Sacred Candlestick

After the heart-stopping moment of nearly being "embraced with deep affection" by a trap beneath his feet, Xia Lin became even more careful as he walked, his eyes almost never leaving the faint dust kicked up behind Kasimir's heels.

The group continued exploring deeper into the mine.

This place had clearly been abandoned for a long time. Rough excavation marks could be seen everywhere on the cave walls, while the smell of mold and dampness in the air grew stronger.

Lila's Light Spell was their only source of illumination. The white glow struggled against the darkness, stretching everyone's shadows long and making them twist and dance across the uneven rock walls, adding an unsettling air to the place.

As they passed through an especially narrow passage barely wide enough for one person, Kasimir, who was walking at the front, suddenly raised a hand to signal the group to stop.

Without turning around, he simply extended one hand toward the rear of the group and said one word. "Rod."

Xia Lin was still wondering what kind of rod he wanted when Lila, at the back of the party, immediately understood.

She deftly pulled a long, delicate-looking rod made of multiple metal segments from the seemingly chaotic yet surprisingly capacious backpack on her back.

Lila pressed a mechanism, and the metal rod clicked several times before rapidly extending into a ten-foot-long Probing Rod.

Kasimir took the Probing Rod and carefully began tapping, poking, scraping, and probing the floor and walls of the narrow passage ahead.

Clink! The tip of the rod seemed to strike something hard.

Kasimir frowned slightly and tested it again from another angle.

Click. A nearly inaudible mechanical sound came from ahead, followed by the faint whir of gears turning.

"Pressure Plate. Triggered. Disarmed." Kasimir reported expressionlessly, then withdrew the Probing Rod and continued onward.

Xia Lin had glanced ahead as well, but [Item Appraisal] had given no warning. It seemed that hidden mechanical structures beneath the ground were indeed beyond the detection range of his current ability.

After passing through the narrow passage, the space ahead suddenly opened up into a slightly wider stone chamber.

At the center of the chamber sat an ancient-looking wooden Treasure Chest, its surface inlaid with tarnished brass trim.

The Treasure Chest had been placed so... conspicuously that it might as well have had "Open me, there's treasure inside" written on the lid.

"Heh. Kobold intelligence... always so plain and unpretentious." Barrett crossed his arms and sneered at the chest. "Lila, rope."

Hearing that, Lila instinctively began rummaging through her backpack. After searching for a while, her pretty face flushed slightly. She stuck out her tongue and said quietly, "Uh... Brother Barrett, the spare rope... seems to have run out. I forgot to restock it..."

Barrett's expression immediately darkened as he prepared to lash out.

"I have some." Xia Lin quickly untied the coil of hemp rope he had just bought from his waist and handed it over.

Barrett took the rope, shot Lila an irritated glare, then swiftly tied a slipknot. Standing at a safe distance, he gave it a hard toss, and the loop precisely caught one of the Treasure Chest's handles.

He took a deep breath and yanked backward!

Several sharp whistles tore through the air!

Short arrows gleaming with an eerie green light shot out from cracks in the walls around the Treasure Chest.

They struck viciously into the spot where the chest had originally been and along the path it had been dragged through.

The eerie green color on the arrowheads clearly meant they had been coated with deadly poison.

"See? Those little bastards only know how to pull this kind of dirty trick." Barrett curled his lip disdainfully. Only after the Poisoned Arrows had finished firing did he drag the Treasure Chest into a safe area.

Xia Lin looked at the Poisoned Arrows still trembling slightly and felt his heart tighten again.

When he had examined the Treasure Chest earlier, [Item Appraisal] had only identified the chest itself—an ordinary old wooden box, locked. It had not detected the wall-mounted poisoned arrow trap linked to it at all.

It seemed that [Item Appraisal] also had limited detection ability when it came to complex linked traps made up of multiple components.

Unless he could pinpoint the trigger mechanism itself, there was no way for him to spot it.

Sometimes, an experienced hand was more useful than any flashy ability.

Barrett opened the Treasure Chest. There were no gold or silver treasures inside, only some scattered copper coins, several low-quality Raw Magic Crystals, and some shiny junk collected by Kobolds.

