Chapter 152 - 149: Hidden in History
They were just a few simple words, but they carried an enormous amount of information for the French.
Combined with the visually stunning sight of Ben Baschel snorting fire, they had no choice but to believe.
Besides, who were Norton and Tao Xingzhi? They wouldn’t lie about something like this, nor did they have any reason to.
"After we’ve finished touring this place, we will submit the relevant files on Evolvers to your department. For now, let’s continue."
Tao Xingzhi didn’t want to disturb Jiutian’s Perception at a time like this.
Their interpreter immediately relayed the sentence in standard French.
Everyone tactfully fell silent, keeping a close eye on Huang Jiutian’s condition. The French, of course, were focused not only on Huang Jiutian but also on Ben. Their gazes frequently lingered on Baru as well; clearly, this absurdly strong giant was also a suspected Evolver.
Being stared down by Ben, Vernix felt like a frog targeted by a great serpent. A bone-deep chill washed over him, and he only felt some relief when Ben finally looked away. His heart, however, refused to calm down.
"I apologize. Ben’s evolutionary attributes make him quick to anger, but his self-control is excellent. The most he’ll do is run his mouth a little."
Norton offered Vernix a casual apology.
’But if Vernix knew that poor Dr. Avin had just barely pulled through thanks to a skin graft, I wonder if he’d still be so calm.’
The group pressed on. The aquatic plants inside had clearly been cleared out once before. Aside from some stubborn stains, the place was mostly clean. Someone had even set up electrical wires and lights in the darker areas.
This Secret Place was slightly smaller than the one in Qingzhen, but its interior was still vast, containing numerous halls and corridors.
The group’s pace was slow, as Huang Jiutian would stop from time to time to use his Perception.
As they advanced, the arcane symbols from the entrance gave way to frequent depictions of figures and stories.
The first was a mural in a corridor, depicting a warrior in armor standing atop a mountain, holding a longsword and a battle axe.
Although his right hand held the battle axe, the artisans must have intentionally left half of his palm exposed for artistic effect.
The palm clearly bore that symbol, the one that looked like a blazing sun.
It was difficult to determine the warrior’s region of origin from his armor, but the era depicted was clearly ancient. The so-called armor was a mix of metal plates and unknown animal bones, giving it a primal, savage style.
Huang Jiutian’s gaze lingered on the warrior’s blurred face for a few seconds, then he looked towards other parts of the mural.
On the slope below the warrior’s peak stood a dense, countless horde of Demons.
Some looked like fiends, others like giant beasts, while some were nothing more than a mass of twisted darkness. It was unclear if the Craftsman was unable to render them or if such creatures truly existed.
Each one was carved with lifelike detail; the artisan hadn’t resorted to blurry depictions despite their sheer number.
The battle axe was riddled with chips, and the longsword was broken in half.
As a work of art, the artisan who carved this mural was nothing short of a master. An art critic would likely spout a litany of professional terms like ’tension,’ ’realism,’ and ’rich with emotion.’
But Jiutian couldn’t see any of that now.
The warrior in the mural was all alone. ’Where are his comrades from Dawn? Facing so many Demons... it doesn’t look like he has any intention of retreating.’
’What happened to him in the end?’
The mural offered no clear conclusion, but the final image in the sequence showed a broken sword thrust into the earth.
Words caught in his throat, but he couldn’t share these thoughts with the people around him.
Huang Jiutian stepped forward and reached out to pluck a small strand of waterweed from the neck of the warrior in the mural.
’This is all I can do for now.’
Everyone present was a professional at handling special incidents and anomalies, so they focused on the monsters in the mural, trying to see if they corresponded to any current anomalous events.
The group continued forward, and more and more similar scenes appeared.
Some figures wore robes yet wielded massive weapons; others wore armor and held spears; still others were completely naked, roaring at the sky. Most were facing terrifying monsters. In some scenes, they faced a patch of pure black, which the Artisan had carved using varying depths of shadow instead of pigment to prevent fading.
To those who knew him, Huang Jiutian was acting a bit strange today.
To be precise, Jiutian had been acting strangely ever since they entered this structure, which had been sealed beneath the water.
He rarely spoke and would linger for a long time in front of each mural.
Then again, everyone present was more or less lost in thought over the murals themselves.
A small mural in one corridor made the group frown. It depicted a woman, the same symbol on her right palm, tied to a pile of dry wood.
A crowd was gathered below. The Craftsman had carved their faces to be exceptionally ugly, especially the one holding the torch, who looked more like a monster than a man.
’Burned at the stake!’
The scene was easy to interpret—perhaps the easiest of them all—but it stood in stark contrast to all the previous murals.
