Chapter 2157 Altar

At the end is an uncovered door. There was darkness inside the door, and nothing could be seen. Only the air of death kept coming, whistling in the ears like a sinister wind.

Froud closed his eyes, and the power of his soul vibrated between his eyebrows, ripples that could not be seen with the naked eye rippled out.

After a while, Froud opened his eyes and said: "The specific situation inside is unknown, but there is no soul left, and there is no breath of living things."

After confirming that there were no living creatures or undead threats, Froude and Angel stepped inside the door.

The gloomy death energy inside became even more intense. Even without any energy drive, all kinds of ghost cries were produced independently in the ears, as if there were a large number of resentful spirits whispering.

Angel was not affected, but Froud's eyebrows kept beating, looking like he was suffering and enduring.

Seeing this, Angel took a step forward. As the steps fell, an invisible spiritual force field enveloped him and Froud.

Under the protection of the mental force field, Froud finally breathed a sigh of relief: "This must be the place where Madam Silla sleeps. The residual resentment is extremely strong. Just standing here can trigger the accumulated emotions in my soul." Dead air."

If it weren't for Angel's protection, Froud wouldn't be able to last long here. Once he inhales too much resentment, he will only end up falling.

"So, it seems that this place is more suitable for practicing soul tricks than Star Lake Castle." Angel muttered and stretched out his hand, and a bright ball of light slowly rose from his palm.

The light ball rose to the top of the head, and the brilliant light immediately dispelled the darkness and illuminated the surrounding area.

This is an advanced level of the radiance spell, the level 1 cantrip radiance spell.

Under the illumination of the radiance technique, they could already clearly see the situation within a dozen meters nearby. Within the scope of the light, there was nothing special. The ground was unusually smooth, with obvious traces of polishing, which was artificially created.

Directly in front of them, at the edge of the light, they could vaguely see a staircase.

"It seems that this place is bigger than imagined." Angel muttered in a low voice, and ten light balls created by the radiance technique appeared in his palm at the same time. With a flick, the light balls flew in all directions.

The dark cave was like a skylight that opened to direct sunlight, instantly brightening. Even the deep dark corners are replaced by light.

When the light completely replaced the darkness, they finally saw clearly the scene in the huge cave.

The area of ​​the underground cave is very vast, even if it contains two or three Star Lake Castles, there will be no problem. The entire cave is very flat. In front of it is a high platform similar to an altar. Near the altar are a large number of regular rectangular stone platforms. In a circle around the edge of the cave, there are small black caves every few meters. In addition, There are no other traces of artifacts.

Froude frowned and looked around for a week, and finally fixed his gaze on the high platform.

"This high platform..." Froude pointed to the high platform that was like an altar: "The death energy on it is extremely strong, as if it were substance."

No need for Froud to say, Angel had already sensed it.

Although to the naked eye, the high platform seemed empty, the aura of death, decay, and silence was extremely conspicuous. It can even be said that all the death energy in the entire cave is emanating from the high platform, which is... the source.

"It always feels a little strange here. Let's split up first to see if we find anything. Finally, we will go to the high platform." Angel did not go to the high platform to explore the source of the dead energy immediately, but planned to split up with Froud to take a look first. The situation inside the cave.

Flood nodded. He was also very confused about this cave. Why is there such a cave here? Who built it? What to do?

Angel applied a mental force field to Flood, and then went to the left side of the high platform, while Flood went to the right.

Angel first sensed it with his mental power. The only things worth exploring on the left were the rectangular stone platforms and the small caves on the edge of the cave.

He walked to the rectangular stone platform.

These rectangular stone platforms protrude directly from the ground. Regardless of their height and shape, they look like workbenches in a laboratory.

The rectangular stone platform also has objects placed on it like a workbench.

A skeleton.

To be precise, they are mutilated human skeletons.

It is a left-hand skeleton that has completely dried up. Under the erosion of the rich dead energy, brittle cracks have appeared on the skeleton, and it is estimated that it will weather when touched.

Angel investigated through both the physical and spiritual realms, and found that the left-hand skeleton seemed to have traces of energy infiltration when it was alive. However, he was not sure that he had not fully learned the skeleton knowledge applicable to wizards. He could ask Froude later.

When there was no other discovery, Angel went to another rectangular stone platform.

Like the previous stone platform, there is also a broken skeleton placed here, but here it is smaller, and it is the right palm bone.

Judging from the metacarpal bones, the knuckles are clear and not missing, and there are also traces of energy being moistened.

Angel recalled the previous left hand. It seemed that the metacarpal bone of his left hand was larger than that of his right hand. It probably did not belong to the same person.

Then Angel went to other rectangular stone platforms. Each stone platform had incomplete skeletons with different parts, some of which were not human.

After looking at the rectangular stone platform, Angel went to the small cave dug out of the cave wall.

He had already used his mental power to check the situation in the small cave before, but now he just came to confirm again.

After reading it, Angell confirmed that the result was the same as the result of his spiritual vision: the small caves were not big, only two meters deep, and there was a complete human skeleton sitting cross-legged in each small cave.

Angell looked around the cave. These small caves were one every few meters, and there were a total of 360 caves.

In each cave, there was a human skeleton sitting in the same cross-legged posture.

This was definitely not normal.

Angell seemed to have thought of something, his eyes suddenly became dark, and he walked back to the central platform in silence.

Not long after, Frode also came over.

Frode: "The stone platform is full of broken skeletons, some of which are human, some are humanoid, and some are alien. I feel that some extraordinary person may have done some secret research here. Because all the bones have traces of using energy before they died, they should not be mortals."

Frode's judgment is similar to Angel's. Angel pondered for a moment: "If it is really a secret research of extraordinary people, it is normal for humans and humanoids to appear here. However, there are bones of alien creatures, which reminds me of a certain ethnic group."

