However, no one paid any further attention to the doubts in their minds, for their attention had been drawn entirely to the stone wall before them-or, more precisely, the stone gate.
As the entire stone chamber trembled, cracking sounds rang out without pause. Quite a bit of rubble even fell from the ceiling of the chamber and the winding stairway they had descended.
At this point, even if the stone chamber really were about to collapse, it probably could not have shaken their resolve to stay and uncover its secrets.
The cracking grew louder and louder, and the stone chamber seemed to shake even more violently.
Yet everyone present was filled with excitement. This was the moment they had been waiting for.
With a bang, the stone gate in the wall began to rise slowly. It was about ten feet wide, rather small compared with the broad stone wall. However, they could see that it was very thick-at least several feet thick. A stone gate like this was clearly immensely heavy, far beyond what human strength could lift.
Everyone held their breath, their eyes fixed on everything before them, unwilling to miss a single change.
With a rumble, the stone gate finally stopped when it had risen thirty feet.
There was no telling who had built the stone gate mechanism here. Once the gate rose, it seemed to disappear completely into the stone wall, leaving no sign that an additional stone gate was inside it.
Thus, once the stone gate rose, a passage appeared behind it.
In fact, these experts had already suspected that there should be a passage or secret chamber behind it.
But they had not dared to destroy it with brute force. Leaving aside whether they could even break it open by force, if doing so destroyed