My mom is waiting for treatment, and you're summoning me to be a hero?

The air inside the building was colder than outside, and it had an indescribable metallic smell.

Lin Mo stepped over the fallen stone gate, his boots making a dull thud as they hit the ground.

The walls here are made of gray rock, just like the outer walls, but the surface of the walls is covered with a dense layer of transparent pipes, which are neatly arranged on the walls, each about the thickness of two fingers.

Through the tube wall, one can see a kind of pale blue energy slowly flowing inside.

"This is... mental power."

Yin Xue flew to a pipe and tapped the pipe wall with his fingertip, producing a crisp tinkling sound.

Her pupils contracted slightly: "These pipes transmit spiritual energy. Alchemists on the continent also have similar technology, using crystal pipes to transmit magic power to drive large magic arrays, but that technology is extremely crude, and at most it will lose 90% of its energy after transmitting only a few dozen meters."

She turned to look in the direction the pipe extended, which ran along the wall and into the depths of the building, resembling glowing blue blood vessels in the dim light.

"The way the pipes are laid out here is almost perfect. The curvature, spacing, and energy flow rate of each pipe have been carefully calibrated. It doesn't look like it was temporarily built. It's more like the building itself was built for this purpose."

Lin Mo didn't say anything, but simply started walking in the direction the pipe extended.

The corridor is very long, and new pipes are constantly being added to the main pipe from the side branches on both sides of the walls, and the diameter of the pipes is getting thicker and thicker.

The further you go in, the brighter the pale blue light flowing inside the tube becomes, and the concentration of spiritual energy is gradually increasing.

At the end of the corridor was a wall.

All the pipes converge here, densely connecting to the walls, from the ceiling to the floor, the entire wall surface is completely covered by these pipes.

The spiritual energy in the pipe surged one last time before connecting to the wall, and then disappeared inside the wall.

Yin Xue looked the wall up and down: "The pipeline ends here; the receiver is at the back. There should be a hidden door."

Lin Mo looked at the wall material, felt its thickness, and then kicked it directly.

The wall shattered with a crack, blasting open an irregular hole large enough for one person to pass through.

Debris flew everywhere, and a pale blue aftershock of mental energy shot out from the broken ends of several transparent pipes.

Light streamed out of the cave entrance.

It wasn't the dim, hazy light under the dark sky outside, but a dazzling, pure white light, creating a stark contrast with the dimness inside the gray building.

Lin Mo squinted, waiting for his pupils to adjust to the change in light, then stepped over the pile of rubble and into it.

Then he frowned.

Blood flew up from his shoulder, and after seeing the scene before him, he too fell silent.

This is a large hall.

The building covers an area of ​​several thousand square meters, with a dome so high that the top is almost invisible. Dazzling white light emanates evenly from the walls and ceiling on all four sides. There are no light sources or open flames, as if the entire building itself is emitting light.

But what's even more captivating than the light is the array of items displayed in the hall.

slate.

Thousands upon thousands of stone slabs, each the same size, the same gray material, and the same spacing, are arranged horizontally and vertically on the floor of the hall, covering a space of thousands of square meters.

There was a person lying on each stone slab.

Those people had a pale complexion, as if they hadn't seen the sun for a long time, but their facial features were incredibly clear.

Pointed ears, delicate facial features, and a body that is more slender and elongated than that of a human.

They are no different from the elves.

Their eyes were all closed, and their chests were rising and falling very faintly, clearly indicating that they were still alive.

But they were unconscious and unresponsive, as if fixed in an eternal state of slumber by some force.

Each person has a transparent tube about two fingers thick connected to the top of their head.

The end of the tube was embedded in their scalp.

The pale blue spiritual energy was being transmitted outward from the top of everyone's head through the pipes.

Each sleeping face was so calm and expressionless that it seemed more like a carefully preserved specimen than a living person.

"He...they are all Star Elves."

Yin Xue's voice rang out in the quiet hall, very soft, carrying a hint of emotion that Lin Mo had never heard from her before.

Lin Mo didn't say anything, but walked through the rows of stone slabs and stood next to the nearest one.

The star elf lying on the stone slab looked quite young, about twenty years old in human years, with long silver-white hair cascading down both sides of the slab and a delicate face.

