Utilising the rope, Xia Lei and Tsukino Kyoko went past the area studded by the countless skulls and arrived at the bottom through the rocky surfaces. Tsukino Kyoko twisted a few more fluorescent sticks and had it littered around the base. With the room now illuminated, they were able to see things previously not able to. One new finding was the sculptures.
Around the sarcophagus were sculptures of warriors with no face. Xia Lei recalled seeing something similar at the ancient tomb beneath the Holy Sepulchre, where he had extracted a large number of ancient alloy fragments from the old man’s body.
Those face-less warriors reminded Xia Lei of a memory. All corners of his surroundings were captured in that snippet, not letting any detail escape his observation. His mind began comparing the warrior sculptures of the two locations. Soon enough, Xia Lei arrived at a conclusion. The faceless-warrior statues in the ancient tomb and this place were crafted during the same era by the same people.
“Faceless warriors… What does it symbolise?” Tsukino Kyoko’s query chased away the dark silence and Xia Lei’s train of thought.
Xia Lei returned her a bitter smile. “Who knows? You’re a warrior. Judging it from the perspective of a warrior, what do you think this means?”
Tsukino Kyoko gave it a thought. “Ninjas.”
“Ninjas?” Xia Lei thought to himself quietly. “These things probably belonged to the prehistoric chosen one. j.a.pan hadn’t existed back then, how could these face-less warriors be ninjas?”
“Of course, I’m not saying they were ninjas. In j.a.panese history, no ninjas were ever dispatched to Jerusalem.” Tsukino Kyoko hummed. “I’m trying to say that they were similar. The lack of face might mean no ident.i.ty. In ancient times, kings and aristocrats raised their warriors. The lack of face on the statues may represent their unwavering loyalty to their master. They no longer hold onto their ident.i.ty and honour. They are also not afraid to sacrifice themselves. As long as their master calls, they are ready to offer their lives.”
Her perspective was refres.h.i.+ng to Xia Lei.
He too had tried to read into the mystery of the face-less warriors. However, he chose to think based on the perspective that the statues had no face because of their extinction. He had never once stood at the angle of a warrior to decipher the mystery. Now that Tsukino Kyoko had offered him an interpretation, he figured that she had a point. These face-less warriors didn’t lack facial features. The sculptor was probably trying to depict their loyalty and sacrifices, just like the oath taken by the female knights.
“You make sense.” Xia Lei slowly stepped away to one of the statues.
“There’s no way to prove that I’m correct. Boss, you’re a ridiculously smart person. I’m sure you’ll find an answer to this mystery.” Tsukino Kyoko followed his steps.
Xia Lei reached out and touched the sculpture. He activated his X-ray vision once again to study the statues. This time, an eerie result returned. His X-ray vision felt like it got pulled into a whirlpool. Not only was he unable to see its insides, but the energy in his body was draining fast!
This wasn’t the first time he was met with such a sensation. The same thing had happened when he used his vision on the ancient alloy every time. The current situation felt similar, but it was dulled to only minor discomfort.
Xia Lei pulled his gaze away and pushed at the statue abruptly. He had exerted great force, but the face-less warrior did not budge. Xia Lei attempted it again to no avail. Following that, he crouched to look at the statue’s base. Shockingly, the figure was not embedded into the ground.
“How…? Is this statue about one-tonne heavy?” Shock gripped Xia Lei’s heart.
In the ancient tomb beneath the Holy Church of Sepulchre, he had his attention trained on the old man’s corpse. When he found ancient alloy fragments, his focus was once again robbed away. Time was running short and Xia Lei did not have the leisure to study the warrior sculptures in detail. He had left as soon as he obtained the alloy fragments. Back then, he had only thought of the statues as nothing more than regular rock figures. This was why he had found their lack of a face odd. It was clear that Xia Lei had overlooked something with great research value!
Xia Lei pulled out his pistol and shot the warrior statue twice.
Bang! Bang!
The noisy bullets were aimed at its chest. Fire sparks were triggered and the bullet was deflected away, falling unceremoniously to the ground. Its head was blunt but not a single mark was left on the statue’s chest!
A Viper pistol’s power was comparable to a Desert Eagle. The bullets fired by these weapons could dent a steel plate. Despite that, the stone statue had remained unscathed!
This indicated that the material was extremely rigid. The fact that bullets couldn’t scar it had suggested its toughness. Out of all the rocks and minerals that existed in nature, only diamonds were able to satisfy these conditions. However, diamonds of this size did not exist.
