Chapter 620: Chapter 620: Ruins
The runes flickered like breathing, each flicker causing the surrounding space to ripple like water, accompanied by a hum as deep as an ancient sigh.
The runes interlinked, vaguely forming a massive Witch Array, incomplete yet still exuding an overwhelming might, covering an area of hundreds of ters.
At the core of the Witch Array, the space twisted visibly, light being torn and reassembled there, as if an invisible giant hand was struggling to pry open a crack in a door to an unknown era.
Around the relic that was about to erge from the earth, silhouettes of all kinds had long gathered.
At a glance, there were roughly thirty to forty people.
These people either gathered in groups, occupying advantageous positions, or hid in the shadows like Duke, observing alone.
They were all on high alert with each other, the atmosphere tense as a bowstring.
Everyone knew approximately what was about to happen here; this was likely a relic soon to surface.
None intended to take action imdiately, at least not yet.
The darkest monts before dawn, thick as dense ink, soaked through the ancient forest.
Yet just as the horizon was about to brighten with the first light, the countless ancient runes at the valley’s center suddenly erupted with light piercing the heavens.
The light pulsed stronger with each beat, like a heart being revived, its pale gold and dark silver hues intertwining, illuminating the entire valley like daylight, outshining the coming dawn.
The deep hum instantly escalated into a ground-shaking roar, as if an ancient mountain of iron was awakening and stirring below.
The earth emitted sounds of agonized creaking and tearing; from the rune Magic Array, the solid ground heaved and cracked like a fragile eggshell.
It wasn’t a simple collapse or cracking but as if an invisible, towering hand was forcefully lifting an enormous entity from the depths.
Soil, rocks, and the roots of ancient twisted trees were violently cast aside, thrown like foam in a tsunami.
Dust soared into the sky, only to be instantly scattered and purified by the surging pillars of rune energy light.
Under countless pairs of astonished, greedy, and fearful eyes, an indescribably magnificent structure slowly broke free of the earth’s confines, revealing an iceberg-like tip before fully erging into the world.
It wasn’t a palace or tower common to human civilization, but sothing entirely its own—its form a dull gray-brown honed over endless ages, neither tal nor stone, more like a tightly condensed, tallic-glossed peculiar soil or crystalline substance.
The structure’s surface was covered in large, simple geotric grooves and protrusions, with bold, rough lines, exuding a primitive and powerful texture.
Its visible portion alone was nearly a hundred ters high, like an inverted mountain or the massive head of a silent fortress.
Its scale was so imnse that the towering ancient trees around it instantly seed like small shrubs.
Most strikingly, embedded in the building’s face was a door.
The door’s height occupied nearly a third of the exposed structure, wide enough for ten carriages to enter side by side.
The door, made of the sa peculiar gray-brown material, had a mirror-smooth surface without any decorations, handles, or keyholes.
Only the center of the door bore an extrely complex, large circular pattern ford by countless interwoven small runes, now glowing with a cold blue light as the building rose, igniting outward like a fuse.
By size, proportion, and inhuman simplicity, the door was clearly not designed for humans or even standard-sized intelligent races.
It stood silently, emanating an ancient, cold, fiercely forbidding yet irresistibly alluring aura.
By now, the relic’s vicinity had gathered over a hundred people, the impact of the relic fully revealed and the allure of the giant door overwhelming the fear of each other and the relic’s interior dangers.
Various lights flashed; speed-enhancing spells and temporary protective shields, even so small interference asures, exploded simultaneously.
More than a hundred figures shot forth like arrows or swarming bees towards nectar, recklessly charging at the slowly inward-recessing, opening blue door.
In the treetops, Duke’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t join the initial fray to rush in.
Though the door opened seemingly slowly, it was indeed swift, with the gap wide enough.
After a mont’s observation, using both his Perception Ability and Eye of Darkness for probing, he still couldn’t discern the relic’s interior situation.
It seed to be an entirely separate space, with so protective Witch Array-like asures blocking most investigative thods.
Expecting to learn much from outside seed unlikely; it was necessary to venture in.
After a mont’s thought, Duke set off, his Wind Wings spreading behind as he stepped onto the yellow sands and flew over.
Most had already entered, since there was no true death here, many didn’t care how dangerous it was inside.
Upon entering the door, Duke’s vision was imdiately replaced by a deep, cold blue seemingly capable of absorbing all light and sound.
His body experienced a strong spatial displacent pull, as if an invisible force was deconstructing and reassembling his entire being.
No external sounds reached his ears, just a high frequency hum penetrating to the soul’s core.
The sensation seed to last long, yet also like only a mont.
When the feeling of firm ground returned, and the blue light receded, Duke found himself in a completely unfamiliar environnt.
He landed in a very spacious yet relatively low-ceilinged enclosed stone chamber, its walls, floor, and ceiling made of the sa gray-brown material as the exterior structure, smooth-surfaced, with slender crystalline strips of the sa material embedded, emitting a steady yet faint cold light for illumination.
The air was dry and cold, with a heavy dust and tallic rust scent mix, along with an indescribable sense of heaviness as if the space’s laws here slightly differed from the outside.
Not having ti to carefully inspect the surroundings, Duke sensed danger.
Before him, and to his left and right, three panels seamlessly integrated into the smooth walls suddenly recessed inward and turned.
Three towering figures erged from the turning portals.
Standing nearly three ters tall, they were composed entirely of nurous dark yellow, coarse sand grains—these grains weren’t loose but tightly aggregated by an invisible force, forming humanoid outlines with robust torsos, thick limbs, and heads with simple indentations representing facial features.
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