[Poisonous Hand] Gizela looked at the ancient bronze door in front of him, a hint of suspicion appeared on his face, and he stopped chasing.
Although there was a gap in the door that was more than one person wide, she did not dare to rush in.
When I looked closely, I saw darkness inside, as thick as ink, as if it sucked my sight in. However, even with this one glance, my visual perception did not give back any useful information to my brain, as if I had seen a piece of "nothingness".
Gizela took out a flare, lit it, and threw it into the crack of the door, but found that the incendiary bomb burning with strong light seemed to have passed through a layer of dark barrier and suddenly disappeared from sight.
"Is there a magical restriction?"
Seeing this scene, Gizela frowned and hesitated to move forward, feeling a little palpitated.
Her intuition told her that if she rashly broke into the bronze door, her life would be in danger!
All signs indicate that the "mysterious man" who just stole the Holy Grail acted with premeditation. She guessed that there was probably an ambush behind the door!
…
And in the moment that Gizela stopped, the people from the Rosas family carefully avoided the poisonous fog and rushed over around the hall.
Those who were able to reach the bronze gate in the first place were mostly second- and third-level masters. However, looking at the dark gate in front of them, no one dared to rush in.
They had already experienced the danger of this underground palace, whether it was the dog-headed monster or these poisonous creatures...
Not to mention what new monsters might appear behind the bronze door, even if they encountered the mazes on the previous level, they would be trapped to death.
But right now, there are obviously more important things.
At this moment, the second wave of people asking for help also arrived.
Several guards carried Young Master George, whose face turned black, and ran over in panic.
"Master Gizela, something bad has happened! Master George has been poisoned. We injected him with a powerful antidote, but it didn't help much. Please save him quickly!"
“…”
Gizela frowned as she looked at the barely breathing Young Master George.
Young Master George was seriously injured, and she couldn't afford to be distracted by what was behind the bronze door, so she turned her thoughts back.
She didn't dare to delay and walked over to check it carefully.
There is no need to guess the reason why George was poisoned. He was taken to the rainbow poisonous fog area by the "mysterious man" and inhaled the toxin.
"Rainbow toxin" is not a single biological toxin, but many kinds. Nerve, septicemia, frost, corrosion, paralysis... Various poisons have been spewing out mixed toxins for countless years, which is very complicated.
For this kind of complex toxin, ordinary antidotes are completely useless.
There are many kinds of antidotes, and generally one kind of antidote only targets a single toxin.
Even the most advanced antidote on the market can only remove three or five mixed toxins at most. With just one sip of this rainbow poison mist, Gizela was able to identify at least more than twenty different toxins.
If it were another doctor, they would be helpless against this compound poison injury. The duration of the poison attack was too short to leave time for anyone to save the patient.
If those two third-level priests hadn't cast a spell to extend his life, this guy would have probably died just now.
But for Gizela, a poison expert, this is not a big problem.
Instinctively, she wanted to take out some antidote from her storage ring, but when she touched it, she found that her fingers were empty, which made her even more angry.
That guy even stole my storage ring!
Thinking of this, Gizela's face turned pale, but she didn't dare to hesitate. She cut George's wrist directly, letting out some pus and blood, and then cast a spell to guide the poison out ...
…
A quarter of an hour later.
George's dark complexion finally returned to its normal flesh color.
Gizela stopped and said expressionlessly, "Master George's poison is no longer a problem."
After hearing this, the senior members of the Rosas family breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thank you, Master Gizela."
The guards did not dare to keep George in the underground palace and carried him on a stretcher to the ground camp to recuperate.
At this time, the man was rescued and everyone turned their attention to the bronze door.
They had just sent two teams of one hundred men through the gate, but until now, there has been no news.
No one was found alive, and the "magic mark" could not sense it at all.
It's like it disappeared completely.
This made the Rosas family even more panicked.
I wanted to go on, but I didn’t know what dangers were hidden in the darkness.
"What...should we do now?"
"If I'm not mistaken, the third floor of the ruins might be where the real treasure is. We must find a way to go down there. Besides, the assassin is also in there, and we must catch him."
"But...if this third level has monsters like the previous mazes, even if our Knights have more people, it won't be enough to fill it..."
"Yes, even if we start recruiting slaves and civilian hunters now, it will take at least seven or eight days for them to arrive..."
“…”
Gizela frowned upon hearing this.
Her intuition told her that the two "hundred-man teams" that had gone down earlier must have been wiped out, but the "mysterious man" who had taken the Holy Grail must still be alive.
With such deep scheming, he planned to rescue the young master of the "Redwood Chamber of Commerce" and snatch the Holy Grail. He would never rashly rush into a dangerous place to die.
It's definitely not a situation where you're bound to die.
But she didn't dare to gamble or take the risk herself.
But if we don’t go in now, and have to wait seven or eight days, it will be too late.
