all the bad outcomes to come together, resulting in the team failing to coordinate at all and suffering a terrible defeat.

After walking for a while, a stone platform appeared ahead.

The stone platform was somewhat hidden, tucked away in a corner. It was low and simple, and if Yu Xing hadn't been in the habit of searching every corner with a flashlight, he probably would have missed it.

"There are words on it!" Carlos leaned closer to the stone and examined them carefully for a while, then became excited.

Heaven have mercy! In the past, many written records, such as inscriptions or silk scrolls, were always found in the tombs. Unlike the tomb of the demon daoist, we have only found a few words so far.

Yu Xing glanced at it with interest.

The words on the stone platform were written in white paint, with strange and intricate characters that strongly resembled pictographs. Yu Xing spent a long time trying to decipher them, but could only make out the meaning of a few of the more vivid patterns. He asked, "What does this say?"

Finally, there's something San can't do. Looks like even he isn't omnipotent. Lin breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the pressure ease. "The higher-ups say that from the birth of the demon daoist to its burial, there were over 820 wars. The demon daoist participated in 513 of them, openly and secretly, destroying 13 small countries and killing countless people."

Of the more than 800 wars, the demon daoist herself, or rather her forces, participated in more than 500 at her behest. She was truly a troublemaker of the times; perhaps she even secretly instigated many of them.

Extremely brutal.

Yu Xing's attention wasn't on the content; he said, "Lin can read ancient characters."

Lin nodded, his gaze lingering on the stone platform for a moment before looking directly at Yu Xing: "Of course, the path of Feng Shui requires exposure to many things. If I couldn't even understand written characters, I wouldn't be able to control my current identity."

He seemed to be telling the other two that he was quite capable.

Yu Xing's eyes flashed, and she smiled, "So, you're perfectly capable of interpreting texts; you can do what archaeologists or historians do. Then Unica really is useless."

Lin was stunned, her face turning slightly pale.

Yes, Unica took over the job that originally belonged to him. Such a big change, yet he didn't even notice it when he first entered the tomb.

The impact of this ghost on his memory was terrifying; he had never even heard of such a thing from any of the other senior members of the team.

Having obtained some not-so-significant information from the stone platform, they continued forward and, three minutes later, discovered the first fork in the road.

This fork in the road is like a staircase, one path sloping downwards and the other upwards, making it difficult to choose.

"Wouldn't going up just overlap with the flower field of the Ghost Tongue? It's a dead end, meant to confuse people, isn't it?" Carlos used to memorize cards a lot when he practiced card magic, so his memory was excellent. He suggested, "Let's go down."

Lin also said, "Yes, the path below contains a special energy; it should be closer to the main tomb chamber of the demon daoist."

Yu Xing reached out and felt the temperature of the path below. It was very low, like it led to an ice cellar. Regardless of whether it led to the main tomb chamber, there were bound to be many ghosts and monsters along the way.

He readily agreed, "Okay, let's continue."

The three chose to go down, and this time none of them saw that at the entrance to the downward path, a few drops of bright red blood gathered on the stone wall and silently dripped to the ground.

The bloodstains were so fresh that it was clearly left within the last two hours.

Someone was here within the last two hours!

After choosing to go downhill, the options for the road became extremely limited. The three walked for about ten minutes, only to feel that the terrain was getting lower and lower, winding and twisting, but there were no other roads to choose from.

They moved quickly, keeping an eye out for any potential traps, but even so, after another twenty minutes, they still hadn't found a way out, feeling like they were going down a dead end.

Carlos hesitated. "Did we take the wrong path? Is this road meant to evade tomb raiders?"

"Don't you think someone just walked through here?" Lin asked, pointing to the scratched wall after Carlos raised his question. "I think I saw the exact same marks about ten minutes ago."

"A ghost wall, huh?" Carlos clicked his tongue twice. "San, what do you think?"

"Lin is right, we've walked this road three times already." Yu Xing calmly shone his flashlight on the corner of the wall. "There's a triangular pebble here, I remember it very clearly." Carlos and Lin followed the light and indeed saw a naturally formed, somewhat triangular-shaped large rock.

"Damn, why didn't you say so earlier?" Carlos rubbed his temples. "What's so fun about walking the same path all the time? You should use that time to rest."

"I just want to confirm whether this 'ghost wall' is just meant to trap us, or if it's a sneak attack." Yu Xing's tone was listless and bored. "We've given you so many chances and no ghosts have come. Carlos, did your Ghost Controlling Seal scare them all away?"

Carlos: "..."Is it my fault?"

He heard Yu Xing add, "Why don't you just throw away the Ghost Controlling Seal?"

Before Carlos could speak, Lin Xian couldn't help but cough. He realized that his usually indifferent personality wasn't enough to break down in front of San: "Do you know what you're saying? That's the Ghost Controlling Seal, which can greatly reduce our danger. You want to throw it away?"

Yu Xing only mentioned it briefly; there were three people here, and not everyone found seeing ghosts enjoyable, so he certainly wouldn't intentionally put his teammates in danger.

"Just kidding."

Lin: "That kind of joke is pretty scary."

However, now that we've discovered the "ghost wall" problem, we need to find a way to break it.

Lin was very good at this. He took out his compass, recited a few incantations outside of Yu Xing's knowledge points, and the turbulent clouds in his eyes brought up wisps of white mist.

This is the function of the compass offering to determine the "correct" direction. The correctness is set as a broad concept, which is very convenient for finding the way.

Lin said, "How about this, you close your eyes. Sometimes our eyes can blind us and solidify our mistakes."

What the eyes see as a wall may also be perceived as a wall by other senses, including touch.

But if you close your eyes, this wall might not exist.

"You'll lead the way?" Yu Xing's lips curled into a smile. "Sure."

