Chapter 11641. What the hell?
Akadan led the giant lizards and the skin lizards to the fork in the road, while Franais and Chupakoko continued to lead Duruchi and the lizard people to move forward along the passage.
"Why do I feel like there's something wrong with this room?"
Daquus suddenly stopped after entering a large cave. He grabbed Genevieve's cold hand and stopped her from going any further.
Genevieve looked back at Daquus somewhat embarrassedly, and suddenly opened her mouth to say something.
Daquus was unsure at first, but as he watched Genevieve's silent narration, he suddenly realized that the large cave seemed to block out sound, and the sound was simply swallowed up, as if the two of them were standing on the edge of an endless abyss.
Genevieve stopped talking suddenly, and she came back to her senses.
A Druki noble and a Midnight noble began to slowly exit the large cavern.
"What's going on? Is there a silencing spell?"
Daxus shook his head. Although he could occasionally sense strong magical winds, he was not a warlock, so how would he know?
"Let's go in and take a look. Be careful!"
Daxus began to carefully study the wall, which was made of huge, smooth stones. For some reason, the wall was covered with many dense and neat holes, as if he could poke his fingers into the holes and teleport to a distant place. He always had this feeling that he couldn't shake, no matter how solid the stones seemed to him.
"It's a bit strange. Could this large cave be used for defense?"
Dacius and Genevieve passed through the large cavern without incident. There was no scene where the gates on either side of the passage fell shut, or a cutting beam appeared from the hole, and they began to dodge with various gymnastic acrobatics.
"Was that room used for defense? Could it be something from the underground sea? I always feel that there are undead in this city, but I can't sense their specific location." Genevieve looked at Daquus curiously and asked, she also vaguely guessed something.
"We have to be careful next. By the way, can you use the halberd?" Daquus held the halberd in his right hand and made a starting gesture, holding the glowing crystal in his left hand, and said with a vigilant look on his face.
"No, but I can use a stick!" Genevieve said as she imitated the halberd.
"...good, well-organized." Dacus watched this weird stick juggling act, which brought back memories for him, and he spoke it off perfunctorily.
Strangely enough, Dacus kept walking in the passage, occasionally passing through some caves, as if the passage was a flat surface, with no ups and downs, and no stairs.
Daxus walked around a corner holding the glowing crystal. Since the glowing crystal was the only light in the passage, the shadow on the opposite side was just in his blind spot.
"Fuck! What the hell?"
A humanoid creature, nearly two and a half meters tall, resembling a fish-headed monster, quietly stood in a corner, watching Darkius. Its eyes narrowed slightly in the light of the glowing crystal, as if it were unaccustomed to the brightness. Its face was covered in scars and open sores, and Darkius could even see the haggard expression on its face. It froze for a moment upon catching sight of Darkius, and the next second, it was about to open its mouth to make a sound.
Daxus was certain that there wasn't such a bizarre species among the Lizardmen, and since he couldn't communicate with it, it probably wasn't a variant or degenerate species of Lizardmen. Without thinking, he swung his halberd, and the fish-headed monster's scarred lips opened in surprise.
With a whistling sound that pierced the air, the Quetli halberd passed through the fish-headed monster's mouth, piercing its spine and part of its skull. The fish-headed monster fell silently. A voice came from behind the dead fish-headed monster. Daquus caught a glimpse of the frog-headed monster in the light.
The frog-headed monster raised its trembling webbed hands to caress and lick the blood and brain matter splattered on its face. Daquus, holding the glowing crystal in his left hand, unhesitatingly pulled out the repeating crossbow hanging on the left side of his walking belt, knocked off the safety, and took aim.
Genevieve was faster than Daquus. With the help of the light from the glowing crystal, Daquus saw Genevieve take two steps to the left and right beside him, then jumped up, turned around in mid-air, swung the halberd and performed a move similar to the Overlord Three Swings. The halberd blade directly and cleanly cut off the frog-headed monster's head. The frog-headed monster's body lost support and fell to its knees with a thud, and then fell straight onto the floor tiles.
"What is this? The Laker of Lyonnes?" Genevieve observed the corpse on the ground with the light of the glowing crystal. While observing, she stretched out her halberd and turned the frog-headed monster's body over.
Lakemen, like the creatures Darkius encountered in the Dusktide Grove, are a type of Beastmen. They are primarily found in the Lyonesse section of the Arden Forest in Bretonnia, though they also frequently venture into the swamps and lakes of southern Lyonesse. They have a roughly amphibian appearance, typically with a frog-like face, clawed forelimbs, and gills that allow them to breathe underwater. However, they possess more mutations than typical Beastmen.
These two bizarre species were nearly two and a half meters tall and appeared to live underwater year-round. They had webbed hands and feet, their skin rough and leathery, with scales covering their vital parts. Ferns and mosses grew on their lower limbs, and their eyes glowed even after death.
"No, I've seen the Lakers of Lyonnes. They're completely different species." Genevieve observed with interest for a while and came to a conclusion that was not surprising to Daquus.
"Let's go."
Dacius and Genevieve arrived in a small cavern. Fish-shaped skulls lay scattered on the floor, and complex faces were carved into the ground nearby. The blood on the faces seemed to seep from the tiles themselves, a dark crimson glow that flickered like accumulated embers from the corners of his eyes, rising and falling like the sound of the tide that echoed in his ears.
The faces were eerie and abstract. Daxus had never seen such artwork before. They seemed otherworldly. Some snarled, others leered, and still others exuded a soulless calm. Their eyes were made of tiny black holes, yet he could almost feel the weight of their gazes on his skin.
"Are there still drow elves who believe in Ross under the ground? I won't meet Trist?" Darkus pondered for a while, and suddenly laughed, and the strange chill on his back also weakened.
