Behind them, the moment the stone door completely lost its support and slowly ground shut under its own momentum—
Within the arms of the withered corpse leaning against the stone cabinet, a wisp of cold, stale air that had settled for decades seemed to gently dissipate with the draft.
The faint, eerie cold white light inside the lantern flickered extremely gently in the darkness, as if bidding a final farewell to some former master who had long since vanished into the passage of time.
Deep within the underground ruins, a cold wind howled.
Ryan stopped in front of a relatively spacious and dry flanking stone chamber.
He casually inserted the torch in his hand into a crack in the wall, then gently placed the newly acquired 【Echoing Lantern】 flat onto a smooth stone platform before them.
This time, he prepared to truly activate the core authority preserved within this relic.
Lucia stood quietly to the side, not making a single sound. The young girl crossed her arms, her bright, dark eyes locked onto the pitch-black lantern. Her 【Grail】 perception quietly withdrew to avoid interfering with Ryan's occult ritual.
Ryan took a deep breath, his eyes half-closed.
In his mind, the absolute rational processing power derived from the 【Lantern】 pathway was mobilized to its limit. A strand of incredibly pure white spirituality flowed from his fingertips, slowly pouring into the lantern's pitch-black octagonal frame.
Hum!
The clump of cold white crystal at the core of the lantern emitted an extremely faint resonance!
In the next second, an indescribable spectacle unfolded before their eyes.
The torch on the wall did not go out, nor did the cold white stone floor disappear.
But in Ryan and Lucia's sensory world, all surrounding colors rapidly drained away, leaving only an extremely monotonous grayish-white.
Immediately after, semi-transparent grayish-white figures of light and shadow condensed out of thin air in the center of the silent stone chamber!
It was a man.
He wore the heavy expedition suit of an era decades ago, his hand tightly clutching the then-unused black lantern.
The man's movements were somewhat panicked. He turned around to wave his hand, then quickly rushed out of the stone chamber.
Right behind him, five more equally semi-transparent, illusory figures carrying muskets and cold weapons quickly followed with terrified expressions.
“These are... residual shadows of the past,” Lucia whispered in astonishment, her eyes wide.
No sound came from the projection, but the tensed muscles, terrified eyes, and panicked movements of the figures within the residual shadows were so clear and lifelike it was suffocating.
Ryan held up the lantern and stepped forward, following the grayish-white residual shadows.
The expedition team dashed forward along the pitch-black underground passage. The leader in the residual shadow kept looking back into the darkness behind them, as if some unspeakable, terrifying entity were relentlessly pursuing them.
A few minutes later, the expedition team stopped before a smooth stone wall at the end of the corridor that appeared to fit together seamlessly.
The leader shouted something anxiously. A team member beside him hurriedly pulled out a peculiar metal key, thrust it hard into a joint in the stone wall, and twisted it forcefully.
Rumble!
The heavy stone wall receded, revealing an extremely well-hidden secret room behind it.
Everyone surged inside like madmen.
Ryan and Lucia followed the residual shadows over the threshold of the secret room.
As the lantern's white light washed over the secret room, Ryan's gaze instantly grew incredibly sharp.
This secret room was the true, most well-preserved core area of this underground ruin!
In the past scenes shown by the residual shadows, the alchemy tables on both sides of the secret room held a large quantity of extraordinary materials and sealed reagent bottles radiating a gentle luster.
And on a tall stone platform in the very center of the room lay a dazzling treasure—
It was a silver-white metal ring, about the size of a palm.
The ring's structure was extremely complex and precise, its surface densely carved with miniature array patterns. At the very core of the ring, a dodecahedron crystal radiating a warm, pale golden light hovered in midair!
Even though this was merely a projection recreated from decades ago by the 【Echoing Lantern】, Ryan could still clearly feel the terrifying, surging extraordinary spirituality contained within that pale golden crystal!
That was a true high-grade extraordinary relic!
Within the residual shadow, a wild ecstasy erupted in the leader's eyes, and he reached out to grab the silver-white ring.
However, in the millisecond before his fingers could touch the ring—
Boom!!
