Read Novel Full Chapter 1229 - Taming the Old World - Lead - 8
Chapter 1229: Chapter 1229 - Taming the Old World - Lead - 8
Selphira turned her gaze toward the big window, looking slightly north of northwest, focusing on the exact geographical coordinate where Liora was currently deployed. Surely alive and safe... Standing right beside Ren in the most distant ruin.
At the very least, she had disciplined and educated this one with what appeared to be a sufficiently strict balance of love and reluctant but real scolding.
At the very least, she hadn’t lost this one yet...
♢♢♢♢
Miles away, buried deep beneath the earth within the final chamber of the first sanctuary, Ren’s strike force cautiously approached the two petrified figures.
The first statue, the moment Ren viewed it from the front, was undeniably Li. The rigid posture, the determined, frozen gesture of his hand still gripping the corrupted crystal. It was exactly the sacrifice they had anticipated.
The second statue stood silently beside him. It was older, the surface of the crystal heavily layered with the accumulated dust of years.
Ren stopped dead in his tracks directly in front of it.
And he felt the oxygen vanish from the chamber, or perhaps it vanished entirely from his lungs; he couldn’t discern which.
Because the second statue possessed a face he recognized with terrifying clarity. Not because he had ever met this specific woman in person. But because he had intimately studied those exact features on a younger face, very often for the past years, and countless times over the past week.
It looked absolutely, undeniably identical to Liora...
Ren turned to look at Liora.
He quickly realized he wasn’t the only one; every single member of the strike force was staring at her, one by one. They were all searching her face for the dramatic reaction the scene seemingly demanded: a petrified figure bearing her exact likeness, ancient and clouded by maybe decades of dust, standing right in the middle of a sanctuary where absolutely no one else should be but Li.
But Liora did not react the way any of them anticipated.
She simply stared at the statue...
Then, something subtle shifted behind her eyes, a fleeting flash of comprehension, as if she had just tied off a loose end she hadn’t previously understood.
Then again, instead of the tears or frantic questions everyone expected, she calmly turned back to Ren.
"Store the statues away," she instructed. "We need to hurry and inspect the threshold... We have to go out as soon as we can, and there are still some dragons out there that need to be eliminated."
Ren went entirely rigid.
His mind began to spin out of control, aggressively overanalyzing every single variable: the ancient statue, the impossible resemblance, Liora’s chilling silence, and the weird way she hadn’t asked a single question. There were far too many jagged pieces on the board, and absolutely none of them fit together cleanly.
Ren possessed a notorious habit of refusing to let go of a puzzle until he had completely solved it.
But Liora just stood there, watching him.
Seeing that Ren was completely stuck in his own frantic thoughts, she slowly tilted her head to the side, looking remarkably like a confused puppy trying to understand why its human had suddenly frozen while staring into the void.
Ren let out a long, heavy breath at that.
If Liora didn’t want to discuss the incredible turn of events right now, this was absolutely not the time or place to force the issue. He quietly stored both statues deep within his shadow space, Li’s and the ’ancient stranger’s’, resolving that this specific conversation would have to wait until they were back in a secure location without a mutant horde lurking outside.
♢♢♢♢
Ren handed the pulsating green core over to Matilda still honoring the safe approach... And because she had taken a step forward first, looking at Larissa with a sweet smile.
"Place it inside the small doorway, please," he requested softly.
The combat maid immediately obeyed, firmly pressing the vibrant emerald heart into the waiting receptacle. The small door slid open with a heavy grind. However, there was no hidden chamber or secret passageway lying beyond the threshold. Instead, they found a metal window remarkably similar to the one hidden deep within the castle vault: a simple, smooth, gleaming wall entirely devoid of any visible runic markings.
But Ren knew exactly what it was. Making physical contact with that surface granted a localized small access point directly into the mana Network connected to the castles and ruins.
Working in tandem with Wei, they meticulously analyzed the runic risks again, maintaining the exact same grueling caution they had exercised throughout the entire expedition. Once the diagnostics returned clear, they cautiously approached the glowing surface.
As he drew closer, Ren noticed a subtle error in uniformity.
Near the absolute bottom of the wall, there was a microscopic structural irregularity.
It was a faint disruption that simply did not belong on the otherwise flawless, polished surface. Ren crouched down to examine the flaw more closely.
"Wei, concentrate the bulk of the fungal network right here."
With the golden mushroom’s enhanced perception hyper-focused on that specific coordinate, the blurry detail finally resolved itself. It was a tiny, concealed panel, flawlessly disguised into the base of the wall, an addition that was definitely not part of the terminal’s primary, obvious design. Wei immediately began probing the space, desperately hunting for the mechanical trigger to open it.
When a solution failed to present itself, Ren made a swift decision.
"I am going to initiate contact with the terminal window," he declared. "There might be a decrypted manual or a reference to this hidden panel buried inside the data."
He pressed his bare palm flat against the smooth wall.
The ethereal uplink established itself in a blinding rush.
The royal castles. The ancient sanctuaries. The huge vein connected to the sprawling, planetary central system that heavily dictated the energy available for the growth of the sun dragon’s chosen vessel. It was the exact unfathomably massive architecture Ren had already mapped out during previous terminal connections.
The encrypted data flooded his mind in a torrential downpour, and exactly as he had anticipated, the vast majority of the files were obsolete historical records. They were tasks they had already deciphered, ancient promises they had already secured, and knowledge they currently possessed.
Almost all of it...