As Dacius and Genevieve continued walking, he found with unease that his sense of direction seemed to be losing him, even though he was following the passage, a sense he had never had before.
On the other side, Akadan was holding a torch and cracking the stone mechanism at the end of the fork.
The giant lizard Kami was confused as he watched Akadan's fierce manipulation from behind. He could feel that the strange call was behind this door.
Under Lord Mazdamundi's guidance, Arkadan finally unlocked the mechanism, which began to slowly rotate. When Arkadan saw what was revealed behind the mechanism, his eyes instantly lit up with a bright blue light.
"Is this the hatching pool?"
Using the Skink's special vision, Arkadan looked at the vast, wide hatching pool. It was divided into several sections, staggered and arranged in a circle. Each pool was irregularly shaped, with a passageway in the middle for the pool cleaners and newly born lizardmen to pass through.
The monitor lizard Kami walked straight in in a daze. A strange call seemed to be guiding him. He came to the edge of the pool, scooped up some water and licked it. The monitor lizards behind him followed suit and started drinking.
"Hey! Hey! What are you doing! Don't drink! Don't drink!" Akadan reacted and started jumping over to stop the giant lizards. He stopped talking and looked at the hatching pool uncontrollably. He also scooped up the water in the pool with his hands.
“The pool water is actually clean!”
After the monitor lizard Kami drank the water from the hatching pool, there seemed to be no changes?
The next second, Lord Mazdamundi teleported over.
"Go find Umak!"
Lord Mazdamundi issued an order to the Skinks and Hyperions, then cast a Light spell. A ball of light condensed above his head, solidified, and floated directly over the hatching pool.
There were several lens devices hanging above the incubation pool. The lenses reflected the light emitted by the light ball, which looked so wonderful and dreamy in the eyes of Lord Mazdamuddi. He could see the whole picture of the incubation pool with the help of the light ball. The scale of this incubation pool was comparable to that of the first city, Itaza.
"Praise the Old Ones! Praise Umak!"
On the other side, a Druki noble and a Midnight noble continued walking in the passage.
"There are things ahead, they seem to be undead? And there are a lot of them?" Genevieve suddenly stopped walking, she stood there and began to speak uncertainly.
"After you get out, you must return it to me. Carrying this thing with you will make the other Druks feel unsafe." Daquus handed the repeating crossbow to Genevieve and took out the Blade of the Ancients. Since there were so many, there was no need to be silent.
Dacius and Genevieve leaned against the wall, slowly moving toward the large cavern. His pointed ears pricked up, listening for any movement. He could sense a lingering warmth in the stone behind him, as if it were alive, and he could feel it seeping into his manticore cloak and the back of his plate armor.
"Hiss!" Daxus saw a little more clearly with the help of the light from the glowing crystal.
The large cavern was littered with corpses, piled one on top of the other, as if some magic or other had prevented their decay, though they appeared surprisingly dry for the conditions. The corpses all resembled the humanoids they had just encountered, each interwoven with incredible complexity and power, feeding the others with energy, as if a central program controlled them all.
Daxus now seemed to be standing at the door of a morgue. He felt that the scene inside effectively stopped his heartbeat, as if he could also stand here for thousands of years and remain immortal.
The air within the large chamber seemed to shimmer, and an eerie atmosphere began to take shape. At first, they were mere flickering points of light, but then, these tiny, shimmering particles coalesced into a single mass. Daxus was certain it wasn't a hallucination. They swirled in the air above the corpse, then began to flow into it, vanishing without a trace, like poison gas being drawn into the victim's lungs.
With the sound of its ancient and tough skin creaking, one of the corpses suddenly straightened up and sat up from the ground. It turned its head and stared at Daquus with its yellow and pus-filled eyes. Genevieve behind him pulled his arm, as if signaling him to run quickly.
Suddenly the corpses trembled, as if the ground they lay on was seized by an earthquake. One by one, the corpses straightened up and sat up. They moved suddenly like puppets on a string instrument, and their number increased.
At this moment, the dozens of corpses in the large cave had all revived. Their skin had a strange dryness and emitted a fishy smell. The words "dry" and "fishy" combined together made it seem so strange.
These living humanoid corpses began to stand up and moved slowly towards Dacus in strange postures. He suddenly felt his scalp tingling.
When the bodies moved, they made a strange wheezing sound, as if the air squeezed from their remaining gills was rushing out through the cracks in their skin. The air also smelled of herbs and embalming fluids, a fishy smell, and a sickly sweet hint of decay.
"Run! Run!" Genevieve was a little overwhelmed and began to pull Daquus's arm.
"Try it first, and then run if it doesn't work." Daxus also came back to his senses. He held the glowing crystal in his left hand, activated the Blade of the Ancients with his right hand, and started shooting.
The scorching light from the laser gun illuminated the large cave, instantly penetrating and melting the chests of several corpses. After firing four shots, Daquus put the Blade of the Ancients back into the holster and wrapped the glowing crystal around his belt. He then wielded the Quetli halberd in both hands and chopped at the corpses that had already rushed over.
Two of the corpses waved coral clubs, while the others reached out toward Dacius with their rough, wrinkled webbed hands. Their dry mouths wiggled up and down, as if trying to speak to Dacius, but only a thin stream of air escaped from their broken gills. They staggered toward Dacius, their grotesque faces contorted in a mixture of rage, fear, and greed.
The first corpse to reach Dacus swung its coral stick frantically and smashed it at Dacus's helmet, but unfortunately, the corpse's movements were extremely slow in Dacus's eyes.
Darkeus didn't even try to dodge, instead swinging his Quetli halberd at the corpse's club-wielding arm. The limb tore into a puff of dust, and Darkeus twisted the Quetli halberd downward, shattering the corpse's upper body. Only the lower half continued to walk, unsure of why.
"What?"