I have an Apocalypse City
Chapter 1383 - Chapter 1383 Chapter 1385 Tracking Down

Chapter 1383: Chapter 1385: Tracking Down Chapter 1383: Chapter 1385: Tracking Down “`

In the tomb, several beacons blazed with roaring flames, illuminating the entire chamber as if it were day, and everyone’s gaze was drawn toward the front, where a platform stood.

The platform, towering over seventeen meters high, was entirely constructed of gold, mithril, and various precious gemstones. Under the firelight, it shone with a dazzling brilliance.

“My God!” An examiner from the Alien Clan exclaimed in horror, completely disregarding the gold that slipped from his hands as he instinctively took two steps toward the platform.

“Is this, is this all built from gold bricks? How much gold was spent on this, ten tons, or a hundred tons!”

“Hmph, what’s gold worth? Have you seen that mithril? That’s a treasure with excellent magical conductivity, far more precious than gold. It’s sold by the gram, and its value is several times that of an equivalent weight in gold…”

“Look at that fist-sized ruby over there. Even from here, I can feel the abundant fire elemental energy within it. This single ruby could buy a small town…”

…

One by one, the Alien Clan examiners, with their eyes bloodshot, stared at the wealth they would never earn in several lifetimes. Each of them had an intense greed kindling within, slowly converging toward the platform, treating precious gold and jewels they previously deemed invaluable as mere dust beneath their feet!

“Look over there, what is that on top of the platform!” an examiner suddenly pointed at the platform over ten meters high and shouted.

Following his direction, everyone saw that atop the platform lay a coffin nearly three meters long, made entirely of gold and inlaid with various precious gems. The coffin’s surface was covered in magical materials, with complex Magic Arrays outlined upon it. The luxurious magical inscriptions and the sparkling golden glow weighed heavily on everyone’s heart, making them all breathe a little heavier.

“This coffin must contain the remains of King Smolahan. The Blood of Gold should be inside the coffin!” Xilin exclaimed with shining eyes.

“Quick, let’s open the coffin – the Blood of Gold…” A few examiners trembled and rushed toward the platform as if eager to be the first to open the coffin and find the Blood of Gold.

Su La Mo, lagging at the back, had just snapped out of his stupor from the overwhelming treasure. Seeing everyone rushing headlong to the coffin, a cautious expression appeared on his face.

Checking his status bar, Su La Mo discovered to his surprise that the negative status “Curse of Smorahan” had, without his realization, stacked up to ten layers.

“Curse of Smorahan (Negative Effect): 10/15 layers, Effect: Reduces Vitality Points recovery speed by 50%, energy consumption for skills increased by 100%, healing items and skills’ effectiveness reduced by 50%, a physical condition check occurs every thirty seconds, failing the check triggers fever, weakness in the limbs, and other illness effects, lasting 25 seconds!”

This curse, if no battle ensued, would hardly harm an examinee. Even a failure in a physical condition check would only bring about some inconvenience due to feverish illnesses, with no threat to life. This is why those afflicted by the curse did not take it very seriously.

“This curse is practically telling us that a fight is inevitable here!” Su La Mo sighed, unable to help himself from taking a few more steps back toward the chamber entrance.

Previously, due to the low number of curse layers and encountering bosses of not-so-great strength, the curse’s effects were not very prominent. But now, with the curse stacked to ten and still increasing, if a boss battle were to erupt here, probably only a few of those present would survive.

While the Alien Clan examiners were rushing toward the coffin, Song Jian and Doya’s people had also arrived at the outskirts of the ruins.

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“As long as we enter these ruins, the Golden Side Quest will be triggered, and this is probably the easiest Golden Side Quest I’ve ever triggered!” Doya couldn’t help but say.

“The simpler the trigger, the more difficult it tends to be to complete. If the trigger is difficult, maybe the task itself won’t be too hard…” Song Jian said with a smile.

“Patsha, you go ahead and fly over to observe the surrounding environment from high above…” Song Jian instructed.

The ruins looked as though they were a town that had been abandoned for hundreds of years, with dilapidated tall buildings everywhere and many zombie-like corpses on the streets, which immediately put Song Jian on high alert.

“Understood!” Patsha spread his wings and soared high, having already devoured several beast inner dans and grown over twice in size. Standing on the ground, he was almost as tall as an adult man, and with his wings spread out, he spanned five to six meters. The aura emanating from him had also grown more intense.

Having devoured these inner dans, the level of cultivation he gained could be taken out of the Assessment World. Even if this assessment failed, Patsha wouldn’t return empty-handed; even just the few beast inner dans that Song Jian gave him were enough to satisfy Patsha.

Hundreds of meters in the sky, Patsha circled above the ruins for a long time before slowly descending.

“It’s very quiet around here, no enemies, no monsters. However, there is a large pile of monster corpses in the central city square, as though a great battle took place. Should we go take a look first?” Patsha suggested.

“A large pile of monster corpses? How many?” Song Jian’s eyebrows shot up as he asked.

“It’s packed densely, probably several hundred or even a thousand!” Patsha replied.

Song Jian narrowed his eyes and said with a slight smile, “Good, let’s go take a look first!”

The more monsters there are, the more likely a BOSS will appear. Among hundreds of monsters, there should be at least one Commander-level, dozens of Lord-level, and hundreds of Elite-level BOSSes. Although these monsters are lower-leveled, killing so many would mean that the Alien Clan Examinees must also have suffered losses. This was, to Song Jian, certainly good news.

The monsters in the entire ruins had almost all been wiped out clean by the Alien Clan Examinees, and Song Jian and his group had not encountered any monster attacks along the way, arriving smoothly at the ruins’ plaza.

The strong smell of blood in the plaza caused Song Jian and his companions to frown slightly. Looking at the monster corpses that nearly covered the entire plaza, Song Jian became immediately puzzled.

“These monster corpses all seem to have died fighting without retreating. What could have caused them to do so? And the Alien Clan Examinees have all disappeared–where did they go? Could it be that they’ve found a clue to the Golden Side Quest?” Song Jian wondered to himself.

Just then, he suddenly heard Doya shouting loudly, “Come and see, there’s a big hole broken open here; those Alien Clan must have entered this building!”

The group quickly ran toward Doya’s location, and following the direction she was pointing, they indeed saw that below the huge building in the middle of the plaza, a profound hole had been forcefully breached from the outside. A cold wind blew continuously from the hole, and even from a distance, Song Jian felt a chill on his skin.

“Let’s go take a look!” Song Jian said in a low voice, leading his comrades toward the open hole.

…