Sun Fei ran quickly and soon arrived at the end of the passage, where a bright and open space opened up before him.
A vast, unbelievable space appeared before Sun Fei's eyes. At first glance, it gave one the illusion of having stepped out of a tunnel or maze and onto the ground. This space was many times larger than [ City of Heroes ]. Looking up, one could not see the horizon; it was just pitch black. However, with the help of a faint light emanating from somewhere, one could see that a thousand meters away, there was a white, pyramid-like structure, five or six hundred meters high. The diameter of its base was at least a thousand meters, decreasing towards the top until it became a point less than a meter high. The entire structure was eerily white, with faint, flickering blue flames within it. The whole scene was indescribably sinister and terrifying, extremely unsettling.
Whoosh--!
A burst of chaotic elemental light shot out from the short-handled staff in Sun Fei's hand.
The next second, the sound of flapping wings came, and a huge black Raven with a wingspan of over a meter suddenly appeared above Sun Fei's head. It circled a few times affectionately, landed on Sun Fei's shoulder, and then nestled close to Sun Fei's ear and chirped softly, like a child coaxing its parents. Sun Fei smiled and teased the Raven, then spoke a few words in a mysterious language. The Raven chirped happily, then flapped its wings and flew higher and higher, quickly disappearing into the darkness above.
The three white giant wolves, having received Sun Fei's command, swiftly darted into the distant space and began searching everywhere.
Sun Fei then began to carefully examine everything in front of him.
This space was not completely dark. A faint glow emanated from the white tower-like structure in the distance, and the ground beneath our feet was cracked with fine, dense fissures, each about the width of a fist, with a very uniform width, like an intricately woven spider web. These fissures were very deep, and faint red flames emanated from them, providing some light to this mysterious, empty space.
Using the faint light, Sun Fei began to carefully observe this mysterious and enormous space.
He soon discovered that, unlike the previous monotonous and simple passageway, there were finally traces of buildings in this space. On the ground, there were Dashi, about ten meters in diameter, standing or lying down. These stone pillars had some simple horizontal and vertical lines and patterns on them, which were obviously carved by hand. The styles of the stone pillars were also quite complicated. Some were rhomboid, some were cylindrical, and some were square. Each of these stone pillars was at least twenty or thirty meters high, and a complete one weighed at least tens of thousands of kilograms. They stood sparsely in the space. If you looked closely, you would find that they were distributed in a very strange pattern, which perfectly surrounded the terrifying white tower-like object in the very center of the space.
Sun Fei carefully observed these magnificent stone pillars and soon discovered something unusual—all the stone pillars that had fallen to the ground had been knocked down by some enormous force. Some of them broke into several pieces after falling to the ground, and were covered with scratches from swords and knives. Some of the scratches also seemed to have been made by the claws of some kind of animal. Sun Fei even found several obvious fist marks on a few stone pillars.
These stone pillars were made of extremely hard stone, unlike anything Sun Fei had ever seen before. He transformed into his [ Giant Bear Form ] and concentrated all his strength to strike the stone pillar with a single palm. As a level 21 druid, he already possessed the power of Three-Star Class Peak Stage. After transforming into Werebear form, his power doubled, reaching the power of Five-Star Class Initial Stage. Such power was astonishing. To his surprise, this palm strike didn't even leave a white mark on the stone pillar.
"This..."
Sun Fei gasped, his heart leaping in shock at the discovery. To leave fist imprints on such a stone pillar, one would need at least a six- or seven- Star Class expert. Who could have accomplished this? Moreover, it was clear that the pillar was covered with countless sword and fist imprints, indicating that they weren't made by the same person. This meant that countless six- or seven- Star Class experts had once fought here... What kind of place was this?
With these doubts in mind, Sun Fei continued to observe, and the more he looked, the more alarmed he became.
He discovered more and more signs of battle on the stone pillars behind them. Some of the Dashi had even been casually struck and broken in two, collapsing to the ground... What level of expert could have created such marks? Moon Class expert? Sun-Rank Venerable?
The complexity of the matter seemed to have far exceeded Sun Fei's expectations.
"Quack quack quack quack--!!!"
Just then, they overheard the cawing of a Raven.
Sun Fei's heart skipped a beat, and he switched his gaze to the Raven.
