"I really didn't expect him to start a conversation with the beast. He seems quite accomplished," Jason grumbled, one of the men watching Simon fight from a distance.
"If that wolf were a desperate villain, this scene would be much more appropriate," Alka echoed.
Because Simon was really chattering away, they couldn't hear exactly what he was saying.
However, the four Sentinel robots were indeed constantly focused on the giant wolf, preventing it from escaping.
"But from this perspective, Simon looks more like the villain," Matlisa said silently.
Then Simon's laughter could be heard again.
Hearing it...
It seemed right.
"There are three more over there who seem to be trying to get involved. Should we take care of them?"
Jason suddenly raised his gun, aiming it at the three giant wolves still hiding in the distant jungle, and asked.
"Fire two shots to scare them away! They won't dare come again. Their souls are filled with fear," Julia said silently.
"Okay, I'll do as you say."
A companion's small request was naturally worth refusing.
Jason raised his gun and fired twice. Two bullets flew out, creating two dents in the mud where the giant wolves were hiding.
Sand and gravel flew up, accompanied by terrified howls.
The three wolves fled into the jungle.
At this moment, Simon also approached the group.
Two water droplets flew towards him, landing on his face and calf.
The scars on his face and the wound on his leg immediately disappeared, and they quickly healed as normal.
These were simple injuries that could be healed in an instant.
"Thank you," Simon said with a smile to Mathilda.
"No need."
Arka looked at the thing Simon was carrying and asked curiously, "Why did you catch it? You're not planning on being a hunter, are you?"
"What do you mean by being a hunter? I just think this wolf is interesting. Study it, and you'll know when the time comes." Simon squatted down and patted the giant wolf, which was already securely bound beside him.
"Ew!" The giant wolf, having been patted on the head, growled angrily.
But its mouth and limbs were now firmly bound with metal, and it could do nothing.
Simon had already ordered the sentry robots to begin disassembling the giant wolf's materials.
I hadn't expected him to add such a function.
"Alright, whatever you want. Now let's go check out the ruins."
With that, the group arrived at the ruins not far away.
Looking at the protruding portion of the ruins, it was very conspicuous, at least eight or nine meters high, and still quite well-preserved, with only half collapsed. However, it could be seen that this appeared to be the top of some kind of building.
"It's the same old routine. Now that everyone's familiar with it, let's get to work."
With that, everyone divided up their work and began to work together.
First, Sofia began his exploration.
"This ruin... is quite well preserved. Although more than half has collapsed, it covers a large area and is quite high."
As he spoke, he marked the ground, and as he did so, everyone began to dig.
"If we dig like this, we won't run into those strangers from yesterday, right?"Sofia suddenly asked.
Arka, who was digging, looked up and waved his hand.
"Don't worry, they're still far away."
"You're so confident. What did you do?"
Sofia asked curiously.
To be so confident, Arka must have done something to those strangers somewhere unknown to them.
"I marked their dreams. I discovered a way to use it a while ago, and it allows me to sense the distance between me and them."
Previously, Alka had marked dream bubbles and dream creatures in his dreams, so that he could locate them directly the next time he entered the dream world without having to search again.
Later, after the marked person woke up from their dream and met them during the day, Alka discovered that he could actually sense the marks he had made in his dreams even when he wasn't dreaming.
However, unlike in dreams, where one could sense anything from any distance and observe the surroundings of the mark,
In reality, this kind of sensing was very vague and was basically undetectable unless the distance was very close.
After much speculation and experimentation,
the marking allowed Alka to detect the distance of the marked person within a range of 2 kilometers.
Although it was very blurry, if one really paid attention, one could sense it.
The closer the distance, the more pronounced it became.
And Alka had already marked every member of that group of strangers last night.
After listening to Alka's explanation, Sofia nodded: "You're very thoughtful."
The excavation proceeded smoothly.
"Am I seeing things? Why did I find bones?" Jason asked, puzzled, as he surveyed the area he had dug and what he had unearthed.
His voice attracted everyone present to come over and investigate.
Including Alka.
Looking at the bones Jason had unearthed, there was no golden object near them.
Isn't that the bones?
"Why are there bones? It's strange we've dug through so many ruins and haven't found a single body." Sofia said, perplexed, as he squatted beside the corpse.
"Let's dig it out completely first."
Alka said, looking at the bones, which were almost completely buried in the soil.
Several people dug the bones out completely, then took them out and pieced them together outside.
They pieced together a perfectly formed skeleton over two meters tall. The slender arms and finger bones confirmed that this unknown skeleton was indeed the remains of a Vastva.
