Silent Crown

Chapter 340 The Eye of Resentment

"It's a Revelations musician," Ye Qingxuan said after scanning the corpse. "His frame looks to be about twenty-seven years old. The design of his amulet seems to be from the south. And the thing in his hand is…a shovel."

Ye Qingxuan pulled out the broken spear-like thing from the corpse's hands and nodded. "He's probably an exploration scholar from the School of Geological Studies. Geological exploration and underground relics are the stages Exploration scholars are most experienced in. It's not strange that he would be before us."

Rising, he looked around. It was a large room with six side doors that probably led to six different places. Straight ahead, there was a tunnel that stretched into the distance. Finally, his gaze landed above the door frame. The dust contained the obvious mark of a monkey. The stone monkey had probably been there originally. If an intruder entered, it would jump down to tear him apart.

"There aren't any actual obstacles other than the clay puppets so he was probably careless." Ye Qingxuan sighed. He placed the body into an empty coffin outside and closed the lid. The good thing about dying in a cemetery was that there was an abundance of coffins.

"Dust returns to dust; dirt returns to dirt. What must leave should not be kept." Ye Qingxuan drew a holy emblem on the coffin and performed a short funeral for the trial participant. This was probably the first of them to die and served as a warning. Everyone gathered their spirits, not daring to be careless. Who knew what else they would run into? There would definitely be stranger things as they went.

Other than Ye Qingxuan's perception threads, Baro would also let out a dozen white pathfinder rats every now and then. These rats were not very strong and had short lifespans, making them efficient. He could let out hundreds at a time without feeling the pressure. One was a bit stupid and died from rolling down the steps but the others were okay.

However, everyone's expressions grew uglier as they went. How could there be such a long staircase in the world? They had been walking for ten minutes! Baro's legs had turned to jelly but they could not even see the lower level.

Ye Qingxuan made a rough calculation and furrowed his brows. "We've descended for a few hundred meters. Even if there were a sh*t ton of ancient Romulusians, they wouldn't make such a meaningless structure. This design doesn't have any meaning either."

"An illusion?" Thinking, firelight surged in Sam's hand. The heat spread and the rest prepared to shield against the attack. Sam looked as if he wanted to destroy this section of steps. Modifications musicians were great. Performing highly destructive music scores was as easy as drinking water.

However, Ye Qingxuan stopped Sam just as he was getting ready. "It's useless," Ye Qingxuan stated. "I'm a Revelations musician and I came in unknowingly. If it's an illusion, it must be large-scale with multiple fulcrums. It may be on our bodies. If you destroy it brashly, it might lead to more changes that make us sink in further."

Hearing this, everyone fell silent. They did not have any better ideas and it felt strangely uncomfortable to hear this guy say he was a Revelations musician.

"So do you have a good idea?" Baro asked.

After a moment of silence, Ye Qingxuan smiled yet grew serious. "Nope."

The other three tried very hard not to explode. Baro glared. "Then what are you pretending for? You're a Revelations musician and you led us into an illusion but now you don't even know what to do! You're useless!"

"Calm down. It was a joke to lighten the mood." Ye Qingxuan waved with a smile. "My specialization in Revelations is recognition and explanation of music theory, not illusions. But don't worry…" His tone suddenly changed and he pulled out a palm-sized velvet pouch. One could vaguely see some small balls inside. Ye Qingxuan grabbed the string and swung the pouch around casually. However, something foul and cold spread as the pouch swung. It was almost tangible malice.

"This is…" Thinking of something, Miller stepped back with a pale face. "That's the Eye of Resentment. You made that sh*t?"

Hearing Miller's words, Sam and Baro's expressions changed too. They stepped back instinctively as if the pouch contained a demon.

The Eye of Resentment was technically just a universal chant consumable. Any music score could be added in to be reinforced. It was named like this because it was made from a fossilized eyeball that expressed resentment and wails from the underworld.