Xia Lei had his preliminary conclusion, deeming that extraterrestrial rock materials were used to create the face-less warriors. The stone was either from another realm or artificially produced by another high-technology civilisation.
Plus, what tools had the sculptor used to create these?
The face-less warriors, the pyramid… Everything had pointed towards the possibility of non-human origins. The characters behind this must’ve come from some other alien or prehistoric civilisation.
Xia Lei’s mind immediately latched on to one person. The prehistoric chosen one.
In the bronze book, the prehistoric chosen one had noted that he had unified the earth and built his kingdom. His people had called him the Only One and they hailed him as their G.o.d.
“Wait… Could the corpse in the ancient tomb be the prehistoric chosen one? Did he build this pyramid? If there were remnants of his civilization, is the pyramid one of them? So this means that his civilization was advanced enough to produce high-quality rocks and yet the civilization he created couldn’t compare to us in the present day? This doesn’t make any sense.” Questions flooded his mind, launching Xia Lei’s thoughts into a flurry.
There was no way around this. The exchange between him and the prehistoric chosen one was limited to the pitifully scarce messages left in the bronze book. Xia Lei had nothing else to refer to.
“Boss, what’s on your mind? Are you trying to make it fall? I can help you with it.”
Watching Xia Lei push and shoot at the statue, Tsukino Kyoko was utterly bewildered.
Xia Lei shook his head. “There’s no need for that, I’m just… Nevermind, let’s move to another spot.” He began approaching another rock wall.
He pushed at the statues and used his bullets on them, all for the sake to understand its composition. Xia Lei had no intention of making them fall.
On this side of the wall were multiple murals.
Xia Lei’s eyes found themselves glued to the paintings.
The first set of murals had depicted a young man with a box. The possession gave him superpowers. He went on to kill bears, mammoths and even dinosaurs. The young man had led the warriors of his tribe around to conquer the land and later built his own kingdom.
In the second set of murals, the young prince robbed himself. There was a complete box in his grip. Countless face-less warriors, ministers and people wors.h.i.+pped him. He seemed to have many wives and children of many races. He built many cities and expanded the territory of his reign, occupying almost most corners of the globe. However, the continental plates were way different back then. Xia Lei could only spot a few geological similarities.
The third set of murals showed his wives and children dying of old age while the man had remained young. No one in his kingdom had challenged his reign. Eventually, he left his kingdom and brought away the box. His mileage was traced from one continent to another, crossing oceans after oceans. He searched for something but there was no further explanation for it.
In the fourth set of murals, the man had returned to his kingdom out of the blue. He recruited craftsmen and selected a mountain. There, they built a pyramid within the mountain. Its completion was graced by a ray of light that shone from the top onto the sarcophagus. Specks were ill.u.s.trated in the ray and the man gathered it, sealing the material in an amber. The amber was kept in the sarcophagus. At the end of everything, the man ordered his face-less warriors to kill everyone involved.
The man left his kingdom once again in the fifth set of murals. This time, there was no return.
Wasn’t these the events recorded in the bronze book?! The only difference here was that the prehistoric chosen one had not mentioned his return and the pyramid’s existence in the bronze book.
“What did he collect from the ray of light? Could it be…” Xia Lei felt like he was arriving at something. On a whim, he prompted his multifunctional watch into a torch.
Xia Lei shone the light onto the fourth set of murals. The ray of light that shone down from the peak of the pyramid a tad bit clearer to the eye. Despite that, the thick layer of dust had veiled away details.
Huff! Xia Lei blew at the mural.
The layer of dust lifted off, finally revealing the full story.
In the presence of light, Xia Lei could finally see the glittering speckles that were dotted in the ray. They were ground pieces of gold, silver and crystals. Hidden beneath the dust, they blended into the rocks. But as soon as the filth was blown away, its majestic presence was announced to the world.
Xia Lei knew what they symbolized. They represented the medicinal powder encapsulated in the AE capsules!
The prehistoric chosen one had returned to his kingdom, built a pyramid and collected the powder. He had also killed off everyone involved. These decisions were deliberate, perhaps acting under a mission!
The set of murals had shone a new light to the origins of the AE capsules. It was not made by humans but brought by the ray of light that shone from the top of the pyramid!
Xia Lei swiftly lifted a chin to study the crystal skull.
Where could this be from?
And where did the light s.h.i.+ne through?