The walls of the worm tunnel were incredibly dense, the Swarming Worms interlocking with each other to completely isolate the interior from the exterior. Spores, shredded meat, and flying fragments of the snake's body were all blocked outside the tunnel.
The moment the tunnel formed, Lu Yuan stepped inside.
The dark red worm walls pulsed beside him as the Swarming Worms actively pushed him forward. Lu Yuan barely had to exert any effort; his entire body was swept toward the bronze pillar by the flow of insects.
“Take me with you!”
Adrian’s voice came from behind him. The old Archbishop took a step forward, but the entrance to the worm tunnel had already closed in front of him.
Lake’s swarm was only sufficient to maintain a tunnel the width of one person. If he tried to send another, the tunnel walls would become too thin to withstand the external impact. Only Lu Yuan made it through.
Adrian stood his ground, his fingers tightening slightly over the holy emblem on his chest. He had originally wanted to inspect the inscriptions on the bronze pillar himself, but this was no time for an argument.
The old Archbishop turned toward the cavity entrance and redirected the light of the Holy Eye, aiming it at the wave of ghouls that was surging back in.
The worm tunnel moved rapidly across the rubble-strewn ground. Through the gaps in the worm walls, Lu Yuan could see blurred glimpses of the outside: the Blue Knight’s crimson sword qi was still flashing, the Great Ascendant’s faint red light was leaping near the root system, and in the darkness further away, countless eyes were swarming.
A few seconds later, the front of the worm tunnel struck the bronze pillar. The worm wall split open on its own, and Lu Yuan stepped out, his feet landing on the rubble beside the pillar’s base.
The bronze pillar stood before him, so close he could touch it by simply reaching out.
The damage to the pillar's surface was more severe than he had anticipated.
The section of the bronze surface where the Serpentine Amalgamation’s root system had been stationed was almost unrecognizable. Dense holes were left where the roots had burrowed in, and the deepest ones had already penetrated the bronze wall; through the edges of these holes, the dark, dull core of the pillar was visible.
The inscriptions were completely broken in these areas, the patterns gnawed away until only shallow indentations remained.
However, after crouching down and inspecting it closely for a few seconds, Lu Yuan’s tensed nerves relaxed slightly.
The points where the roots had burrowed were mostly concentrated on the ground near the bronze pillar. The thick main roots had dug toward the pillar's foundation and the surrounding rock crevices; the holes directly drilled into the pillar body were few.
The Serpentine Amalgamation’s root system had chosen the softer rock and soil as its primary anchoring point, while the pillar body had merely been coiled and squeezed.
This explained why the inscriptions had not yet completely failed.
The portion that was truly destroyed was less than twenty percent of the pillar's total surface area.
Above the area covered by the roots, the inscriptions were more heavily worn, the patterns becoming shallower. In some places, they were rubbed so smooth that the original flow was almost invisible, yet the lines remained, and the dark gold light still pulsed stubbornly deep within the grooves.
Looking further up, the middle and upper sections of the pillar—which had escaped the roots' erosion—were much better preserved. The patterns were clear and sharp, and the light was more stable.
The function of the entire bronze pillar was still being maintained. It was heavily damaged, but it had not yet reached the critical point of collapse.
Having completed his estimation, Lu Yuan breathed a sigh of relief. The damage was better than expected; that was the first thing.
The second thing was his true objective.
The previous bronze pillar had given him 1/5.
In that vision, the man had scattered the fragments into bronze pillars in different directions within the abyss, but Lu Yuan had no idea which specific pillars they had landed in or how they were distributed. He could only check them one by one.
He would know if there was a second fragment inside this bronze pillar as soon as he touched it.
Lu Yuan stood up and pressed his palm against a section of the pillar's middle where the inscriptions were relatively well-preserved.
The metal felt bone-chillingly cold. His fingertips could feel the edges of the inscription grooves; the patterns were incredibly precise, each line less than a third of the width of a fingertip.
The next moment, a dense aura of knowledge flooded in from the contact point. His Forbidden Lore perception was instantly activated, burrowing along his fingertips into the patterns of the inscriptions and clashing with the traces of the same pathway remaining inside the bronze pillar.
Visions flooded in.
Unlike the first bronze pillar, there was only one person in the vision this time.
The man whose face was obscured stood beside a bronze pillar, his frame slightly hunched, his shoulders slumped, and the center of his weight leaning against the pillar body as his hands braced against his knees.
He looked as if he had been supporting himself for a long time. The silhouette of his clothes was rumpled, and the edges of his hair were disheveled in the blurry light.
His mouth was moving.
This time, there was sound.
The voice was raspy, every word sounding as if it were being forced out of his throat, with long pauses between each term.
Lu Yuan couldn't hear it very clearly, but his Forbidden Lore perception was automatically filling in those blurred syllables, piecing them together into complete sentences.
“Forbidden Scholar of the future...”
The man’s voice stopped for several seconds before continuing.
“If you are seeing this vision, it means the current seal has failed. The piece of flesh suppressed at the very bottom of the Bronze City may be about to emerge.”
Lu Yuan’s fingers tightened slightly against the bronze surface.
“I left a key within the bronze pillars of the Bronze City. Once you have gathered enough keys, you will be able to see the existence of other fragments. As long as you can assemble them... you will still have a fighting chance when the flesh breaks the seal.”
The man’s body leaned a bit further against the pillar, as if even standing and speaking was a great struggle.