The entire underground ruin underwent an extremely violent and savage tremor in the world of the residual shadows!
The stone walls of the secret room instantly cracked open with massive, terrifying fissures, and countless dust and stone fragments crumbled down.
Before the expedition members could react, a massive, twisted, and elongated dark gray shadow erupted from the darkness deep within the passage at a speed that defied the naked eye!
Chaos! Despair! Slaughter!
Though no sound could be heard, the scene before them was tragic to the extreme.
One member did not even have time to draw his musket before being whipped sideways by the dark shadow, slamming heavily against the stone wall and turning into a puddle of mangled flesh. Another member had his lower body torn apart by the shadow, screaming as he writhed in the muddy water...
In the end, only two people escaped.
One of them had desperately snatched the silver-white ring in the chaos, while the other was Adolf Klein, who clutched the black box containing the lantern!
Dragging their heavily injured bodies, the two supported each other all the way back to the initial storage room.
The member holding the ring collapsed to the ground the moment he crossed the threshold, bleeding from his facial orifices until he died.
Yet Adolf Klein did not continue to flee. With a face as pale as ash, he looked at his companion's corpse, grit his teeth, and hid the silver-white ring inside a hidden compartment somewhere in the secret room's wall. Then, picking up the black box lantern, he turned around alone and walked back into the pitch-black passage with stiff steps...
Snap!
White light flashed, and all the grayish-white residual shadows shattered like glass in an instant!
The stone chamber returned to darkness.
Ryan took a deep breath, instantly withdrew his spirituality, and opened his eyes.
“Found it,” Ryan said calmly.
Lucia's face was tense, and she immediately asked, “Teacher... where is that item?”
“Right behind this wall.”
Ryan stood up, leading the way to the broken wall where the expedition team in the residual shadow had stopped.
At this moment, after absorbing the lantern's spirituality and experiencing the observation just now, his vision had undergone a fundamental transformation.
Aided by his transformed 【Lantern】 vision, Ryan could extremely clearly see that an incredibly faint, weak trail of white spirituality still remained on the seemingly ordinary white stone brick before him.
The trail extended from the surface of the stone wall, stopping firmly deep inside the third protruding stone brick.
Ryan's gaze turned cold. Without any nonsense, the muscles in his right arm suddenly tensed. Clenching his fingers into a fist, he threw a heavy punch directly at the stone brick with surging physical strength and a trace of spirituality!
Bang!!
A dull impact exploded in the stone chamber as the moldy, cracked stone brick was smashed to pieces by sheer brute force, sending countless stone shards flying.
Behind the stone brick, a narrow, fist-sized hidden compartment was exposed.
A silver-white metal ring lay quietly in the dust deep inside the compartment.
Lucia did not reach out to grab it. The young girl simply poked her head over to look, her 【Grail】 life perception instantly sweeping over it. She whispered a reminder, “Teacher... it's still alive! There are still very faint fluctuations inside!”
“Yes.”
Ryan reached out his right hand, precisely gripping the silver-white ring.
In an instant!
An incredibly vast, ancient, and pure spirituality of order erupted from within the ring like a startled, sleeping beast!
The dust in the surrounding air seemed to freeze completely at this moment!
Ryan's own 【Lantern】 spirituality was strongly stimulated by this kindred high-level power, unexpectedly accelerating its circulation automatically!
With the injection of spirituality, a pale golden geometric pattern on the surface of the silver-white ring flashed with blinding brilliance!
However, before this power could fully bloom—
Crack.
A very tiny crack suddenly appeared on the pale golden crystal at the core of the ring.
The golden pattern, which had lit up halfway, instantly dimmed, and the violent eruption of spirituality ground to a sudden halt.
“It's damaged.”
Ryan calmly assessed: “There is a crack in the core crystal. At least half of the internal circuits of this relic have been destroyed, resulting in severe power loss.”
Despite this, the corners of Ryan's mouth curled slightly into a faint smile:
“But even with only thirty percent of its power remaining, it is still a genuine high-grade auxiliary relic. It can multiply my spiritual perception several times over, and even construct a defense line of order to resist violent pollution in a short period.”
