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Chapter 136: Her Trace

Miss Hen’s suggestion, of course, wouldn’t be opposed by the Priestess.

After all, considering this fork in the road, which was purely a gamble, given Miss Vilyric’s temperament, she would likely choose to abandon all thought and rush down one path to the end unless there were some direct and clear clues.

Since thinking more about it wouldn’t help, it might be better to simply throw caution to the wind.

However, it was surprising that after only a few steps down the central fork, the path split again into three, presenting starkly different choices.

“…”

After a moment’s hesitation, the silver-haired girl, seemingly using some ability to seek direction, raised her hand again and pointed straight ahead.

“This way.”

They continued on.

The surroundings remained dim and silent, with no traces of torches left by the Black Scale Army, perhaps they hadn’t taken this path at all or just passed through quickly, heading further in, but at least… it seemed unlikely to find clues from these signs.

Before long, the road split into three once more.

“…This way.”

This time, Miss Hen hesitated noticeably longer than before, but ultimately made her choice, pointing straight ahead.

So they advanced again, only to encounter the same three-way fork.

Like an unchanging loop, this repeated five times, and yet the path still showed no signs of ending.

Each time, the silver-haired girl leading the way would give a clear choice, but her thinking time was indeed getting longer, as if these chaotic options were subtly interfering with her perception and judgment of fate.

Finally, in this bizarre scene, she came to a stop, showing a hint of barely noticeable anger.

“…”

“What’s going on? Is it never-ending? It feels like I’m in a prank or something!”

Seeing the Cat Daughter’s strange expression as she complained, Murong Yun couldn’t help but speak up.

“Senior Kong, could it be a maze like a ghost wall?”

“Impossible, I can’t sense any signs of space distortion at all. The one who built this place clearly did it on purpose!”

Not joining in their discussion, Princess Ling slightly furrowed her brows.

“Miss Vilyric.”

The black-haired girl, who had just taken two steps forward, turned around to meet those silver-colored eyes mixed with confusion and helplessness, smiling faintly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you know the correct route?”

Shaking her head, the black-haired girl spoke frankly.

“How could I? But if you didn’t point wrong in the previous few places, there’s a high probability we should continue straight down the middle, since we’ve repeated this so many times, right?”

At her words, Miss Hen couldn’t help but show surprise.

“…Guess?”

“Uh-huh ~”

Hearing the Priestess’s flippant tone, the silver-haired girl’s beautiful brows furrowed even more.

“Randomly guessing is way too risky. You are someone destined for greatness; you need to be more cautious and cherish yourself.”

“Is that so? Then do you have a better idea? If I’m not mistaken, these forks are likely designed to deal with people like you who love to calculate; they’ve sealed the space, sealed the probing, and now even the calculations are blocked. This guy is really something ~”

“…”

Seeing Princess Ling remain silent and still not making a move, Vilyric couldn’t help but shake her head helplessly.

“Miss Hen, does losing sight of the future mean you lose your courage and motivation, leaving you stuck? Can that really be called wisdom? What’s the difference between that and someone who just follows a guide step by step while playing a game?”

“To put it bluntly, just a puppet of fate.”

Seemingly deeply affected by this statement, the silver-haired girl immediately retorted.

“…I just want to be safe.”

The Priestess pointed to the straight path before them, smiling again.

“But right now, we don’t have a safe method. Given that, we must rely on our intuition and take a chance, right? It’s better than standing here dazed, isn’t it?”

It might sound a bit strange, but in fact, such arguments had happened more than once during games.

Hen was such a rationalist; every time before tackling a dungeon, she would spend a lot of time investigating and gathering information, striving for the perfect clear. This indeed helped Vilyric a lot, and the Priestess deeply respected and trusted her, often willing to listen to her opinions.

But… this was also her greatest weakness.

Seeing the silver-haired girl in silence, Miss Xiao Kong surprisingly didn’t mock Hen, only looking at the two girls suddenly arguing with a complex expression, seemingly lost in thought. Vilyric shook her head helplessly and patted her shoulder.

“Come on, whether right or wrong, moving forward is never a mistake. We have plenty of chances to make errors; don’t worry so much.”

The Priestess took the lead, and the Cat Daughter unhesitatingly followed, then Murong Yun…

In the end, Hen silently followed in the footsteps of Vilyric and the others.

As they advanced, the paths continually split, and later, there were even forks of four, five, or more confusing choices, each one looking almost identical, making it incredibly difficult to distinguish their differences, to the point where just looking at them made one’s scalp tingle.

But newly appointed guide Miss Vilyric didn’t mind these at all; she just plowed ahead straight down the path, moving forward without hesitation or pause, not even glancing at those forks.

Thus, they passed through more than a dozen forked roads, traversing what seemed like a vast ancient tomb.

Finally, at some point, what lay ahead was no longer increasingly frightening forks but rather a clean and tidy stone chamber.

Bright light dispelled the gloom as a refreshing breeze wafted in from an unknown vent, transforming the increasingly stuffy air from being deep in a closed space into something fresh, as if it were a glimmer of hope.

The Priestess stopped, turning to the silver-haired girl beside her with a smile.

“See? My luck isn’t too bad, right?”

“…”

Miss Hen fell silent, though her eyes seemed to hold something more.

Ignoring the private interaction between the two girls, Murong Yun surveyed the surroundings thoughtfully.

“This place… looks like a sacrificial hall that separates the main tomb from the outside. It follows a very standard large tomb format of the Ancient Spirit Realm.”

“Generally speaking, if it’s a building for public access, later generations would hold sacrifices and various ceremonies here, and continuing deeper would lead to the well-regulated construction, the true residential area housing the owner’s grave.”

“Oh…”

Not knowing what else to say, Miss Vilyric could only avoid making someone uncomfortable and simply replied lightly while observing this so-called sacrificial hall built at the deepest part of countless forks.

This place also didn’t have many flashy decorations, only a simple and unadorned altar in the center, occupying almost a third of the whole chamber.

The altar had a wide base and rounded top, connected to the ground by short steps, with a large stone tablet fixed in the middle. Upon closer inspection, it seemed filled with densely packed writing, surrounded by some ritualistic items long decayed by time, though they were inconsequential.

Aside from the eye-catching altar, the chamber was not very large at all, probably only a few hundred square meters in total, with the surrounding walls hung with some sort of white stones for illumination.

Although there weren’t many, each about the size of an adult’s fist, these dozen or so white round stones lit up the entire sacrificial hall brightly, even matching the brightness of daytime.

This was certainly better than any night-glow stone.

“Um? Wait, is that… Xī Stone? How did Xī Stone end up here?”

Hearing a certain Cat Daughter’s surprised murmur, Vilyric turned her head.

“Miss Xiao Kong, do you recognize this stone?”

A flicker of nostalgic light passed through her gem-like silver vertical pupils as the girl nodded, a bitter smile on her face.

“How could I not know Xī Stone? After all, I personally discovered and named that stone with her… It’s no wonder the builder of this tomb could keep the space’s sealing function operating as before even after a thousand years…”

“Speaking of which, I haven’t returned there for almost a thousand years.”

“Vilyric, Xī Stone is a lighting tool used exclusively by the Lingyin Clan on Lingyin Fairy Island. This tomb… must have been built by someone from the Lingyin Clan.”