I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 571 - 571 570. Sacrificial offering_1

Chapter 571: 570. Sacrificial offering_1 Chapter 571: 570. Sacrificial offering_1 The person had long since died, with their flesh decayed to the point where only a grim skeleton remained, seated in the lotus position.

Lu Ban knew that it was very difficult for this posture to be maintained; as the corpse decayed and the flesh withered away, the skeleton would surely fall apart. To superstitious people, the deceased’s determination might explain the preserved pose, but to Lu Ban, it seemed more likely the result of some extraordinary power at play.

Thick black mist coiled around the gray-white bones, the pollution spreading out from within the bones, intertwining and fighting against the rest of the pollution in the cave.

Lu Ban saw some text etched into the walls of the cave with an unknown material.

The writing was not in the language of the Abandoned Capital but that of Lu Ban’s own world.

Despite the passage of time, the deep carvings made the words still clearly discernible.

“The dead salute the departed.”

Lu Ban, however, knew a Latin proverb, which roughly meant those who are about to die salute you, a phrase soldiers used to respond to their commander’s call before going to war.

And this phrase was evidently derived from that one.

As for the meaning…

Lu Ban held a token as he approached the desk to browse through text written in the language of the Abandoned Capital.

The pollution had soaked into these books’ pages, which is why they had been preserved for so many years without decay.

One of the books was a record, in disordered handwriting, of numerous secret techniques of the Foreign Domain and pollution, similar in content to the “Nine Chapters of the Crane’s Cry Secret Scripture.” It seemed that Taoist Crane Cry had read this book and then succeeded in comprehending the knowledge from the Foreign Domain, founding his sect.

That being the case, could it be that Taoist Crane Cry was one of the Mysterious Monarchs, who abandoned his duties and went to the Abandoned Capital?

Or perhaps, was Taoist Crane Cry also a Chosen By Gods, with a mission similar to Lu Ban’s, to become a Mysterious Monarch? After coming here and reading these, did he return to the Abandoned Capital and establish his sect?

Lu Ban closed the book and opened another one.

The inscriptions left inside were numerous, and except for the initial writing in the language of the Abandoned Capital, the rest were in a script that Lu Ban could easily understand, apparently written by various people.

[I must stay here; I cannot leave this place; I can only stay here; no, I want to leave this place; I cannot stay here; I want to go; I want to go; let me go, haha, I’ve realized that I am not needed here, hahaha]

[They all betrayed me; I can simply ignore them; no, that’s impossible; I can’t think like this; I must wait; I must wait; it’s so painful; I am in such pain; he is about to come out; please don’t do this; I beg you, don’t do this; I shouldn’t be here; I regret this; I regret this]

[Go die, all of you go die; those people don’t deserve to live; I can awaken him; I can do it; let this place be destroyed, hahaha, let it all be destroyed; I can do it; let them pay for their betrayal; no, wait; I need to be lucid; I need to remember why I came here; I must be resolute]

The initial writing in the language of the Abandoned Capital was clearly written by someone who had descended into madness, disjointed and indecipherable, as if penned by someone tormented for an extended time.

Moving on, the language that Lu Ban could understand was filled with various notes, resembling a diary.

Lu Ban saw that many inheritors of the Mysterious Monarch would stay in this cave for a time, to draw from and learn from the Mysterious Monarch’s notes.

Afterward, they left with knowledge, returning home to strengthen their bloodline’s power, or in other words, the pollution.

Because they endured pollution beyond human limits while in the cave, they would contract various diseases, leading to their premature deaths.

However, Lu Ban did not find any trace of Taoist Crane Cry and was unclear about which era he had come to this place.

Lu Ban glanced over at the seated figure, curious as to what exactly had caused him to remain here.

From the written accounts, it was evident that he had experienced extreme struggle wanting to flee, but some stronger emotion compelled him to stay.

Lu Ban flipped through the last record.

The text on it was in the language of the Abandoned Capital, documenting the thing buried in this mountain.

“Ancient Overlord…”

The Ancient Overlord, known as Fang Geng, was bound within Jiangcheng Mountain after being sealed. Once vast as a galaxy, after the seal, the Ancient Overlord had shrunk to the size of a single person and lost most of its power, becoming blindly foolish and muddled, unable to revive in the eternal chaos.

But even so, the power of the Ancient Overlord was difficult to suppress.

Fang Geng’s power led to changes in the mountains, shifts in the land, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and other disasters, while the people living near Jiangcheng Mountain were polluted and gained extraordinary abilities.

The ancestors of the Nine Streams were those who had endured both pollution and knowledge.

The so-called Mysterious Monarch was not some ruler of an underworld, but a sacrifice.

The Mysterious Monarch would bear the pollution from the previous Mysterious Monarch, greatly advancing their own abilities while also becoming the frontline in the fight against Fang Geng’s pollution.

The pollution possessed by the Mysterious Monarch and the pollution from Fang Geng formed a mutually polluting, antagonistic relationship. However, a single Mysterious Monarch alone could hardly oppose that great Ancient Overlord, even though It was within a strict seal.

Therefore, the title of Mysterious Monarch was passed on continuously, each Monarch enduring endless torment, spending their remaining days in opposition to that great being.

All this, just like that novelist from the Ancient Capital who kept writing horror stories to please the gods, the inheritors of the Nine Streams also fought against the Ancient Overlord’s corrosion by polluting themselves.

By this point, Lu Ban had finally understood the meaning of the text carved in the wall.

The deceased was the original Mysterious Monarch, and those who go to their deaths are the myriad of Mysterious Monarchs to come.

The deceased salute those who go to their deaths.

Lu Ban also understood at the same time what those mad texts represented.

Becoming a Mysterious Monarch and grasping these past events, those successors must have experienced conflict, regret, resentment, and perhaps some, like Taoist Crane Cry, had abandoned their mission and fled.

But the vast majority, just like the original Mysterious Monarch, chose to take on this mission amidst their struggles.

And Lu Ban might just be the key to ending it all.

After all, in modern times, there was no longer talk of the Inheritors of the Ninth River, and Jiangcheng Mountain appeared to have nothing unusual about it; even the neighboring town and the Mysterious Amusement Park seemed scarier.

This indicated that the issues of Jiangcheng Mountain must have been resolved.

Only…

“The pollution has intensified a lot; this is no longer a mere confrontation of pollution. Has someone tampered with the seal?”

Lu Ban felt the call from the mountains in his ears, the whispers suddenly becoming noisy.

*

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