His breathing was so slow that a normal person would have suffocated long ago, but he was still alive.

The pipe above his head was slowly but steadily drawing away his mental energy.

Lin Mo reached out and grasped the pipe.

He didn't intend to disrupt the energy transmission inside; he just wanted to temporarily pull it out and ask the star spirit what exactly had happened here.

The moment the end of the pipe was pulled out from the Star Elf's head, it made a soft "pop," like pulling a plug out of mud.

The end of the tube was covered with a thin layer of pale blue residual spiritual energy, along with a few drops of transparent tissue fluid mixed with blood.

The star sprite lying on the stone slab suddenly opened its eyes.

Those eyes were an extremely rare deep purple, the pupils contracted sharply due to the excruciating pain, and the undersides of the eyes were covered with dense blood vessels.

His mouth opened, and he let out a sharp, almost tearing scream.

"ah--!!!"

His body convulsed violently on the stone slab, his back arching and then falling back down.

His limbs spasmed uncontrollably, and each finger twisted at an unnatural angle.

The wound at the pipe connection on his head was widening, and the cracks were spreading from his scalp to his face.

The spiritual energy beneath his skin, having lost its channeling, began to roam wildly throughout his body.

His entire body expanded, twisted, and disintegrated at a visible speed, with countless tiny blue cracks appearing on his skin.

Skin and muscles shattered into countless tiny points of light, and bones broke apart inch by inch into grayish-white powder after a crisp sound. In the end, even the powder dissipated into the air, leaving only a pool of pale blue liquid and a few wisps of dissipating spiritual energy on the stone slab.

Even Lin Mo took a half step back, his brows furrowed.

He was still holding the tube in his hand, the end of which was still stained with the star elf's bodily fluids.

Yin Xue stared at the stone slab where the star spirit had disappeared, a complex emotion flashing in his crimson eyes.

She didn't speak, but flew to Lin Mo's shoulder and landed, her small hand gripping his collar tightening slightly.

Just then, the only door in the hall suddenly opened.

"Who?!"

A man in a white robe rushed in.

But before he could see what was happening in the hall, everything went black.

Lin Mo had already appeared in front of him.

This is not teleportation, nor is it a flash.

It is pure physical speed supported by more than 1.25 million points of agility attribute.

What does 1.25 million points of agility mean?

Before the divine messenger's visual nerves could complete transmitting the image of "an intruder at the door" to the brain, Lin Mo had already traversed a distance of several hundred meters.

Just as the divine messenger's pupils began to contract, Lin Mo's hand had already pinched his mouth shut.

His five fingers gripped tightly like iron clamps, locking his upper and lower jawbones firmly.

At the same moment, the black sword in his other hand was pressed against his throat.

The moment the sword touched the skin, it left a shallow bloodstain, and a drop of bright red blood slowly slid down the spine of the sword.

The messenger's eyes widened, his pupils contracting violently with extreme fear.

Lin Mo looked him up and down.

White robe, gold thread, holy light cross pattern.

He had seen this outfit before; it was the same outfit worn by the two divine messengers who descended from the divine realm after acquiring the Holy Ancient Empire.

"Are you a messenger of the gods?"

Lin Mo's voice was flat and emotionless.

The messenger's chin was pinched shut, and he could only move it up and down a little bit with difficulty to nod.

"So, this is the territory of the gods?"

The messenger nodded again, but with a smaller amplitude than before, because each nod caused his Adam's apple to move slightly up and down.

The black sword's edge was pressed directly below his Adam's apple.

Lin Mo's gaze shifted from the divine messenger's face, swept across the thousands upon thousands of stone slabs in the hall, and then returned to the divine messenger's face, which was contorted with terror.

"What are you doing here?"

He loosened his grip on the messenger's chin slightly, just enough for him to make a sound, but not enough for him to bite his tongue or chant a spell.

The messenger's lips trembled for a long time, and his Adam's apple bobbed back and forth several times under the pressure of the black sword's blade before he finally managed to squeeze out a few broken syllables from deep in his throat.

"By order of the gods, to transmit energy to the demons of the continent and hasten the appearance of the Beast King."