43: Chapter 43 I'll live even if you step on my dead body!

The speed of the black erosion was faster than anyone had anticipated.

The gold lines on the outermost circle of the formation were the first to dim.

The light rapidly receded from one end; the gold faded into grayish-white, and the grayish-white turned into dark purple.

The dark purple pulses spread along the gaps between the stone tiles, one by one replacing the originally warm golden radiance.

The floor of the entire octagonal domed hall was changing color.

The gold died, and the purple came alive.

The frequency of the pulses between the stone tile gaps grew faster and faster, carrying a biological rhythm—contracting, expanding, contracting, expanding.

A diseased heart was convulsing.

The vibration of the floor also changed.

From intermittent to continuous, from continuous to rhythmic pounding.

Thump.

The concentric circle formation on the stone platform dimmed by another layer.

With every impact, the stone tiles underfoot bounced once.

Chen Yiming's legs were shaking uncontrollably, and the sound of his knees knocking together could be heard in the corridor.

But he didn't crouch down; his teeth were clenched so hard they clicked, his eye sockets were red, and he stared fixedly at the golden lines in the hall that were being extinguished.

Zhao Xiaohe gripped her notebook. Her knuckles were white, and she was about to snap the pen in her hand.

She studied archaeology.

She had seen too many remnants of civilizations—broken, crushed by time, and looted by pillagers.

Every time, her heart ached, but that ache was retrospective, safe, and separated by thousands of years.

This was the first time she had watched a seal die right in front of her.

Alive. And dying.

Professor Zhou stood in front of the two students.

His frame wasn't sturdy, and his graying hair was illuminated to a ghastly white in the dark purple pulsed light.

He pushed the two young people another step behind him.

Chen Yiming panicked.

"Professor, you need to step back—"

Professor Zhou shook his head.

His voice was unnaturally calm.

"Listen to me carefully."

He didn't turn around, his gaze fixed on the collapsing formation deep within the hall.

"Everything you've seen today. The murals, the formation, the predecessor who turned their body into a seal, the two words 'Kindling'—"

He paused for a beat.

"The weight of these things is heavier than my entire archaeological career combined."

The old man's back was straight.

Standing a little over 1.7 meters tall, he braced himself in front of the two twenty-something-year-olds; he couldn't block much, but he blocked nonetheless.

"The country will need people who understand these things in the future. Much more than it needs me."

He glanced back at the two of them. The gaze behind his reading glasses was both gratified and sharp.

"You are like Kindling—you must find a way out."

Chen Yiming opened his mouth, but his throat was choked up.

"Prof..."

He couldn't go on.

Zhao Xiaohe's tears fell onto her notebook, soaking into a blotch. She bit her lip and nodded vigorously.

Section Chief Han Zheng and Wang Hao looked at Professor Zhou simultaneously.

Sixty-one years old, having dug in the dirt for forty years.

Not a member of Kindling, not a transcendent.

The greatest strength he had used in his life was probably moving stone tablets.

But the posture he took standing in front of the young people was exactly the same as those in the murals.

Wang Hao's Adam's apple bobbed.

He turned to look at Section Chief Han Zheng.

"What do we do?"

Section Chief Han Zheng was silent for two seconds.

His gaze swept over everyone's equipment.

Standard-issue pistols, two spare magazines per person, five tactical knives, three flashlights, one satellite phone that had turned into scrap metal.

Thinking of the East Sea, three destroyers, one hundred and twenty-seven rounds of ammunition—all emptied.

They had so little.

Section Chief Han Zheng stood straight.

"Soldiers."

His voice was rigid.

"Protect the professor, the two researchers, and Wang Hao. They must not come to any harm."

"Yes, sir!"

The five soldiers replied in unison. The dome echoed the sound twice over.

Their hands were shaking, but their guns were not.

Wang Hao panicked.

"No! Don't worry about me! I'll go with you—"

"Wang Hao!"

Section Chief Han Zheng's voice suddenly rose. All the ambient noise in the corridor was cut off by these three words.

"You are currently our only bridge to contacting Kindling, understanding Kindling, and contacting the transcendent."

He stared into Wang Hao's eyes.

"You know what that means."

Wang Hao couldn't speak.

He clenched his teeth so hard his molars creaked.

The burning sensation in his chest surged, rising to his throat, turning into bitterness.

Why?

He was a descendant of Kindling.

The mark of a thousand-year inheritance flowed in his blood.

The bronze piece recognized him, the golden light poured into him, and the memories of the ancient tree were carved into his brain.

But he possessed no transcendent power.

He didn't have it when he couldn't move the steel beam.

He didn't have it when he watched the pillar of flame shoot into the sky from the destroyer.

He didn't have it now, either.

He couldn't protect his family, nor could he stop the exotic beasts.

In the moment when battle was truly needed, he was just an ordinary person who had been driving for Didi for eight years.

Professor Zhou pulled Wang Hao behind him.

