Chapter 436: Chapter 434: The Mausoleum, the Secret Chamber, and the First Deceased

The moment the elevator closed, the light provided by the white candle abruptly ceased,

and Yi Chen was swallowed by pure darkness in an instant, where even the faintest particles of light utterly died away.

However, for Yi Chen, this was hardly a problem at all.

Darkness was all too familiar, even ‘welcoming’ to him; during his life at the Orphanage, he spent several times more locked in a dark room than he did in Freedom.

Moreover, the journey to the Original Tomb had already acclimated Yi Chen to Death, especially the five-day-and-five-night climb through the Abyss that had quieted him down, as he reveled in this ancient darkness and sought the gradient concentration of the Death Plague, heading towards its most intense direction.

On Yi Chen’s body, his gentleman’s clothes integrated with Black Death Skin and shimmering with black luster, seemed to undulate in such an environment, as if breathing,

sifting the oldest, most primitive Death Plague into the threads of silk.

Crack~ The skulls underfoot transmitted a very clear sensation of compression and collision,

and even without seeing anything, a grand scroll formed in his mind, depicting a giant graveyard of enormous scale made solely of skulls, open and vast, seemingly boundless.

Since the birth of the Old World, over 90% of all deceased creatures had offered up their skulls.

As he walked, Yi Chen found himself immersed in such Death, with the ‘Dead Spine’ attached to his tailbone in this environment becoming completely rigid,

drip, drip~ The Black Liquid in his brain spontaneously flowed out, layer upon layer of white powder emerging on his face, completely covering it.

‘Dead Man Makeup’ formed naturally,

since there had been no battle, and the examining clothes were constantly absorbing the Death Plague from the surroundings,

the duration of the Dead Man Makeup grew by multiples, even tens of times longer, fully maintaining this posture to complete the journey to meet the First Dead Man.

The ground always sloped downwards at a 45deg angle, like staircases reversed downward, leading Yi Chen deeper.

Had it not been for the previous etching of a cerebral clock in his Madness Brain to keep reinforcing the concept of time, he might very well have lost track of time during such an audience, and by the time he would meet the First Dead Man, Yi Chen himself might have already died of old age.

Unknowingly, the slope underfoot became gentle,

[Giant’s Mausoleum]

Countless skull pillars support this place,

and the darkness here, overly rich, began to gleam, casting a pitch-black sheen that filled Yi Chen’s eyes, filtering out all hues, leaving only a monochrome image.

Yi Chen’s consciousness had been here before, conducting ‘cross-plane communication’ with the First World. The experience was not too vivid due to the separation of worlds.

Now, the sensation of being here in person was utterly different, oppressive, uneasy, silent as death, as if he could see a scene of a world filled with eternally dead bones.

“Once the First Dead Man steps out from here, leaves the Bonfire Mountain Range and scatters this Death, the entire Old World will probably live in fear of Death… Such a powerful being cannot likely be sealed by mere descendants of the Evil Sun. Could it be that the First Dead Man is also restrained here by some other means?”

Strolling through the mausoleum, he quickly saw the giant throne upheld by countless believers in Death,

but this time, the throne bore no shadow of the king, without the anticipated appearance of ‘outerwear’ composed of skulls and rags, with a body cyclically inhaling and exhaling black fog.

Yi Chen, carrying his doubts, continued deeper, bypassing the throne and heading further into the depths,

soon reaching the end where only an ancient and broken giant tombstone stood. Strangely, at the front of the tombstone were many special bouquets, some turned to stone, some surprisingly fresh.

“Hmm? Could it be that someone periodically comes here to offer flowers… the Knight Order, perhaps?”

As Yi Chen knelt to examine the bouquets, he unexpectedly found special marks hidden beneath them, and among the skulls that made up the ground, a few were etched with words scorched into being.

SSTo-My-BrotherSS

Yi Chen’s eyebrows furrowed as he silently committed this message to his memory,

Just then, tap tap tap– the sound of skulls falling.

Behind the gravestone, at the wall at the end of the directly opposite crypt, skulls rolled down one by one.

A secret passageway leading deeper was revealed, sized just right to fit Yi Chen’s frame.

Having come this far, of course, there was no possibility of turning back.

Walking into the passage opened specifically for him, he headed towards the hidden chamber behind the crypt, where he could even hear whispers coming from the surrounding skulls as he passed by.

The whispers were intermittent and chaotic, but Yi Chen could sense the emotion in them–they seemed to be warning him, an outsider, to always be mindful of etiquette and to maintain a sense of reverence.

However, just as Yi Chen was about to exit the passage, a skull close to his ear created a resonance through contact, allowing Yi Chen to receive a clear audio message.

“First Tomb”

After passing through the corridor, the view expanded once more,

and the scene that unfolded in the black-and-white vision made Yi Chen freeze, with a mix of emotions–shock, awe, and fear–surging from the depths of his soul, instinctively making him kneel on one knee.

A hundred-meter-tall pitch-black cross stood there, with a giant bound to it,

His outstretched arms were wrapped and bound to the left and right of the cross with thorns, along with nails piercing through the palms.

His skull was split along the centerline of the nasal bone,

the upper half was missing, nowhere to be found,

and the preserved lower half of the head had turned into a “nursery of the Death Plague,” where the earliest and most original Death Plague was fostered among the skulls.

At present, the original Death Plague that wafted from the nursery gathered into a black ring above the cross, like a natural halo, yet black and spewing death’s fog.

At that moment, an ancient and decayed voice came through the black fog.

“Indeed… your death does not belong to our side, but it is equally high-quality.

Soft, like the peaceful sea, in this tranquil sea, individuals who die are stripped of absolute freedom, they cannot and should not reach the shore, yet you are an exception.

Would you like to join me? The Original Tomb is the best destination for you on our side, I will provide you with the highest quality death resources, and give you a hundred years to grow.

After that, you and I will explore the mysteries of death together.”

The First Dead Man, upon first encounter, extended a recruitment offer to Yi Chen, and it was a perfect offer that no dead would refuse.

Yi Chen, however, clearly refused, “I cannot accept this offer now, as I have already signed a Soul Contract with another, and the content of the contract conflicts with your offer.”

“Soul Contract?”

Suddenly,

a stream of black fog pierced through Yi Chen’s body like a spear, causing no physical harm, but verifying something, and it also caught a glimpse of a hint of yellow inside Yi Chen.

After a long silence, the voice in the black fog spoke again:

“So it is, since you have signed such a contract, you indeed cannot stay here… However, once you fulfill the requirements of your contract, we can still engage in the joint exploration of death.

You only need to agree to this, and when you reach a height near mine, come here to explore death.”

“Okay.”

Yi Chen naturally would not miss the opportunity to discuss death with the First Dead Man, but the opportunity would have to wait for a long time, at least until Yi Chen found and traversed his own ‘Path.’

Although it was only a verbal agreement, some kind of connection within death was already formed here.