"The second trial..."
Bai Zhou gazed at the three-tiered candelabra arranged in stepped tiers upon the altar, lost in thought.
Recalling the ritual method that the beam of light had infused into his mind, he raised the purple-gold saber in his hand.
A glint flashed as the blade drew across the palm of his left hand.
Crimson blood dripped down, landing upon the nine white candles on the first tier of the candelabra.
Shadow veiled Bai Zhou's face.
At the same time, his lips moved in a low murmur.
Consulting *Universal Language: From Beginner to Master*, he softly chanted in the ancient tongue of the Trojan civilization:
"With blood as the guide, bring solace to the past..."
As if answering the call, the moment Bai Zhou's incantation fell, the white candles—having drunk their fill of his blood—erupted into flame with a sharp *whoosh*.
Nine flames flickered, and an exotic fragrance drifted from the wax.
The altar began to glow with a faint, dusky light.
The dust settled on the altar trembled softly, as though dancing.
Next came the second tier.
Bai Zhou mobilized his mental power, shaping it into a great hand that pinched the wicks of the six candles on the second tier one by one.
The mental power swept past, clearing away the dust upon the altar and wiping it clean.
*Wipe it clean with diligence, and let no dust alight.*
"With mind as the guide, illuminate the path ahead..." Bai Zhou chanted in an undertone.
*Whoosh!*
The six candles on the second tier immediately caught fire with brilliant red flames!
These six flames spun and danced in a bizarre whirl, slightly distorting the surrounding air.
The shifting candlelight illuminated the contours of Bai Zhou's face in flickering gleams.
Next, Bai Zhou focused on the three remaining candles on the uppermost tier, infusing a mote of spirituality into each.
*Hum—*
The three candles at the very top caught fire, yet their flames were not physical fire; instead, they were leaping spirituality dyed a vivid purple-red.
Bai Zhou reached his left hand forward, the unhealed wound in his palm feeling the scorching heat of the candelabra.
His right hand performed a devout salute, forming a specialized seal against his chest. Bowing his head, Bai Zhou whispered a prayer:
"Past and future are all prologue."
"This heart and spirit offered up to the heavens."
"By the temple's dying embers, reflect my morning light; from this burnt-out moment, journey to the unknown domain—"
"Break! Break! Break!"
He barked three low commands.
Snapping his head up, he recited the incantation and thrust his right index finger toward the three-tiered candelabra before him, shouting out as if delivering a decree:
"*Inicio!*"
Its meaning:
"—Depart!"
The ritual was complete.
*Boom!!*
The three tiers of candelabras went out all at once.
Sparks scattered in all directions like exploding fireworks, and a dazzling, kaleidoscopic array of embers burst into view before Bai Zhou.
Yet after flaring, these embers did not fall downward. Instead, they drifted upward, spiraling around Bai Zhou in endless loops...
*Hum—*
At last, the brilliant points of starlight coalesced before Bai Zhou into a portal formed of swirling light and color.
"It worked!"
Bai Zhou's spirits lifted, his heart pounding against his ribs.
However, the portal seemed none too stable. Under Bai Zhou's wary gaze, it warped every now and then, making one wonder whether anyone passing through might be sheared in two.
Beyond the open gateway, a swirling vortex of color churned, woven predominantly from reddish-brown and deep blue tones, giving Bai Zhou the uneasy feeling that he could become hopelessly lost in it at any moment...
Yet as if answering his apprehension, the final and most crucial step of the ritual arrived at last.
"What is this...?"
Bai Zhou blinked.
*Hum—*
Something fell from the High Priest above, landing on Bai Zhou's left wrist, which still hovered over the candelabra.
In the next instant,
the portal stabilized, and the vortex seemed to freeze in place.
Upon Bai Zhou's wrist, a mysterious mark appeared.
It depicted a broken spear thrust through a skull—the most primeval embodiment of "War."
In cadence with Bai Zhou's heartbeat and pulse, the broken spear began to throb like the cadence of war drums.
"The God-Chosen Mark!"
Bai Zhou's breathing grew ragged.
Gods...
An incredible word that sounded impossibly distant.
Yet back in that ancient, distant Trojan era, though no one knew what form their lives had taken, "gods" had genuinely existed.
They had guided the birth and progress of civilizations and guarded the brilliant cultures of world after world...
Those chosen by the gods were, without exception, children of destiny who would inherit the entire future of a civilization!
Of course, Bai Zhou had not been chosen by a god.
The Scarlet Queen was that "God-Chosen."
She had even been chosen first by the God of Wisdom and Truth, and then by the God of War and Protection—a dual God-Chosen!
"So this is...?"
The moment Bai Zhou's gaze fell upon the mark on his wrist, a stream of knowledge flowed into his mind.
*"Bear my mark... anchor the beyond;"*
*"Scarlet blessing... all taboos cleared!"*
In other words, undertaking this trial in Rome was the equivalent of being sent on an imperial commission.
