As he stepped through the doorway, Zhao Feng removed the finger bone and put it back in the jade box. It might prove useful again someday.
After entering the great hall, Zhao Feng and Su Qingwan found that its interior was far larger than it had appeared from outside, spanning several hundred zhang.
At the same time, they sensed a strange power spreading through the hall, as though it came from the distant past.
"There's something strange about this place," Su Qingwan said softly.
Zhao Feng looked ahead at two enormous stone pillars nearby. Each was so thick that it would take three or four people joining hands to encircle it. The pillars were pitch-black, made of the same material as the door, and their surfaces were densely covered in totems. Those totems flickered in and out of sight in the dim light, their lines twisted and uncanny, like records left by some ancient civilization.
The hall's floor consisted of smooth black stone slabs, each roughly a zhang square. The gaps between them were too narrow to admit even a blade. Zhao Feng pressed his boot against the floor. It felt hard and cold, unlike any stone he had ever encountered.
The entire hall lay in deathly silence.
Zhao Feng understood what she meant. This environment suggested that the hall had been sealed for an exceedingly long time. Time itself seemed to have frozen here, preserving everything exactly as it had been when the hall was closed.
The two slowly advanced along the hall's central axis.
The enormous Stone Pillars on either side passed behind them one after another, each covered in different totems. Zhao Feng noticed that the totems seemed to follow a sequence—from simple lines and geometric patterns near the entrance to increasingly complex, concrete images farther inside.