In the deep cave, a huge pottery figurine broke up, like a new life coming out of a cocoon; it revealed a long, tentacle-like serpent tail from the fragments, and that serpent tail was its head. It shook a few times, breaking the remaining pieces of pottery and revealing its whole body.
Zhuo Yu also finally saw this strange thing.
It wasn’t a terracotta figurine, but more like a hardened cocoon, with exquisite patterns on top that were also the patterns of a living organism. But the monster that emerged from the cocoon exceeded everyone’s imagination.
This thing was like a man and like a snake; its skin seemed to have suffered intense nuclear radiation; there was almost no complete skin; its slippery red muscle was exposed in the air and was also mixed with broken snake scales and human body hair. The limp limbs couldn’t support it to walk upright; like a reddish-brown earthworm on the ground, it quickly wriggled; rather than a snake, it was more like a living strip of human flesh.
“The Bride…”
“The bride who will be offered to the king…”
The large mouth in its belly was making a hissing low growl, and its twisted limbs coiled up, aiming its head at Zhuo Yu as if it was going to catapult up the next second.
What was worse was that the countless terracotta figurines on both sides of the aisle were also breaking apart.
[Monster Update: Yao.
Yao: Humans alienated by the Great Being, genetically fused with snakes. After a long chrysalis period, they are hungry for food, and all humans are their first choice for quality food, providing them with fresh homologous DNA. While fed, Yaos mutate into more powerful monsters, more the product of genetic engineering than mythological creatures.]
Genetic engineering? This ultra-ancient civilisation also had genetic engineering?
Liu Jingyun was extremely fast; she came to Zhuo Yu’s side silently like a real assassin, and when the snake whip was flung at Zhuo Yu, she used all her strength and chopped off that dirty and horrible tail with a single slash, and fishy blo-od splattered all over the place.
Long Ran looked squarely at Liu Jingyun for the first time; he nodded slightly to the girl, then he increased his speed and ran towards the end of the passage.
Unfortunately, those things broke through the cocoon much faster, and in a few seconds, their front and back were surrounded by the bizarre contraption.
Half of the twenty to thirty people in the team were so scared that their faces turned pale and they shivered like chaff, and some of them directly cried in fear, sitting paralysed on the ground not knowing what to do.
Long Ran frowned tightly. He put Zhuo Yu on his back and instructed, “Don’t move; I will protect you.”
He was still uneasy, so he unhooked the dagger from his waist and handed it to Zhuo Yu.
After Long Ran did this, he then looked around.
After his sharp eyes locked onto the nearest target, he ascended the wall with a few assisted steps. Long Ran turned sharply in mid-air and kicked the monster’s spine with a whip kick. The monster was flung a few meters away and smashed hard on the wall.
It convulsed a few times and then didn’t move.
The monster’s spine was shattered.
Long Ran was like a swift, agile, and deadly panther, constantly roaming amongst the monsters. Zhuo Yu simply couldn’t take his eyes off of him because this man was just too fluid; he was obviously k-illing those creatures, yet he looked so ethereal.
Those monsters were like molluscs, but they still had human underpinnings that also had joints; even snakes relied on joints for movement, but there was a limit to the angle they could bend.
Every monster that Long Ran passed by was accurately dealt with like he was a master in a slaughterhouse; all of a sudden he was able to feel their weak points, followed by a twist of his hands, directly twisting and breaking the limbs in the opposite direction, a gut-wrenching technique.
Those monsters had already changed from shouting how hungry they were to a bunch of them shouting in pain!
All of them had their joints broken by Long Ran, paralysed on the ground and unable to take another step, but Long Ran didn’t even break a drop of sweat; he rushed Liu Jingyun and said in a loud voice, “Knife!”
Liu Jingyun understood and immediately pulled away from the monster and threw her straight sword towards Long Ran.
On Long Ran’s side, a large swath of monsters had already fallen. With the knife, he used the back to crack the cervical vertebrae behind the neck of every monster that had lost its mobility; after all, the knife wasn’t his, and if he cut the monsters with the blade, he would probably ruin the blade within a few moves.
