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Chapter 427 - 402 Are There Monsters in the Maze?

Chapter 427: Chapter 402 Are There Monsters in the Maze?

Li Chen’s luck wasn’t great either. Throughout the day, he led three people around the maze, unable to find a way out.

The maze was simply too vast. Initially, Li Chen had a rough mental map and, with his exceptional memory, kept depicting it. However, as time passed, he realized that it was impossible to remember the map entirely from memory.

Moreover, even with a map in hand, without knowing special recognition techniques, one would still end up trapped in here forever.

Because the maze was uniformly designed—the paths, the walls, the ceiling, even the lamps on the walls were all the same. Fortunately, Li Chen finally discovered that the mysterious lamp oil inside was different, which was a relief.

If even that were the same, he would think he had entered a ghost city.

"Big Brother, I’m hungry," Zhong Tian complained as he followed behind.

By now, they had been wandering in the maze for about a day, having fallen in in the morning, and it was probably evening.

However, it was impossible to distinguish time inside the maze.

Walking by his sides, Lin Yi and Yue’er, hearing the rumbling sounds from Zhong Tian’s stomach, had no heart to tease him.

They were hungry too. After an entire day, they still hadn’t found the exit. If it continued like this, they felt they really wouldn’t make it out.

"It’s okay, I’ll take you out for some food soon," Li Chen consoled.

His eyes also showed a trace of fatigue; the maze was truly perverse.

He had tried walking straight towards the end of a path earlier, but midway, a wall had abruptly blocked the way, completely thwarting his plan.

The construction of the walls within the maze was irregular, not built in square formations, and the area was extremely vast. Li Chen estimated that the maze might extend under the entire Primitive Forest.

This conjecture alone was horrifying. If it were true, what exactly was hidden in the relic beneath? Could it truly be the secret to eternal life?

Moreover, in ancient times, only a minority capable of constructing such massive relics existed, either the royal family or exceptional merchants through the ages, and only they might have had the capability.

However, Li Chen leaned more toward the first possibility. The construction of such a complicated maze took considerable manpower and time, so only the royal families through the ages could have undertaken such a project.

Moreover, to verify his theory, he specifically looked for human remains, and after this consideration, Li Chen startlingly unearthed some clues.

The first clue was the oil lamp!

The design of the oil lamp was intricate, with a special construction connecting it to the wall that held an ample supply of lamp oil, or rather, more aptly called Corpse Oil!

Also, when Li Chen felt around on many walls, he found the raised parts, crushed them, and realized they were human bones!

The combination of these two elements concealed a shocking fact: the relic, or rather the maze, was filled with countless corpses.

Many had died here, and judging by the size of the maze, the number was definitely over a hundred thousand, which could explain why the lamp oil in the maze hadn’t extinguished even after hundreds of years.

According to Li Chen’s deduction, the royal family of the time had constructed this relic for a certain purpose, sending tens of thousands of people to build it. By the time the construction was nearing completion, as was the usual practice, all these people were killed and buried within the maze as sacrificial offerings.

The corpses of these individuals were also used in the building of he maze—not only to keep anyone from revealing the secret but also to save a great deal of materials.

Li Chen looked at the walls to his left and right, which seemed to hide many dead within, and these dead seemed to be watching him!

Li Chen kept this conjecture to himself. Zhong Tian, carefree as he was, might not react much, but for Lin Yi and Yue’er, revealing such a theory would probably terrify them to their core.

The group continued walking forward.

What Li Chen didn’t know was that their path was drawing them closer to the core of the relic. The maze was just a protective outer layer and not the heart of the relic, and though the route Li Chen chose was circuitous, it generally led in one direction, which, ironically, brought them ever closer to the very heart of the relic.

None of them spoke, as even talking felt exhausting at this point.

Li Chen walked in the lead, and just then, he heard a deep rumbling from Zhong Tian, like the protests of a stomach racked by hunger.

Li Chen sighed internally; there was nothing he could do. Zhong Tian had always had a big appetite, and having gone so long without food, he was probably near passing out from hunger.

"Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle,"

As Zhong Tian’s stomach continued to rumble, he called out from behind, "Big Brother."

"A Tian, I don’t have any food right now, either. Use your True Qi to seal your acupuncture points; that might make you feel less hungry," Li Chen said helplessly.

