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"That doesn't make sense." Little Bird immediately rejected the hypothesis. "The core technology for producing energy red blood cells and compressing the distance between atoms doesn't depend on that itself. If they wanted experimental materials, they could have built a laboratory elsewhere. Since they were covered in corpse bacteria, the source of contact must be inside the tombs. Some unexplained connection caused the infection."
She whipped her head toward Fayan Luo. "Are you sure the 'things' inside the tombs haven't been moved?"
Fayan Luo froze, recalling his earlier scans. "There were no signs of excavation. Religious beliefs run deep in South Asia. People regard the dead as spirits and deities, so there's no tradition of tomb robbing at all. Although my penetrating vision can see a hundred meters underground, I never thought to pry into the privacy of the dead."
"Did you inspect every tomb designated for national protection?"
"Yes. Every last one."
"Some ancient tombs are so old that their surface features vanished long ago. Sites dating back several thousand years, for instance, look no different from wasteland." Little Bird spoke faster. "You didn't check those, did you?"
Fayan Luo scratched his head, looking utterly innocent. "I have no interest in archaeology or history. I have no idea where thousand-year-old tombs are buried."
Little Bird sighed and quickly accessed South Asia's historical database while releasing a Little White Pigeon. Using coordinates recorded in historical documents, she directed the pigeon, equipped with a sonic detector and ground-penetrating radar, to conduct an exhaustive scan of the surrounding unexplored areas.
Meanwhile, deep within a mysterious underground palace a thousand miles away, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
Xun Uchiha was trapped at the center of a ring of eight weaponized robots, cold metal gleaming around him, death threatening from every side. With