The black smoke quickly rose in the hall packed with the coffins and extended to every corner in the tomb, like ugly and vicious creatures fiercely seizing their territory.
Facing the apex of the pyramid, the tomb guards were all praying. Although most of the time they were all very violent and rude, now they were prostrating themselves on the ground, as docile as little lambs.
The black smoked overwhelmed everything, but the golden light covering their bodies prevented the horrible power of death from approaching them.
In the tomb, the bodies hanging on the wall started moving and roaring wrathfully.
The black coffins suddenly popped open under the invisible power, and many arms and hands wrapped with bandage reached out.
The old bandage soaked with the light yellow oil from the dead bodies looked extremely disgusting. Bitter moaning and angry shouting made the tomb a living hell.
"Lucien" and Inke lifted their spears and cut open the black smoke like dividing water waves. The black smoke went into the gate directly. Despite its ferocity, the black smoke also disappeared very quickly. After about ten seconds, it was completely gone, together with the vicious moaning and roaring.
Seeing that everything had become normal, Inke said to Aska without putting too much thought into it, "Finally, it has come to an end."
"I don't talk to a filthy scorpion," answered Aska coldly.
Inke was very angry, and the flame of anger in his eyes was burning.
However, Aska just sneered and turned around.
Although Inke was very pissed, he didn't dare to cause any troubles right in front of the high priest. He could only look forward, biting his lips. He would never talk to Aska again!
The high priest had noticed what was going on there, but it was not something important for him. He lowered his head and continued to pray to accumulate power.
The fifth-circle illusionary spell, Persistent Image, could create a substantialized copy of the caster that could speak and move, and the caster could even leave some simple messages to the copy to make some casual conversations possible.
...
Behind the Saint's Gate, the black smoke was silently boiling.
In the darkness, Lucien's figure was revealed. He had turned back to his original look and then put up the black hood to cover his face.
To him, this place did feel like the World of Souls. Looking around, Lucien saw some gray spots floating in the air in the boundless silence.
Lucien was right now in a round palace, around which the pattern of sunflowers was delicately drawn everywhere. On the floor, there were golden rays carved on the ground using unknown materials, extending all the way to the lifted altar in the middle.
There was a gold coffin at the center of the altar. On its lid, there were many different patterns of the silver moon.
Since the black smoke with the great power of death was blocking everything from the outside from peeping into this space, it was safe for Lucien to use magic now, and so he cast layers of defensive spells on himself.
However, Lucien still didn't dare to take out Sun's Corona, since it was very closely related to the World of Souls, and Lucien had not figured out the connection yet.
After making sure that the arrangement of the palace was the same as Rhine's description, Lucien started to walk to the altar in the middle following the weird route that Rhine told him.
The closer Lucien went, the colder he felt. The power of death was right above his head. Lucien could hear nothing, and gradually, all the colors also faded.
It took Lucien more than ten minutes to walk to the altar. He put one of his feet onto the gold steps.
Without Rhine's experience, there was no way that Lucien could arrive in front of the gold coffin so easily. It would have taken him days to analyze the arrangement of the magic circles there.
Without wasting any time, Lucien took out the miniature sphinx statue and clicked it into a groove in the lid of the coffin. It fit the groove perfectly, as if the miniature statue was just supposed to be there!
Lucien took a step back and cast a spell. Streams of blood came out of the sphinx statue, and it looked extremely creepy and weird.
The blood went into the coffin, and the black smoke suddenly twitched like it was alive. The silver moon patterns on the lid burst out dim light for a second and went out very quickly.
Although he was prepared, Lucien was still very surprised that everything was just that simple.
He would like to study the magic circles there, but also didn't dare to waste any time. After all, the high priests could find him at any time.
Turning around, he had just taken a few steps when he suddenly felt a horrible and threatening pressure in the space, as if the entire world would come to an end because of it!
A powerful vampire? Prince Dracula? That was Lucien's first thought. He had the blood power, Moonlight, and thus he was very sensitive to the power of a vampire. Clearly, the power was not trying to hide at all.
Facing that great power, even the black smoke had retreated like a scared puppy.
Outside of the tomb, the light at the end of the sky had now disappeared. The sun had disappeared.
Lucien felt that someone had just taken a glance at him, from left to right. He was sweating under the great pressure. His forehead was covered with tiny beads of sweat.
He could feel that the eyes stopped on his Ice & Snow Medal and his Holm Crown Ring for a second and then kept moving forward.
And then, outside of the tomb, the orange sun appeared on the horizon again.
Lucien wondered in fear if that was the power of Prince Dracula. Although his teacher, the Lord of Storm, was as powerful as Prince Dracula, Lucien had never experienced a legendary level's power over himself like this!
Before the darkness disappeared completely, the lid of the coffin squeaked open!
"Who… has… interrupted… my sleep?" The voice was husky, and the tone was completely flat and emotionless.
Lucien suddenly realized that a very vicious power was slowly waking up!
"I've… been… sleeping… for ten thousand years… I've been… trapped. You shall… bear my anger…"
The voice started to become emotional.
Did the Sphinx, who had died ten thousand years ago, come back to life from the World of Souls because of the power of Prince Dracula?