Chapter 240 Parthenon

Jean Lucas ultimately chose to compromise, a compromise that many had foreseen. To an old-school blood clan member who adhered to ancient customs, seniority and generation carried a weight that outsiders could scarcely understand. Even if he disregarded the opinions of other elders, he couldn't ignore the unique ancient one, Vivian.

An ancient one who had witnessed all the events of the mythical era, Hesperides, could intervene at any moment and make him lose face. The current precarious situation, coupled with the undeniable influence of the Heathera family, led Jean Lucas to make a wise decision under the influence of these factors. Occasionally relaxing one's rigid beliefs might not bring much loss, but offending a bunch of troublesome figures for the sake of saving face would be extremely unwise.

The entrance to the ruins was located in the Parthenon, but the group couldn't directly travel from real Athens. Demon hunters had been closely monitoring these ancient buildings for a long time, waiting for reckless otherworldly nostalgia-seekers. A safer route to the entrance existed: the Parthenon in Shadow Athens.

This shadow city was the masterpiece of blood clan members and shadow masters among the shadow demons. Thousands of years ago, shadow casters, still in their prime, used special methods to distort space, replicating and dragging half of Athens into the shadow of real Athens, creating this bizarre replica. Many of its areas corresponded to real Athens, not only in shape and structure but also in spatial coordinates, like a parallel space. Shadow Athens shrouded the landmarks of real Athens, existing alongside ordinary people, but most were unaware of its existence.

Therefore, Shadow Athens also had a Parthenon, and its absolute spatial coordinates were indeed in the same place as the temple in the real world. With some clever transformations, the group could directly travel from the sanctuary to the ruins, avoiding detection by demon hunters.

Jean Lucas ordered his servants to retrieve the holy artifacts needed to open the ruins' gate from the family vault. Though reluctant, he still put on a courteous show and personally came to "open the door" for Vivian.

The Parthenon was located in the center of the ancient Acropolis of Athens, silently overlooking the human world from the city's highest point for over two thousand four hundred years. This magnificent building stood on a limestone hill, its grayish-white silhouette visible from afar. Hao Ren and his group, along with Heathera, Lucas, and their respective retinues, arrived at the temple's location in a grand procession. It was "noon" in Shadow Athens.

This chaotic city had no concept of morning or evening; its residents relied on clocks to determine their schedules. It was also the moment when the sun was at its zenith outside, and the power of shadow in the real world was suppressed to its limit. Opening the gate in the shadow fortress at this time could prevent the leakage of aura into real Athens: sunlight would dissipate this insignificant fluctuation. Although the effect was minimal, caution was ingrained in the bones of everyone in this city; it was what had kept them alive for so many years.

However, the first one to jump up after climbing the hill platform wasn't anyone else, but the mercenary girl Becky, who had been quite low-key since coming to Shadow Athens with the group, almost forgotten by everyone.

The girl looked at the rectangular temple in front of her and jumped up excitedly: "Wow! This is quite similar to the ancient buildings I saw in my grandpa's books!"

Hao Ren's heart skipped a beat when he heard that: "Your grandpa's ancient books?"

Becky nodded vigorously: "Yeah, didn't I mention it? My grandpa is actually a scholar who specializes in ancient history and ancient civilizations. He has many ancient books that talk about a clan called the Highland Gluks, whose houses were like this, built of stone, decorated with a bunch of pillars, and full of sculptures: a nation that especially liked to create sculptures. But purebred Highland Gluks seem to be extinct now, leaving only mixed-race descendants. Some ethnic minorities west of Holleta are said to be their descendants."

"What are you talking about?" Heathera looked at Becky strangely. Unaccustomed to the environment in the shadow city, and not understanding Earth's otherworldly society, she had been honest and quiet in this unfamiliar place. Now, she suddenly started spouting a bunch of incomprehensible things, causing Heathera to cast a puzzled glance at her. "Holleta? Highland Gluks? Terms from the mythical era?"

"Uh… sort of," Vivian quickly smoothed things over. "You know how human wizards are, always researching strange things. Plus, their names for some ancient things are different from ours. You'll get caught up in the details if you try to figure it out."

Hearing this, Heathera didn't delve further. Hao Ren wiped his cold sweat and glanced at Becky, thinking that he should give this jumpy girl more general knowledge about Earth's otherworldlies when he had the chance, since she might be staying on Earth for a while…

Then, Hao Ren couldn't help but observe the famous temple on the hill. He had only seen pictures of this renowned ancient building online before; this was the first time he had seen it in person. Under the gloomy sky, the Parthenon looked somewhat eerie. In the dim environment, it lost its sacred color, resembling a ghost town crouching on the hill against the dark sky. Moreover, besides the atmosphere, Hao Ren felt that the Parthenon in Shadow Athens seemed quite different from the pictures he had seen online: the one before him looked complete and well-preserved, so much so that he almost didn't recognize it at first glance.

