After confirming there were no traps like arrows, Yu Hanjiang leaped up, using his Lightness Skill to fly up. Lao Mo, Gui Yuanzhang, Long Sen, and Qu Wanyue followed suit.
For those without Lightness Skill cards, Yu Hanjiang put down the white silk and pulled his teammates up one by one.
The stone chamber above is twice the size of the previous one, a spacious area of nearly 200 square meters, with the walls covered with colorful murals.
In the center of the secret chamber was a stone platform one meter high, on which sat a stone coffin.
Three rings of eternal lamps were lit around the stone coffin, along with a large number of yellow talismans.
Xiao Lou strode towards the mural.
The murals on the four walls fully depict the owner's life.
The owner of this ancient tomb was not actually a general, but the emperor of a small ancient country. He was not the eldest son of the legitimate wife, but a son born to a concubine. As a child, he was not favored and suffered a lot of bullying. In order to obtain the throne, he endured humiliation and hardship, and after growing up, he killed many of his own brothers. Finally, he launched a coup, massacred the palace, killed his newly enthroned elder brother, and sat on the dragon throne for himself.
Perhaps due to the excessive torment he suffered in his childhood, his psyche gradually became twisted. During his reign, he was tyrannical and cruel. Judging from the murals alone, countless people died or were injured under his tyranny.
In his later years, he suddenly became a Buddhist, believing that he had committed grave sins and might go to hell after death. So he neglected state affairs and stayed in the palace chanting scriptures, and he also had frequent nightmares.
The imperial advisor beside him gave him an idea: to build this "Seven Stars Surrounding the Moon Tomb," to find young men and women from the four major tribes at the time as sacrifices, and to place them in the four star positions of the Big Dipper Formation. He also needed to find two pairs of young boys and girls, fill them with mercury to preserve the bodies, and seal the "immortal energy" within them to help him ascend to immortality.
The old emperor believed the imperial advisor's words wholeheartedly and spent a full ten years building this tomb.
The entire tomb has a three-layer structure, with the top layer being his main burial chamber—high up and in a very hidden location.
The lower level is an easy place for tomb raiders to find, as it is full of traps and mazes. Even if later tomb raiders enter the tomb, they will almost certainly die. Even if a tomb raider is extremely skilled and successfully navigates the Six Paths of Reincarnation and discovers the lower level of the living burial tomb, they will still become disoriented by the leaf-shaped maze.
Moreover, he deliberately created a decoy, filling it with a large amount of gold and silver treasures, so that intruders would mistakenly believe they had discovered the main burial chamber, and if they were to lower their guard and descend the steps, they would be riddled with poisoned arrows...
After looking at the murals on the wall, Xiao Lou didn't know how to comment on them.
He was a materialist and didn't believe in the idea of "cultivating immortality." However, many ancient people believed in these legends. For them, live burial was merely a ritual; pouring mercury into children under ten years old, causing them to die in agony, was seen as a way to "preserve their divine essence"...
Xiao Lou turned back to the stone coffin: "Let's open the coffin and take a look."
Yu Hanjiang used a military knife to slash at the stone coffin.
But the coffin was very sturdy; his knife struck it, and there was no reaction. It was unclear whether it was made of different materials or if the Guardian had deliberately made the coffin indestructible.
Xiao Lou leaned closer to look at the talismans around the coffin. These talismans looked very familiar, somewhat similar to the talismans in the Six Paths of Reincarnation chamber, but upon closer inspection, they didn't seem quite right... as if they had been distorted.
It felt similar to the distorted appearance I felt when looking in a yin-yang mirror.
Xiao Lou took out a yin-yang mirror from his pocket.
He then looked in the yin-yang mirror and discovered that the talismanic patterns around the coffin were indeed consistent with those in the Six Paths of Reincarnation chamber.
Seeing this, Gui Yuanzhang also took out a yin-yang mirror, and the two exchanged a glance: " The Six Paths of Reincarnation talisman?"
Xiao Lou looked closely at the top of the stone coffin and found a petal-shaped mark on the lid. He used the yin-yang mirror to illuminate the talismans and placed six different talismans in the cyclical order at the mark.
The mark shimmered with a soft light.
Xiao Lou reached out and pushed the coffin lid. He had only meant to try it out, but he didn't expect it to actually open.
