347 Good Star (1/2)

Ye Qingxuan froze in place. He gaped at Hades' Door. It seemed that no one had been regularly maintaining it through the centuries. The music theory array within it had actually eroded by itself and fell apart quickly with their outside pressure. The speed was unbelievable. As Hades' Door broke down, mournful cracking sounds began one after another. The wildly advancing clay puppet battalion froze in place. They quickly began to melt and cave in, returning to the mud and disappearing.

”It's over?”

”We won!”

”They're outdated puppets. They have a lot of tricks but they're all too rigid. They're not threatening anymore once you understand the pattern, no matter how large the quantity is.”

”Is the Underground Palace open?”

Everyone started talking at once. They surged to the door, rubbing their hands in anticipation to start exploring again.

”Wait! Don't rush.” Ye Qingxuan stopped them, still not feeling exactly right. ”Don't you guys think something's wrong?” Amidst the noise, some grew serious and started pondering. Others thought that Ye Qingxuan was just scaring them and started interrogating him. He could not reply either. He did not know what the problem was. Even the bad premonition was just a strange feeling.

The door opened gradually amidst rumbles. Dust fell down in clumps onto his hair, shocking him from his thoughts. Stunned, Ye Qingxuan turned around and furrowed his brows. ”Who opened the door?”

No one replied.

Before the door, Colt and Torre stared back at each other. They exchanged glances. Suddenly understanding something, their faces changed dramatically, turning stark white. No one had opened the door. This meant that someone had pushed the door open from the other side!

”Oh, Tityrus,” someone sang hoarsely from the solid darkness behind the door.

A foul miasma spread out. A tall withered figure limped forward. The shackles on his legs dragged on the ground with grating clanks. The chains seemed to be red-hot. Sparks flew as they scraped against the ground.

”Tityrus!” the pained voice sang hoarsely. ”You, 'neath a broad beech-canopy reclining, on the slender oat rehearse your silvan ditties.”

In the darkness, the hunched figure slowly straightened up. The creaking of joints sounded painful like cracked wood. He stepped into the palace outside the door. Firelight shone and illuminated his face. The shackles on his feet were still singing painfully.

”Look,” they sang. ”I from my sweet fields, and home's familiar bounds, even now depart. Exiled from home am I; while, Tityrus, you sit careless in the shade!”

When the dim flickering firelight illuminated the figure's face, everyone shivered. It was a withered skeleton. It walked through the darkness and crossed Hades' Door, stepping into the grave palace. The bone-dry skeleton still wore a pure white robe. The silver thread tattoos had broken down but he was still abnormally solemn. Even if he was now a shackled prisoner.

Now, everyone realized that there was nothing on his neck. He was holding his skull in his right hand. Someone had poured melted gold into his mouth, twisting his face into something menacing and ugly. However, his lips were still open, chewing on the dark gold and singing The Eclogues.

He gripped a sacred and solemn scepter in his left hand. The scepter thudded on the ground with a sonorous sound like a whip cracking in everyone's hearts. Waves crashed in the aether sea the moment he stepped from Hades' Door and shook along with his hoarse singing.

It finally dawned on Ye Qingxuan why it was so easy to break Hades' Door. The power source was connected to this skeleton!

He could see through the Eye of Silence that countless strands of gold light extended from the entire Underground Palace and wrapped around the skeleton. That was the music theory that should have been on Hades' Door. Now, this skeleton was the core of the array and the controller of Hades' Door!

It did not even have reinforcement but it was terrifying enough. It was a complete…

”A saint's remains!” someone yelped and stumbled back, finally recognizing it. ”Those maniacs! Those Romulusians-they…they turned a saint's remains…into that thing!”