Even so, it counted as a small haul. Barrett pocketed the copper coins and crystals without even glancing at the other junk.

After dealing with the Treasure Chest, the group continued onward.

The mine began to grow more complicated, with more and more branching paths.

Finally, after going around a massive rock pillar that had partially collapsed, they arrived at an extremely spacious underground area.

This place seemed to have once been a major hub of the mine. Several tunnels of varying sizes connected to it from all sides, and the ground was relatively flat. They could even see several Iron Rails, long rusted and half-buried beneath dust.

"Iron Rails?" Xia Lin looked at the remnants of the tracks in surprise. "Was this place originally that large?"

"Who knows? Maybe hundreds of years ago, this was still a place where people could dig up gold."

Barrett answered casually, but he was more concerned with the traces on the ground.

He crouched down and carefully examined the dense mix of old and fresh footprints, then sniffed the air. Finally, he pointed toward a relatively wide tunnel at the front left. "The main group should have gone this way. The smell is strongest here, and the footprints are the most numerous and freshest."

The four of them lightened their steps again and cautiously followed the direction Barrett indicated.

Before they had gone far, faint, noisy cries of "yi-yi-ya-ya" drifted from ahead, along with firelight flickering deep within the tunnel.

They approached the corner and carefully peeked around it.

The sight before them made Xia Lin's pupils contract slightly.

It was a natural Cavern far larger than any space they had encountered before.

At the center of the Cavern stood a crude altar haphazardly piled together from charred river stones and a great many unidentified bones.

The surface of the altar was covered in mottled stains that looked like dried blood. Around its base lay disturbing "offerings"—piles of teeth, ugly little dolls tied together from rags and hair, rusted fragments of ironware, and several humanoid skulls gnawed completely clean.

Yet in stark contrast to this crude, filthy altar brimming with primal evil was the flame quietly burning at its peak.

The flame was golden.

A pure, brilliant gold, as though it had condensed the essence of sunlight.

It burned with extraordinary steadiness, without the slightest flicker or sway, radiating warm light that also carried an inexplicable majesty.

Within this deep, deathly silent underground Cavern, the very existence of this Golden Flame seemed incredibly abrupt, even faintly sacred.

Its light scattered the shadows around the altar, draping the entire Cavern in a thin golden radiance.

But when that radiance fell upon the wildly writhing Kobolds and those filthy offerings, it only made the absurdity and discordance of it all stand out even more.

Dozens of Kobolds—far more than they had seen anywhere along the way—were packed densely around the altar.

They had no organization, yet their movements were eerily synchronized as they followed the unusual individual standing before the altar, bathed in the most intense golden firelight, performing some primitive and frenzied ritual.

That leading Kobold was slightly larger than the others and wore more bizarre "ornaments": several grimy black feathers, perhaps from crows or vultures, were stuck into its head; around its neck hung a necklace strung with tiny finger bones, polished stones, and broken mirror shards; in its hands, it gripped a Bone Staff made from the leg bone of some enormous reptile, its head set with a cracked yellow eyeball-like stone that gleamed with an oily sheen.

It was the center of this mad ritual.

On one hand, it rhythmically struck the ground with its Bone Staff, producing dull thump, thump, thump echoes. On the other, it let out a string of strange chants from deep within its throat, rising and falling amid hisses, clicks, and sharp gasps.

There was no melody to the sound at all, yet it seemed to be calling for something.

Under its lead, the surrounding Kobolds fell into a feverish state of collective hysteria.

Some struck the ground or their own chests with stones, creating chaotic rhythms. Others shook crude rattles made from small beast skulls and pebbles.

Even more of them twisted their small bodies as though convulsing, or crawled on the ground, bowing and worshipping the unbelievable Golden Flame while making "yi-yi-ya-ya" responses filled with fear and excitement.

Xia Lin watched this scene, which completely defied common sense, swallowed hard, and felt his scalp prickle.

"What did Lila say she needed to collect before? Gnoll Candle?" A flash of inspiration struck Xia Lin, and an utterly absurd thought surfaced in his mind.

Could these guys be worshipping an especially huge, especially bright giant candle as a god?