[Inside the Stone Coffin]
Beneath the head of the Medusa statue that Harriet and the others had cleared away, there really was a hidden door.
Fortunately, the stone coffin was large enough. Even with seven people and one cat entering together, there was still room to stand. After opening the hidden door, Harriet went in first.
It seemed that Harriet's team wanted to show their sincerity in cooperating.
So no one urged Ethan. Instead, they followed Harriet and entered through the hidden door one by one. Only after they had all gone in did Ethan wave his hand and say, "Collect."
[Advanced Stone +102]
[Petrification Magic Stone Dust +20]
"Haha!"
When Ethan saw more than a hundred units of Advanced Stone and twenty units of Petrification Magic Stone Dust, he couldn't help laughing.
'These spoiled rich kids don't know what it is like to manage a household. I have no intention of wasting such good materials.'
But collecting them in front of others would make him look stingy. And if they wanted a share afterward, Ethan would take a huge loss.
But since they had abandoned them on their own, then Ethan couldn't be blamed for not sharing.
"My Lord, are you sure you want to cooperate with them?"
"That's right, My Lord. They don't look like good people."
"They even injured Lady Daji before."
Bird One and Bird Two were both worried about Ethan.
Bird Three, however, said, "My Lord naturally has his reasons. Don't interfere with My Lord's decisions! As citizens, we only need to do as My Lord says!"
"Yes, My Lord."
After hearing that, Bird One and Bird Two immediately lowered their heads.
Ethan naturally wouldn't scold citizens who were worried about him. Instead, he explained, "You don't need to worry too much. I know what they're trying to do."
"But this is just a game of using each other. I want to use their information, while she wants to use my head."
"But that's fine. Once we get through the second stage, it'll depend on who moves faster."
———
[Secret Passage]
Beneath the Medusa statue's head inside the stone coffin was a stone staircase leading downward into the depths.
At this moment, dim lights had already lit up along both sides of the passage where Harriet's group had walked. Ethan entered together with the birdmen and Daji.
The passage was filled with damp and rotten smells, like a basement that never saw daylight.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Clang! Clang!
As they descended the stairs, Ethan kept hearing the sound of arrows being fired from deeper within the stairway, along with weapons colliding with arrows and arrows falling to the ground.
It seemed this stairway wasn't safe either. Danger was everywhere along the way.
However, Harriet's team clearly had some real skill. They were able to knock down all these hidden arrows with ease.
BOOM!
A violent rumble echoed out.
It sounded like some huge offensive weapon had smashed through a wall.
The entire stairway immediately began shaking violently.
"What happened?"
Ethan was somewhat surprised, 'This is only the path leading to the second temple, isn't it? How could it be this dangerous?'
'Still, it is good that these people are taking the lead.'
It made things much easier for Ethan.
He could deal with these traps by himself without any problem.
But the birdman group behind him... Would be in danger.
"Are you all okay?"
Ethan shouted toward the bottom of the stairs.
A reply quickly came from below.
"We're fine, but be careful on your way down. There are a lot of mechanisms hidden along this path."
"Got it!"
Since both sides were cooperating for now, naturally neither side wanted the other to die too easily.
So Ethan didn't doubt their warning.
He continued downward.
After descending nearly another hundred stone steps, Ethan finally saw the hidden weapon that had shaken the entire passage.
It was a giant arrow as thick as a human thigh. The arrow was made of black iron, but years of corrosion had left its surface pitted and uneven.
This black iron giant arrow had pierced straight through one side of the passage and embedded itself into the opposite wall, spanning nearly three meters in between.
One could imagine how powerful it had been.
If it hit a person, it would probably punch right through them.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
BOOM!
As he continued downward, Ethan kept hearing the sounds of various hidden weapons colliding with weapons below.
Along the way, he also saw rotten arrows whose feathers had long since disappeared, countless slender spikes, and even scorch marks on the walls.
It looked like all of them had been triggered recently.
Although Ethan remained careful throughout the journey, he never encountered any danger.
After all, following behind a reasonably capable team gave him a huge advantage. He reached the platform below with almost no trouble at all, arriving where Harriet and the others were standing.
However... when Ethan got there, he discovered that beneath the platform was yet another long staircase.
He looked at Harriet and the others in confusion.
"Why did you stop?"
"We may have already entered the Illusion Temple," Harriet looked thoughtful as she spoke, "According to the map, this passage shouldn't be this long. And we've already encountered more than ten traps along the way. Something isn't right."
"You mean that from the moment we stepped through the hidden door, we had already entered the Illusion Temple?", Ethan frowned after hearing that.
'It seems this temple is even harder to deal with than the first one.'
To put it simply, the first temple only required solving the eyes of the Medusa statue. At least there was a clear direction.
But this kind of place that resembled a ghost wall, though in a magical world it probably wasn't called a ghost wall, but an illusion.
In Ethan's eyes, however, there wasn't much difference.
After all, you had no idea where the solution to this kind of stage was.
You could only stumble around blindly and hope to find the way out.
"That's right," Harriet took a deep breath and said, "I only realized it after reaching this platform and seeing another identical staircase."
"An identical staircase?", Ethan asked, "How do you know this staircase is the same as the previous one?"
"I have a super memory."
As she spoke, Harriet pointed at the second staircase and said, "I remember that after we entered the passage, there was a small notch on the second step. A stone that had been eroded for years and was about to fall off was kicked loose by Kaleb."
"But look carefully at this spot now. The notch is still there, but the broken stone is gone."
"And on the seventh step, I touched a slightly raised stone on the wall. I thought it was a mechanism, so I examined it carefully with a lamp. It turned out to be a relief carving that had almost been worn flat."
"Although it's not especially clear from this position, the shadows still make it obvious that there's a slightly raised stone in that spot."