Tomb Raiding: My Family's Last Clan Chief is Little Brother

Chapter 527 Reverse Mechanism
In the center of the deep pit below is a small pagoda tomb carved from a single piece of stone. As expected, the exposed part of the pagoda is sculpted as a statue of Yama, the King of Hell.

Looking from above, only its upper half can be seen, with twelve arms outstretched like the Thousand-Armed Guanyin, its head slightly lowered, its gaze fixed on the ground with a gloomy expression.

Normally, such pagoda-shaped tombs have a base underneath, but right now the base, along with the lower half of Yama's body, is buried in the pool.

The pool was shrouded in a gray haze. Although Zhang Wuxun could see clearly, he couldn't distinguish the colors well; everything in front of him was a grayish-white expanse.

He looked around at the cave walls and found no obvious exit or flaw except for the cracks. The strange thing was obviously the statue in the Yama Tower Tomb.

Zhang Wuxun took out several cold flames from his spatial storage, lit them, and flung them into several corners of the pool, illuminating the entire space as brightly as day.

In the dark, he could only see that the bottom of the pool was a uniform white. When the cold flames lit up, he realized that the area around the statue was covered with white gravel, exactly the same as the sand that fell from Yama's body after he was broken.

Regardless of how the Zhang family transported so much white sand here, Zhang Wuxun keenly realized that this place might not be the sacrificial passage he had initially envisioned.

These large quantities of white sand were likely stored here by the Zhang family, and their purpose is obvious.

"So it's a storage room?" Zhang Wuxun narrowed his eyes, a dark glint flashing in them. "Or perhaps the production workshop for creating Yama, the King of Hell?"

Compared to the proportions of that living Yama, the current Yama statue is probably buried at least two meters deep. Given the loose texture of this white sand, stepping on it would likely submerge you from your feet up to your waist.

Zhang Wuxun estimated the distance from the edge of the pool to the statue, took out a mechanical wristband from his spatial storage, put it on his right hand, pressed and flicked it, and the small silver dart flew straight towards the palm of the King of Hell.

In the instant the silver chain brushed past his palm, Zhang Wuxun flicked his wrist, and the silver chain, like a whip, propelled the small silver dart to make a nimble turn in the air, looping around from behind Yan Wang's arm and snapping onto the silver chain. The end of the small silver dart was tightly hooked into the chain loop.

Zhang Wuxun raised his right hand and tugged, causing the silver chain to slide down several centimeters, landing right on Yama's elbow.

In this situation, one has to commend the Zhang family for their impeccable attention to detail.

Zhang Wuxun took a step back, then took two running steps, stomped heavily on the edge of the pool to gain momentum, and soared into the air. The mechanical gears inside his wrist buckle turned, and the silver chain contracted rapidly as he got closer. Using the momentum of his fall, he swung and landed easily on the stone statue, stepping on Yama's outstretched arm.

This bastard has grown so many arms out of nowhere, and he's so big and strong. It's perfect to let him step on him.

Zhang Wuxun climbed up two more sections using the arms as stepping stones, then removed the small silver dart wrapped around it and put it back into his wrist buckle.

Standing atop the head of the King of Hell, Zhang Wuxun lit another cold flame and shone it upwards, discovering that the top of the stone chamber had collapsed before, as if it had been blasted by a detonator, leaving it charred black.

Especially in the back corner, the entire edge of the dome, along with the back wall, was in a terrible state, riddled with cracks of varying sizes.

In the middle of the most severely damaged crack, you can see a dark hole. The opening is as thick as a wooden bucket used to hold rice in the dining hall of a lama temple, and an adult can easily fit inside.

Judging from the remaining traces, it seems that there was originally a pipe fixed to the wall, which was blown off along with the stone wall behind it by someone. Some small, curved pieces of stone can indeed be seen on the surface of the white sand, while the heavier ones should have sunk into the sand.

Zhang Wuxun pondered to himself, "Who could have done this?"

If his speculation is correct, and this is indeed the kiln where the Zhang family created Yama, then the severed pipe was the ventilation shaft.

If the Zhang family wanted to cut off their tail, why didn't they just blow up the entire stone chamber along with it?

Or perhaps something very serious happened that caused them to leave in a hurry without even having time to clean up the mess, and could only hastily deal with the kiln site before leaving.

Combining the information the system gave Zhang Wuxun, it can be inferred that the accident that happened when the Zhang family was creating the Yama Riding Corpse and the Bronze Gate might also be related to their act of blowing up the kiln.

What exactly was that terrible "accident"? Was it related to the parasitic meteorite jade in the King of Hell's head?
Zhang Wu pondered for a long time and felt that if a common cause was to be found between the two events, it was most likely that it was that strange meteorite.

Without the material means of system rewards, it would be virtually impossible to control that thing without sacrificing several people.

Thinking of this, Zhang Wuxun's heart sank.

