The four Skeleton Cavalry, riding tall Skeleton Horses, charged over first, with Skeleton Infantry following close behind. They came on menacingly!
Facing the charging skeletons, Zhao Fu remained calm. He raised the Bronze Military Talisman, and four beams of gray light shot into the Skeleton Cavalry's skulls. They stopped at once. The blue flames in their skulls flickered, then they turned around and began attacking the other skeletons.
The other skeletons were confused. How had their own suddenly become enemies? A short while later, Zhao Fu and his group had wiped them all out.
They continued exploring and encountered three more waves of skeletons. Zhao Fu successfully recruited ten more Skeleton Cavalry. He had planned to head back, but then he noticed a glimmer of light ahead. In the pitch-black passage, it stood out starkly.
Unable to resist their curiosity, the group pressed on. The passage gradually grew brighter, until the light became almost blinding. They shielded their eyes and kept going, eventually reaching the end of the passage and emerging into a vast space.
The space was a thousand meters high and more than thirty kilometers across. What made it terrifying was that its entire floor was buried beneath bones, forming a sea of skeletons. They came in all shapes and sizes, belonging to countless races: humans, Elves, angels, Orcs, demons...
There were so many different races that Zhao Fu even spotted the bones of a thousand-meter-long Dragon. It wasn't the Western kind, with leathery wings and a lizard-like body. This was a Divine Dragon of the East, with a long, serpentine body, deer antlers, gleaming Fish Scales, and the ability to fly through the sky without wings.
"What is this place?"
Everyone stared at the sight before them in shock, wondering in bewilderment what this place could be.
Then Zhao Fu noticed a huge altar ahead, over three hundred meters tall and ten thousand meters wide. He couldn't help moving toward it.
"Your Highness!"
Bai Qi called out to him in a grave warning.
Zhao Fu nodded. He knew this place was no ordinary place, but he still decided to go take a look. First of all, he wasn't worried that the bones here would turn into undead. If they could, the Terror Forest wouldn't exist—there wouldn't be a single living creature left in the entire forest.
Zhao Fu stepped inside. The bones crumbled like rotten wood with a sharp crack. As they moved forward, everyone kept a wary eye on their surroundings.
In the end, nothing happened, and they reached the foot of the altar.
Now they could see the altar clearly. It seemed to be built from pale green jade blocks, each of which contained mysterious, flowing runes. The entire structure gave off an ancient, mysterious aura.
Zhao Fu stepped onto the jade stairs. Nothing happened, and he dismissed the idea that this was an inheritance altar. The others followed him up, one by one, until they reached the top.
A gigantic array was carved into the altar's surface. Rows of jade slots surrounded it, each holding a crystal-like energy stone. There seemed to be more than a thousand of them.
Zhao Fu knew about these energy stones. They contained a great deal of energy, and each one seemed to cost twenty gold coins. Most of the stones in the slots had been drained, with only about a hundred retaining any energy.
Zhao Fu placed his hand on the altar and received a set of information.
[Heaven and Earth Refining Array] Description: One of the Six Heaven-Defying Arrays. Refines all things in the world and seizes their origin power.
The information shook Zhao Fu. One of the Six Heaven-Defying Arrays—just that description alone made it clear how powerful it was. It could refine all things and seize their origin power. His first thought was of the bones covering the place. He had an idea of what had happened, but wasn't sure yet.
From his elevated position, Zhao Fu glanced around and realized that there wasn't just one passage leading into this space. There were more than a thousand, just like the one his group had come through.
Zhao Fu said gravely, "That's enough for today. Let's head back. And no one is to talk about what happened here."
Seeing how serious Zhao Fu was, the others understood the gravity of the matter. They nodded and replied, "Yes!"
Then they all returned to the surface.
"Your Highness!"
As soon as Zhao Fu returned to the surface, Li Si hurried over, looking delighted. Zhao Fu asked in confusion, "What is it, Li Si?"
Li Si cupped his hands and replied, "Your Highness! A foreign race has come to pledge allegiance."
Zhao Fu was puzzled. What kind of foreign race would come forward to pledge allegiance? He followed Li Si to an open area in the village, where he saw more than thirty people, most of them about 1.3 meters tall. They had grayish skin, thick, powerful limbs, and looked otherwise much like ordinary people. These were Gray Dwarves, the lowest branch of Dwarf bloodlines.
About twenty of the Gray Dwarves were men, and a dozen or so were women and children. There were no elderly among them. They looked destitute, as if they had traveled a long way. Their clothes were covered in dirt and grass, and many of them were injured.
When the Gray Dwarves saw Li Si leading a young man over, they realized that he was the lord here. A middle-aged Gray Dwarf stepped forward and said, "Guhado la ka!"
[Prompt! Do you accept Solon's allegiance?]
The Gray Dwarf had said something Zhao Fu couldn't understand. It was probably Dwarven, and then a prompt rang out in his mind.
Without hesitation, Zhao Fu chose to accept!
Solon, the middle-aged Gray Dwarf, received the news that Zhao Fu had accepted them and beamed with joy. He dropped to one knee, and the other Gray Dwarves knelt with him, saying in unison, "We are grateful that Your Excellency, the esteemed Lord, has taken us in!"
"Everyone, get up."
Zhao Fu addressed the Gray Dwarves, and they all rose to their feet.
"Solon, what happened to you? Why are you in such a state?" Looking at the group's wretched condition, Zhao Fu asked in confusion.
Hearing Zhao Fu's question, Solon replied with anger and grief, "My lord! We were villagers from Kaji Village, a hundred li away. We had more than six hundred Gray Dwarves, but an Orc Tribe with a population of more than five thousand attacked us. Countless people in Kaji Village were killed or wounded. We're the only villagers who escaped!"
"Orcs?"
The name startled Zhao Fu. Orcs were an extremely aggressive race, and every one of them was strong and powerful, with a violent temperament. Ordinary humans generally stood no chance against them, and an Orc Tribe with a population of more than five thousand was even more dangerous.
Still, Zhao Fu didn't panic too much. The Orc Tribe was a hundred li away, so it wouldn't discover Great Qin Village right away. But he couldn't count on luck. Zhao Fu immediately called Bai Qi and the others to discuss the situation, while Li Si made arrangements for the newly arrived Gray Dwarves.