Cloud Thinking

"So, there really is such an ancient god with big wings today, right?" Helia asked.

Britney and Beavis both nodded in the affirmative, but precisely because this god existed in the world, they could not casually say His name, which would most likely attract His attention.

"Well, if there is a connection between the ancient gods, could it be that He made some kind of deal with the goddess, which allowed the black magician to take the risk and come to this relic?" Helia guessed.

It is unlikely that the black magician wanted to use this ritual to resurrect an ancient god. The ancient gods under the existing order are all very powerful, and William Tanlis's followers have been severely suppressed. In this case, how could she hunt down so many other ancient gods as power supply for the resurrection ritual?

The purpose of the black magicians was very clear, they came here for the ruins, just to complete a certain task. Considering the cruel resurrection ceremony here, it was natural to guess that these people might have come to do the cleanup work or do something for the resurrected ancient god.

Helia's eyes fell on the iron hook, and she couldn't help but sigh, "Killing gods with human bodies, these people may be a little crazy, but they are really capable."

"In ancient times, ancient gods were everywhere, and their strengths varied. Those who have survived to this day and are known to people are all winners of the ancient gods' battles. They can stand out among the many ancient gods, and their strength should not be underestimated." Britney explained, "So there is no need to measure the strength of the ancient gods of the past by the level of today's ancient gods. There is no comparison."

"Also, I once read in an ancient book that believers who are given power by gods are also half gods. Not only do they have a long lifespan like gods, they also share the blood of gods," Beavis added.

It was obviously a serious science popularization, but Helia's mind wandered to other things. "So, can gods and humans give birth to offspring?"

"Can I...?" Beavis was not sure either, but he was not even sure whether gods could reproduce with each other.

"What the hell? The ancient gods and humans are not the same species, there's nothing they can do." Britney said speechlessly.

"Then humans and beasts, humans and monsters are not the same species. Aren't there orcs and monsters now?" Helia retorted. "And there are elves, giants and dragons. Didn't these three ancient races reproduce with humans and have offspring?"

,,,,,,

Well! After all, the human race has strong genes, so it is not impossible. But how could a god who always claims to have noble bloodline combine with the human race that he despises?

"Should we go into the main hall now, or should we go downstairs first?" Beavis asked.

Helia and the others came back after a circle and stopped at the entrance of the main hall, but she found something was missing: "That's not right, Avril said they were only active on the first floor, but I didn't find the corridor that she mentioned that would eat people?"

The main hall was not open at that time, so the corridor was definitely not inside the main hall. However, they had just walked around and looked carefully at every side hall, but did not find any entrances to other places.

"Let's go look for that corridor first, maybe we can find Convis and Phoenix who are missing." Helia said. Now they are few in number, if they encounter a black magician, they may not be able to defeat him, so they have to find a way to increase their strength.

Finally, they found two secret doors in the gap between the two side halls on both sides of the main hall. The shape of the door was almost integrated with the wall. In addition, the underground environment was dim, so if they had not searched carefully, they would have overlooked it.

Behind both doors was a long corridor with no end in sight. No one knew where it led to. Because it was close to the main hall, Britney's detection magic was limited and she had no idea whether there was any danger in the corridor.

"Left or right?" Britney asked.

"Point to the fat sheep, point to the fat sheep, whoever you point to will be the fat sheep." Helia stretched out her index finger, first pointed at the door on the left, and then pointed to the right while muttering, and so on, and finally stopped at the door on the left.

"Go left." Helia took the lead and walked in first. Although the other two did not understand the significance of Helia's action just now, since she thought it was useful, they just followed her.

Illuminated by the flame held in Helia's palm, the three of them could barely see the layout of the corridor: the corridor was not straight forward, but had a certain arc that tended to the right; and it was extremely narrow, with not enough space for two people to walk side by side; there was a portrait hung on the stone wall at intervals, all of which were human portraits, but unlike the portraits of beauties that Helia and the others had seen in the side hall representing "color", the portraits here were all winged people, and all of them were men.

In addition, there are strange patterns carved on the floor of the corridor. It is not a smooth stone slab, but is carved with patterns that are almost a finger joint deep. It looks like it has been eaten by insects, but these patterns are not dense, so it does not affect people walking on it.

"Hiss - so creepy." Helia rubbed her arms. She didn't know why, but when she saw these portraits, she felt inexplicably scared. But she didn't have this feeling when she saw the portraits of beauties before. Could it be because the beautiful sisters were so beautiful?

"It feels like they are staring at us." Beavis had a similar feeling, and this curved corridor was dark and eerie, without even a light. He was afraid that there was a monster hiding around the corner, waiting for them to enter its hunting ground.

Helia was scared, but she had to go inside. Considering what Avril had said before about teammates disappearing inexplicably, Helia took out a rope and tied it around everyone's left wrist, so that even if someone was dragged away, others would be able to react immediately.

But what I am most worried about is that if there is a teleportation magic here and it is working silently, the ropes used for binding will be useless.

Britney led the way, Beavis was in the middle, and Helia was at the back. Originally, Beavis wanted to be the last one, after all, it was unreasonable for two girls to protect a grown man, but Helia gave him a reason that he couldn't refute:

"Britney and I both have domains, so we won't suffer any loss if we run into an enemy, but you can't."

"And we didn't let you walk in the middle just to protect you. I heard from Avril that Conversti and Phoenix disappeared in the middle of the team. You might be the enemy's first target."

Beavis: I know I'm not good at this, but do you have to say it so harshly...

