Chapter 891: Backfire
Zhang Heng dealt with the priest who came out to pee as fast as possible. After that, he went to the temple’s door and took a quick look at the temple’s interior. As compared to the Temple of Jupiter, the place was enveloped in darkness. The Temple of Juno, on the other hand, was well lit.
Zhang Heng saw two servants helping a priest tidy up something. They looked like they were dealing with some valuable information they had obtained from the children just now. The three men were positioned quite far away from the door. Zhang Heng figured that it would be almost impossible to sneak past the three of them, so he removed the Pestilence Bone Bow from his back.
The first arrow accurately pierced the throat of one of the servants. Before the servant could say a word, his body collapsed onto the marble pillar behind him. Immediately, the other servant beside him was alerted by the sound of the arrow penetrating his ally’s body. He then drew his weapon, opened his mouth, and was about to warn the others loudly, but the last thing he expected was to end like the dead servant beside him. The second arrow came faster than he thought, and it penetrated his heart.
In order to get rid of those two servants in the shortest possible time, Zhang Heng used ordinary arrows for his first shot and the Paris Arrow for the second. He took a quick aim at his targets at released the arrows without any hesitation. The moment the Paris Arrow left the bow, it corrected its flying path and went for the target’s weak point.
When the two servants fell on the floor, the priest focusing on sorting out the papyrus, realized that something had gone wrong. The moment he raised his head, Zhang Heng’s Persian short sword was already placed on his neck.
“Where is Altrus?” Zhang Heng asked in a low voice.
“Who?” The priest looked a little panicked, “I don’t know who Altrus is. This is the temple of Queen Juno. We don’t have much money with us. If you want to rob someone, you should go to the n.o.bles that live under the mountain.”
“You know I didn’t come here for the money,” Zhang Heng said.
As soon as Zhang Heng finished talking, he heard footsteps coming from behind the statue room. The priest’s face showed a touch of joy, knowing that someone was coming to save him. That could mean the mysterious man in front of him would have to surrender soon.
However, he did not expect Zhang Heng to push the short sword into his neck after hearing the footsteps. The priest looked at his blood coming out of his throat, and he felt surprised that Zhang Heng would make such a move. After that, Zhang Heng quickly moved to the side of the corridor’s entrance.
Before the owner of the footsteps walked out of the corridor, he saw the priest pressing his neck with his hand. Subconsciously, he wanted to walk closer and check on him, but before he could do that, a shadowy figure appeared in front of him and inserted a dagger into his heart. So far, Zhang Heng had eliminated five enemies. All of them were killed with only a single move. It prevented the dead from making too much noise and attracting too much attention.
Zhang Heng was not on a whim to pursue a five-star achievement for killing his enemies stealthily. It was because he knew that Altrus had a secret path that could lead to Commodus’s study room. The entrance of the secret path could very well be located at this temple. Besides, Zhang Heng did not know if other exits were in the middle of the secret path.
In order not to cause too much trouble for himself, Zhang Heng hoped that he could deal with Altrus before he entered the secret pa.s.sage. That was why he chose to eliminate his enemies as stealthily as possible.
So far, there was no hiccup in his plan. Although he did not extract any information from the priest about Altrus’s whereabouts, he was fortunate that the temple was not that huge. Zhang Heng then put away his arrow and continued towards the corridor. The oil lamp on the stone walls was not as bright as the one outside the hall. Zhang Heng’s quivering shadow was cast on the wall, distorting and looking a little scary.
Zhang Heng walked past a couple of old-looking stone chambers in the corridor. He speculated that these chambers were once rooms of the priests’ hundreds of years ago. However, after the temple went through several expansions, the priests’ now lived in their new residences. Hence, the stone chambers were now used as a place to store files and sundries.
After Zhang Heng walked for a while, he realized that something was not right. First of all, he had walked a long way, and he could feel the alt.i.tude was getting lower and lower. Secondly, he saw that there were more stone chambers than the Jupiter Temple next door. Most of the stone chambers were connected, like a maze. So Zhang Heng had to remember the paths he walked on while searching for what he was looking for. Suddenly, he heard a loud rumbling noise. Turning around, he saw a huge boulder appearing out of nowhere on the path he had walked on.
At the same time, he heard Altrus’s voice coming from behind him.
“Who sent you to kill me?”
Zhang Heng turned his head and looked at the place where the sound came from. However, all he saw was a stone wall with no one standing there. Altrus then spoke again, “Don’t waste your time. You can’t see me. Do you know what place this is?”
“I would like to know more about it,” Zhang Heng said as he walked toward the stone wall and looked up.
“This is the underworld,” replied Altrus’s ghostly voice. “Except for those who have died once like me, no living being can leave this place alive…”
“Hmm.” Zhang Heng knew that the underworld was more than a myth. There was an actual underworld beneath the Roman Square.
Right beside the golden pillar that symbolized the beginning of all roads, there was a small building. The Romans regarded the upper part as an umbilical cord, and the lower part was the underworld. Romans believed that a crack connected the living world on the surface of the Earth to the underworld beneath the ground. The underworld would open its doors three days a year, and these three days were considered bad days.
Zhang Heng would never believe in such a thing, though. After a while, he found what he was looking for on the stone wall. It was a copper pipe hidden in the cracks of the stone. Altrus’s voice had come from this pipe, and he had used the underworld legend to put fear in Zhang Heng’s mind.
Zhang Heng then leaned closer to the copper tube and mumbled a few words. He knew that Altrus was paying attention to what he had to say. After that, Zhang Heng took out his dagger and scratched the copper pipe a few times. Altrus, on the other side, was impacted by the enhanced screeching. He almost vomited out his dinner after Zhang Heng attacked him with the sound wave.
Zhang Heng wasn’t simply messing with Altrus out of boredom. This time, Altrus had been outwitted. The rock that he lifted to throw at Zhang Heng had now landed on his foot. He wanted to use the underworld’s legend and talk through the copper pipe to scare off Zhang Heng, but it turned out to be a failed attempt.
One had to admit that it was indeed a powerful technique in this era. Coupled with the truth serum that he used earlier, Zhang Heng felt that it was a waste of talent for Altrus to work as Commodus’s advisor. He should have been an inventor or scientist of the second century AD. His ideas could have enlightened humankind.
Unfortunately, his ingenious ideas did not work on Zhang Heng, who had completed nine years of education in the modern world. Besides, Zhang Heng was baptized by science as well. Such a childish technique would never work on him. Judging from the volume of Altrus’ voice, Zhang Heng knew that the latter was not too far away.
With the soundwave attack, Zhang Heng was hoping that he managed to provoke Altrus. He also wanted Altrus to stay put and wait for him to knock on his door.