Gun Factory, Office.
Lorne, who was working at his desk, suddenly felt his spiritual intuition being lightly touched.
"Teacher Sharon?"
Sure enough, that familiar figure wearing a black Gothic court dress and a small soft hat was floating silently in mid-air.
"It's me."
The other party's cold voice drifted over.
"I remember there shouldn't be any classes today—" Lorne put down the documents in his hand and looked at her with some confusion.
"It's not about the lessons." Sharon slowly floated a bit closer.
Lorne looked up at her, waiting for her to continue.
Sharon continued in her flat, emotionless tone: "And it's not about those Beyonder characteristics brought out from the mausoleum either."
"Then what is it?" Lorne was even more puzzled. Besides these two things, could there be anything else that required her to make a personal trip?
"Marich found some problems in your villa that's under renovation—" Sharon explained.
"Villa—problems—" Lorne's brow furrowed, a bad premonition rising in his heart.
8 Williams Street.
Lorne, arriving with Sharon, met Marich who had been waiting at the villa's entrance for some time.
Because it was late, the renovation workers had already finished work and gone home. In the vast villa, only the three of them remained.
"The renovation is coming along well—" Lorne stood outside the villa, carefully examining his property.
The originally somewhat aged exterior walls had been repainted, presenting a steady cream-white color. The lines of the window frames and eaves had also been refined. Although the interior was still a mess, from the outside, it already possessed the grandeur of a luxury mansion.
He turned to look at Marich beside him and said sincerely, "Thank you for your hard work. Taking time out of your busy schedule with commissions to look after this place for me."
"Commission? What commission?" Hearing Lorne's words, a look of obvious bewilderment appeared on Marich's face.
He had been quite free lately and hadn't taken any commissions at all. Aside from playing cards with those 'poker buddies' every day, the rest of his time was spent coming over to help Scott supervise the work.
"No commission—" Lorne glanced at him in surprise, then slightly turned his body, using the corner of his eye to glance at Sharon behind him.
"Uh—" Marich was still confused, but when he caught Sharon's expressionless but exceptionally cold gaze, he instantly jolted and reacted, quickly changing his tune: "Ah, right—I just finished a rather troublesome commission recently." He hurriedly made up a reason, "The client wants me to keep it strictly confidential, so—I can't say much about the specific details."
"Is that so—" Lorne looked at him suspiciously, then at Sharon, who acted as if it were none of her business. Ultimately, he didn't probe further. "Well, anyway, thanks for your hard work."
He followed Marich and Sharon through the cluttered living room filled with various building materials, down a flight of stairs, and into a fairly wide basement.
No gas pipes were laid here, but on the walls were four quaint metal candle holders. The flickering candlelight from the burning candles cast their shadows, stretching them long and short.
Looking at the surrounding walls and floor, which had clearly undergone careful renovation, Lorne couldn't help but sigh with emotion.
"As expected of a former noble's house—I wouldn't have the heart to dig a basement as large as a living room under my own home, and a fully renovated one at that."
After walking a few more steps, Marich stopped and pointed to a seemingly ordinary wall ahead.
"There is a secret door there that the workers discovered by accident while modifying the wall structure."
"Inside, it leads to a large-scale underground complex."
"I tried letting my Zombies in to explore before, but—none of those Zombies were able to return."
"Some kind of ruins—" Lorne muttered to himself.
Backlund was a city with a long history; digging up some ancient site underground was not unusual at all. Just like the ancient capitals before he transmigrated, every time a major construction project was undertaken, it was like an archaeological disaster, because you never knew what the next shovel at the construction site would dig up.
"Maybe—there's treasure inside."
"What do you two think?" Lorne turned and asked, "Should we continue exploring to find out the situation inside, or just seal this place up entirely?"
"You are the owner of this house, you decide." Sharon's tone was as calm as ever.
"Hmm—" Lorne rested his finger on his chin, pondering for a moment.
"If there really is something extraordinary inside and I don't figure it out, I'm afraid I won't even be able to sleep—"
He focused slightly, carefully sensing. His spiritual intuition told him there was indeed danger behind the secret door, but—the degree of danger was far less intense than what he had felt in Amon's mausoleum before.
"Then—let's explore and see. If we really find any treasure, the three of us will split it equally."
"Agreed." Neither Marich nor Sharon had any objections.
"Why are there so many snakes—"
The exploration had only just begun. Not long after the three of them pushed open the heavy stone door, they encountered a veritable "rain of snakes."
—
Countless long snakes with triangular heads and red patterns all over their bodies swarmed out of the cracks in the stone walls like a tide, making one's scalp tingle.
"Should I use a gun to spray them?" Looking at this scene that would make a trypophobia sufferer die on the spot, Lorne suggested with a frown.
"No need."
Sharon and Marich exchanged a look.
The next second, a piercingly cold wind suddenly blew through the corridor. Whoosh! The sound of the wind surged, blowing into every corner of the passage, and the temperature here began to drop rapidly.
About a minute later, a thin layer of frost had formed on the ground and walls. Most of the surging venomous snakes were frozen in place, maintaining their crawling postures and losing their lives. Only a few in the back that were lucky enough not to be affected scurried back into the depths of the stone cracks.
"What a convenient ability—" Lorne was shivering slightly from the cold, but he still offered a sincere compliment.
As the exploration continued, the group discovered many unexpected things.
They found that this underground structure had very obvious architectural styles belonging to the fourth epoch.
In a hall resembling a council chamber, they found two enormous seats that seemed prepared for giants. On the back of one seat, the crest of the Tudor family was clearly carved.
Next, they discovered statues and sacred emblems of the other six orthodox gods, besides the God of Steam and Machinery.
"Over a thousand years of history—" Lorne stroked the marks on the cold stone wall.
"My house is actually built on a pile of antiques—"
He couldn't help but sigh again. Taking the monocle out of his pocket, he put it on his right eye and looked at these "antiques" with great interest, estimating their value.
A moment later, he took off the glasses with some disappointment and sighed.
"What a pity—these things with obvious religious attributes can't be sold at all. Once they're put on the market, it's easy for the official Beyonders to come knocking on the door to 'check the gas meter.'"
"Otherwise, these'scraps' would be priceless treasures—"
"There is another door over there." Sharon's ethereal voice interrupted Lorne's money-grubbing thoughts.
Following Sharon's words, the group cast their gaze toward the huge, closed double stone doors in the center of the hall.
"Inside—it gives me a very bad feeling—"
"It feels like—there's something extremely ominous—" Lorne rested his finger on his chin, his brow tightly furrowed.
"Should I send another Zombie in to scout?" Marich suggested.
"No." Lorne immediately refused. "Didn't your previous Zombies all lose contact? If you send another one in, it might attract something ominous—"
"Something ominous being sealed—"
He looked around the hall covered in historical dust. His spiritual intuition, belonging to the Fate Pathway, was lightly touched.
"I feel—here, it seems more than one unlucky soul has died."