More than fifty monsters, centred around Zhuo Yu, died, all of which were accomplished by Long Ran alone.
Not only the scholars, even the martial artists looked dumbfounded; they only knew that Long Ran was strong, but they didn’t expect him to be strong to this extent. Wasn’t it true that as long as he wanted to, all the people in this team could also be k-illed by him in a few minutes?
The crowd surged not only with gratitude but also with fear.
The audience also screamed for this scene.
[This NPC is too strong!]
[Even though the movie is difficult, there are many powerful NPCs].
[Look at this; I told you that this Zhuo Yu is a white boy; isn’t this living by hugging a thigh again?]
[I threw up; I really like Dong Yao’s type of self-reliance.]
[You guys are asking too much of a disabled person, haha.]
[A useless person deserves to die. Do you think he’s any use other than dragging their feet?]
[Bullsh-it, Zhuo Yu’s got a good head on his shoulders. You guys don’t know him at all.]
[The monster should eat that little white boy quickly; he’s distracting.]
[This little brother is too cool, but it’s a pity that he has a forgettable face; otherwise, he’d be a highly popular NPC!]
[Eh, yeah, what does that little brother look like?]
[I just took a shallow sip of CP, Asha, I’m sorry.]
However, Zhuo Yu didn’t sit there being protected for nothing; he was flying back to his memories.
Snake people, pottery figurines…
There seemed to be something similar in his character’s memory.
As a professor, Zhuo Yu had travelled to the northeast to investigate the ruins of the nomadic tribes in his early years, but these people, who were already ancient and even disappeared into history, had recorded even more ancient legends.
In their folklore, they recorded a strange disease called “Yao” that had been passed down in prehistory.
A person suffering from the Yao disease would at first have a wooden mouth and tongue and would not be able to speak but could only make hissing sounds. Subsequently, the person’s limbs became weak, and he couldn’t walk and couldn’t even carry a ladle of water; in the end, he couldn’t eat and could only lie down like a dead man.
At this stage, the patient’s skin became hard, so hard that it looked like it was made of pottery, and that was called chrysalis. The pupae at this stage were oddly shaped and capable of being buried for thousands of years if they weren’t actively disturbed.
Many patients suffering from Yao disease were buried at this stage, as most people believe that after complete hardening, the person was dead. But unbeknownst to them, this was an important part of their transformation into their life form.
Those who had seen the Yao chrysalis break out of its cocoon were rare, so it was better to say that at the end of the day, the Yao Disease had disappeared without a trace because the legendary ancient civilisation was wiped out by this disease, and with everyone infected with it, death was only a matter of time.
No one knew where the Yao had come from or how the Yao would survive after they had broken out of their cocoon.
But now Zhuo Yu knew.
These things ate people.
In this pyramid, there were so many Yao chrysalises buried; could it be that the ancient civilisation in the myths and legends was Mount Ming, where they were at the moment?
“Too many to k-ill.” Long Ran saw the situation at a glance. After he cleared the open space in front of him, he picked up Zhuo Yu on his back and ran towards the exit. Everyone followed him for fear of being left behind.
But there were always unlucky people.
A middle-aged man in the group tripped over a pottery piece and was soon surrounded by a Yao. The snake wrapped its tail around his limbs, then opened its big mouth and bit into the man’s belly, tearing open his most nutritious internal organs and chewing them with a creaking sound.
The man was still alive when he was eaten.
But no one even cared about this blo-ody scene; all the members were running forward, with no time to be distracted.
The light at the entrance was getting more and more blinding, which meant that they were almost there. Long Ran carrying Zhuo Yu was the first to reach the end. Zhuo Yu looked around the hall with his head held high and was almost blinded by the sudden bright and magnificent light.
“Oh my… oh my, I never thought I would see such a wonderful sight in my lifetime…” The curator, Li Chuanning, who followed over, not only didn’t close his eyes, instead he widened his eyes greedily and took the scenery into his eyes, as if he were licking this wonder with his gaze.
The Yaos were similarly shaken by the blinding light, and they seemed to be very afraid of this place, lingering around at the end of the long corridor and eventually giving up the chase.