This situation made Gizela feel like a few mice had run into his rice jar. Originally, all the treasures in the ruins belonged to them, but now they were "stolen". Moreover, there was no guarantee that those "mice" would eat and drink their fill and make a hole to escape.
Just waiting like this is definitely not a good option.
…
Just when the "Black Wind Territory" group was at a loss, another exploration team arrived.
It was the hunting team led by "Prince Harper", the main branch of the Rosas family.
Although they belong to the same Rosas family, hunting involves the distribution of interests after all, and it was agreed before that the two groups would do their own things.
Originally, the group from the "Black Wind Territory" thought they would make a fortune because Gannix was the first to crack the maze and had the opportunity to explore the second floor first, but they did not expect such a "big accident" to happen.
The previous battle killed nearly a thousand people, and it was hard to defeat this second attack of poisonous creatures.
But he didn't expect that he hadn't found any treasures yet, and Young Master George was almost killed. The only treasure he saw, the [Malacas's Holy Grail of All Poisons], was stolen right under his nose.
Prince Harper was not worried but happy when he saw his cousin's team suffered a setback.
The young man, who also had shiny green hair, came to the bronze door surrounded by a group of people and asked, "Hey... I just saw my brother George being carried out. What happened?"
Although there was a conflict of interest, Harper was also one of his descendants, but he was from the same family after all, and he was also a prince. The old wizard named Pickle had to tell the truth and said, "We just encountered a small accident. An assassin attacked George..."
He slowly recounted the events of Ryan's sneak attack.
"Assassin? Only one?"
Upon hearing this, Prince Harper and his companions were also very surprised.
However, they did not take it too seriously.
After all, his team included the extraordinary fifth-level [Curse Master] Mage Burlag, as well as several elite knights led by top fourth-level masters.
With this lineup, even the "Top Ten Legends" would not be able to survive against a lone assassin.
But after hearing what happened before, Prince Harper and his group faced the same problem.
So how to explore the "third level of ruins" behind this bronze door?
In the end, after trying various methods and losing two third-level captains and several hundred elite hunting teams, they finally gave up the foolish idea of ​​using their own people to test.
The darkness behind the bronze door was like a giant beast with a bloody mouth. Once people went in, they would never come back, and no useful information could be detected.
Without any intelligence feedback, they didn't even know what was going on inside.
It could be a trap, a palace, a monster, or something else...
Finally, the prince's fiancée, Moon Beauty, Maritis, made a feasible suggestion.
Then, Prince Harper made the decision.
"Lack of people? Aren't there more than 2,000 people still alive in the maze above? Hurry them all down and let them try it out first!"
"But... Your Highness, will this not be good for the reputation of our Rosas family? After all, they now know that this is dangerous and they are definitely not willing to take the risk again."
"Haha, they are just a bunch of civilians. If they die, they die. Do we still need to ask for their consent? Right now, what we in the Glorious Kingdom lack the least is population. Besides, if we don't leave anyone alive, who will know what happened here?"
"Yes, Your Highness!"
“…”
Now it seems that this relic must contain a treasure.
The Rosas royal family cannot wait, nor are they willing to watch others steal their treasures and run away!
…
On the other hand, in the third level of ruins.
After passing the bronze door, there is a long corridor.
After entering the thick magic barrier, it was not as dark as it looked from the outside.
There is a light source here.
The building is nearly 100 meters high, and the ceiling is a magnificent "starry sky ceiling". Looking up, you can see a deep blue dotted with bright "stars", like the ultimate starry sky on a summer night.
Although the light source is weak, it is enough for people to see everything on the third floor clearly.
What came into view was a row of exquisitely carved stone pillars, and on the stone pillars squatted some flesh-winged monsters that looked like stone sculptures. They were actually the alchemical creatures [Hell Gargoyles], a total of thirty-six of them.
At this moment, the passages and stone pillars were littered with corpses and blood.
The exploration team of nearly a thousand people sent by the Rosas family was completely wiped out here.
Even a high-level extraordinary being of the third order could not escape the clutches of this gargoyle that was immune to both physics and magic.
After Ryan crouched here and ambushed several waves of intruders, he also found that those people from the Rosas family had no intention of coming in again.
Not catching any big fish, he completely lost interest in waiting.
He simply used the demon language to control the bronze door and completely closed the door.
…
The layout of the third floor of the underground palace is very simple, and you can almost see the end at a glance.
Along the walls, there are sixteen huge stone statues. They wear crowns and sit on stone thrones. Sixteen extremely gorgeous golden coffins are placed at the feet of the stone statues.
This is the resting place of sixteen kings of this ancient kingdom of Monkor.
No, to be exact, there should be only fifteen bodies.
The body of Pallas XV, [Thunder Nightmare] Arulet Pallas, one of the "Seventy-two Generals", is not here.
