Chapter: Chapter 180
“We’re getting close. Xue’er, be ready. We might encounter some monsters soon.”
Letizia stood in a brightly lit cavern, illuminated by light magic, her gaze fixed on the earth wall being eroded by magic. She could feel herself drawing nearer to her destination.
“There’s something blocking my perception of the area above. No wonder I couldn’t sense anything unusual when I was on the surface,” Letizia said, tilting her head upwards. Normally, she would be able to sense the presence of Bai Ling and Bai Ya from this location, but now she couldn’t.
Even a few meters of earth would normally only slightly affect the sensitivity of her perception. With Letizia’s mental strength, such a thickness of soil shouldn’t be able to completely block her senses. The current situation could only mean one thing: the soil here was enhanced.
“Does Your Majesty Letizia also feel that?” Sasha’s expression was also a bit solemn. The divine power within her was slightly restless. This typically happened when divine power encountered divine power. “I suspect our destination contains an enemy who wields divine power.”
“Divine power?” Letizia’s eye twitched. Anything related to gods usually meant trouble.
“Yes, but the feeling I get isn’t very strong. It should be the type that’s easily dealt with,” Sasha nodded. Not everyone who could use divine power was powerful. In reality, most of those who could use divine power were only moderately strong.
Take Sasha, for example. She found it incredibly difficult to fight against those on the level of the Four Heavenly Kings, yet she was considered a capable individual within the Divine Seat.
However, she had made a mistake a few days ago due to carelessness, which caused Letizia to have some doubts about Sasha’s judgments, especially when it came to enemies.
“Well, it’s always better to be careful… Huh, we’ve reached the end?”
Letizia’s excavation magic suddenly stopped. The area in front of her was no longer ordinary soil and rock, but a silver metallic wall.
The appearance of such a thing here left no doubt in the minds of the girls present about what it meant.
They had successfully found the underground chamber, but… they hadn’t found its entrance.
“Should I just create an opening here, or should I go around to find the door?” Letizia asked, turning her head.
Creating an opening here would be the simplest method, but who knew what lay on the other side? If they opened it right in front of some monstrous creature, it would put Letizia in a difficult position.
“Let’s find the proper entrance,” Xue’er and Sasha agreed.
Thus, Letizia began digging along the wall. The underground chamber was quite large, approximately the same size as a house on the surface.
After some digging around, Letizia finally found a secret passage. She had no idea where this passage originated from, but its destination was indeed this underground chamber.
The secret passage didn’t use metal for its walls; instead, it used ordinary stone, making it indistinguishable from any other passage.
“It seems like no one has been here for a long time,” Letizia murmured, looking at the extinguished torches on either side of the passage.
The orbs of light floating around her illuminated the path ahead, relieving her of the burden of whether or not to light the torches. Who knew if the torches, unlit for so long, might be a trap?
Generally, things that looked this suspicious were definitely problematic. Perhaps lighting these torches would release poisonous gas or trigger a mechanism to kill intruders, although none of those were particularly concerning issues for Letizia.
What sort of powerful hidden weapons could fit in a passage of this size? At most, it would be crossbow bolts or something similar.
The passage sloped slightly downwards, and after a short walk, Letizia and her party arrived at a technologically advanced door.
The presence of such a door in the demon race, known for its magic, was highly unusual.
“This must be human technology. Does the demon race have anything like this?” Letizia asked, a large question mark appearing above her forehead as she looked at the metallic door.
She doubted her demon race could create something so technologically advanced. She was well aware of the technological capabilities of her subordinates; they couldn’t even use a rice cooker with a human face on it, let alone build something like this.
Such a technologically advanced door should typically be found in secret human facilities. Was it possible that this was a human outpost previously planted among the demons?
Perhaps it had been abandoned for some unknown reason, giving Letizia an opportunity to uncover its secrets.
“It’s likely human, and most likely from the Central City,” Sasha, being human, had a more authoritative opinion on such matters. She carefully examined the door and reached her conclusion.
Central City was the most developed among all human cities. This building was constructed a long time ago, and this location also existed from a very early period. At that time, only Central City would have possessed such technology.
“Wow, it’s even an iris lock.” Letizia had already opened a small box beside the door and discovered a tiny camera.
With her extensive knowledge, she confirmed that this was likely an iris lock, like those seen in movies, requiring one to place their eye near it to unlock.
“There’s no other way, we’ll have to force it open.” Letizia flexed her wrists, signaling the girls to step back. “The disturbance might be significant. I recommend closing your eyes and covering your ears.”
The girls immediately retreated a few steps and turned their backs.
Following that, the area where Letizia stood erupted in a blinding flash of light, accompanied by a rapid increase in temperature. The seemingly sturdy door was directly breached by Letizia, creating a large hole.
“Done.” Manipulating an invisible hand to push away the cut metal, Letizia curiously peered into the underground chamber.
There were no lights in the underground chamber, but an extremely strong smell of blood emanated from within. Letizia couldn’t help but pinch her nose. “Be careful, there should be some corpses or something inside.”
However, the girls present had excellent psychological fortitude; mere corpses could not instill any fear in them.
To be honest, the people who had died by their hands likely hadn’t met any pleasant ends either.
Still, the scene inside was enough to make even Letizia’s scalp tingle.