The archaeological team survived.
Zhuo Yu gradually adapted to the harsh light before the scenery in front of him became clearer, and the scene that came into his eyes made him also reveal an expression of amazement.
They entered the first level of the pyramid, which was covered in golden sacred trees. The largest one was over ten meters high, and the smallest one was as tall as a human. The sacred tree had seven levels, with seven branches on each level, each wrapped around a snake made of gold. The snake was lifelike, with golden scales and gorgeous patterns on its branches. A total of forty-nine fruits hung at the end.
The fruit was even more exquisite; it was crystal clear as if it were made of crystal, and the shape of a small baby could be faintly seen inside.
“Tree of Life!” Zhuo Yu blurted out.
“What?!” Li Chuanning looked at Zhuo Yu. “Might as well tell us about it?”
“There are many, many primitive tribes who believe that their souls were conceived by the Tree of Life and that the souls are lodged in the head after birth, so cutting off a person’s head symbolises harvesting the soul. The Tree of Life is similar in many religions, such as the Kabbalah Tree and the Tree of Igdrasil in Norse mythology. The Wa people in China also have a head-hunting custom that has been passed down for a long time.”
“The Rockefeller family, one of the three major corporations in the world, had a young son who studied archaeology. He was eaten by can-nibalistic primitive tribes in New Guinea because those primitive people valued the fruits on trees. If outsiders ate the fruits, it symbolised eating the souls of their ancestors and preventing them from reincarnating.”
Zhuo Yu carefully examined the crystal fruit. “This tree also has a baby-like shape in its fruit; the probability is that it is a tradition that this civilisation believes in, that is, the Tree of Life that is legendary all over the world.”
Zhuo Yu thought to himself, This pyramid wouldn’t be used for rituals, would it? Otherwise, why build such a huge scale of the sacred tree placed here to worship?
In fact, China had long unearthed a variety of sacred trees, the most famous of which was the bronze sacred tree at Sanxingdui. However, it was made of bronze, and the golden tree in front of them was even larger and more exquisite. Standing under the tree would make people feel how small they were.
And the tree was really exquisite; he could almost see the veins carved out clearly, and the shape was extremely beautiful, like a carefully designed, perfect geometric pattern.
This kind of craftsmanship couldn’t be produced by modern man.
Everyone stood under the Sacred Tree Forest; all of them were shocked and speechless.
Suddenly, Zhuo Yu remembered the nightmare.
In his dream, he arrived at an altar and lay in a coffin, unaware of his life or death. The pattern on the coffin was exactly like the Golden Tree.
This matter was by no means as simple as a dream.
“My life is worth it; even if I die here, before I die, I can see such an ancient and modern civilisation product; it is a death without regret.” An archaeologist shed hot tears of excitement.
A tomb robber suddenly spoke, “Is this tree pure gold?”
The crowd snapped to attention.
The gold reserves here were too amazing; all would have an impact on the international price of gold. Just the first layer of the divine tree, without considering its historical and technological value, the value couldn’t be estimated; even dozens of Bill Gates combined…
The ten-meter-high Golden Tree was connected to a forest… What kind of wealth was this?
In the eyes of the tomb robbers, the overly hot greed was about to overflow.
Just when Zhuo Yu felt bad, one of the archaeologists suddenly let out an “ouch.” The crowd looked over and found that his nose was bleeding.
Old Qin said, “Even if you see so much gold, you shouldn’t be so excited that your nose bleeds.”
But before he could finish his sentence, another teammate had a nosebleed, dripping onto the ground.
Zhuo Yu looked towards the ground, and only then did he realise that the green glittering on the ground wasn’t grass at all, but an entire layer of skeleton fragments that were emitting a green glittering light.
Not only was that skeleton glowing, the surrounding walls were also inlaid with huge, densely packed luminous stones, and the fluorescence they emitted made the hall of the divine tree as bright as day, and the intertwining of glittering colour and gold was what made the light here so psychedelic and dazzling.
And if it was Luminolite… Zhuo Yu remembered correctly, most of them were radioactive.