"It wasn’t me, big brother, that sound wasn’t mine." Zhong Tian still spoke naively, a hint of confusion in his eyes. He had thought it was his stomach grumbling earlier, but after paying more attention, his stomach wasn’t making any noise.

Lin Yi and Yue’er, standing nearby, were clearly startled by Zhong Tian’s statement. Could it really not be Zhong Tian’s stomach growling?

Li Chen was shocked. There were only three of them in total, four if you counted the Ginseng Doll. If the sound hadn’t come from any of them, then it must be...

Suddenly, Li Chen turned around, his eyes sharply scanning the area behind him. However, the path they had come from was eerily quiet and devoid of any figures, yet the sound had grown even closer.

Li Chen felt his hair stand on end—danger!

It was very dangerous!

His goosebumps rose, his body instinctively reacting. Although Li Chen didn’t know what it was, within this eerie maze, it likely wasn’t something to be trifled with.

"Li Chen." Lin Yi sounded nervous as she watched the curved path behind them, sensing that something seemed almost upon them.

"It’s okay, move back a bit, stay away from me. If something goes wrong, run ahead."

Li Chen’s expression was more serious than ever.

A shadow, gradually growing under the illumination of the wall lamp from that curving path, appeared as Li Chen stared at the shadow, perfectly calm, yet fully prepared.

Lin Yi, Yue’er, and Zhong Tian all moved a bit forward, distancing themselves from Li Chen. Naturally, Li Chen took the lead in this situation.

It was about to come out!

Lin Yi and Yue’er watched the shadow stretch longer, their hearts pounding.

What was it?

At that moment, the Ginseng Doll on Zhong Tian’s shoulder seemed extremely uneasy, as if sensing imminent danger, as if the approaching entity was its natural predator.

"It’s alright, I’m here," Zhong Tian soothed the Ginseng Doll, but it jumped onto Zhong Tian’s hand and then burrowed into his chest, its large eyes wide open, its chubby little hands anxiously grasping Zhong Tian’s arm, nervously watching the thing about to appear.

The shadow lengthened, and at that moment, it seemed to disappear, then a figure emerged into Li Chen’s view.

It was as if someone peeked and trailed their head around the corner to look, causing Li Chen to suddenly narrow his pupils!

What, what was this head?

The head was bald, with no hair at all, and the facial bones seemed to have collapsed inward, making the face grotesquely terrifying. The eyes were tiny, as if about to vanish, and they contained no pupils, just white sclera, while the ears were sharply pointed, resembling the ears of a bat!

Its nose seemed atrophied, and the teeth in its mouth appeared excessively developed, protruding outward, the sharp fangs resembling those of a wild beast.

Li Chen felt a foreboding sensation. He had thought that the tracker was merely a normal human, but now, he feared he was mistaken.

The head had seen Li Chen and his group, making the same gurgling noise as before. Then, a slender neck appeared, moving like the neck of a giraffe, guiding the head through mid-air toward them.

Soon after, a hand emerged, but it couldn’t be called a hand – it was more like a sharp claw, and horrifyingly, it was crawling along the wall like a gecko!

Quickly, this creature crawling along the wall fully emerged into Li Chen’s view, its body seemingly shrunken, an eerie silver color all over, its limbs like four claws, with tattered cloth hanging from its body, and a sharply protruding spine at its back.

The appearance of this creature resembled Gollum from "The Lord of the Rings," but also resembled a Licker from "Resident Evil." Li Chen felt a sinking feeling in his heart; what exactly was this horrible thing?

Li Chen watched the creature, his mind racing, yet no matter how much he guessed, he couldn’t determine how this creature had appeared.

Could someone be conducting genetic mutations here?

Impossible, this relic was ancient. How could there be genetic mutations in those times?

Someone attempting hybrid breeding?

That seemed unlikely too. This maze looked more like a tomb. Conducting experiments in a tomb?

Li Chen ruled out the ideas one by one while observing the creature to determine whether it was friendly.

The creature, watching the four of them, crawled slowly towards them. Li Chen didn’t move, yet he was completely tense, his True Qi fully circulating within his body.

The creature opened its mouth, its fierce Fangs appearing, and the gurgling sound grew stronger. Its pupil-less eyes, white and glaring, seemed to see them as nothing more than food!