Chapter 1407 - The Golden Coffin (1/2)

Hessiana did not know about Vivian’s “imaginary voices”, so she asked, “What do you mean?”

“Recently, Vivian’s been hearing people call her name, but they’re all imaginary voices,” said Hao Ren, turning to Vivian. “Haven’t you gotten better?”

“This time it’s clearer than before,” Vivian said gravely. “I’m almost sure it came from that direction…”

She stared down the dark end of the alley. Beyond the flickering gleam of Flamejoy, deep darkness lay 10 m away, and the end of the alley seemed to be enveloped in a chilly, impenetrable veil of eternal malice.

Hao Ren felt that Vivian’s “imaginary voices” were not as simple as initially imagined. Thinking about it now, he found that Vivian’s “imaginary voices” only appeared after they discovered the strange space.

If there was a connection, what secrets were buried in the ancient city?

At the end of the passage was a large, empty hall. Nothing unusual.

Passing through the stone archway of the corridor, Hao Ren looked at the empty place before him and asked, “Are you sure the voice is coming from here?”

Vivian looked around. It was a square, palace-like place. Judging from its location, it should be close to the center of the great pyramid. Like the rest of the temple, it was completely empty except for the huge stone pillars and reliefs at the center of the hall, which could not be removed.

“The voice is gone again”—she tapped her forehead—”but it has to be coming from this direction.”

Since the statues outside would not enter the grand temple, the MDT had now returned to Hao Ren. It flew around the empty hall and finally stopped at the square granite pillar in the center. “The patterns on the pillar seem to contain some clues!”

That granite pillar was the most striking thing in the hall. Each side was several meters wide and covered with delicate embossed patterns, which had remained fairly intact despite thousands of years of weathering. The MDT quickly restored a few of the reliefs with its restoration techniques and found that the images on the stone pillars were a follow-up to those in the outside temple.

Hao Ren saw the mask on the stone pillar at first glance: it’s been used by the inhabitants of Ertos to represent their great “ruler”.

“It shows what happened after the death of Ertos, after the new city was built around the head of Ertos,” the MDT said, pointing out different locations on the relief with different beams of light. “Here, and here, it’s continuous.”

“The ‘great ruler’ didn’t leave after killing Ertos but settled down on the plains. The great ruler neither accepted the sacrifice of mortals nor left the place, but quietly watched the establishment of the new city…” Lily slowly read, pointing at the cuneiform letters below the relief. “It took 22 years, under the leadership of the surviving Beasthead Avatars, to build Ertos and four more cities on the fertile land around it.”

“On the day of the city’s completion, the sky over Ertos was wreathed in clouds. Believing this to be a great omen, the god of wolves led the other Beasthead Avatars to the cave on the plain and asked the great ruler to come and protect the city. They offered barley, chickpeas, honey, and spiced meat to the great ruler, who at last, agreed and became the god of Ertos.

Hao Ren asked Vivian, “Is there anything particular about these ‘offerings’?”

“There wasn’t much attention paid to the content of the offering, because at that time, there was no unified ritual. But the ‘offering’ itself had a special meaning,” Vivian explained. “The Mythological Age was a difficult time. Not every otherworldling could be the supreme ruler of mortals for a very long time. Sometimes catastrophes or wars would bring down the weaker ‘gods’, and they would worship others who were superior to them. This resulted in them being annexed by other ‘gods’, or even losing their ‘god’ status altogether, but at least they could survive. It looks like the situation around Ertos was bad at that time. The Beasthead Avatars felt that they couldn’t keep their territory, so they worshiped the great ruler.”

Hao Ren nodded and continued to read the relief, “…The new god lived in the grand temple at the center of Ertos. Day and night, the god was worshiped by mortals. Under the protection of the powerful god, Ertos became a country that no one dared to offend…

“The Beasthead Avatars chose to submit to the new god, and they became the priests of Ertos, living in the grand temple and smaller temples around it.

“In order to protect the city, the Beasthead Avatars collected the bones that had fallen from the body of Ertos. They forged and burned the bones, injected them with fire and the power of the earth, turning them into great warriors…

“These warriors were made in the image of the Beasthead Avatars. They were powerful, rock-solid and never tired…”

“The shape of the Beasthead Avatars… Extremely large stone statues… Never tired.” Lily blinked. “That’s those colossi we met.”