The teammates crowded around to look inside the stone coffin.
Inside lay an elderly man, around fifty years old, dressed in a dragon robe, with a peaceful expression.
There weren't many jewels or gold in the coffin, probably because he wanted to cultivate himself into an immortal, and once he became an immortal, he wouldn't need money anymore.
Strangely, after so many years, the body of the tomb owner has not decomposed.
Although his complexion was slightly...
His body was pale and showed signs of lividity, but those who were buried in the same tomb at the same time had all turned into skeletons, so there was no reason why his body was still well preserved.
Ye Qi asked curiously, "Did he also pour mercury into his own body? Wouldn't that be an incredibly painful way to die?"
Xiao Lou shook his head: "It doesn't seem like mercury was poured in. His body is not the same as the boy and girl preserved in mercury that we found. It feels more like the kind of magical artifact mentioned in fantasy novels... to preserve the body."
Gui Yuanzhang seemed to have thought of something and suddenly said, "Open his mouth and take a look."
Yu Hanjiang happened to be in front of the stone coffin. Upon hearing this, he reached out and pried open the deceased's mouth with two fingers.
A soft beam of light shot out from the dead man's mouth; indeed, he had something in his mouth—
Shao Qingge narrowed his eyes: "Could it be the legendary Jade Cicada?"
In ancient times, people often placed valuable items, such as jade or luminous pearls, in the mouth of the deceased during burial. There is also a legend about jade cicada, a type of jade that resembles a cicada, which could prevent the body from decaying after death.
The reason why the body of this tomb owner did not decompose may be because of the " jade cicada " in his mouth.
Xiao Lou asked, "Shall we take it out and have a look?"
Yu Hanjiang took out the thumb-sized jade cicada. The next moment, the corpse inside the stone coffin visibly decomposed in front of everyone, with flesh and blood falling off like plaster falling off a wall, leaving only bare bones.
Everyone: "..."
The scene was like something out of a horror movie; it gave me goosebumps.
Just then, the entire maze began to shake violently again, causing everyone to lose their balance and nearly crash into the wall next to them.
A door appeared on the side of the stone chamber, and Xiao Lou's expression changed: "Quick, let's go!"
Tang Ci sent out a mechanical ant to scout ahead, and the rest of the group followed behind, running at full speed.
Behind them, countless stones tumbled down with a crash, rubble flew everywhere, and dust filled the air. The tremors caused by the collapse of the tomb were even more terrifying than a major earthquake!
Yu Hanjiang held tightly to Xiao Lou's wrist as they flew using Lightness Skill, while the other teammates also relied on their own abilities.
Everyone was running at breakneck speed, not caring about anything else, with only one thought in their minds—run!
When they finally saw the light ahead and leaped out, a loud "boom" suddenly came from behind them. The entire tomb collapsed completely, and the three-layered maze was instantly buried by boulders and dust.
Xiao Lou glanced back at the completely buried maze, his heart pounding. He had been carried by Yu Hanjiang at breakneck speed, and he was so nervous he could barely breathe. Luckily, they escaped at the last second, and just thinking about it still gave him lingering fear.
Xiao Lou looked around: "Is everyone alright?"
The teammates were all covered in dust and dirt. The dust that flew up when the maze collapsed had filled their hair with grime, and their clothes were so dirty that they looked like they had rolled around in a pile of dirt...
Fortunately, they ran fast enough that no one was injured.
"It's alright!" "A close call."
Hearing his teammates' words, Xiao Lou breathed a sigh of relief.
Just then, a bright, floating window popped up in front of everyone.
Congratulations to Xiao Lou's team on successfully completing Diamonds! Weekly Routine " Tomb of the Headless General ", rankings are being finalized...
[Your team completed this maze challenge in a total time of 4 hours, 38 minutes, and 44 seconds.]
[Ranked No. 1 in the world]
[Please contact The Diamond-Suit Guardian to claim your reward]
Everyone paused for a moment upon seeing the last line of the message.
Number one in the world?
It seems they've turned misfortune into a blessing in disguise!
Hunter planted explosives in the maze, causing the entire tomb to tremble. In order to escape, they had no choice but to abandon the idea of trying different paths and risk everything by relying on reasoning.
As a result, they became the team that finished the Weekly Routine maze in the shortest time and was the first to leave.