The corridor was unexpectedly long. They had been walking for almost two minutes and still hadn't seen the end. Helia had been observing the portraits on the wall along the way. The protagonist of each portrait was different, but they were all winged people, and they were all men. Most of them had two wings, but a few had four, six, or eight wings. According to Helia's common sense, the more wings they had, the stronger they should be. At least in terms of blood relationship, they would be closer to the god who gave them power - Adalaisi. This ancient god had twelve wings. Helia couldn't imagine how six pairs of wings could grow on such a small back.

However, most of the ancient gods in ancient times looked strange. After all, from the perspective of humans, these ancient gods had some individual characteristics of humans, but also had particularly obvious alien characteristics. This feeling of being neither human nor alien was more frightening and alarming than those species that were completely non-human.

"Do you smell anything strange?" Helia asked. Ever since she entered the corridor, she always smelled a faint smell. When she raised her nose to smell it again, the smell disappeared again, so she couldn't tell what the smell was for the time being.

"It seems so." Hearing Helia's question, Beavis and Britney also raised their noses and sniffed like puppies, trying very hard to catch the smell. In the end, Britney noticed the source of the smell. She bent down, moved closer to the floor, and said, "It seems to be coming from the floor."

"How about we back out first and take a look?" Beavis felt that the environment was dim now. They had already gone deep into the corridor. Because of the curved design of the corridor, the light at the entrance was completely invisible. In this dark place, they lay down to check the floor, and they always felt that something horrible and weird would happen.

"But I didn't smell this scent at the entrance. Maybe it's only here." Helia knelt down like a freak, not caring about her image, sniffing left and right. Britney squatted in front of her to illuminate her and carefully observed the patterns carved on the floor.

Beavis folded his arms and stepped aside, his back pressed against the wall to make room for the two people who were studying the floor carefully. Under the light of the fire, the more Beavis looked, the more he felt that these patterns seemed familiar. He twisted his neck to look left and right, and closed his left eye or right eye to look.

"Wait, have you noticed that after looking at this pattern for a long time, it looks a bit like the giant language we learned?" Beavis suddenly had an idea in his mind, and finally understood why the more he looked at the pattern, the more familiar it looked. Isn't this the giant language that tormented him for a long time? !

"Hey! You know what, it really does look a bit similar!" Helia also noticed it after being reminded by Beavis, "It seems to be mixed with some Elvish..." She is a magician. Although her academic performance has always been poor, she still understands the Elvish language as a prerequisite for her to use magic, and is more familiar with it than others.

"After all, these are the relics of ancient gods. Isn't it normal to see ancient languages?" Britney was not that surprised.

"At first I thought it was just a magical pattern, used for decoration or recording magic, but since it is text, does it record something?" Beavis continued to infer.

By deciphering these words, perhaps we can understand why this relic appeared here and what kind of ceremony was being performed.

"Hiss - I seem to have smelled this smell in the prison cell. It's a bit like the smell of blood." Helia's dog nose was quite sharp. After her close contact with the floor, she identified a somewhat familiar smell among the mixed strange smells.

"It's different from the smell of human blood. It's more like the smell of the god's blood that I just smelled."

"Could they have bled the gods imprisoned in the prison? To start some kind of ritual?" Beavis speculated based on her words.

Helia put her little finger into the hollow space and stirred it around, scraping some dust off her fingertips. Then she stood up and rubbed it in the light of the fire. She could vaguely make out some light golden color - that was the solidified divine blood.

"Do you think the Feathered Man will possess divine blood?" Helia asked, thinking of what Beavis had said before.

The main reason is that there are so many portraits of feathered people hanging in this corridor. If it has nothing to do with them, why are their portraits hung here? It is very likely that these feathered people became sacrifices in the ceremony, and their portraits were left for some purpose.

"It's very likely. Maybe the feathered people in the portraits hanging on the wall bled to death here as part of the initiation ceremony." Britney replied.

Just as Britney finished speaking, the three of them suddenly felt the air around them become still, as if they were suddenly put into an airtight box, with people staring at them all around, and this very uncomfortable gaze came from the portraits on the wall.

Helia remembered that when they came in, the winged people in each portrait looked left, right, up, and down, but never looked directly at the observers standing in front of them. But now, they seemed to come alive, all looking at the three outsiders who had strayed in, and their eyes were unfriendly. In addition to scrutiny, there was more of a hostility that was almost piercing.

The three of them were frozen in their movements at this moment, as if a vase had been broken in a very quiet environment. They needed to observe the surroundings, but were also afraid that their rash actions would bring revenge from the owner of the house, so they dared not move.

Until the fear reached a breaking point, Helia shouted, "Run!" The three of them ran back like sheep seeing a wolf. Helia was the one running in the front, because the corridor was very narrow, and the two people behind her couldn't pass by her and run to the front, which also meant that if she didn't run fast, Britney at the bottom would be in great danger.

But the escape skills she had learned from Mobichues, who was always bad-mouthing, came in handy here. Even though the floor under her feet inexplicably began to become bumpy, and even Beavis tripped several times and almost fell, Helia was like an agile rabbit, rushing to the front steadily, pulling the people behind her with the rope connecting the three people.

Of course, Helia did not forget to observe her surroundings while escaping. The winged people in the portrait had indeed come to life. At first, they could only turn their eyes and stare at them, but now they could change their posture and cling to the bottom or sides of the frame, as if they were trying to climb out.

Seeing this, Helia just wanted to say: Damn! How come she looks like Sadako!