"Aside from fractures in the hands and thigh, there are no other fatal injuries. It doesn't appear he died from these injuries."
Matlisa said after examining the remains.
"Wait, that's not right." She seemed to have discovered something and leaned down.
The tips of the snake's tails fell silent and stopped swaying.
Then he gently picked up a rib, observing its luster and even sniffing it.
"Some kind of soul absorption has caused a large amount of soul to pass through this bone, leaving some soul power lingering in the skeleton."
Hearing this, Pororo curiously took the bone from Matresa's hand.
He turned it over and over, even imitating the smell.
"Is it so mysterious? I can't tell at all."
"If you can tell, you'd be a doctor," Jason quipped, earning a kick from Pororo.
"Alright, alright, let's keep digging. We don't have enough information right now, and we don't know what it is."
After Alka finished speaking, the group dispersed and resumed the excavation.
As they dug deeper, the entire ruins were revealed, and they unearthed more bones.
Without exception, the vast majority of these bones did not die from external injuries; at least, there were no fatal wounds on the bones.
Whether or not the skeletons had sustained fatal injuries, they all bore traces of soul absorption.
This meant that most of them died from soul absorption.
As for how the souls were absorbed, or who caused it, they had no idea.
After all, they had never even seen soul absorption. Matresa only knew about it, and she didn't know the true situation.
What was strange was why the bones were only found here, and not elsewhere.
Jason and the others were already speculating whether this place was once a cemetery.
Using the tower as a cemetery wasn't impossible; after all, it was an ancient name from tens of thousands of years ago. Who knew?
As the ruins were fully excavated,
Arka discovered that the ruins were actually quite well-preserved, and that the damage wasn't caused by an external attack, but rather by underground tremors.
After all, the causes of the two collapses were different. The two we'd seen earlier, except for the museum, were all caused by external forces.
It was as if they had been broken by a giant hand.
It was different.
Alka had already seen the golden light emanating from the cracks in the rocks.
He picked up a shovel and walked over, gently digging.
"What are you digging there for?" Simon asked curiously.
There were already traces of the ruins' collapse there, and they needed to be protected.
"There's treasure inside," Alka said quietly.
"Oh, there's treasure."
Simon nodded indifferently, minding his own business.
Then he turned sharply, his face filled with surprise, and shouted, "What did you say? Treasure?"
"Treasure? Where is the treasure?"
Jason also ran over, curious. Everyone was drawn to the sound.
"Hey, that's it," Alka pointed to the hole he'd dug and the golden object within.
Next to the gold mine, a half-skeletal remains emerged.
Why half-skeletal remains? Because the lower half was missing, and Alka had only dug out the sides of the upper body.
Everyone immediately leaned over.
"Don't push, don't push."
Alka completely unearthed the object and held it in his hands. The golden light vanished with his touch.
It was a withered flower, its petals still clinging to the pistil, even the stem turning yellow.
If it weren't for the golden glow, its appearance would have been identical to a withered flower, not a single difference.
"Is this... a treasure?" Jason asked.
Honestly, it's hard to believe.
After all, a withered flower wouldn't survive in the soil for tens of thousands of years unless it was dug out of the ground.
"It's truly hard to describe its appearance. It will rise to the top of the list of the most inconspicuous treasures," Lucilia suddenly said.
"When did this list come about? How come I didn't know about it?"
"It just came up. The previous top spot was my banner."
Just then, Alka felt something and ducked his head.
The priest's hand, now reduced to a skeleton, suddenly grasped his ankle firmly.
A pink mist erupted, and Alka's face flashed with a mirror image. He instantly entered the state of a dreamlike death, appearing several meters away.
The entire process took less than a second.
The surrounding Sofia and the others also leaped back to avoid it.
The corpse in the pit remained intact, save for its arm, which had been broken by its grip.
A few meters away, Alka suddenly emerged from his dreamlike state of death and looked at the hand bone on his ankle, removing it.
"Samorlu, Samorlu, Samorlu... Erlu." The word echoed in his mind.
The entire word filled his mind, making him completely unable to resist.
He fought back, sweat dripping from his forehead.
"There's something wrong with Alka! Help him!"
Xadaiti was the first to notice something was wrong with Alka and shouted.
Lucilia's body slumped, and her soul emerged, piercing Alka's body like a sharp blade.
She saw that Alka was mentally unstable and prepared to enter his soul space, hoping to help him resist.
This was something they had done a long time ago, and it had some merit.
However, it was too late.
Arka opened her mouth and spoke a language no one could understand, but they could tell it was the island's unique language.
Everyone's heart sank.
"Samor Road."
"The temple has been activated!" Julia said, sensing the sudden surge of magical power around them.