“My heavens, what happened here?” The light from the magic dissipated the darkness surrounding the underground chamber, revealing a scene like a living hell to everyone’s eyes.
The white walls were splattered with numerous spray-like bloodstains, and claw marks seemed to indicate the desperation of the beings who had been imprisoned in this underground chamber.
This place seemed to have been a laboratory before, but judging by the current situation, no survivors were likely left behind.
“These bones…” Letizia frowned slightly as she looked at the bones scattered on the ground.
These bones were too clean. This house had been acquired by her people about five to six years ago. Was that enough time for a corpse to decay to just bones?
Furthermore, she hadn’t smelled any stench of decay when she entered. Normally, in such a confined space with a corpse, the smell would be absolutely hellish.
It was as if something had stripped the flesh off these bones.
Creatures that ate only flesh and not bones were not uncommon in the demon race. For example, the familiar Slimes. These monsters were very good at stripping flesh.
Although weak Slimes posed little threat to the demon race, they often scavenged corpses to eat. After all, these magic-infused creatures weren’t picky eaters.
However, were there any magic-infused creatures like Slimes here?
“It’s up ahead! The divine power is coming from that direction!” Sasha suddenly exclaimed.
She pointed to a closed door not far away, her expression more serious than before. “There’s a very chaotic life force. I can’t even tell how many beings are inside.”
“You mean there’s still something alive in here?” Letizia’s eyes widened.
“Yes, so be very careful,” Sasha nodded. “If it’s a monster, fighting here might affect what’s happening above.”
“Hey, you! Go upstairs and notify Bai Ling and the others to leave the building immediately. We’ll open the door in ten minutes,” Letizia immediately called out Touka, instructing her to relay the message to Bai Ling and the others. This was to prevent the building from collapsing and crushing the people above when they started fighting.
That would truly be a friendly fire incident.
Touka acknowledged Letizia’s command and disappeared into the shadows.
Ten minutes was more than enough time for the swift Touka to deliver the message.
Taking advantage of this time, Letizia also intended to search this underground chamber, where no immediate threats had been found, for any lost information.
“What’s this…” Beneath the skeletal remains of a well-preserved corpse, Letizia found a booklet stained with blood.
The writing on the booklet was blurred, and Letizia could only vaguely make out a few characters.
“Resurrection?!” Letizia muttered in surprise. The two most significant words on the booklet were “resurrection.”
Who was the person who built this underground chamber trying to resurrect?
“Resurrection from death is impossible,” Sasha said immediately upon hearing Letizia’s mumbling. “Even gods cannot achieve resurrection.”
Death is final. There is no spell for resurrection in this world.
“Perhaps someone wanted to resurrect someone who was very important to them. Many people are like that,” Letizia shrugged, indicating that there were plenty of people who liked to indulge in fanciful ideas.
As time ticked by, after Letizia counted to 600 in her mind, she slowly raised her hand and aimed at the metal door.
Blistering heat gathered in her hand, and with a soft cry, a beam of light struck the door.
The door was, after all, just an ordinary object. In the face of the Demon Lord Letizia’s magic, its strength was insufficient. In just a few breaths, it melted into a pool of molten iron.
This was even with Letizia deliberately suppressing her power. If she had used her full strength, the door would likely have lasted even less than an instant. Not only the door, but even what was behind it might have been destroyed by the stream of light.
Seeing the door melt, Letizia immediately stopped her magic output to avoid damaging whatever was behind it.
She froze the molten iron into blocks using magic and then manipulated the light orbs providing illumination to fly into that room. For safety reasons, she remained in the outer room.
“Wow.” Guided by the magical light, Letizia saw a large, blood-red cocoon.
There were several shattered large glass jars in the room, and a foul odor filled the space. Letizia couldn’t help but use wind magic to block the airflow between two rooms, which slightly freshened the air in her location.
“There’s a living being inside.” Sasha stared intently at the cocoon suspended in mid-air and said seriously, “And it seems to have discovered us.”
“What?” Letizia paused, and then she also noticed something was wrong.
The sound of a heartbeat seemed to emanate from within the cocoon. Thump, thump. It was slow, but powerful.
In the dark corners, where the light couldn’t reach, black tendrils, unsettling to look at, appeared silently.
Whatever was inside that cocoon was likely not something good.
“Divine power. The thing inside the cocoon possesses divine power,” Sasha said sternly. It was precisely because of the divine power that being possessed that she could sense the cocoon’s activity before Letizia.
Beings with divine power were mutually attracted!
“Whether it has divine power or not is irrelevant. This thing clearly doesn’t look like anything good,” Letizia flexed her wrists, magical patterns appearing around her.
It was always wise to do some preparatory work. If whatever emerged from the cocoon had malicious intent, Letizia could react immediately and send it back to hell.
“Finally, finally, I’ve been waiting!” A strange, multi-layered voice echoed, causing the girls to frown.
The sound was quite torturous in such an enclosed space.
A pair of deformed hands emerged from the bloody cocoon. The moment she saw those hands, Letizia unhesitatingly cast the magic she had prepared.
Even if the being inside the cocoon could communicate, she had no intention of listening to what it had to say.
This was for the sake of her eyes. Just by looking at those hands, she could guess how disgusting the creature inside the cocoon was.
Sometimes, appearance really mattered. If the hands emerging from the cocoon had been more attractive, Letizia might not have abandoned communication and resorted to direct action.
