Tomb raiding: Today is another day I don't want to go home.

Chapter 22 The Dragon Palace

The passage was narrow, with the walls on both sides only slightly wider than Yan Huai's shoulders. Before he even stepped inside, he could already smell that distinct, acrid odor.

"Host, once you go inside, the magnetic field may have a suppressive effect on you, so please be careful."

Yan Huai nodded, put the backpack into his spatial storage, and as he stepped inside, his vision suddenly became pitch black, and his hearing seemed to react to the surrounding environment a beat slower.

Yan Huai subconsciously reached out and pulled out the Branding Blade, releasing his bloodline pressure to its maximum extent in an instant.

It wasn't until a few moments later, when he heard a few belated cries of pain, that Yan Huai was certain that something had tried to attack him.

"Is this the suppression effect you were talking about?"

"Yes, host. Bloodline connection will be severed here. Next, you must rely as much as possible on your connection with your own scales to enter the Dragon Palace."

What's in this passage?

“You can handle the pressure of your bloodline against the Forbidden Woman and the Corpse Beetle King, but be careful.”

With almost no sight or hearing left, Yan Huai could only maintain his bloodline pressure. He tentatively pressed the Branding Blade against the wall on the right side of the passage, silently measuring the distance as he walked deeper into the passage.

Yan Huai descended the sixty-four steps, which should correspond to the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching. To overcome the tribulation, one needs thunder. The tribulation is represented by the tribulation symbol Zhen, which signifies thunder in the three east directions. Therefore, one should walk towards the east in a direction thirty degrees to his right and front.

Using the Branding Blade as a guide, Yan Huai took nine steps in the corresponding direction. When the blade missed its target, he sensed a breeze in the passage in front of him, and also felt a faint, instinctive connection with the scales. He had taken the right path.

He moved the branding knife to his side, and this time the tip of the knife easily touched the wall of the new passage. It was the same width as the previous passage, and it seemed that all the way ahead was flat stone bricks. However, Yan Huai was not sure how much longer he would have to walk, so he started to count the steps.

Unexpectedly, when he reached the sixtieth step, Yan Huai suddenly lost his footing. He could only instinctively grab onto anything that could stabilize him, such as sticky hair...

Yan Huai could roughly guess that what he was holding was the hair of the Forbidden Woman, but he couldn't let go yet. Apart from having a foothold, he was almost suspended in mid-air, so he had no idea what was secretly struggling against his hand that was holding the Branding Knife!

What's next?

"It was a rectangular pit, ten meters deep, two meters long, and fifty centimeters wide, containing many human bone fragments."

Yan Huai felt a sense of danger rising in his heart. With a slight effort, he pulled back the branding knife and released the forbidden woman's hair with his left hand to push forward. When he touched the blue stone bricks outside the pit, he was extremely glad that he was not more than two meters away.

"Host, it's the Dragon-Slaying Stone!"

That damned scoundrel, I'm going to tear him limb from limb in a minute!

Yan Huai harbored resentment in his heart, but he didn't hesitate to slash upwards with the Branding Blade in his hand. The weight of the Dragon-Slaying Stone is usually around a thousand catties, and the force Yan Huai used was enough to change the direction of its fall.

Zheng——

At close range, Yan Huai could hear the sound clearly. Using the curved surface of the broken stone after it was split, he kicked off with his legs and lifted his suspended body away from the deep pit below.

Once he landed back on the bluestone ground, Yan Huai turned his attention to the problem he had suddenly realized earlier. He had only taken sixty steps, at most fifty-one meters, yet he had encountered the Dragon-Slaying Stone in such a place. What about further ahead...?

Yan Huai raised his palate, gripped the branding knife in his hand, turned around and continued walking deeper into the passage, but this time, he didn't try to remember anything.

In the cramped passage, if Yan Huai could see clearly, he would probably think that this place was getting narrower and narrower, but he couldn't. He couldn't even hear anything, as if he were isolated from the outside world.

I wonder how Zhang Qiling and the others are doing... What is their purpose in coming to this ancient tomb? And that untrustworthy A Ning, if I run into her again, I'll make her etch the words "generous reward" on her forehead!

Oh, right, he still doesn't know which bloodline sensing line Zhang Qiling has?

Yan Huai guessed it must be black; that person was truly unique.

Thinking of this, Yan Huai's lips curled up, and then he remembered the approximate outline of the ancient tomb that Wu Sansheng had drawn on the ground before.

If Yan Huai is still within the area of ​​the ancient tomb, it is unknown where he would be.

Just as Yan Huai was lost in thought, he suddenly heard the sound of dripping water. At first, he didn't think anything was wrong, but after taking a couple of steps, he suddenly realized that he could hear it.

Yan Huai took two steps back, returning to the spot where he had just heard the sound of dripping water.

After waiting for about five minutes, just when Yan Huai thought he was imagining things, the sound of dripping water came again. This time he was sure that he could hear it, but it seemed that he could only hear the sound of dripping water.

Yan Huai had been walking for so long, but his connection with his scales had remained faint. And with walls on both sides, where was the sound of dripping water coming from?

Water is associated with the Kan trigram, located in the due north, and usually represents a dangerous place. A dragon emerging from the water is also a sign of danger. Could it be... a water source?

Yan Huai suddenly remembered that on the outline of the ancient tomb drawn by Wu Sansheng, there was an underground palace to the north that seemed to be connected to the rapid current of the river outside the tomb. Could it be that there was another underground palace under that one that overlapped with it?

The innate number of Kan is six. Yan Huai is on the right track. The underground palace is not ahead, but right below the deep pit of the Broken Dragon Stone that he just passed!

Having understood the reason, Yan Huai cursed himself for being such a pig-brain; how could he not see something so obvious! He quickly turned around and went back!

"Warning! Host, be careful! There is a swarm of Corpse Beetle Kings!"

Yan Huai regretted it. He had dug a hole for himself. Why did he lose his mind and not count the distance for the rest of the journey?

"Check the position for me, let's charge!"

"Yes, host." The system secretly lit a candle for the others in the tomb. The corpse beetle riot should be manageable, right?

"You can pass at the 11 o'clock position to the upper left!"

Upon hearing this, Yan Huai used the force to leap up against the wall of the passage, tensed his body as much as possible, and changed his direction of movement again. When he was almost touching the top of the passage, he passed through according to the direction reported by the system.

The moment he landed, Yan Huai instinctively gripped the blade of the Branding Blade with his left hand, splattered the blood he had drawn onto the swarm of Corpse Beetle Kings behind him, and then quickly ran towards the location of the Dragon-Slaying Stone, following the route he could barely remember.

"Host, there's a wall ahead!"

"..."

Yan Huai, who had been running too fast, desperately tried to lower his center of gravity. Fortunately, he stopped before crashing into the wall. However, due to excessive tension, his still-bleeding palm left a dragon claw mark on the wall.

"Stay..."

Yan Huai had already gotten up and run to the right, and then...

boom--

"hiss……"

"There's a wall on the right too!"