“But remember, the keys cannot be taken all at once. The passive defense of the bronze pillars is closely tied to the key fragments. As long as your consciousness is linked to them, you can summon them at any time. Remember... do not take them all at once.”
He finished speaking.
In the vision, the man leaned silently against the bronze pillar, his head bowed slightly.
A few seconds later, his silhouette began to fracture, disintegrating from the edges toward the center. Maintaining this message itself had consumed the last of his strength.
The vision shattered.
Lu Yuan’s consciousness was ejected from the depths of the inscriptions. Sensation returned to his fingertips; the icy bronze surface was still pressed beneath his palm, and the Knowledge Worm deep within his left eye slowly rolled back into stillness.
The grey-white text jumped out at the edge of his vision.
【Bronze City Status: +1...41.2/50】
【Bronze City: 2/5】
【Forbidden Lore: Knowledge Seeker: +1...76.9/100】
Lu Yuan stared at the middle line.
The first bronze pillar had given him 1/5; this one had given him 2/5.
The last time he saw this number, he didn't know what it meant, only that it was related to the fragments. But as for what those fragments were or what use they had, the grey-white text had offered no further explanation.
Now he knew. The man had told him personally.
The fragments were the keys.
Key fragments scattered across different bronze pillars deep beneath the Bronze City.
Once gathered, the holder would have a fighting chance when the seal collapsed.
That man had forged the entire sealing network, and at the final moment, he had crushed the keys that controlled the seal and scattered them into the bronze pillars, leaving them for the Forbidden Scholars of the future.
Provided that person could find them.
‘The Grey Covenant.’
This thought immediately followed.
The Grey Covenant’s obsession with the bronze walls and the sealing system, their repeated probing of the underground bronze pillars—if their goal was also the key fragments, then it all made sense.
But they had never managed to get them.
None of the Grey Covenant’s members were transcendents of the Forbidden Lore pathway. Even if they stood right in front of a bronze pillar, they wouldn't see the visions or sense the fragments. This explained why they had to cooperate with The Man on the Wall, only to end up as pawns.
Once the second fragment was in place, a sensation he had never felt before appeared deep within Lu Yuan’s consciousness.
A faint connection was established between the two fragments, so thin it was almost imperceptible—two bronze threads echoing each other across the entire underground network.
A second thread extended from the edge of this resonance, pointing deeper into the darkness, toward places he had not yet visited. That was where the other fragments were located.
His consciousness instinctively reached out for those threads, attempting to confirm their positions.
The moment he linked with the fragments, the bronze pillar suddenly surged.
All the inscriptions on the bronze surface that were still operational flared up simultaneously. Dark gold light erupted from the grooves, spreading rapidly toward both ends along the patterns. The entire bronze pillar was swallowed by light in an instant.
A pressure so heavy it was suffocating radiated outward from the center of the bronze pillar in all directions.
Lu Yuan’s hand snapped back from the bronze surface, and he retreated two steps.
The moment the pressure swept over his body, his chest felt heavy, and his breathing suddenly became labored.
Every living thing within the entire cavity felt the weight of this pressure.
The terrified shrieks of greater ghouls came from the distance, dense and chaotic as they struggled to distance themselves from the bronze pillar.
Adrian’s prayer faltered slightly, and the light of the Holy Eye dimmed for a moment before stabilizing again.
The semi-solidified form Lake had manifested swayed slightly, and the edges of his swarm thinned out by a layer.
Even the sound of the Great Ascendant’s mechanical joints became sharper than usual.
Lu Yuan’s gaze swept over everyone.
The Blue Knight still stood there, her posture unchanged. Her rapier hung at her side, and the aura about her remained as stable as ever.
When the bronze pillar’s pressure swept past, everyone else had shown varying degrees of reaction, yet she alone remained completely unaffected from start to finish.
Lu Yuan knew exactly why the pressure had appeared.
At the very moment his consciousness linked with the fragments, the bronze pillar’s defense mechanism was triggered.
The man had said that the key fragments were closely tied to the bronze pillar’s passive defense; Lu Yuan’s action just now was equivalent to activating that defense.
The weakening felt by everyone in the cavity was caused by him.
But he would never admit it.
The grey-white text jumped at the edge of his vision.
【Strong pollution source detected. Please stay away immediately.】
The ground’s vibration intensified, becoming more frequent than before, and the rubble beneath his feet bounced frantically.
Deep within the tunnels at the edge of the cavity, the sound of heavy footsteps had merged into a single roar. The wave of ghouls was surging back, and in even greater numbers than the previous wave.
Something even deeper had been disturbed. The grey-white text flashed several lines of identical warnings in succession, the frequency so fast they almost overlapped.
Lu Yuan turned and ran a few steps toward Lake, raising his arm toward the semi-solidified form of the swarm.
“Retreat! Get me out of here!”
The Swarming Worms erupted once more from Lake’s semi-solidified form. The dark red stream of insects split into three: one wrapped around Lu Yuan, one coiled around the Great Ascendant’s waist, and the third reached out toward the Blue Knight.
The Blue Knight turned slightly to let the stream of insects wrap around her arm, offering no resistance.
Agnes pulled the nun along, keeping close to the edge of Adrian’s holy light. The two of them hunched over and ran toward the path they had come from.
The four of them were simultaneously pulled away from the bronze pillar by the swarm, retreating rapidly toward the path they had come from.
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