Chapter 1 The Magnificent, Luxurious Structure

This magnificent and luxurious structure had slumbered in this forest for a hundred centuries, its glory faded, its dazzling golden decorations weathered and corroded into a grayish-black hue. In the long geological changes, the main body of the building had gradually sunk underground, with only about one-tenth of it exposed. Yet, astonishingly, even in this dilapidated state, the main structure of the building remained intact and stable.

Even being buried and crushed by millions of tons of soil and rock had left no trace of collapse.

It seemed that, apart from those flashy decorative accessories, the main body of the building had undergone special reinforcement treatment, which showed that the Godslayer race indeed had its unique skills in the technological field.

Under Leah's lead, the group entered the interior of the ruins through the large hole in the dome and began to find their way through the intricate floors and corridors of the building, constantly delving deeper into it.

After entering the building, Hao Ren once again confirmed that this was a relic left by the Godslayers: in this magnificent hall, gorgeous sculptures and reliefs used to highlight achievements were everywhere. All kinds of decorations with religious symbolic meaning almost covered every corner the group reached. These religious symbols were not used to worship any other gods, but were the people who built this building's boasting and embellishment of themselves.

After taking a few wrong turns, Leah finally found the right direction. A straight shaft leading to the underground appeared in front of everyone. The shaft was deep and dark, and some light could be seen flashing occasionally on its inner wall: it was the energy still remaining in the building leaking out through damaged lines and pipes.

"It's so deep inside..." Lily stood by the shaft, cautiously poking her head down to take a look, and her tail suddenly puffed up with tension, "Good heavens... why do we always encounter things like jumping into deep pits and wells..."

"Do you often encounter ruins buried underground?" Leah looked at Lily strangely, then shrugged, "It's normal to be deep. This building was originally a towering temple. The information records that it may be as high as a thousand meters, and what we see on the surface is the top of its main tower that is exposed. So we probably have to move down a thousand meters inside this ruin to reach its base, and important things are usually buried there."

As she spoke, she looked at the shaft wall with some strangeness: "But it's strange to say, I can't even see the stairs... How did the people who used this building move between these floors?"

Vivian looked down: "This should be an elevator. The pedestrian stairs are probably blocked by rubble."

"An eleva...tor?" Leah smacked her lips, "Anyway, fortunately I was prepared. Scholar Leah never does unprepared adventures!"

As the magician girl spoke, she opened her robe pocket, which seemed like a treasure chest, again and took out a piece of rolled-up fabric from it. There must be some kind of space expansion effect in her robe, otherwise it would be difficult to explain how she hid these strange little props.

Leah unfolded the fabric, placed it gently on the ground, and muttered obscure spells. The fabric immediately began to shake, stretch, and thicken. In just a few seconds, it turned into a huge flying carpet, with a bright lamp floating at each of the four corners of the flying carpet. As Leah injected magic into it, the flying carpet gradually floated to less than half a meter above the ground, steady and reliable.

"We'll take this down!" Leah said triumphantly, "I made it myself too!"

Vivian opened her wings with a whoosh: "I don't need it, I can fly myself."

"I don't want to sit on this!" As soon as Lily saw the flying carpet's unobstructed edges, she couldn't help but feel terrified and subconsciously took a step back, "I always feel like something soft and without safety railings will fall off!"

Hao Ren glared at the husky girl and pushed her onto the flying carpet: "Stop messing around. You weren't afraid of heights when you were hitching rides on planes?"

In fact, Hao Ren himself also had equipment for auxiliary flight, but riding a magic flying carpet was a first for him. He couldn't help but be a little curious, so he squeezed onto Leah's magic carpet with the others with the attitude of experiencing life.

Then the magician girl skillfully started the fire, shifted gears, started, and drove the heavily overloaded flying carpet into the shaft in a swaying manner.

Watching the grayish-black well wall with a hint of gold constantly rising in his field of vision, Hao Ren couldn't help but mutter, "I encountered a lot of monsters on the way here, I thought there would be more monsters in the ruins, but I didn't expect it to be quiet all the way in."

"The demon-devouring monsters only gather around the ruins because of the magic leakage here, but rarely run into the interior of the ruins," Leah explained, "Because the energy concentration inside the ruins is higher, it exceeds the 'comfortable' level felt by the demon-devouring monsters. In addition, there is no food inside the ruins. For the demon-devouring monsters that still need to eat to survive, there is no need to come in."

"Can't find food... that's right, that's the key," Hao Ren was stunned, and couldn't help but smile dumbly, "Adventure novels are indeed all lies."

"What?"

"Uh, nothing, just talking to myself."

The flying carpet continued to descend in the shaft. For safety reasons, its descent speed was not fast, which gave everyone a good opportunity to observe the situation along the way. While Hao Ren secretly ordered the data terminal to scan the surrounding data through the mental connection, he was also studying the decoration style of the Godslayer race in terms of reliefs and runes with great interest. But in this process, he suddenly heard a low and strange muffled sound coming from a certain direction.

