Chapter 9: Pink Skeletons (2/2)
Realizing that something was wrong, Senior Brother Qu retreated backward a step. Taking this as an indication that they weren’t going to attack, the surrounding beasts went quiet.
Qin Mu watched this scene in awe. During the day, the strange beasts of the Great Ruins normally fought over territory and hunted for prey. However, when night came, all of them existed in harmony with one another. It was a bizarre sight.
”Could these strange beasts have established a rule prohibiting conflict within this remnant of civilization?”
Qin Mu blinked as the thought occurred to him. Many of the beasts here were natural enemies, yet they left each other alone in these ruins, confirming Qin Mu’s hypothesis. The villagers had always told him that strange beasts were intelligent. Considering the fact that the devil ape from earlier was capable of speech, constantly saying ”young’un” or ”die,” the possibility of them creating such a rule was likely.
Senior Brother Qu reached the same conclusion as Qin Mu and released a sigh of relief, whispering, ”Let’s not make a move tonight. Once the sun rises, we’ll kill him!”
Senior Sister Qing and the other youth nodded in agreement.
After taking a good look at his surroundings, Qin Mu saw that the ruins were extremely spacious, like a city within the valley. There were strange beasts everywhere within the ruins—
—everywhere except the plaza.
Hundreds of human skeletons filled the plaza. All of them wore luxurious clothes, and the manner in which they had died couldn’t be easily ascertained.
However, as he approached the plaza, Qin Mu was able to determine one thing.
”All of these people were female.”
The weird thing was, the women had been sitting cross-legged in an orderly fashion when they died. There were fifteen rows of skeletons, and each row had fifteen skeletons. It seemed as if they had been in the middle of meditating when a disaster struck, killing them so quickly that they didn’t even have to chance to try and escape.
Arriving at the front of the plaza, Qin Mu carefully examined the area and discovered that a skeleton sat in the front of the first row, clearly signifying that they had a leader.
All of the skeletons, including the leader, were facing the same direction.
They were oriented towards the towering gate in the distance.
”Senior brother, look!”
Senior Sister Qing’s eyes gleamed as she pointed at the skeletons in the plaza, ”There are precious artifacts in the hands of those skeletons! Every skeleton has one!”
Senior Brother Qi looked in the direction she was indicating, and his heart started pumping with excitement. Each skeleton held various artifacts, including treasure swords, horsetail whisks, jade pendants, priceless vases, and all kinds of other weapons.
These precious artifacts glowed brilliantly as if they had just been forged. All of them were clearly extraordinary treasures!
The most eye-catching artifact among them was a pearl floating just above the palm of the leader skeleton. A hazy mist seemed to be swirling inside of that pearl.
This plaza was actually an enormous treasure vault!
”If we could get our hands on those treasures…” Senior Sister Qing whispered, her breathing becoming ragged.
Even the treasure vault of Li River’s Five Elders didn’t contain a fraction of the wealth in this plaza!
If the three of them could acquire these treasures, they would be able to start their own sect if they wanted to!
Senior Brother Qu’s gaze flickered and he laughed. ”The heavens have decided to treat us well! Fifth junior brother, go bring those precious artifacts back here.”
The youth did as he was told and entered the plaza. The moment he did, however, he saw the hairs of a horsetail whisk flutter gently. They suddenly started to slowly grow in length, and one strand moved towards him as if it were alive.
That strand of horsehair resembled an extremely thin spirit snake as it lifted its tip to examine the youth.
”Senior Brother Qu…” The youth’s voice trembled as he called out to his senior, not daring to turn his head away.
”The owners of those precious artifacts are dead,” Senior Brother Qu said solemnly. ”Don’t worry, fifth junior bro…”
Before Senior Brother Qu Could even finish his sentence, the strand of hair shot forwards like lightning and penetrated the eye of his fifth junior brother. The other strands of hair came flying over as well, digging into both of the boy’s eyes.
The youth opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
From his position nearby, Qin Mu watched as the youth’s body quickly shriveled up, instantly becoming a desiccated corpse.
The horsetail whisk didn’t stop there and instead continued to coil around the youth. Soon enough, even the skin and bones of the corpse melted away, leaving just a set of clothes and a pair of shoes on the ground.