"Karabit." Frode echoed softly.

The Karabit people love to study creatures, especially alien creatures.

Angel nodded: "Maybe a Karabit wizard is doing experiments here."

Frode: "It is possible, but judging from the situation on the scene, this place has been abandoned for a long time, and there are no traces of any experimenters, so this speculation cannot be confirmed."

Angel nodded. There is no more information about the skeleton on the stone platform for the time being, so it can only be put down for the time being.

Angel: "What I am most concerned about are the skeletons in those small caves."

Frode recalled for a moment and trembled slightly: "Those skeletons are all intact, but they are all in the same sitting posture, which makes me feel a little creepy."

After a pause, Frode asked curiously: "Why does the lord care about those skeletons?"

Angel pondered for a moment: "The distance between each small cave is the same, the size inside is the same, the skeletons are all human, and they are in the same posture. Everything follows a unified standard. This reminds me of..."

Angel hesitated for a moment before uttering the word in his mind: "Ritual."

Ritual. Frode whispered the word. Ritual studies in the South Region were not besieged by extreme sects like epigraphy, so he had heard of it, but he only heard about it and rarely came into contact with it.

However, he knew that basically all sacrifices were more or less related to ritual studies. There is even a school of thought that ritual studies, like epigraphy, are derived from demons, but ritual studies are derived from the sacrificial rituals between demons and believers.

"I once came into contact with the prayer rituals at Anada's place, and later I learned some basic ritual studies from Greya." Angel recalled some of the ritual contents taught by Greya: "Before becoming the existence that controls the rituals, ritual studies rarely have freedom, and everything must be done according to the rituals."

"And the rituals of ritual studies are very strict and rigid norms. For example, in the sacrificial ceremony, the positions of the offerers must be dispersed at a distance ten times the distance of the tribute, all offerers must be three meters apart, and the positions of the offerers separated by two must be 90 degrees..."

"It is precisely because of the existence of these norms that the ceremony can be carried out completely. And the existence of the small cave here, in my opinion, is an absolutely strict norm."

After listening to Angel's explanation, Frode also understood why Angel valued the small cave.

If it is just a ritual, it is actually nothing. But the ritual of this ceremony happened to use human bones.

Whether this ceremony uses living people or dead people, it means that this is a sacrificial ceremony.

Sacrifice naturally has a target, and the target of using humans as tributes is generally demons, evil gods, monsters with divinity and feeding on humans, or alien giants who are hostile to humans.

Otherwise, there is no need to use humans as tributes.

And these, whether demons, evil gods or alien beings, are not easy to deal with, and they are all the focus of the wizard world.

Such a sacrificial ceremony appeared here, which really needs to be taken seriously.

"Since the rituals are all human bones." Angel looked back at the nearby high platform: "Then this high platform is undoubtedly an altar."

"As for who this sacrificial ceremony is for, go up and take a look. There must be clues there."

After Angel said this, he took the lead and stepped onto the stairs of the altar.

With every step, Angel could feel that the scouring of the spirit field by the dead air became more and more fierce.

However, although the death aura here is very strong, it is not under control. It is just an unconscious impact and will not cause any damage to the mental force field.

There are a total of 36 steps, which just corresponds to the number of small caves, once again confirming the standardization of the ceremony.

When they came to the top of the altar, what came into view was a bone altar built with the dead bones of the deceased.

There was nothing on the bone altar, but the death aura here was the strongest.

Angel guessed that Lady Xila might have stayed on the altar before, so the death aura and the breath of the dead here were so strong.

Frode walked around the altar and did not see any other abnormalities. In other words, if they wanted to find clues, they could only search from this bone altar.

But at first glance, it is difficult to get any clues on this bone altar. Not only is there nothing on it, but the altar is also pure white and has no lines.

Angell reached out and touched the bone altar.

When the cold feedback came from his fingertips, Angell's eyes condensed slightly.

"This bone altar has no energy left." Angell said slowly.

The bone altar is built with the dead bones of the dead. And the dead bones of the dead are semi-finished magic materials in the wizard world, which must contain extraordinary properties.

But now, the dead bones of the dead have become ordinary things without any extraordinary properties, which means...

"The ceremony has been carried out."

Since the ceremony has been carried out, what is this ceremony? Is the ceremony successful or failed? Why is Madam Xila here?

When Frode was full of questions, Angell's palm suddenly exerted force, and the bone altar instantly fell apart.

After a burst of "rustling" sounds, the bone altar broke into pieces and fell to the ground.

As the bone altar was broken, the ground on top of the altar was revealed.

"Hey, there is a symbol here!" Frode looked down and saw a strange symbol clearly carved by humans in the center of the ground below the bone altar.

After confirming that there was no energy left in the bone altar, Angel used his mental power to explore and found this symbol. Therefore, he broke the bone altar to reveal the symbol.

This symbol was something Angel had never seen before.

It was very regular and could be divided into three parts. The outermost part was a concentric circle, and inside the concentric circle was a standard ritual hexagon. Inside the hexagon was a symmetrical winding symbol.

This symbol looked like two symmetrical and curved earthworms. Looking closely, it was imprinted in the mind. It seemed to be alive, winding and twisting.

"Although this symbol doesn't seem to have any extraordinary signs, it is vaguely related to the surrounding death energy." Angel sighed: "Unfortunately, I have never seen this symbol."

The symbol inside the hexagon is obviously the key clue, perhaps pointing directly to the object of sacrifice.

Angel looked at Frode opposite him, wanting to see if he knew.

Frode shook his head: "I have never seen it either. But it doesn't matter if I haven't seen it, we can ask for help..."