The source of the sound seemed to be far away, but it was amplified and spread here through the complex underground cave structure.

The first to react was Lily. The husky girl, who was already a little nervous, immediately tightened her grip on the alloy giant sword, her ears turning sensitively in various directions: "Did you hear a sound?! It sounds like something collapsed somewhere!"

"I heard it too," Leah was also a little nervous. She casually drew a few magic runes and breathed a sigh of relief after watching those runes gradually dissipate in the air, "It wasn't emitted from this ruin. It should be in a deeper, farther place. It should be the sound from the Great Pit Road."

"Is this situation common?" Hao Ren frowned and asked.

"There are often strange noises coming from the Great Pit Road. Sometimes it's airflow, sometimes it's monsters moving around," Leah said seemingly nonchalantly, "Some people also say that the ancient drilling machines in the Great Pit Road are digging through our world. Don't worry, they are all things that are far away from us."

Hao Ren wanted to say that the sound had already reached here, so it didn't sound that far away, but at this time the flying carpet had reached the bottom of the shaft.

A flapping sound came from the side, Vivian landed next to the flying carpet, put away her wings, and looked around: "The structure here seems to be quite complete."

While Leah was directing the flying carpet to fold itself up, she took out a magic crystal to detect the magic concentration in the air. The magician girl's eyes almost glowed: "Not only is the structure complete, but the magic reaction is also very strong! There must be ancient facilities still running here—this time it's really a treasure!"

Looking at Leah's excited appearance, Nangong Sanba couldn't help but ask, "Do you know what the thing you're looking for looks like?"

"The thing to look for? No, no, no, I am a scholar, not a tomb robber," Leah said very seriously, "This ruin itself is what I'm looking for. The knowledge buried here, any ancient objects that can be used or have research value, even the structural diagrams of the ruins themselves and the runes and sculptures we saw along the way, these are the greatest wealth! Come on, don't waste time, we still have a long way to go!"

Leah put away her magic flying carpet, stroked her iron staff, making the luminous crystal at the front of the iron staff brighter than before, and then took the lead towards the gate at the bottom of the shaft, which was obviously an exit.

The gate was of course locked, and the identification system that could control the locking device was obviously scrapped for many years, but these were not problems at all for Miss Leah, who could kill a cow with one punch. She pried open the door with her staff in a few strokes, and beckoned Hao Ren and his party to follow quickly.

Hao Ren and Vivian looked at each other helplessly and followed closely behind.

This building was indeed very much like a magnificent temple. Regardless of the original purpose of those Godslayers in building it, its internal structure had the significant characteristics of a temple. Not long after coming out of the elevator shaft, Hao Ren and his party saw those wide halls and solemn corridors, and saw more epic reliefs and paintings in the corridors. If he hadn't known that the Godslayer race had long abandoned their beliefs and crowned themselves as gods, Hao Ren himself would have thought that this was a place to worship gods.

The building had been abandoned for a long time, so there were naturally not many clues left. But judging from the tidiness of the items left in the building and the fact that there were no obvious signs of damage everywhere, Hao Ren believed that this place was not abandoned in an emergency.

Its owners obviously left calmly, taking away everything that could be taken away, and placing everything that could not be taken away in a suitable position after sorting it out. Every door was carefully closed, and there was no sign of a hasty retreat, nor was there any situation where the doors were wide open.

Hao Ren also did not see the scene of "living items being used, but the owner suddenly disappeared," so he ruled out the possibility that "the Godslayers disappeared instantly due to the impact of divine punishment, resulting in the ruins being neat and orderly." Finally, based on various clues, he judged that this place should have been abandoned before the "Godslaying Moment" arrived.

One team, two purposes: Leah was excitedly looking for knowledge and heritage of ancient civilizations, while Hao Ren and his party were collecting information about the Godslayer race and using it to improve their intelligence about this "La Hire Ein" world. But in any case, they successfully launched their actions in this ruin located deep underground.

After completing a rough exploration of the central axis of the building, Leah suggested going to the side hall. Based on the flow of magic underground, she judged that there should be an energy center still running in the side hall, which was priceless to her.

Hao Ren of course had no objections.

The team passed through the main hall and central corridor of the underground palace, walking through those empty palace rooms. This low and depressing place gave people a feeling of being unable to breathe, but fortunately the team led by Hao Ren was also well-trained, and this difficulty was nothing to them.

However, on the way to the side hall, they had to stop: a rift blocked the way ahead.

The entire underground building was actually broken into two sections here. Its side hall and main body were completely separated, and what separated them was a rift that was a white meter wide and bottomless.

Lily stood in front of the rift and looked up at the top: the dome of the building was also torn apart, and you could directly see the thick rock layer and countless stalactites hanging down from above. This may have originally been an underground cave, so after the dome of the palace broke, the rock layer above did not collapse.