At the feet of the sculpture was an empty coffin without a lid.
Although Ryan guessed that there might be treasures buried in the dozen or so coffins, he did not open them.
Because there is a warning in the temple: [If you disturb the rest of King Pallas, you will be cursed and die. ]
Moreover, he was not here to rob tombs. What he was really interested in were things related to supernatural powers, such as the magic light gate in the hall marked "Land of Inheritance".
…
Catherine and her son were reunited safely. Although the process was thrilling, everyone was happy.
Before, they were a little worried that the Rosas family outside was large in number and that they would be in a very bad situation if they rushed in.
But unexpectedly, the monster statues on the stone pillars could actually "come alive"!
What’s even more surprising is that Ryan can actually control them!
Then, because there was a [Gargoyle] guarding the gate that could kill even a third-level extraordinary with one claw, several groups of hundreds of people broke in and were easily killed.
Without the survival crisis, the mother and son breathed a sigh of relief and stayed in the underground palace with peace of mind.
Catherine's injuries had not yet healed, so she lay on the open ground to rest and recover; but Gannicus could not bear the loneliness and studied everything in the underground palace.
At this time, the bronze door slowly closed with quite a noise.
Catherine looked at Ryan and asked curiously, "Mr. Ryan, have you been here before? I heard you chant a spell just now, and the bronze door closed by itself?"
Ever since the assassin's night raid, she had become accustomed to Ryan's various magical operations.
Several times they were in certain death situations, but they were saved because of the appearance of this man.
Now seeing that Ryan could control the gargoyles and manipulate the bronze doors, Catherine was not as surprised as she was at first.
In her mind, she already had another impression of Ryan: a guy who could always bring miracles.
"Um."
Ryan walked over, checked Catherine's injuries, and responded: "I have encountered this kind of bronze door in another temple before, and I happen to know how to control these things."
"oh?"
Catherine allowed him to examine her body openly. Suddenly she thought of something and asked, "Was it the time when you and Canossa were in danger?"
Ryan nodded: "Yeah."
After a pause, he changed the subject and said, "Your injuries have recovered well."
"I see."
Hearing this, Catherine suddenly thought of something.
She turned her eyes away and didn't ask any more questions. Instead, she curved her eyebrows and revealed a meaningful smile.
At this time, Gannicus, who was observing the stone carvings with a magic lamp not far away, saw Ryan free his hands and greeted him enthusiastically: "Hey, Mr. Ryan! Come over here, I have a great discovery!"
Ryan tilted his head and asked, "That's it?"
The young adventurer had studied the Monk civilization in depth, and he urgently needed someone to share his discovery with, so he said excitedly: "Mr. Ryan, I just studied the contents of the stone carving carefully, and found that the contents carved on it seem to be the way to enter the door!"
Ryan turned his eyes away, "Oh?"
Gannicus frowned. "It's just that... the method of engraving on the stone is a bit strange. It says that in order to enter this magic light gate, it seems that you need to put your heart on the scale..."
“…”
Hearing this, Ryan raised his eyebrows and said nothing.
He could read the ancient Monk language, so he naturally knew what was written on it.
Near the pale golden "magic door" is also the strangest sculpture on the third floor.
This is a three-meter-tall pure gold dog-headed man statue, wearing the same gorgeous clothes as the king statues next to it.
The strange thing is the golden scale it holds in its hand.
A white feather was placed on one side of the scale, while the other side was empty, so the entire scale was slightly tilted towards the feather.
The words engraved on the stone wall next to the sculpture read: [Brave warrior of the trial, your 'wisdom' and 'courage' have successfully passed the test, the last level is 'soul'. Put your heart on the scales, the heart of an upright person will be as light as this 'angel's feather'; those with sinful hearts will be cursed and die if they enter the light gate. Enter the gate of the void, and you will receive an extraordinary inheritance...]
To put it simply, this long paragraph of text requires one condition to be met before the light gate can be entered normally.
The stone carving behind the dog-headed man statue comes with "Entrance Instructions", and you can guess what it means without even understanding the words.
There are two patterns.
One of the paintings shows a man using a knife to cut open his chest, and then put his heart on a scale. The scale is balanced, and then the man walks into the light door;
The second picture shows the scale tilting towards the heart, and then the person who cut out the heart falls to the ground, and the dog-headed monster swallows his soul.
The content on this stone carving is also the biggest reason why Ryan discovered the location of the magic door long ago but did not dare to rush in.
Since it is a "trial ground", it must be conducted according to certain specific rules.
He could choose to ignore the rule and just barge in.
But the result is almost predictable. Those who break the rules will inevitably trigger something not so good.
This is a world where there are gods now or in the past, and everything must be done with sufficient awe.
Judging from the moments on the first and second floors of the underground palace, what the people of this ancient civilization carved were not fictional "myths and legends" but "facts."