Jiutian, with his hand in his pocket, pinched his own thigh, forcing himself not to linger here too long.
A corridor further ahead had collapsed, so the group bypassed it through a large hole on the side, directly entering the largest hall they had seen so far.
More murals covered the walls. Aside from the most prominent symbol—the blazing sun—these carvings depicted no monsters. Instead, they radiated a feeling of jubilant celebration.
In the center, a robed figure was carved with artistic exaggeration to appear much larger than the people around him.
He held a glowing Scepter, the symbol on its base clearly visible, and was lowering his outstretched palm onto a person kneeling before him.
In the surrounding scene, everyone, whether armed or bare-handed, was raising their hands to the sky, waving or pumping their fists in celebration.
’It looks like a coronation!’
That was what most of them thought, but Jiutian understood what this represented. It was an honor he himself would receive in the near future—the Branding Ceremony.
By the time they came out from inside the building, nearly two full hours had passed without them realizing.
Although this place wasn’t as large as the Secret Place in Qingzhen, the richness of its murals far surpassed it.
As soon as they were outside, the people who had been keeping an eye on Huang Jiutian noticed something was wrong with him.
It seemed he could no longer hold on; as soon as they were outside, Jiutian’s condition took a sharp turn for the worse.
Standing outside the building, he gasped for breath, his face drenched in sweat. His Perception was in a state of extreme activity.
Qin Xiaoxia’s Magic Power began to circulate on its own, protecting his brain and mind, which allowed Jiutian to endure the spiritual agony caused by the violent turmoil in his thoughts and Spiritual Power.
The shock was simply too intense.
Huang Jiutian, who was already on the cusp of a true evolution, had actually triggered a long-brewing spiritual metamorphosis as a result of this investigation.
If Qin Xiaoxia were here, he’d surely have made an exaggerated mental note: ’spiritual evolution caused by overthinking’.
"Jiutian? Are you all right? Jiutian!"
"Move away, give him some fresh air!"
"Call a doctor, quick!!"
...
The chaotic shouts of the people around him seemed very distant. Huang Jiutian felt a little unsteady, but was immediately supported by someone next to him.
Besides his own heavy breathing, all that flashed through his mind were the murals from before.
The piercing shriek of audio feedback, like a microphone aimed at a speaker, echoed in his mind, bringing waves of stabbing pain.
A faint purple Magic Power burned before his eyes, easing his agony, but his consciousness inevitably began to fade.
...
A large crowd had gathered in the corridor outside Huang Jiutian’s room in a private hospital in Lyon.
Almost the entire Hua Country team was present. From the French and American side, only a few had stayed behind to wait for news.
The chairs in the hallway were all full.
The doctor said the patient was just suffering from exhaustion and would recover with some rest. But those present took the doctor’s words merely as a suggestion; after all, Huang Jiutian’s condition was likely related to his nebulous Perception.
Dedicated personnel had already started searching for information on the building. From the internet to physical libraries, teams from the three countries were back home frantically turning over every stone.
The information was extremely fragmented, with very little consistency or substance. It was almost completely absent from official historical records.
They sounded like fabricated stories passed on by word of mouth, completely baseless at first glance.
And yet, this rumored organization possessed an incredible secret structure at the bottom of a reservoir and had exhausted a Perception Type like Huang Jiutian to the point of collapse.
"The Dawn Association... what kind of organization is it? Could it be the same one they encountered in Shen City?"
Tao Xingzhi stared at his phone, muttering to himself in a low voice.
His phone was constantly receiving research findings from team members back home.
A light in the darkness, Saviors, cunning deceivers, charlatans, heroes who eradicate evil, Saints, mercenary villains...
Early A.D., the Middle Ages, periods of dynastic change... England, Northern Europe, America, Asia... They seemed to have some connection to various religions in every region...
None of the information was in-depth.
Fragmented records existed all over the world, mostly preserved in apocryphal biographies and paintings.
Their recorded history spanned nearly a thousand years, and that might not even be all of it. The murals from before clearly hinted at even earlier origins.
Perhaps no one had ever paid this much attention to this long-overlooked historical organization.
Perhaps this was the first time anyone had discovered or paid attention to a mysterious entity that spanned ancient history and crossed the entire globe.
They had never entered the view of the powerful or the public, moving discreetly through history.
Or perhaps it wasn’t that they lacked renown, but that they were forgotten by history, whether by their own design or not.
Tao Xingzhi thought of the French authorities’ dead-end investigation, of the mysterious entity’s constant vigilance, and of the cryptic words spoken by the mysterious figure outside Shen City.
PS: Chapter one for Saturday.