His strength was not like that of a sixty-one-year-old man.

Wang Hao was stunned.

The professor stared at him, the look behind his reading glasses brooking no refusal.

"You are a descendant of Kindling? Then you are more important than any of us. Old man that I am, I don't care if you're willing or not—you must make it out alive today."

The ground suddenly sank.

Everyone lost their balance for half a second.

Chen Yiming's knees hit the stone tiles, Zhao Xiaohe bumped into the wall, and one soldier almost fell over.

The last circle of golden lines of the formation—

Extinguished.

The hall fell into an eerie silence.

The vibration stopped, the pounding stopped.

The dust in the flashlight beams hung in mid-air, unfalling, fixed in place, grain by grain, having lost all direction.

Silence.

A silence ten thousand times more terrifying than those sounds.

Because silence meant—it didn't need to pound anymore.

It was out.

In the center of the concentric circle formation on the stone platform, in that bowl-sized groove—black smoke surged out.

It wasn't seeping. It was erupting. The resentment that had accumulated for a thousand years had found its only exit and was gushing out impatiently.

The temperature in the hall plummeted.

It wasn't a drop in temperature in the physical sense;

It was that cold that seeped out from the bone marrow, from the inside out, causing muscles to spasm uncontrollably.

The color tone of the entire space changed.

The remaining carbonized lines on the murals were covered by a layer of scarlet light.

The dome, the floor, and the eight walls were all shrouded in dark red.

The black smoke coalesced above the hall. Rolling, twisting, compressing.

Then it began to beat.

Thump.

Everyone's heart skipped a beat in time with that frequency.

Section Chief Han Zheng's assessment was completed within 0.3 seconds.

"Raise your guns! Fire!"

The experience from the East Sea—ammunition could interrupt the regeneration rhythm and buy time.

It had just broken the seal; perhaps it would be useful.

Seven pistols fired simultaneously.

Muzzle flashes exploded into orange glints in the scarlet hall, and shell casings clattered against the stone tiles.

The bullets passed through the black smoke.

They passed right through.

Section Chief Han Zheng's heart jumped—it worked!

Holes were cut into the black smoke by the trajectory; the edges curled and dissipated like a poked ink blot.

"Don't stop!"

Hope—faint, fragile, but it truly existed.

Through her tears, Zhao Xiaohe saw the black smoke being scattered, and her lips trembled into a curve—it could be scattered.

Human weapons could scatter it.

Then the black smoke became enraged.

The heart suspended in mid-air suddenly doubled in size, and the frequency of the purple light waves accelerated sharply from once every two seconds to once every half second.

All the scattered black smoke reconverged at ten times the speed—

And began to transform at the same time.

A head condensed from the top of the black smoke.

No facial features, only the outline of a flat, elongated, grayish-white face,

A mask cast from old candle wax in the air.

Two green flames embedded in the eye sockets of the mask, pulsing irregularly,

Each pulse drawing out wisps of black smoke.

The flames did not illuminate.

Instead, they devoured light; the moment they brightened, all light sources within three meters dimmed by a degree.

The torso was translucent, with a dark purple core entangled in smoke.

No limbs, the lower body trailing a ceaseless, churning tail of smoke, connected to the remnants of the formation on the floor.

A dozen fist-sized green ghost-fire orbs floated around it, rotating slowly, a circle of cold satellites.

Section Chief Han Zheng gritted his teeth and continued to fire.

The bullets passed through that torso—they passed right through.

No resistance, no damage.

Firing at a projection.

The magazines were empty.

The action of manually reloading was slower than ever.

Not because his hands were shaking—but because reloading was useless.

The eerie green ghost eyes swept over them.

Not scanning. Tasting.

Wang Hao rushed out.

He stepped out of the soldiers' defensive formation, blocking in front of everyone.

"Wang Hao, what are you doing!"

Section Chief Han Zheng roared.

Wang Hao didn't look back.

He stared at the thing floating above the stone platform, staring at those two cold, green ghost eyes.

His jaws clenched tight, veins popping one by one on his temples.

Deep in his mind, the images from when the golden light poured in surged up.

A farmer wearing short, coarse clothing holding an iron rod, rushing toward the crack.

A barefoot child wearing a bronze piece necklace running into the fire. A white-haired old woman leaning on a cane walking into the rainstorm.

None of them had transcendent power.

But every single one of them stood out.

"I am a descendant of Kindling! Maybe there's a way."

He bit back the second half of the sentence.

Then forced it out anyway.

"Even if there isn't—even if I'm just an ordinary person—I am still a descendant of Kindling!"

The eerie ghost eyes locked onto him.

The green flames pulsed twice.

The dozen green ghost-fires stopped rotating simultaneously. They hung in the air, still for a second.

Then they fired in unison.

A dozen black tails of smoke, trailing green flames, pierced toward Wang Hao and everyone behind him from all directions.