Whether it is a dog-headed monster or a two-headed python... they all really exist.
This level is probably not just for bluffing.
But if Ryan were to follow the instructions on the stone carving and cut out his heart and weigh it on a scale, he would feel that this method was unreliable.
Although his current medical capabilities are already very strong, it would not be a big problem even if the heart was separated from the body for a short period of time.
But no matter how you look at it, a heart is heavier than a feather.
How to keep the scale balanced?
This is also his concern.
Maybe it's the wrong method?
Ryan didn't know whether this way of entering the door had some other metaphor or something else, but in the end he didn't dare to rashly cut out his heart and put it on it.
…
Finally, after Ryan looked around the entire hall for a week and found no other method except "cutting open the heart and weighing it", he temporarily gave up the search.
It would be more appropriate to leave the search for secret passages and mechanisms to energetic professional adventurers like Gannix.
At this time, Ryan took out the storage ring of [Poison Hand] Gizela and looked at it carefully.
Almost everything in it is highly poisonous.
However, thanks to the real-time monitoring of the "intelligent brain", Ryan does not need to worry about fatal poisoning.
In addition to various bottles and jars of poisons, many books related to the use of poisons were also found.
Moreover, he also found a piece of dark gold copper, on which was engraved a secret training method exclusively for poison sorcerers - [Void Poison Hand]!
"It's actually a body-refining martial art... It can ignore the protective fighting qi to a certain extent? No wonder her poisonous python spell easily penetrated my protective fighting qi before, it turns out there is this secret technique!"
When Ryan saw the cultivation method of this poisonous hand, his eyes suddenly lit up.
In his impression, the extraordinary people of the [Poison Warlock] lineage are like assassins, and they place more emphasis on sneak attacks when killing enemies.
The frontal combat capability will be greatly reduced.
Especially for high-level extraordinary beings of level 4 or 5, as long as they are prepared, the poison is of little use.
The whole body is wrapped in high-level extraordinary protective fighting spirit. Unless the rank is crushed by the opponent, or poisoned when the opponent is unprepared, the poison has no chance of entering the body.
The power of this poisonous hand lies in the fact that its attacks can ignore the body's protective fighting spirit to a certain extent, which means it has super high "damage penetration"!
Use poison to temper your palms, and then gather the poison in your palms.
With one strike, the poison can easily penetrate the protective fighting spirit of a transcendent of the same level, and can have miraculous effects even on a transcendent of a higher level.
After reading the introduction to the practice of this secret method, Ryan suddenly had an idea in his mind: "If this thing is combined with [Sky God Strike], can't it directly force the toxin into the target's body?"
[Air God Strike] also uses Qi to transform Qi into force, forcing it into the target's body, with the special effect of "ignoring the target's defense". However, the ultimate penetration of force is also restricted by the body's protective fighting spirit.
If there was a poisonous hand martial art that enhanced "damage penetration", and a stream of poison was injected at the same time as the punch was thrown, wouldn't the damage immediately explode?
Moreover, the most powerful thing about this [Void Ten Thousand Poison Hands] is not how to practice the secret method, but the "poison"!
This is a secret technique with an unlimited growth limit.
The stronger the poison used to refine the hands, the stronger its "penetrating" ability to ignore the protective fighting spirit will be, and the greater the damage will be!
The more Ryan thought about it, the more astonished he became. "No wonder that [Poison Hand] Gizela has a record of killing fifth-level warriors. I originally thought it was a sneak attack with poison, but it turns out there is this trick. Fortunately, I didn't confront her head-on before, otherwise I would probably suffer a great loss..."
Toxins in the skin and flesh and in the internal organs and meridians are completely different things.
Ryan can completely ignore toxins on the surface of the skin or in the respiratory tract, because his [Divine Healing Technique] can heal toxins in an instant before they have time to damage the body.
But if it happens to some vital organs, there may be no time to detoxify the poison at the moment of poisoning, and the person will die on the spot!
Seeing this, Ryan immediately wanted to learn this secret technique.
Now he just happened to have the "Seven-Colored Poisonous Crystal" in his hand. Could he find anything more poisonous than this in the world?
He originally just wanted to use it to improve his resistance to toxins, but because of this secret method, he felt that he would be able to master a new killer move in the near future!
…
Anyway, no one else could open the bronze door, so Ryan originally planned to stay on the third floor of the temple for a while.
Then, if there is indeed no other way to enter the magic door, send Catherine and her son out through the secret passage first.
He stayed behind to trick those people from the Rosas family.
But unexpectedly, the plan was disrupted.
Just two hours later, the bronze door slowly opened.
This door can only be opened using the demon language.
Hearing the noise, Ryan realized that besides himself and the High Priest of Marfa, there was another person who could speak the demon language.
That is the little girl from the Curse Clan, Naretta!