The High Priest—the Scarlet Queen, half a war angel—had bestowed the mark of divine favor she carried onto Bai Zhou.
It was almost like...
an imperial sword of absolute authority!
Though Bai Zhou could not actively wield the mark, the protection of its blessing ensured he would not become lost during teleportation and could return at any time once his mission was complete.
Bai Zhou could even vaguely sense that if he encountered some mortal danger after finishing his task...
this mark would intervene!
What was a true trump card? What was the backing of a colossal faction?
Rounded up, he was practically half a God-Chosen himself.
Best of all, the so-called gods had departed countless years ago—perhaps slaughtered to the last by Rome in that distant past. The only entity capable of establishing a connection with Bai Zhou through this mark, the High Priest, was nothing more than a mindless corpse.
No gaze would fall upon Bai Zhou, and the power flowing within this God-Chosen Mark was essentially masterless...
Which meant that one day in the future—
Bai Zhou might truly make this power entirely his own!
Clinging to that anticipation, Bai Zhou took a deep breath and stepped toward the mysterious portal radiating brilliant colors before him.
*Step...*
As he took his stride, Bai Zhou looked up for one final glance at the owner of the God-Chosen Mark.
Hidden amidst the mass of buildings, her silhouette was impossible to discern when standing down on the wasteland.
A throne without a monarch—
for the monarch was pinned beneath the world!
"Wait, what's that...?"
Bai Zhou froze.
Looking up from the angle of the portal, he spotted the dying declaration concealed behind the High Priest:
*I am tired.*
*Yet engrave no dirge upon the ruins of civilization, for what flows through the ballad is not despair.*
*One day, a successor of Troy will set foot here. He knows me not, yet inherits the sun.*
*He shall cleave through your holy halls, trample your solemn temples, and slaughter your blasphemous kin!*
*—Rome! This is a prophecy! A proclamation!*
*The King's Fire is not extinguished; what died was merely the scarlet.*
*Yet my curse has only just begun to breathe...*
Written like a prophecy of last words, the dense crimson characters adhered to the High Priest's crimson form like runes branded into her withered flesh.
Had he not looked closely and spotted the irregularity, Bai Zhou truly would have missed it.
Only now did Bai Zhou realize with utter clarity:
Perhaps completing the temple's trial also meant becoming the successor to this Scarlet Queen.
Inherit Troy's dying will and make an enemy of Rome...?
It sounded exhilarating—the stuff of an epic legend filled with twists and turns had it taken place in ancient times.
Unfortunately, Rome had perished long ago.
The moment that thought flashed through his mind—
"*Inicio!*"
The spell took effect.
Dazzling starlight engulfed Bai Zhou's vision.
The youth's figure vanished from where he stood.
***
*Bzzzzzz!*
Amidst an ear-splitting buzz like tinnitus, a spinning kaleidoscope seemed to whirl endlessly before his eyes.
The scene before him shifted abruptly. The surrounding air turned viscous and freezing cold, as though he had plunged into a grim swamp.
Above his head was no longer the skylight of the temple, but towering ancient trees in bizarre, grotesque shapes.
Their trunks, twisted like vortexes, bore the faint contours of human faces, while interlocking boughs wove together to blot out the sky, cloaking everything in a sunless gloom.
"This is..."
*Crack!*
As Bai Zhou shifted his footing, a crisp, fine crunch echoed beneath him.
Looking down, Bai Zhou felt his eyes widen in horror.
Beneath his feet lay not soil, but gleaming white bones!
Boundless and piled layer upon layer, they blanketed his entire field of vision without a single gap, concealing every trace of the earth beneath!
A living purgatory—nothing less!
The grayish-white bones had nearly crystallized. Battered by countless ages, broken and interlocking with one another, they formed a grand corridor of death.
Perhaps countless years ago, this had been a mass grave for tens of thousands.
Yet now—
towering, grotesque trees were rooted directly into this earth of bones, their python-thick roots tightly coiled around mounds of skeletal remains.
These roots either bored through the eye sockets of skulls or sprouted straight out of ribcages.
Without a doubt, this dense, endless expanse of monstrous woods had been nourished on the sustenance of these corpses.
Crimson moonlight was shut out by the dense canopy, and in the distance flickered jagged, eerie blue ghost fires, illuminating this gloomy, bizarre world.
Farther still, faint clinking sounds drifted through the quiet woods, lending an added layer of terror to the silence.
It was plain to see that this was a ruined world of a completely different style from the shattered Trojan civilization.
This was...
"Rome!"
Bai Zhou took a deep breath.
*This* was Rome?!
As *Eight Thousand Questions of Naughty Black Cat* once noted: all roads lead to Rome, and after Rome fell, everyone claimed to be its true heir.
Just where had that portal dumped him?
Yet this place differed little from what Bai Zhou had envisioned.
The final resting place of Roman civilization.
A Deep Ruin Realm that was perhaps even "deeper" than Troy.
Dilapidated, silent, fraught with danger...
