Chapter 245: Grave digging
The formerly leveled ground stood witness to many ravines. The tombstone of Ayermika, the demigod existence of the Lancelot Empire, stood grandly at the center. Surrounding it was a ten meter circular area of messily dug trenches and holes. Dirt had been tossed every which way, as if some archaeology team had conducted an excavation searching for antiquities. The whole area had been overturned.
Taking a closer look, Han Shuo noticed a few more hills formed from mounds of brown soil. The little skeleton and the earth elite zombie were busy demolishing an enormous skeleton at the bottom of a huge trench. This skeleton was a dozen meters long, and each bone was as tall as a person. The skeleton was translucent as crystal, its surface reflecting bright light. It was obviously the corpse of some super rank creature.
The two fellows sensed Han Shuo’s presence in the midst of their demolition. They excitedly waved their hands, which were holding bones even bigger than their own bodies, greeting their master.
After that, the little skeleton picked up several bones with his hand and flew, fast as lightning, to the middle of the trench, dropping the bones in a deeply excavated pit. He placed them carefully in the middle of the deep pit, as if the bones were valuable treasures.
“Eh… What have they been doing these past days?” Han Shuo stood in the air and watched raptly, asking Gilbert in surprise.
Gilbert complained loudly, his face as gloomy as one at a funeral, “Not long after you wrapped yourself up in the cocoon, these two fellows got up to these antics. First, the small zombie went underground and took out a bone. He proudly bragged about it to the little skeleton, then the little skeleton also got excited. These two together were simply the most superb grave diggers, they turned the whole place upside down. They seem to be collecting those bones, I don’t know what they’re doing that for!”
Han Shuo listened to Gilbert’s complaining narrative, his eyes glimmering as he looked into the deep pit that held the white bones. His body slowly moved and approached the pit. He landed straight within it, randomly picking up a bone of who knew what super rank creature and carefully examined it.
The bone was heavy in his hand, seeming to actually weigh around a hundred kilograms. The stark white bone seemed to contain a strange presence. The skin touching this bone felt a biting cold, and a sharp and chilly killing air flowed from the bone into Han Shuo’s body.
The earth elite zombie silently emerged from the earth beneath Han Shuo like a ghost, his hand clutching a white bone as if it was something incomparably precious. As he handed this bone to Han Shuo, his golden earth-colored eyes danced with pride.
This surprised Han Shuo. He took the bone from the earth elite zombie and immediately felt an eternal dragon breath within. He could tell that this bone was heavier than the one earlier. This pristinely white bone caused the air around it to emit a faint whistling sound. He sensed it carefully again and felt some wind magic elements within.
Han Shuo could say with certainty at this point that this bone had come from a wind dragon. He was sure because as a necromancy mage, he had some understanding about the bones of magic creatures. Every mage coming from the necromancy department had to use bones in their experiments.
The bones of some super rank magic creatures still contained some energy from when they were still alive. They could be used to make powerful weapons. For example, the white bone staff that Belinda from the Calamity Church had refined was also forged from the bone of a super rank magic creature. This bone would also be helpful for Han Shuo to improve his necromancy magic.
While Han Shuo was deep in thought, the little skeleton also seemed to be trying to prove something. He brought several bones in front of Han Shuo, then pulled on his sleeve to gain attention.
Han Shuo was stunned when he looked at the little skeleton. He discovered two odd lights gleaming in the latter’s eyes. The little skeleton’s left hand was holding a white bone when a wave of silver light suddenly started circulating within the bone. The originally translucent bone rapidly corroded, as if time had accelerated over a thousand times. In just a moment, the bone containing a strange presence had turned into ashes and scattered into the wind.
After that, the little skeleton threw back his head proudly. He took another bone and made a munching motion towards Han Shuo. The little skeleton then threw the bone back into the pile of bones.
Han Shuo could understand without needing the little skeleton to say anything else. The little skeleton and the earth elite zombie could absorb the energy from the enormous skeletons littered throughout this land. Due to the unknown force of imprisonment here, the souls of the dead creatures couldn’t dissipate into the heavens and earth after death, and instead, a portion of energy still remained in the bodies. Even when the flesh rotted away, the bones still contained some magical energy. To these two fellows, this energy was a great tonic. No wonder they were so interested in roleplaying as grave robbers and had turned this place upside down.
Han Shuo smiled as he rubbed the little skeleton’s smooth skull, then patted the earth elite zombie’s shoulder and said gently, “Hehe, you did well! How about this, you guys collect all the usable bones here!”
After being encouraged by Han Shuo, the earth elite zombie rubbed his head in honest joy as he quickly sank into the ground again. He appeared next to the ten meter long skeleton in the blink of an eye and started to dismantle the bones. As for the little skeleton, he waved his bony hands and danced around, happily sending Han Shuo a message to express his thoughts.
After focusing his attention for a moment, Han Shuo nodded and said understandingly, “So you think there’s no problem for you and the earth elite to take away these bones. Wait until you guys collect them all in a pile, I’ll give you a hand!”
The little skeleton had transmitted a message saying he wanted to bring all of these bones into the other dimension for the benefit of the necromancy creatures in his camp. Han Shuo had first been surprised for a moment after he’d understood, then expressed his assent.
As he received Han Shuo’s approval, the little skeleton became extremely excited. His seven bone spurs shook, sending him whizzing through the air towards the earth elite zombie. The two continued to dismantle the huge magic creature’s skeleton.