He agreed, and Carlos didn't say anything. Lin let Carlos put his hand on his shoulder, Yu Xing behind Carlos did the same.

Yu Xing and Carlos did as instructed, and Lin stood at the front, closing his eyes and relying solely on the compass to extend his senses and search for the true "path."

He deliberately forgot all the paths he remembered and, guided by the compass, took his first step.

Then comes the second step.

At first, Lin Xia hesitated a bit, but after taking more than ten steps without bumping into anything, his confidence grew stronger. He stopped wasting time and led Yu Xing and Carlos toward the destination he perceived.

All he could see was darkness, and he was surrounded by a chill that seeped into his very being. The sound of several people breathing reached Lin's ears. No one spoke, and the excessive silence of the space easily instilled a sense of panic.

Finally, someone spoke up.

Carlos's voice tightened slightly as he asked, "San, when you put your arm around my shoulder, could you please stop pinching it?"

Lin paused, almost opening his eyes.

This sentence sounds so much like a flag; people who say this in horror movies are usually not human.

Carlos knew he had been pinched several times along the way, just because San might have played some silly pranks. He wasn't sure if San was just being mischievous or if the person behind him was no longer San. After being pinched for the fifth time, and each time harder than the last, he finally couldn't help but ask.

Yu Xing, with her eyes closed, chuckled, "I didn't pinch you. Maybe some ghost has taken a liking to you."

The person who would say something like that must be the real San.

Carlos breathed a sigh of relief at first, then began to consider the possibility of that statement.

Is there really some evil spirit plotting against him, only targeting him?

If he ignores it, will the end result be something like his shoulder being torn off?

"Lin, can I open my eyes?" Carlos asked.

Lin's voice sounded faint and somewhat distorted at this moment, "It's best not to."

"When I opened my eyes, I realized I wasn't leaning on Lin, but on a ghost with long arms and an upside-down head." Yi Qing chuckled, fanning herself absentmindedly with a fan. "Yu Xing, what do you think of this ghost story?"

Yu Xing didn't want to pay attention to Yi Qing, who kept rambling on about all sorts of ghost stories in the dark, but combined with Carlos's words, he guessed that the Sheqing Ghost was so bored that it had started massaging the Magician's shoulders.

He opened his mouth and silently mouthed the words, believing that Yiqing could see them.

"Don't mess with Carlos."

"I'm really not happy unless you prank me." Yi Qing wasn't cooperating and was full of resentment. "This human named Lin's ability is too perfect for finding his way in illusions. I thought I was going to see a good show of people being trapped and breaking down, but nothing happened."

He said regretfully, "If this place were entirely controlled by this absurd system, it certainly wouldn't have provided this kind of personnel allocation. Hmph, that experience tester system... it's really getting in the way."

Yu Xing raised an eyebrow, realizing from Yi Qing's meaning that the Experience Master System was indeed in conflict with absurdity.

It's a pity he can't ask questions here. Once this simulation is over, he'll definitely have to ask Yiqing for advice in real life.

It'll be soon.

He estimated that once the demon daoist Lord's tomb was found, they would be able to decipher part of the secret to his resurrection, resolve the chaos in everyone's timelines, and end the deduction once the timelines returned to normal.

The timelines will definitely merge. Leaving aside the NP for now, these three outsiders, plus the possible outsiders from Oster Company, won't only complete the mission and return to reality in one timeline. The remaining timelines also have memories of the "outside". As outsiders, if they can't leave, it's equivalent to inexplicably losing the chance to complete the deduction and being trapped in the deduction forever.

Only unifying the timelines can solve this problem.

As for Ghost Tree, Yu Xing had a guess...

At the wall of heads, the system's attitude made him guess that the appearance of the Ghost Tree was not within the Absurdity System's expectations, or rather, the Absurdity System was aware of the Ghost Tree's role in the deduction, but had not intended to let the deducers come into contact with it.

Originally, this tree was well hidden. As long as the strategist knew of its existence and avoided it with fear, the Ghost Tree would not actively cause trouble for the strategist. It was too powerful and not something a strategist Yu Xing, who had not even reached the Mourning level, should come into contact with.

However, the Ghost Tree still appeared. It was related to the curse within Yu Xing's body and was more active than the Absurdity System had predicted. Yu Xing herself was an accident, but the main reason was probably the Experience Master System's doing.

The Absurd Deduction that entered this time were all Struggle Level deducers, not qualified to come into contact with the Ghost Tree. But the experience testers might be a different story. Perhaps the experience testers who entered were people much stronger than Yu Xing's current level, and were here specifically for the Ghost Tree?

Yu Xing's mind started racing. He recalled the image of a man in a trench coat that had flashed through his mind when he picked up the black suit doll, and he felt that the man must be very strong.

If that person's mission wasn't the demon daoist Tomb Palace, but the Ghost Tree, then everything that went out of control could be explained. He was completely implicated and only came into contact with the Ghost Tree's branches by chance, thus deducing some of the secrets about the curse within him.

It was a coincidence, yet it also seemed like an inevitable outcome.

Yu Xing remained silent for a long time, until Lin said, "We're out. Open your eyes."

He opened his eyes, startled by the sudden light, and squinted as he surveyed his new surroundings.

Behind him was the tomb passage he had just walked through, and ahead lay a vast underground palace.

None of the locked treasure chests in the palace caught Yu Xing's attention. He immediately noticed a large, protruding stone platform in the center of the palace, surrounded by exquisite and grand carvings that encircled a "throne".

On the throne, a woman sat with her legs crossed, smiling as she looked down at them with obvious contempt and seduction.

"You came faster than I expected. You modern-day tomb raiders are much smarter than those useless fools of the past."

The familiar voice echoed through the palace, ethereal yet dangerous.