It's likely that the system knew from the very beginning of the main timeline what it would encounter when it entered this place in the future, which is why it granted him the permission to use materialization abilities.

It has predicted almost every step Zhang Wuxun has taken since coming into this world.

Therefore, the origin of the system is definitely not as simple as what it told Zhang Wuxun.

The ancient Lan tribe, the Zhang family, the bronze gate, the meteorite, the bronze divine tree, and even the Queen Mother of the West in the snake swamp are all inextricably linked to it.

Preventing the end from arriving is essentially a form of self-preservation. [—!]
The system gasped in shock.

Zhang Wuxun curled the corners of his mouth into a sly smile, [Remember to hide your tail next time.]
The system realized he was bluffing, and without a second thought, it quickly hid itself up, not daring to utter a sound.

Zhang Wuxun didn't continue to test it. He only needed to know that the system had the same goal as him before he brought Xiao Ge out of the bronze gate.

In fact, the system could have directly manipulated Zhang Wuxun's body to achieve its own goals, just like it had done the previous two times, and treated Zhang Wuxun as a puppet, but it did not do so.

Whether used as a medium or used to hinder cooperation, the system's assistance to him is largely free, except for the occasional blood loss, but he doesn't really care about that.

It did not stop Zhang Wuxun from wanting to end the goalkeeping early, saying that it was going to fight against a power that humans could not match.

The lifting of secrecy is like the dilution of dye; as time goes by, it is always revealed to the world in stages.

What can be done, what should be done, and what must be done?

What is the real reason behind this?

It has nothing to do with value, it's all about human effort.

There are too many variables in the future, and all Zhang Wuxun can do is to take each step carefully, keep these variables within the range he can foresee, and do his best.

If this is not the place where Yama (the King of Hell) performed sacrifices, then the Khampa people discovered this place through some opportunity, brought the women used for sacrifices here, and attempted to accomplish something.

Although the details are unknown, it must be related to parasitic meteorites.

Zhang Wuxun had no time to delve deeper and continued to observe the Yama statue. He could sense that there must be a mechanism hidden beneath the white sand.

He climbed up and down, stepping on all twelve arms of Yama, and finally, when he stepped on the left arm closest to Yama's head, his foot trembled slightly.

"Got it." Zhang Wuxun felt relieved, touched the palm where the movement was most obvious with his finger, and then twisted it clockwise.

Click, click, the hand that was originally pointing at Zhang Wuxun was rotated 180 degrees and then stuck, with the three characters "Zi Si Huo" engraved on the back of the hand.

"Zi" refers to the Zi hour, which is from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., while "Si" refers to the due south in the Five Elements and belongs to the element of fire. However, the direction pointed by the compass is exactly the opposite of this. This is obviously a reverse mechanism set up according to the change of the earthly branches.

Zhang Wuxun glanced at his wristwatch, which showed that it was 7 PM, the hour of Chen, which in the Five Elements theory refers to the southeast.

He twisted the hand back, then quickly climbed onto the arm in the northwest direction, grabbed the palm and rotated it counterclockwise as well. He saw the words "Si Hai Water" engraved on the back of the hand, with water located in the north.

Zhang Wu found the palm in the south position and reversed it, obtaining "Yinwei Earth". Wei is in the southwest, so looking in the northeast position is correct.

Zhang Wuxun climbed up and down and struggled for a while, turning all the palms once. In the end, he turned the one that he had twisted the first time. This time, it could indeed be turned counterclockwise.

As all the hands took their places, a scraping sound of chains being dragged came from inside the stone statue. Then, the head of the King of Hell shook violently, and something suddenly fell out from inside the stone armor.

The next instant, the entire kiln chamber began to shake violently, and the walls began to sway as if an earthquake had occurred. The white sand beneath the stone statue suddenly tilted sharply backward, and all the cold flames were shaken and buried in the sand.

In the darkness, a deafening roar could be heard, like the echo from inside a water pipe the moment a water pump is turned off, before the surroundings gradually quieted down.

The white sand has completely disappeared, and the ground at the bottom of the pool has returned to calm. In its place are many stone objects resembling bellows and kilns, firmly fixed to the bottom of the sand pool like guardian beasts.

Zhang Wuxun plopped down on Yama's head, rubbing his stuffy ears. The cold flame had burned out during the vibration, and just as he was about to take out another one, he heard hurried footsteps coming from the other end of the passage.

Soon, the white light of the flashlight shone over, and Wu Xie and Fatty appeared above the steps.

Seeing Zhang Wuxun sitting there with one leg dangling, smiling and waving at them, completely unharmed, the two of them breathed a sigh of relief.

"What just happened? There was such a commotion. I thought this little hut was going to collapse. Didn't we agree to just check it out and come back?" Wu Xie's tone was icy, and his eyes were unfriendly.

Zhang Wuxun chuckled awkwardly and quickly changed the subject, "Look down here, I've discovered something new, something related to the King of Hell."

Goodnight (。-ω-)zzz