There were many streams of light visible to the naked eye traveling on the rock top, jumping and flowing along those stalactites. The starting point of the light streams was the ruins on the opposite side of the rift, which was the side hall of the underground palace, and the end point was the upper layer of the building where everyone was—those light streams were obviously the "magic flow" that Leah had sensed before.

The so-called magic veins did exist, but the road to its source was blocked.

Lily looked down at the big rift below and found that this thing was much darker and deeper than the previous shaft, and a chaotic cyclone was constantly looming in it. A palpitating sense of danger came from the bottom of the valley, making her hair stand on end, and she quickly moved away from this dangerous position.

Vivian opened her bat wings again, while moving her wings to judge the distance of this rift. The expression on her face was not very concerned: "It's only a white meter wide, just fly over..."

This was also the idea of the others in the team: a rift of only a white meter wide was not even a challenge for this team. Lily could almost jump over it without a running start, let alone everyone had the option of flying over it.

However, Leah hurriedly stopped Vivian: "Wait! Don't!"

Vivian looked at the magician girl inexplicably: "What's wrong?"

"This rift is the 'gap' I mentioned before that leads to the Great Pit Road," the expression on Leah's face was particularly serious, even a little nervous: this expression was rare on this arrogant mage girl's face, "If you fly over, there's a high probability that you'll really lose your life!"

Vivian put away her wings, with a puzzled expression on her face: "It's just the entrance to the Great Pit Road, is there a problem flying over it?"

"People like you who only have a superficial understanding of the Great Pit Road are indeed most prone to accidents..." Leah couldn't help but sigh, then casually picked up a stone from nearby, injected magic into the stone, and threw it forcefully towards the rift.

The magic-infused flying stone flew straight forward under the propulsion of the Wind Arrow Spell, and seemed to be able to easily cross the rift and fly to the side hall on the opposite side. However, just as it flew halfway, a layer of dark shadow suddenly surged from the rift—Hao Ren had never seen such a strange phenomenon or substance. The thing rising from the rift looked like a mass of pure darkness, its black color was so pure that it was impossible to see any details on its surface. It rose so abruptly into the air, as if a piece had been dug out of space, or as if a drop of pitch-black ink had been dropped on a picture—this mass of darkness rose several meters high from the rift, and did not directly touch the stone flying in the air, but the stone instantly became illusory and transparent.

The next second, it disappeared from the air, along with the magic flash Leah gave it.

Even having seen all kinds of strange things, Hao Ren couldn't help but swallow at this time, thinking to himself, holy crap.

No matter what that thing was, the feeling of being "licked" by it would definitely not be good!

"The Great Pit Road will devour anything that enters its sphere of influence and has a magic reaction or a life reaction, whether it's a stone or an adult dragon," Leah said very seriously, "I don't know if you understand the Great Pit Road through your teacher's teachings or the bards' fabrications, or just heard a little bit of the surface from the bragging stories of other mercenaries and adventurers. What I want to say is that almost all the research claiming to be on the Great Pit Road is fooling people. Those guys who claim to have entered the Great Pit Road and returned alive and wrote books are even more nonsense—their research only touched the branch structure of the Great Pit Road, or just took a turn in the mines near the Pit Road. No one has ever contacted the main body of the Great Pit Road alive. It's ridiculous that many self-proclaimed scholars even divide the Great Pit Road into two parts, a deadly zone and a so-called 'temperate zone.' This theory is bullshit! There is no temperate zone in the Great Pit Road at all. That is just a normal cave that has been slightly mutated by the influence of the Pit Road. Research in it is worthless!"

She raised her hand and pointed to the rift in front of her. That strange darkness was gradually shrinking back, looking as if nothing had happened: "This is the Great Pit Road, the real Great Pit Road, so never, never try to pass over it, and don't use so-called magic to challenge its devouring ability."

Faced with Leah's serious warning, Nangong Sanba couldn't help but take a breath of cold air: "I finally know why you can't recruit anyone..."

Leah: "...Huh?"

Izhaks also said in a muffled voice: "I understand. In fact, according to the more generally accepted definition in the world, the underground palace and shaft we passed through before should already be considered to have entered the Great Pit Road, right?"

Leah: "...Eh..."

Hao Ren looked at the magician girl with his arms folded: "It's just that in your own theory, these parts don't count."

Leah: "...Anyway, I have no money! Are you capable of killing me?"

Hao Ren: "..."

This answer is really fresh and refined, completely making people unable to react.

"Forget it, forget it, we haven't said anything yet," Hao Ren waved his hand to the magician girl with a defeated expression, "We'd better find a safe place nearby to camp and rest first, and then find a way to bypass this rift, is that okay?"

Leah thought for a while: "...Are you planning to kill me while I'm sleeping and then inherit my inheritance?"

"Inherit your ass!" Hao Ren finally couldn't help but burst into anger, "Do you really think that your dangerous building in White Maple Leaf City is still worth inheriting?"

Leah retorted with a serious face: "Although that tower can't be sold for much money, the land in the mage district is very expensive!"

Hao Ren: "..."