In 1902, the famous chemist and physicist Madame Curie extracted 0.1 grammes of a brand new element, radium, from asphalt.
This discovery shocked the entire scientific community, and in the next year, Madame Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize, and she began to dive into applying the radioactivity of the element radium in the fight against cancer. However, because there was no advanced sense of protection at that time and age, Madame Curie died of malignant leukaemia after prolonged exposure to radioactive elements.
After her death, the capitalists not only did not pay attention to the danger of radium but also opened the most sinful marketing in the history of mankind.
Radium was packaged as a miracle cure for all diseases, whitening and beautifying for women, aphrodisiac for men, prolonging the life of the elderly, and stimulating the brain of children; in short, radium was everywhere at that time.
People used radium-plated cups to drink water, women used radium-containing face masks, and some tycoons drank more than 1,000 cups of radium water for health care, and they finally melted to the bones; even their remains emitted green light, and it hadn’t faded even after a hundred years.
In the end, it was a group of female workers in a watch factory who used radium paint to coat watch hands with green light who revealed the truth.
Because of the long-term radiation, their noses began to bleed, they had hair loss, teeth loss, and finally even their jaws fell off their faces. countless female workers became the victims of the capitalists; in their most beautiful ages, they had miserable deaths.
This discovery finally broke the “Radium” scam.
Now, the broken bones that emitted green fluorescence and covered the whole pyramid under Zhuo Yu were the evidence of radium.
He looked up sharply and found that the walls were densely packed with night pearls—no, it should be called “radium beads,” each with a diameter of one meter, mercilessly radiating nuclear radiation that could make humans collapse from the cellular level.
Those female workers were only exposed to radium-containing paint, but now Zhuo Yu’s group was directly exposed to high-intensity radiation.
“This is a gold tree, ah, if we can take out a tree…” One of the tomb robbers couldn’t finish speaking, he felt like there was something foreign in his mouth. He spat out a lump with a “bah “sound, and upon closer inspection, it turned out to be his own teeth, covered in melted gum.
Gold? Gold was just a cheap commodity in the face of such a large amount of radiation.
A gramme of radium was worth ten million dollars back then, and even in today’s 90 years, it was worth a million dollars.
All the wealth that fell from the sky may be hidden blo-odthirsty traps waiting for you to step on.
“There is radiation here; don’t stay long!” Zhuo Yu shouted loudly.
But where else could they run to? The entire first-floor hall was filled with radiation-shattered bones, and the only exit was the passageway filled with Yaos; they were already surrounded. If they stayed for another half an hour, even they, the actors who had strengthened their physiques and exchanged their skills, would die here, and it would be a very miserable death.
“Look up there.” Long Ran voiced out, pointing his finger towards the sacred tree. “This is only the first level; there are other spaces on the tree.”
The crowd looked along with the direction of their fingers and realised that above the tallest and largest Golden God Tree was the ceiling of the first level, and Liu Jingyun was like a godly warrior as she lifted the backpack on her back and said excitedly, “There’s help! I’ve picked up the materials of the construction team over at the pool of water; look guys!”
In her hands, she was holding three tubes that were wrapped in several layers, and the inscription on them was “Expanded Ammonium Nitrate Expl-osive.”.
This kind of expl-osive was mostly used for targeted blasting in mines, and the construction team used them to break open the mountain to place the shield machine, which became a lifesaver for everyone at this time.
Even Zhuo Yu looked at Liu Jingyun in amazement and gave her a thumbs up.
[Guild channel.
[Zhuo Yu: True to form, well done.]
[Liu Jingyun: Hehehe, who can resist gathering tools?]
“Who climbs trees fast? Send someone up there to glue the backing of the explo-sives to the ceiling so we can get to the second floor!” Luo Musheng patted Liu Jingyun’s shoulder hard, “Lucky star.”
Seeing the urgency of the situation, Wang Dazhi took the initiative to step forward and say, “I’ll do it.”
He took the explo-sive from Liu Jingyun’s hand and boldly held it in his mouth; then he stretched his arms around the trunk of the tree, stomped his feet into the hollow, and steadily began to climb up.
