AnalogHorror: Rule Kaidan 4016
Chapter 761 - 351: Candlestick Sculpture on the Stone Bridge (Extra 2500 words)_2

Chapter 761: Chapter 351: Candlestick Sculpture on the Stone Bridge (Extra 2500 words)_2

Thick, rolling dark clouds obscured the light, as if devouring the entire world. The cold rain poured down like sheets, and with the blessing of the fierce wind, each droplet was like a piercing ice pick. The howling gales carried the sounds of colliding waves and shattering noises by his ears, like innumerable wicked spirits shrieking.

The candlesticks on both sides of the Stone Bridge were like behemoths drained of life by the storm, clinging to the last strands of flickering light, stubbornly persisting. The walls were mottled and uneven, scarred everywhere. The farther he walked, the more he could sense an aura of desolation.

Lin Yi soon caught a whiff of blood and decay in the wind, scents that seemed to drift from the Art Building. They should have been overwhelming, but the storm fragmented them into thin, sparse traces.

Lin Yi could no longer imagine the sort of human tragedy that had transpired inside the Art Building.

"These candlesticks..." Old Mo noticed Lin Yi observing their surroundings and spoke as they walked, "These are all products from the Black Moon Outpost era. The creatures carved on these candlesticks are the initial imitations of the ’Angels’ based on their explorations at sea to understand the ’Root’ forms..."

"The reason those carvings vary in form is because as the number of explorations and the passage of time went on, the ’Angels’’ cognition of the ’Root’ also diverged..."

Old Mo pointed to one of the candlesticks with an abstract carving, resembling a long, winged creature: "Look at that form from that era; that’s the ’Feathered Serpent God’..."

"There was a period when the ’Angels’ arrived at such a depiction of the ’Root’. After their expeditions at sea, some got lost in the depths, slowly giving rise to the later generations of the Mayan civilization..."

Old Mo then pointed at another carving, indistinguishable between an octopus or some other creature, seemingly with many tentacles or possibly numerous heads.

"That’s ’Hydra’... a monster from Greek mythology, killed by Heracles."

"In actuality, Heracles failed. He never truly approached the ’Root’; what he killed was one of the ’Snake Nests’ from the Alien Sculptures."

Lin Yi, now intrigued, couldn’t help asking, "Then how was the ’Hydra’ killed?"

"In Greek mythology, the Hydra was the second of the twelve arduous labors that Heracles had to complete."

"When Heracles fought Hydra in the Lake Lena Swamp, he discovered that for every snake head he severed, two more would grow back in its place. To overcome this, he had his nephew Iolaos cauterize the wound with a torch, thereby preventing new heads from growing. Lastly, Heracles cut off Hydra’s immortal head and buried it deep underground... This is the myth passed down."

"But think about it, the torch used to cauterize the wounds, and the swamp where Hydra resided... What does that remind you of?"

Lin Yi paused: "The torchlight... something with the properties of sunlight? The swamp, could it be terrain mixed with Supernatural Power?"

Old Mo nodded: "Hydra lived in the swamps of Lake Lena, which were actually mud mixed solid Supernatural Power. Remember the Zealots and the Matrix? It’s that kind of thing... Heracles needed to sever heads so Hydra would absorb Supernatural Power from the swamp to repair its body. In the end, he suppressed Hydra’s Supernatural Traits and successfully killed it."

"Even so, it was only with a favorable alignment of time, place, and people that it was successfully slain."

"And in this process, Heracles absorbed a massive amount of Supernatural Power, exceeding the Contamination threshold he could withstand as a ’Demigod’..."

"Heracles’ death was dramatic; the legend says his wife Deianira, worried that he would fall in love with another woman, was deceived by the centaur Nisos, who smeared his clothes with deadly poison, and eventually, unable to bear the pain from the poison, he self-immolated."

"But think about it, ’self-immolation’, this way of ascending through the power of fire..."

Lin Yi’s heart pounded hard: "Sacrifice?"

Old Mo smiled: "After killing Hydra, Heracles became an ’Angel Envoy,’ discreet yet mad, ultimately marching step by step towards his own destruction. Deianira and Nisos were not able to save him using the correct method... Of course, unless an ’Envoy’ awakens on their own, redemption is nearly impossible."

"In pursuit of a deeper layer of the Transcendent, Heracles sacrificed himself, believing he could thus achieve immortality and become a deity on Mount Olympus..."

Lin Yi asked, "Did he succeed?"

"I don’t know." Old Mo shook his head, "If you have the chance to access the official ’Secret Archives’, perhaps you’ll learn some secrets related to this..."

As they were speaking, he pointed to another candlestick not far away: "Speaking of ’Hydra’, one cannot fail to mention those two creatures..."

"What are they...?"

"Xiang Liu and Orochi."

Lin Yi hurriedly looked over, but the carvings on those candlesticks were abstract, akin to cuneiform or oracle bone script symbols, difficult to distinguish without an explanation.

Yet Old Mo simply shrugged and said, "Of course, I can’t really tell which one is ’Xiang Liu’ and which is ’Hydra’ myself. Just take it as a fun fact; it doesn’t matter if the goods don’t match the description. Anyway, they’re all here."