"Shadow Athens hasn't experienced as many disturbances as the outside world; the temple is almost intact," Hesperides, hearing that the group was about to depart for the ruins, had followed out of interest. Looking at this property that once belonged to her family, she seemed a bit sentimental. "Only time has made it slightly older."

"Aren't you going in?" Vivian glanced at Hesperides. "Maybe you could be a tour guide or something—there might be scenery you're familiar with inside."

"It's precisely because I'm afraid of seeing those things that I won't go in," Hesperides smiled. "Sometimes I'd rather visit those scenic temples that require tickets than come here and look at this nearly perfectly preserved palace of Athena—the former reminds me that many people won't be coming back, while the latter always makes me think of when those people were still alive."

Vivian nodded in understanding: "Then I'll tell you about what I see inside when I come out."

"No problem," Hesperides nodded, then gently tapped the ornate jeweled headband around her forehead. "I have to go back and guard the gate; I don't quite trust Herber with that place, and spending too much time here gives me a headache."

"Your wound hasn't healed yet?" Vivian asked casually, noticing Hesperides' gesture.

Hesperides slightly pulled aside the corner of the headband, and Hao Ren was surprised to find that beneath it was a deep wound, a good inch wide, flickering with a silvery-white light. "It's been two hundred years, and it's healed less than a millimeter compared to last time, or maybe it hasn't changed at all. I guess it'll never heal in this lifetime."

After saying this, Hesperides laughed freely and turned into a ray of light, disappearing before everyone's eyes. Nangong Wuyue couldn't help but ask curiously: "What's that wound of hers…"

"Inflicted by a demon hunter thousands of years ago," Vivian sighed. "A brain hole opened by a demon-breaking arrow, but she actually survived. Unfortunately, this kind of wound probably can't heal for a lifetime; her brain hole is incurable."

Hao Ren: "…"

At this moment, Heathera and Jean had completed preparations to open the gate to the ruins. Heathera held a crescent-shaped milky white stone tablet and came to Vivian: "Lady Vivian, get ready to go in! We're about to open the door!"

The group quickly followed into the temple, finding that a strange ritual site had been set up: a marble square altar was placed in the open space inside the temple gate, surrounded by a triple layer of complex runes drawn with dark red suspicious paint. The blood clan mages brought by Jean and Heathera stood in a circle outside these triple runes, their bodies glowing with a blackish-red mist to provide energy for the gate-opening ceremony. As a layer of blurry light gradually emerged on the altar, Heathera and Jean placed their respective stone tablets on the altar, combining them into a full moon. Immediately, everyone felt a change in the surrounding atmosphere.

The oppressive, gloomy aura omnipresent in Shadow Athens seemed to recede, and an exhilarating power surged from all directions.

While watching the altar glow, Heathera happily boasted to Vivian: "At first, I was the one who discovered that this location occasionally had strange energy overflowing, although I don't know why the entrance would be in such a bizarre place… overlapping exactly with the entrance of the Parthenon."

At this moment, Hao Ren suddenly stepped forward: "Um, can I take a look at those two stone tablets?"

Before Heathera could respond, Jean stood guardedly in front of the altar: "What do you want? These stone tablets are crucial keys!"

Hao Ren waved his hand: "Don't be nervous, I just want to take a look. I'm a wizard, I'm interested in magic. You can watch me from the side; can't I just not touch them?"

Vivian didn't know what Hao Ren wanted to do, but she still chimed in: "What's the big deal with just looking? Are you worried we'll steal your broken stones?"

Jean looked at Hao Ren inexplicably, and finally reluctantly agreed. Hao Ren immediately approached the center of the formation, pretending to observe the altar's operation, even taking out a magnifying glass to shine it around in a pretentious manner, but at the same time, he was contacting his data terminal in his mind: "Did you record it?"

"The entire process is very clear; it's a simple spatial transposition," the data terminal replied. "Stand a little to the left, try to be in the center of this ritual; the machine's measurements will be more accurate."

The two "people" pretended to observe the altar, openly recording the entire energy flow process required to open the ruins.

Jean watched Hao Ren shining the light around and became impatient: "Are you done yet?"

While having the data terminal finish up, Hao Ren pretended to be very professional and nodded: "Yes, yes, that's good, that's good… let me see, hmm, the marble pattern is nice, these two semicircular cakes… tsk tsk, this arc, this detail, quite round…"

Jean blinked: "Is that how you study magic?"

"Uh, the magic of you blood clan members is indeed profound; I didn't understand it at all," Hao Ren put away the magnifying glass, puffed out his chest, and walked towards the depths of the temple without any guilt. "Alright, let's start the next stage of academic research; let's go to the ruins…"

Heathera shouted him back from behind: "You're going the wrong way! You have to go out the temple gate to enter the ruins!"