As Han Shuo observed carefully, he discovered that the two didn’t take just anything from the ten meter long skeleton. Relying on their sensitivity towards energy, they only took bones with energy and promptly threw away the ordinary ones.
The useless bones thrown away by these two fellows were scattered throughout the trench filled area. They obviously hadn’t sat idly by either dying the past couple of days when Han Shuo was cultivating. This ten meter long skeleton seemed to be their last prey.
While the little skeleton and earth elite zombie remained hard at work, Han Shuo’s eyes were caught by the tombstone with the name Ayermika Cotton engraved onto it.
Only now did Han Shuo discover that this tombstone of the Lancelot Empire’s legendary figure had originally only revealed a small part of its splendor. Thanks to the trenches that the earth elite zombie had carved, he’d yanked out that one meter tall tombstone up three meters. From the top of the tombstone down, it seemed to keep getting wider the deeper it was buried. It was shaped like a miniature hill, which puzzled Han Shuo.
Seeing Han Shuo focus his attention on the tombstone of Ayermika, Gilbert seemed to remember something and suddenly shouted out loud, “Master, this engraved stone slab is really weird. The little skeleton and earth elite zombie asked me to try moving it, but we found that it’s extremely heavy. I didn’t expect that even my strength couldn’t move it one bit.”
“Oh, this is a bit interesting!” This surprised Han Shuo greatly. As part of the dragon race, Gilbert was still immensely powerful even in human form. Even if the stone slab had been double in size, it should’ve been impossible for Gilbert to not be able to move it.
Therefore, Han Shuo had flown to the tombstone as soon as he’d heard Gilbert’s words. He reached out and touched this tombstone with a surprised face.
The tombstone was cold to the touch. Apart from the deeply engraved, large Ayermika letters, the entire tombstone was as smooth as a mirror. Running his hand over it again, Han Shuo didn’t feel any discomfort or anything strange. This tombstone wasn’t much different from an ordinary stone slab.
Taking in a deep breath, Han Shuo tried shaking it and didn’t even feel a shudder from the tombstone. It was just as Gilbert said, this stone was simply not easily moved.
“Come, dig up this piece of land for me!” His thoughts raced and Han Shuo waved his hand at the distant earth elite zombie.
The little skeleton and earth elite zombie were too interested in their skeleton, this tombstone seemed to have no appeal to them. Otherwise, with the earth elite zombie’s nature, it would have given this tombstone a try.
As per Han Shuo’s instructions, the earth elite zombie in the distant underground immediately disappeared. Afterwards, a tremor arose under Han Shuo’s feet. The soil and sand that the tombstone was buried in was roiling and churning. The soft ground shook for a while, when two cracks appeared beneath the tombstone.
The originally firmly standing tombstone crashed down on a high hill that had formed. The tombstone, seven meters in length, was now completely revealed. Even its base, as broad as a tree root, could be seen.
“Hateful zombie, it obviously has the ability, yet deliberately makes this great dark dragon do all the carrying. What a lazy brat!” Gilbert watched the earth elite zombie follow Han Shuo’s order to uproot the tombstone without much effort. At that point, he could not help but recall his previous experiences and complain loudly.
It was a pity that the earth elite zombie simply didn’t care for the noisy Gilbert. When he finished what Han Shuo had ordered him to do, he immediately went back to the little skeleton’s side and continued dismantling that huge skeleton.
“Honored master, what do you want to do?” Gilbert looked at the completely revealed tombstone and asked, puzzled.
“Let’s have a look first!” Han Shuo casually answered. Then he approached the tombstone and carefully observed it, gently tracing the tombstone with his finger as he looked a little pensive.
An ordinary tombstone wouldn’t be seven meters long. In addition, the material of this tombstone were unknown. Even with Han Shuo’s current knowledge of all kinds of ores, he couldn’t identify the tombstone’s material. Combined with its unexpected weight, the tombstone left him suspicious.
As his finger gently swiped across the tombstone, a piece of magical yuan appeared like static electricity on his fingertip. It was pressed into the tombstone with a push from Han Shuo’s finger. Suddenly, a large wave of dark magic element reflected back to Han Shuo’s mind through the magical yuan. This energy was astonishingly similar to the imprisonment force all over in the forbidden land.
Han Shuo paled and hastily retracted his finger. He looked at the brown tombstone in astonishment and murmured, “How strange, this force should’ve disappeared already, could it be… the strange imprisonment force that covered the whole forbidden land came from the deceased demigod Ayermika…?”
“What is it, master?” Little dark dragon Gilbert couldn’t hear Han Shuo’s mumble, but couldn’t help but ask when he saw Han Shuo’s surprised face.
Han Shuo backed up a few steps and instructed, “Gilbert, back away a bit, I need to blow up this tombstone and see what’s inside.”
Waiting until Gilbert had moved according to his orders, Han Shuo also backed up about ten meters or so. He took out the Demonslayer Edge and infused magical yuan into it. After absorbing such a large mass of evil intent, even though the Demonslayer Edge hadn’t truly become a peerless masterpiece, it already contained a formidable power.
A fierce sword light directly blasted out from the Demonslayer Edge after Han Shuo had infused his magical yuan, and headed straight for the tombstone with a terrifying force.
Rumbles resounded nonstop. The grand, seemingly indestructible tombstone was shattered into pieces under the impact of the Demonslayer Edge amidst a spray of splendid light.
Stone debris flew all around. After all had calmed down, the brown tombstone had broken into many pieces. A magic staff embedded with three amethysts wrapped in dense dark magic elements appeared on the ground. Next to the staff was an ancient, handwritten notebook.