As wind swept through the grotesque woods of human faces, the boughs swayed, making Bai Zhou fancy he could hear the echoes of deathly whispers.
Just like the first time he had explored the wasteland battlefield beneath the inverted metropolis...
*Schwing!*
The saber left its scabbard and rested firmly in his grip, while his left hand stood ready to draw the broken-flag short staff at his waist.
Guided by the dim blue glow of the eerie ghost fires, Bai Zhou began to carefully explore this dense forest of bones that fed on death.
Upon the twisted trunks of the trees, agonized, struggling human facial contours faintly surfaced, and even the bark resembled pale human skin.
Moving through the thick woods, Bai Zhou could not shake the feeling that countless eyes were watching him, as if he were walking through a crowded anatomical wax museum...
*Clink...*
*Clink! Clink!*
As Bai Zhou pressed forward, the strange tapping sounds grew louder and more frequent.
Only by listening closely did he realize that they seemed to be rising from somewhere deep beneath the earth, buried under the mountainous piles of bones beneath his feet.
The deeper he ventured into the forest, the thicker the darkness became, and the more the skeletal mounds sloped downward.
Closer, closer...
The sounds were drawing ever nearer.
*Clang! Clang! Clang...*
Then, passing through a grotesque root formation arched like a bower of bones, Bai Zhou emerged into an open clearing.
He heard it, and he saw it—
a scene of utter, terrifying mystery!
In the center of the vast expanse, the earth had split open, leaving a colossal, pitch-black chasm gaping wide.
Billows of toxic green mist roiled out from the pit, so thick they seemed on the verge of turning liquid, thrashing through the air like living tentacles.
In the stillness, the poisonous fog drifted everywhere, draping the surrounding air in an eerie haze.
And there, around the mouth of the mist-spewing chasm, Bai Zhou finally caught a glimpse of where the clinking sounds came from.
"What on earth...?"
When he saw their faces clearly, Bai Zhou froze, a chill instantly racing down his spine.
"Undead!"
Countless undead were everywhere.
Skeletal frames stripped of rotten flesh were draped in tattered rags. Gripping hammers, shovels, and pickaxes, they chipped away with ceaseless clinking at the mysterious, eerie-green and dark-purple ore before them.
The old bones moved stiffly yet in perfect unison, like marionettes pulled on strings, repeating the motions of excavation over and over.
*Crack!*
A crisp, sharp lash rang out.
A skeleton brandishing a bone whip, with green flames blazing in its eye sockets and dressed in robes, held a rank clearly superior to the others.
"Up on your feet! You lazy bones! Stop living like lords!"
"Why sleep long after death? The undead have no need for eternal rest!"
"For the glory of Rome, slaves! Do you not wish to become Romans?!"
"..."
*Clang! Clang! Clang!*
Spurred by the taskmaster's whip and shouts, the mining of the undead seemed to grow genuinely "fervent."
The sheer absurdity of the scene made Bai Zhou wonder if he had stepped into hell.
"Are those..."
"Skeleton miners?!"
In the distance, Bai Zhou stood dumbfounded. He quickly ducked behind a tree, doing everything in his power to suppress his presence.
Skeleton miners and a Roman necromancer overseer?
Though both were deep realms of the Ruin Realm, Rome's style was night and day compared to Troy.
Even with Rome long gone, even with everyone having marched toward their end...
In this deep realm, people dead for untold ages were still being brutally enslaved by Rome?
When they were already nothing more than piles of old bones...
Truly, running dogs of evil gods, enemies of civilization in the truest sense!
No wonder Troy had wandered into exile, desperate to evade the tyrant's conquest at any cost.
Even in death, they were denied peace; Rome truly understood how to wring every last shred of value from its foes!
By comparison, the people of Troy—ravaged by the virus, turned into mindless walking corpses, and left to rot away quietly together within the secret realm...
had actually been fortunate.
How bitterly ironic.
Rome had perished, yet it still had not forgotten the arrogance and wickedness etched into its very bones?
Not good at all.
"..."
Bai Zhou curled his fingers slightly, wondering whether a skeleton overseer counted as a Roman soldier.
At the same time, another question crossed his mind.
With so many miners and overseers—
what kind of ore were they digging for?
It certainly didn't look ordinary.
Most importantly of all...
Bai Zhou suddenly clutched his chest.
Beneath his feet lay a dense sea of skeletons; his eyes took in the bottomless, mysterious mine in the distance... and the various undead swarming inside and out.
Ever since he set foot in this forest piled high with the dead,
the *Dead Sea Secret Scrolls* against his chest—
had been thrashing restlessly like a hound scenting blood, utterly unable to contain itself.
Hidden silently behind the tree, Bai Zhou felt his heart race uncontrollably.
The deathly qi lingering over the ruins of Troy had unlocked the first chapter of the scrolls, [Thousand-Faced Moon].
*Could it be... that this place holds the chance to unlock a new chapter?*
Chapter 106