Wang Dazhi was fast, and he angled his head to look for the next landing spot, only for Zhuo Yu to discover subtleties.
There was a circle of things around his neck that was slightly skinned by the water, and some of the edges were rolled up. It looks very much like a light and skin-friendly leather cover.
Right, this guy was an actor; couldn’t he have gotten props like a human skin mask?
Wang Dazhi, who had climbed halfway, suddenly felt a chill on his neck; a slight cold wind blew in through a small gap, and his mask opened.
Wang Dazhi, also known as Dong Yao, suddenly panicked for a split second, holding the branch with one arm, trying to use his other hand to stick the skin of his neck back on, or else the mask would crumble open in its entirety later on, but it was this movement of greater amplitude that made his elbow accidentally bump into the fruit of the Golden Sacred Tree.
Jingle- Jingle-
The crystal sphere continuously collided with the tire-shaped ornaments inside, and the eerie ringing of the bells spread throughout the entire Golden Tree Forest.
The golden snakes coiled on the branches seemed to move.
The sound of fluttering followed, and Dong Yao could only hear the people below shouting at him to “run.”.
At this moment, the forest looked like it was raining gold, with countless golden scales falling from the sky, formed when the snakes guarding the golden tree were awakened and twisted their bodies to the point that the gold paint on their bodies fell off.
There were forty-nine snakes on one tree, and in this forest, there must have been hundreds of golden sacred trees.
Before long, the ones that fell came to be more than just gold.
“Snakes!!! There are snakes falling!!!” There was a girl who was literally screaming for her life, as it so happened that a mottled venomous snake had fallen into her neck and was constantly swimming in her clothes.
In a moment’s time, a dense group of snakes also pounced on the dumplings from the pot and fell towards the tree, instinctively using the warmth of their cheeks to search for enemies. Not only did Zhuo Yu and others on the ground suffer, even Dong Yao on the tree was targeted by several snakes at the same time.
Damn, it was all because of that curse!
Dong Yao was literally in agony; he was cursed in his last match, and the set only gave actors free repairs for physical damage; this kind of soul-level damage needed flame points to fix it.
However, Dong Yao had spent all his flame points before entering the movie and came out with only a C grade, so he simply didn’t have the money to cure it.
Originally, he didn’t take it too seriously because the content of the curse was just “bad luck.”.
Yes, it was just bad luck, Dong Yao thought. How bad could it be? Getting a C rating was already a disgrace in his life.
Unexpectedly, this dog could give him an even bigger blow.
He couldn’t even clench his back teeth even if he wanted to, because there was an explosive in his mouth. Dong Yao could only hatefully climb upwards, trying to pull away from the vipers, but those snakes were very agile, their bellies clinging to the tree branches as they flew close to their prey.
The crowd on the ground was even worse; the broken fluorescent light had already been flooded by the swimming carpet laid by the vipers, and the colour of the flowers and greens was dizzying to look at, indicating the fierceness of their toxicity.
Right now there was no place to land; they could only climb up the tree before the snakes completely surrounded them.
Liu Jingyun shouted upwards, “Move fast! It’s not going to hold up down there!!!”
However, something even worse happened, as the tunnel filled with people suddenly heard the sound of collisions and cries of pain. In no time, a massive monster formed by several merged individuals rushed out, and they also heard the ringing of the sacred tree fruit.
Luo Musheng hurriedly pushed Long Ran towards the tree as he chopped off the poisonous snake that landed at his feet, his two eyebrows tightly furrowed.
Storms, pythons, venomous snakes, radiation, and monsters were constantly emerging, all of which left no place for people to survive. Even movies from high-difficulty areas shouldn’t be so difficult, right?
Luo Musheng shouted, “Take Zhuo Yu and climb quickly; that monster ate something and started mutating after ingesting fresh!”
At this moment, Dong Yao in the sky above had also finally climbed to the top of the divine tree and attached the explosive/powder to the ceiling.
It was life or death; success or failure was at stake!
TN:
See ya tomorrow ✌️
Thank you for the update~
Thanks for the update