This time, they didn't want to wait there, but headed towards the top of the pit.
Shadaiti and Jason, who were closest to Arka, stepped forward, ready to take Arka with them.
However, this time was different.
As soon as they finished speaking, their bodies vanished from the spot, leaving only the soulless husk of Lucilia's puppet, which had returned to its original form and fallen to the ground.
The puppet's beautiful clothes were covered in a layer of dirty mud.
He tumbled down, landing in a pit.
And as he shouted these words,
The words that had been frantically occupying Alka's mind vanished, his thoughts returning to normal, his brain functioning once again.
Controlling his body, he looked around.
Mathelisha had already reached his side, her upper hands aimed at his brain, a faint magical aura swirling around his head.
Her lower hands were raised, assisting in the examination.
The others, with their backs to Alka, shielded him from the center.
"How do you feel now?" Lucilia's voice echoed through his soul.
"When did you get into my body?" Alka asked, somewhat puzzled.
The same words had just filled his mind, making him completely oblivious to what was happening around him.
"Just now, you were in a trance and had a problem. You even chanted Samoru Road, activating this temple."
"Really? When that corpse grabbed me, that sentence flooded into my mind, forcing me to chant it out loud."
Looking back now, if my mind and soul weren't so much stronger than an average person, I probably wouldn't have been able to resist the thought when it flooded my mind.
And I at least managed to resist it for a few seconds.
Consider the corpse's identity.
After all, he was a powerful figure from the mythical era tens of thousands of years ago, and one of the leaders of a city-state. Being able to resist the backup plan for a few seconds was already quite impressive.
Alka consoled himself with this thought.
With the treasure nearby, the corpse must be the high priest, right?
Looking at Matlisa, who was examining him, he opened his eyes and said, "I'm fine. I'm fine now."
Matisa nodded at him. She had just checked as well and indeed found nothing amiss.
She was only conducting a thorough inspection because she was worried about Alka's condition.
"Is this the temple's overlapping space?" Alka asked, looking around.
Sofia nodded.
"Are you okay? What happened just now?"
"I'm fine. Something went wrong just now. I'll tell you later."
Then he looked around.
This was a square space, roughly 200 meters on a side and about 10 meters high.
Everything around him had long since shattered and scattered, except for a blue crystal ball in the house, which still floated quietly.
The blue crystal ball was now emitting a faint glow, which grew stronger and stronger.
This made everyone gathered together more alert. Lucilia's soul emerged from Alka's chest and looked at
Watching the situation outside.
As the blue light converged, a flickering figure, composed of light, emerged.
He had distinct Vastva features, clad in robes of an indeterminate color. Judging by the patterns and symbols on them, they appeared to be some kind of religious robe.
His eyes were numb, his expression mechanical.
What was striking was that he had no lower body, floating only in the dim light of his upper body.
He looked at Alka and the others.
He suddenly began to speak.
He spoke in the island language, and surprisingly, Alka could understand him.
He scratched his ears to make sure he had heard correctly.
"He spoke in the island language, right?"
Hearing this, Sofia turned his head to look at him, then nodded.
"I don't know who you are, where you come from, or even how many years from now you'll be here.
But I hope you can help us, our compatriots trapped in this alternate dimension... trapped in the [Heart of the Pioneer]... This is a divine... treasure, stored... in... the opening... autumn... combined... together... to... fight... I hope you... thank me."
Aside from the first few complete sentences, the man's subsequent speech was all intermittent.
He couldn't even maintain his condensed form, flickering and pulsing, as if short-circuiting.
Thankfully, Alka was able to gather more information from the treasure information, so he could still understand a bit.
He roughly grasped what he was trying to say.
After saying the last word "thank you," he vanished.
Even the floating crystal ball behind him dimmed, crashing to the floor of the dimension, rolling to the side twice before getting stuck in the corner.
"What did he just say? Why was it so disjointed, and from the looks of it, you can understand it?" Sofia asked, looking at Alka.
Alka nodded.
"Perhaps it's because of that message just now. I suddenly understand their language."
"That's normal. After all, he's asking for our help, isn't he? If we can't even understand the language he left behind, how can we help them?" Lucilia, who also understood, said nearby.
Alka nodded. That was indeed the point.
"So what did he just say? He didn't seem to have any ill intentions. What did he want us to help him with?" Jason asked curiously.
All these actions were a way for this phantom to seek help in his lifetime.
Perhaps even he himself didn't expect that it would be tens of thousands of years before the first person to find his remains and come here after his death would find him.
Alka thought it was amazing that the sphere could last for tens of thousands of years.