Ryan did not force the activation of this damaged high-grade treasure. Instead, he swiftly tucked it into his robes, keeping it close to his chest.
Then, he raised the 【Echoing Lantern】 in his left hand once more.
“Teacher?” Lucia looked at him in confusion.
“It's not over yet.”
Ryan's eyes appeared incredibly deep under the cold white light. “In the residual shadow just now, after Adolf Klein hid the ring, he returned to the depths of the ruins alone.”
“Knowing he would certainly die, why did he turn back?”
Ryan's voice carried a trace of cold scrutiny. “He must have left something else behind.”
Ryan channeled his spirituality into the lantern once more.
Hum—
The cold white halo spread out once more, and the surrounding scenery faded to gray again.
This time, Ryan did not observe the macroscopic view of the entire ruins. Instead, he locked all of his 【Lantern】 processing power onto the single, lonely grayish-white residual shadow of Adolf Klein.
In the residual shadow, Adolf dragged his dying body, coughing up blood with every step, as he walked back to this stone chamber in the deepest part of the ruins.
He ignored the corpse and the mess on the floor, walking straight to the intact stone wall at the very back.
He stopped before the stone wall.
Then, Adolf raised his head extremely slowly, smoothed out his tattered old trench coat, and pressed his hands tightly against his chest, as if respectfully awaiting the descent of some great existence.
Dead silence.
Absolute silence.
No movement occurred within the projected scene.
However, just three seconds later—
A black shadow quietly emerged behind Adolf.
Ryan's pupils constricted violently to the limit in an instant!
That shadow...
It was not the elongated beast that had pursued the expedition team earlier, nor was it any of the twisted monsters on this grassland!
It was a tall, upright figure.
He wore an extremely elegant, pure black high-collared robe, its style several times older than even the old-era expedition team.
He stood quietly behind Adolf, looking down at the dying explorer.
Then.
Under Ryan's horrified gaze—
The black-robed man actually turned his head, extremely slowly.
Across decades of time, across the illusory halo reconstructed by the 【Echoing Lantern】, the black-robed man's cold, emotionless eyes stared straight through the void, locking precisely onto Ryan behind the lantern!
Boom!!
The cold white crystal inside the lantern let out an overburdened, sharp wail!
The reconstructed grayish-white scene was shattered like glass, exploding into a cloud of fine dust in an instant, as if struck by a devastating dimensional blow!
Ryan let out a muffled groan, taking two consecutive steps back, his fingers resting on the lantern slightly numb.
The stone chamber returned to silence, with only the crackle of the torch.
Lucia had clearly noticed that incredibly bizarre final scene. The young girl's face was pale and cold, her voice trembling slightly:
“Teacher... that person just now...”
“He wasn't a residual projection of the past,” Ryan interrupted Lucia, his gaze as cold as an ancient, unmelting glacier.
“Yes.” Lucia swallowed. “He... he was looking at us in the present.”
Ryan stood in place, silent for a long time.
He slowly lowered his head, looking at the black lantern in his hand that had returned to silence. The white crystal at the wick glowed faintly, as if that terrifying scene had never happened.
“Do not observe yourself...”
Ryan muttered the warning written in blood under his breath, and then the corners of his mouth curled into a cold, fanatical smile as he securely tucked the black lantern back onto his waist.
“Teacher?”
“There's nothing to fear.” Ryan raised his head, his gaze piercing through the vast darkness deep within the ruins. “At least now, we have confirmed the most important thing.”
“What thing?”
“This so-called realm of despair is not an inescapable dead end.”
Ryan's voice was steady and powerful, carrying a reassuring absolute rationality:
“Someone once survived in this place, and someone once successfully escaped... and the key they left behind is now in our hands.”
Ryan reached out and snatched the torch from the wall. The flickering firelight illuminated his cold, fearless profile, casting long, drawn-out shadows of the master and disciple.
“Let's go to the end of the passage.”
And at the moment they turned to leave—
Deep within the already closed stone wall, in the crack of the broken stone beneath the hidden compartment...
A extremely faint, pure golden light quietly lit up in the cold darkness.
Like a giant eye that had slept for decades in the long night, finally opening completely.
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