Within a few seconds, everything in the burial chamber began to corrode and age.
The lights that had been maintained rapidly extinguished, and the surroundings quickly darkened.
"Whoosh!"
Several flames ignited around Silas.
He let the flames float within the chamber, using them as light sources to illuminate the space.
By the firelight, he looked at the picture frame in his hands.
It was a portrait of a young man with a relaxed smile.
The young man had slightly curled black hair and black eyes, a wide forehead, and a somewhat thin face.
He wore a black pointed soft hat, like the attire of a legendary wizard.
A monocle hung on his face, though it didn't add much scholarly air. Instead, it made him look even more peculiar.
This is...
Looking at this portrait, Silas suddenly thought of something and looked sharply toward the mottled mural.
Among the two infants held by the angels, one had black hair and black eyes.
Combined with the earlier hallucination and Zoroya's apprehensive attitude, the identity of the person in the portrait needed no further explanation.
Amon!
The erosion of time had ended, and the skin on his body was automatically healing.
But Silas had no mind to pay attention to his body, only vigilantly observing the young man in the painting.
The more he looked, the more he found that smiling face irritating.
"Step, step..."
Footsteps came from the burial chamber.
Zoroya had already entered.
When he saw the figure in the painting, he couldn't help but click his tongue softly.
Without seeming to do anything, the painting quickly changed, some kind of divine essence rapidly disappearing from it.
What had been a lifelike Amon became a stiff, lifeless object, even becoming somewhat unlike the person himself.
"Good. Now we don't need to worry about him noticing."
Zoroya nodded, then said to Silas, "This item is yours now. Just be careful not to let it flip over."
With that, he left Silas behind and walked toward the black coffin.
"Creak..."
A harsh, teeth-grinding sound followed as Zoroya pushed open the heavy coffin with one hand, exposing its interior to the air.
Silas looked over curiously, then felt somewhat disappointed.
The coffin was completely empty, only lined with a golden cushion embroidered with a transparent worm with twelve segments.
Its form was identical to the worm belonging to the demigoddess that Zoroya had crushed earlier.
This worm... does it have some connection to Marauders?
"Hmph."
Though the coffin was empty, Zoroya showed no dissatisfaction.
He reached out to pick up the golden cushion, pressed his hand on it, and swept from left to right.
After finishing, he casually tossed the cushion back into the coffin and descended from the platform.
He began circling the burial chamber, observing.
Sharron was still standing outside.
Silas gave her a look, signaling her not to come in yet. If the burial chamber still held any oddities, having her outside could be useful.
The iron candelabras along the chamber walls had all decayed and collapsed, and the murals had become mottled and peeled away.
Apart from the corpses of Beyonders on the ground gradually precipitating their spirituality, the chamber seemed to have nothing of value left.
After circling halfway around the chamber, Zoroya stopped before a wall. On that wall, the outline of a stone door was faintly traced.
There's more space behind here?
Silas couldn't help thinking.
Zoroya seemed to think the same.
He walked directly forward, pressed his right hand on the stone door, and slowly pushed.
The stone door didn't open, but its surface rippled with hazy water light. That water light condensed into an almost real scene:
Deep blue waves, nearly black, surged forward, beating against towering, craggy peaks.
Dense black mist stretched endlessly, filling the field of vision.
Only the waves below and the peaks protruding from the mist were the sole exceptions.
Waves?
Hearing the sound of tides, Silas almost instinctively associated them with the tide within his body.
But he quickly realized that this deep blue ocean seemed to be something that actually existed, completely different from the thick, illusory sea he'd seen before.
But why would there be a stone door leading to a mysterious sea in Amon's tomb?
"Heh heh..."
Just as he was puzzling over this, he suddenly heard laughter from the person beside him.
Zoroya was chuckling softly, his face showing an expression of sudden realization.
"So that's it... You went over there, didn't you..."
He muttered to himself, as if speaking to the absent Amon.
Amon went over there?
Did he go to the other side of this sea?
Just as Silas began to speculate, he saw a large amount of spirituality suddenly surge from Zoroya's palm, some invisible rule rapidly forming.
The surface of the stone door began to weather, bit by bit turning to fragments until it completely vanished.
Aside from a small pile of stone dust remaining on the ground, no other evidence could prove it had ever existed.
Zoroya had destroyed the door!
"Sir, what are you..."
"Adding some trouble for that guy."
Zoroya said with a chuckle, looking quite pleased.
"..."
True enough.
When Amon finishes whatever he's doing over there and wants to use the stone door to return, only to find the door destroyed and himself unable to come back, his expression will surely be priceless...
Silas also thought with malicious glee.
After all, they hadn't just destroyed a stone door. They'd blown up Amon's entire tomb.
"Sir, which item are you planning to take?"
After destroying the stone door, Zoroya clearly lost interest in further exploration and returned to the center of the chamber. Silas took the opportunity to ask.
"I've already taken what I wanted."
Zoroya waved his hand. "The remaining things, do with them as you please."
Already taken it?
From the time you entered until now, you only touched that cushion!
Silas instinctively looked toward the interior of the coffin.
The cushion inside still maintained the state it had been in when thrown back... Hm?
At that moment, he suddenly discovered that the twelve-segmented worm embroidered on the golden cushion had disappeared.
If he hadn't seen it earlier, Silas would have thought the cushion had originally been embroidered with nothing at all.
Was the thing Zoroya truly wanted just that worm?!
The thoughts of high-sequence powerhouses were difficult to fathom.
Perhaps there was some deep secret within that embroidered worm.
But Silas knew his limits and wouldn't court death by insisting on understanding everything.
He just pretended to nod in confusion, then called Sharron in to help collect the characteristics scattered on the ground.
The haul this time was truly substantial.
Besides several Wraith characteristics, there was a powerful Beyonder item, as well as the Beyonder characteristics precipitated by the previous tomb explorers.
Not just characteristics, the explorers had also carried some items on them, which now all belonged to Silas and Sharron.
"Alright, let's call it a night."
Zoroya said. "Thank you for your help."
With that, he lowered his head. As if a breeze swept by, the firelight in the burial chamber dimmed for an instant.
"Huh? Who are you? Where is this?"
A moment later, he suddenly opened his eyes and cried out in alarm, looking left and right in panic, appearing very frightened of the two.
That deep, terrifying aura about him had vanished. Now, his characteristics barely reached Sequence 6.
And the existence called "Zoroya" seemed to have quietly departed.