In the messy hall, Ryan listened to the souls in front of him tell their stories and asked, "Can you tell me what is behind this door?"
"This is the palace where the Witch King once lived. Everything inside is prepared for his eternal life." A younger-looking witch soul standing in the back row said, "The Witch King inside is my father. I once heard him talking to himself in the palace. When he found me, I was turned into a corpse cocoon."
It seemed that there would be no more traps ahead. Thinking of this, Ryan felt much better, so he asked the souls in front of him, "What are your plans now?"
After the souls gathered together and whispered for a while, the soul that had just claimed to be the Witch King's daughter walked forward, saluted, and said, "The Witch King was great, but he was no longer the same after his journey in pursuit of immortality. We hope that you can take us in and send him to where he should go. That way, we can fulfill our wishes and then walk down the road of death."
Once again signing an oath with death itself, a group of temporary residents moved into Ryan's sea of consciousness.
Looking at the mess on the ground, Ryan finally understood why such a powerful civilization disappeared without a trace. Not every cocoon could be successfully made. More than 30 cocoons meant that at least 300 wizards had died.
After all, the more powerful anything in the magic world is, the lower the success rate of its production. In Ryan's life magic inheritance, the success rate of making a corpse puppet warrior with a shelf life of no more than half a year is at most a little over 80%. The success rate of a magician who can last for a thousand years must not be much higher.
Even if, according to what the wizard souls just said, the Witch King had already comprehended the mysteries of life and death when he created them, the success rate of such a thing would not exceed one in ten.
Consider also that this civilization's complex writing system was highly detrimental to the spread of culture, and its wizard population was likely smaller than in other civilizations (illiterate people could never reach the level of a normal wizard). The wizards the Witch King killed to create his corpse cocoons likely comprised the vast majority of the territory's wizards. Add to that those involved in the temple construction in the blood pool outside, and it's likely that the entire civilization's knowledgeable population perished here.
A civilization that loses its inheritors and leaders, along with magic and knowledge, will quickly fall into civil war or exodus, as the land cannot support a sufficient population, ultimately degenerating into barbarism. It's likely that the smaller city-states and pyramid temples of Central America were built by the people who fled here. However, without sufficient magic and knowledge, they could only form simplified civilizations.
No wonder the Witch King's daughter said that he was no longer himself. To completely destroy the civilization he had built for the sake of eternal life was simply not something a normal human being could do.
After lamenting the destruction of a great civilization, Ryan began to search for spoils from the charcoal on the ground. Before being sealed into the sculpture, each wizard had carried a variety of magical props, but unfortunately, with the passage of time and the baptism of lightning just now, there were very few things left.
But anything that can survive the double blow of the passage of time and thunderstorms is definitely a good thing. Ryan finally obtained an obsidian ceremonial knife, a meteorite amulet and a jade slab inlaid with gold edges. After asking the wizard souls in the sea of consciousness, the owners of these things told Ryan how to use the magic props in front of him.
Ryan then gained a small knife that could be used in magic rituals against spirits, an amulet that could withstand a single instant-death attack, and a magic tablet for advanced corpse manipulation and transformation.
Finally, Ryan burned the mummy into ashes with a raging flame, then took out a few empty bottles, filled them with ashes, chose a good place in the hall, pried open the floor tiles and buried the bottles.
After all, their souls had provided Ryan with a lot of help, so it would be inappropriate to let them stay here under such circumstances. So Ryan took some time to help them rest in peace. As for the blood pool just now, there was really nothing he could do, so he could only get out and ask someone to bury them.
After cleaning up the battlefield, Ryan went back to call Hermione back. When he found Hermione, he found that she was sitting there leaning against the pillar, with her fingers crossed on her knees, praying for Ryan.
"Are you okay?" Hermione saw Ryan, who looked a little dusty, coming over and immediately stood up and asked.
"It's okay, I just got some dust on me when I was searching for loot after the battle." Ryan handed the meteorite amulet to Hermione. "This thing can avoid one instant-kill attack. You should take it with you. After all, it's very dangerous here, and having you with me will make me feel more at ease."
Hermione nodded and took the amulet with her, and then the two of them came to the wooden door.
After checking the door according to the guidance of the souls in his mind, Ryan pushed it open. The moment he opened the door, he was stunned because standing in front of him was a warrior wearing golden armor and holding an obsidian spear. Ryan could even see the complex tattoo patterns on his face.
Ryan and the other man instinctively waved their weapons, preparing to cast a spell. Ryan, in particular, felt incredibly nervous. There was an iron rule in life spells: the more powerful a dead creature was, the less different it was from its living self. He didn't even dare to imagine how powerful this creature, who looked almost the same as a living being, could be.
But perhaps the wind blew up when he swung his arms, and the warrior quickly turned into powder in front of them. The golden armor on his body fell to the ground with a crackling sound, and was scattered everywhere.
Ryan stepped forward to examine it carefully, only to discover that the warrior before him had long since died. However, because this place had been sealed for thousands of years, it had remained intact under magical protection. But when they opened the door, the sealed environment was completely broken, and he naturally turned to dust.
So that's how it is. Whether it's the colors on the Qin Terracotta Warriors or the lotus slices in the Mawangdui Han Tomb, rapid weathering after environmental changes is a very common phenomenon in the archaeological community. Even if this is archaeology in the magical world, many principles are common.
After figuring out the reason, Ryan and his companions bypassed the pile of golden armor in the middle of the road and continued to move forward. At this time, Ryan was sure that they were now in another dimension of the temple. Because inside this door was a complete temple, there was even a golden magic ball in the sky that released light as the sun.
Time seemed frozen here. A soldier stood guard beneath each temple pillar, and maids scattered across the courtyard in groups of three or four. In the center of the courtyard, ornately dressed priests appeared to be heading to the glittering golden temple ahead to pay homage to their gods. Everything was as it had been when the Witch-King was still alive.
But all the organic matter visible to the naked eye was rapidly weathering. Of course, by the time Ryan and his companions reached the front of the Golden Pyramid Temple, everything had disappeared, leaving only piles of ashes and scattered stones and gold products in the ashes.
"Do you want to stay here?" Ryan asked Hermione. "Because the temple up there is probably the most dangerous place here."
"I think if the thing inside can defeat you, no place in this pyramid is safe, and I'm not a burden. Maybe I can help you if I go up there." Hermione thought for a moment and said firmly.
"Okay, let's go up together." After saying that, the two of them walked up the stairs towards the building at the top of the pyramid.
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