109 Palace garden. (1/2)
Li Yang and Fang Ying weren't in much of a rush, they took their time as they walked, curiously inspecting the city around them. It wasn't often that one could enter a place like this so even Langshen was curiously looking at the surroundings while walking, using his sharp nose to see if he could sniff out any resources. After they had spent a few hours walking, Li Yang glanced at one of the surrounding buildings and spoke up.
”Hey, Ying'er, have you noticed?”
While speaking, Li Yang let his finger run along the wall of the closest building, tracing the edges of one of the windows. Fang Ying looked at the building he was glancing at, nodding her head and casting a sweeping glance at the other surrounding buildings.
”Yeah, it really is a rather curious thing. All the buildings seem to have been carved out of a single massive rock, most of them likely created using the bare minimum of strokes. I'm not sure if that palace is the same, but if it is the same as these buildings then the one who made this place is truly skilled.”
All the buildings they had seen so far didn't have any signs that they were made up of several smaller stones, causing the two of them to guess that the houses might have been made by someone using the law of stone or the law of earth. But when they gave the houses a few closer looks, they saw traces along the edges of the houses that showed that they had been carved into this shape using a very sharp weapon. They also saw that some of the buildings had natural markings like cracks or spots of different coloration that suddenly stopped at the edge of the house and then started again on the edge of the next house.
For it to be like this, the only explanation was that these houses were once part of the same greater whole. And looking at how many buildings were sharing such natural markings, it was likely that all the buildings they had seen so far were once part of the same greater whole, either a massive rock or a large mountain. Li Yang nodded his head, looking through the window and into the house.
”Yeah, whoever did it was probably on the same level as the past us, they might even have been at a higher level. I also wonder where all the people in this city went, it seems like they just suddenly left, or vanished.”
In the past, the most dextrous and artistically inclined one of Li Yang's friends, Ye Ning, would have been able to carve a mountain into a city using his dextrous skill with the sword. But he would not be able to do it as neatly as the one who had carved this city, there would be quite a few places where he would have ended up leaving a mark, like a chip in the stone or a slight tilt in the cut. This fact, coupled with the number of Divine Beasts he had sensed here earlier, made Li Yang grow more and more curious about this Ocean God's Graveyard.
Fang Ying nodded her head and followed his gaze, seeing what appeared to be a dining room, a short rectangular table surrounded by five chairs. There were plates and cups still standing on the table, some brown mushrooms growing out of what appeared to be the ancient remains of food on the plates. Two of the cups contained what appeared to be wine while the other three contained a clear liquid that smelled like sweet fruit, all of them untouched. It seemed like the people who had once lived here had simply left after setting up the dining table.
This house wasn't the only one that contained this strange scene, all the other houses they had entered and examined were the same. The closest still contained the rotting remains of clothes, there were items such as tools and weapons hanging on some walls, what appeared to be the remains of leather shoes still remained in the entrances of the houses. It seemed like the people here had simply disappeared while preparing for their day, which was why Li Yang corrected himself to say that they might have vanished.
The two of them spent two days following the roads before finally arriving in front of the blue hexagonal palace, which they now saw actually had a small golden orb-like building located on the ceiling, a small spire sticking up from the orb. The entire palace was surrounded by a tall stone wall covered in runes Li Yang had never seen before, a blooming garden just barely visible through the bars of the metal gates.
There were quite a few people gathered up in front of the gates, several of them closely inspecting the runes that covered the walls and gates. From the looks of it, an array seemed to be sealing up the palace, the people here currently busy with trying to break through the array. Li Yang and Fang Ying saw a few places on the gates which were scratched out, the marks appearing very recent, so it seemed like they were making rather good progress in breaking the array.
The two of them attracted quite a bit of attention when they arrived, Fang Ying was the princess of the Tian clan after all. Seeing the princess, and future wife of Tian Zheng, walking hand in hand with another unknown man, how could these people not help but stare? Of course, there were some people here that were enemies of Tian Zheng so they were perfectly fine with seeing him cucked like this. The moment the two of them arrived, someone called out to them.
”Junior Sister Ying! I'm so glad you entered this place as well!”
A man with silky black hair who looked to be in his twenties and was clad in the robes of the Tian clan pushed his way through the crowd of people that had gathered up in front of the gates, running over to Fang Ying with a bright smile. There were a few other people here clad in the robes of the Tian clan, but they didn't follow the running man, they simply looked at Li Yang with narrowed eyes. The man ran forward and reached for Fang Ying's hand, glaring at Li Yang.
”Come, Junior Sister Ying, you must leave that fiend. Senior Brother Zheng left for a different island, but I'm sure we can still catch up to him if we leave now. He misses you oh so much, so you best retur...!”