This chant consumable must be personally made by the user in order to be effective. However, it was forbidden by the Sacred City because the production process was too cruel and went against all ethics. How cruel was it? Well, it was developed by dark musicians. Its biggest function was not breaking through illusions. Instead, it turned into a fulcrum itself and embedded into the illusion. Through this fulcrum, it could taint the entire illusion. Any illusionist knew how troublesome a foreign fulcrum was in their illusion.

"I can't help it. I had to make up for my weaknesses," Ye Qingxuan said nonchalantly. He took the dried eyeball from the pouch and weighed it. The pupil still rolled in the eyeball. When it met someone's eyes, it radiated with an almost tangible resentment. Thinking of the bloody ritual recorded in the files, Sam and the others looked away, not bearing to look.

"Oh right, what date is it?" Ye Qingxuan suddenly asked.

"September th—" someone replied reflexively but was cut off as if someone muffled their mouth. The voice was gentle like a woman's.

Thus, Ye Qingxuan chuckled. "What's your name?"

"Re…be…umph!" a voice said with difficulty. She seemed to be struggling against Ye Qingxuan's questions but answered involuntarily until her voice was forcefully cut off in the end.

"Seems like there's more than one, huh?" Ye Qingxuan's smile grew colder. He slowly raised the eyeball but there was no eyeball in his hand. It was just a glass marble.

"Sorry, you should know what I'm going to do to you if you've already accepted the 'hint,' right?" he asked lightly. "I try not to torment girls so why don't we all take a step back? You remove the illusion and I remove the hint. Otherwise, you know what happened to Mr. Simon. You don't want to be disabled like him and only be able to enter the men's bathroom in the future, right?"

Pained cries repressed anger but Ye Qingxuan's expression suddenly went slack. He rolled the marble in his hands. The girl's moans of pain sounded again. She seemed to be enduring immense pain.

"You want to undo my hint? Seems like you have a mind musician with you…" Ye Qingxuan arched an eyebrow. "Sorry, I haven't learned other skills but unless you're at the level of my 'teacher,' don't even think about undoing my hint."

He had used the marble in a hurry to attract their attention and put the hint and imagery in, but Lola had taught him personally and it was not easy to undo. They needed more than ten minutes. During these ten minutes, Ye Qingxuan could use the marble as a medium to do whatever he wanted in the mind of the Illusionist lady. It was her fault for being so worried at Ye Qingxuan's Eye of Resentment and staring at Ye Qingxuan's hand for so long.

"Enough, Rebecca. Your illusion can't stop them so just let them in." It was another familiar voice.

Ye Qingxuan chuckled. "Another friend? Mr. Colt, what are you doing now?"

"Come look and you'll know." The illusion disappeared with Colt's voice and all returned to normal. There was still a staircase before Ye Qingxuan but it was only three steps. They had been walking on these three steps for a dozen minutes.

There was a large hall below the steps. The empty room was held up by a single pillar. Colt and five other familiar figures stood before the large door at the end of the hall. Ye Qingxuan had seen these musicians during that night. Amongst them, Rebecca from the Voodoo Crypt stared at Ye Qingxuan. Her face was filled with anger and hatred.

Smiling, Ye Qingxuan tossed the marble over. Another female musician—Arianna—caught it. After checking it, she destroyed the marble, ending Ye Qingxuan's hint.

The two other musicians glared at Ye Qingxuan's group. They hid in aether in their sleeves in preparation.

Between them, Colt leaned on a cane. He glanced at Ye Qingxuan and said, "I didn't expect you would come after us."

"We're not first place, after all." Ye Qingxuan chuckled. "I didn't think you'd be nice enough to wait for us. Let me guess, did you run into something difficult?"

"Let me repeat myself." Colt turned, revealing the door behind him. "Come over and see for yourself."

The prepared musicians guarded the door behind him and glared. They were not welcoming Ye Qingxuan over. Instead, they seemed to be waiting for Ye Qingxuan to willingly fall into their trap.

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