In an instant, a jagged mountain range appeared before them, covering the entire top of their heads. Sun Fei directed the Raven to fly several thousand meters in all directions, but the entire top of their heads remained an endless expanse of Rock, like a giant Rock dome overturned above their heads. Sun Fei was not mistaken; this was still some underground space, or the interior of some enormous mountain range.
I never imagined that such a strange place would be located deep within the tunnel.
Sun Fei surveyed the area above and around him, his gaze finally settling on the magnificent white tower-like structure in the center of the space. Perhaps there were more clues hidden there.
However, as Sun Fei slowly approached the white giant tower, he gradually realized that something was wrong.
The faint blue flames flickering atop the white tower had no heat whatsoever; they were... ghost fire?! Sun Fei was startled. He quickly walked to the tower and, using the glow of his armor, took a closer look. He was immediately stunned—this was no white tower at all, but a dense mountain of bones. This tower-like structure, seven or eight hundred meters high, was entirely composed of countless piles of white bones.
Sun Fei felt a chill run down his spine, as if an invisible, icy hand was gently stroking him. His hair stood on end. All the horror movies he'd seen in his past life, like those about the haunted village and the old zombies, flooded his mind. How many skeletons would it take to build such a massive mountain of bones? Even slaughtering tens of thousands of humans wouldn't be enough.
Having calmed down a bit, Sun Fei observed carefully.
But the more Sun Fei looked, the more horrified he became. He discovered that the bones forming this mountain of bones were exceptionally hard; even with Sun Fei strength, he couldn't crush them. They were like white, refined steel. Moreover, the mountain of bones was stacked very neatly, with each layer of bones seemingly piled up by hand, firmly embedded in the mountain, displaying a harmonious beauty of architecture and art. There wasn't a speck of dust on the bones; they were spotless and pristine, clearly not naturally formed, but rather as if they had just been artificially constructed and piled up.
"Could it be that this mountain of bones was only recently built? Does that mean there are other living people or creatures here?" This thought sent a chill down Sun Fei Sun Fei to the perspective of the giant Raven he had Summon and directed Raven to carefully observe the top of the mountain several times, but he still found no signs of any living creatures.
"To build such a bone mountain, it would require at least tens of thousands of laborers. It's impossible that it would leave no trace. This is truly strange..." After another hour, Sun Fei even climbed to the top of the bone mountain to observe, but still found no living beings.
However, he also made new discoveries during this process.
This mountain of bones wasn't entirely composed of human remains. During his 'climb,' Sun Fei discovered many enormous, intact bones, exceeding thirty or forty meters in length, clearly left behind by some gigantic creature. Although there wasn't a single complete skeleton on the mountain, besides these giant skeletons, Sun Fei also found many skeletons with structures that were definitely not human—some incredibly slender, others excessively thick... However, these skeletons shared a common characteristic: they were all extremely hard. Sun Fei couldn't even find a single bone that he could break with his current strength.
There is only one explanation for this phenomenon --
The owner of the skeleton must have been a super expert whose strength far exceeded that of Star-Rank Warrior. Only such a strong person could forge their bones to be harder than steel. Even after death, when the blood and bones decay, the bones can be preserved for thousands of years, unlike the bones of ordinary people which become loose and brittle after a few decades.
This speculation left Sun Fei in disbelief.
In other words, the bones that make up this mountain of bones are all the remains of super-strong individuals who died in ways far beyond what he could have imagined. But the problem is, where can he find so many super-strong individuals? To build a mountain of bones of this size, he would need the remains of at least tens of thousands of living beings... Tens of thousands of super-strong individuals died here? How is that possible? The number of such powerful individuals could probably be counted on one hand in the entire Zenit kingdom.
This is practically a graveyard for the strong!
Sun Fei pulled a two-meter-long, curved, skeletal skeleton of a mysterious, unknown creature from the mountain of bones. He casually swung it twice in the air, producing a sharp, piercing sound, then leaped up and slashed down, striking a distant stone pillar. Sparks flew like metal striking metal. He wiped the skeleton in his hand and clicked his tongue, exclaiming, "Incredible! Bones like this could be used to make weapons! If every soldier in Chambord City had a piece of this, it would be comparable to any divine weapon!"
Sun Fei suddenly realized that these bones seemed to be quite valuable!
Today is the Beginning of Winter, a significant festival in my hometown. I was invited to a dinner party by my school colleagues, and they insisted on dragging me along, saying they wanted to meet this semi-cultured person. I had no choice but to go.