Tomb raiding live stream: Starting as the mute Zhang

Bronze human figurines.

One after another.

In the limited, trembling beam of the flashlight, they knelt silently, their posture frozen in eternal pain. The piercing hole in their chests, unfathomable in the flashlight beam, seemed like a heart had been ripped out, or a passage through which all life and sound had been sucked away.

They were so numerous they were countless, stretching into the darkness beyond the reach of light. They all faced the same direction—the even deeper darkness at the far end of the square.

There, the silhouette of an extremely large and majestic shadow was faintly visible, deeper than the surrounding darkness, like a silent mountain or a lurking beast.

No one spoke. Even Fatty Wang forgot to mutter; he just stood there with his mouth open, the flashlight beam sweeping across the empty chests and distorted faces of the terracotta figures, making meaningless gurgling sounds from his throat.

Wu Xie felt a chill in his hands and feet, not from the low temperature, but from a coldness that seeped into his bones. The exquisite detail and lifelike suffering of these bronze figurines were more chilling than any skeleton. They were not crude symbols, but like real people who, in a moment of despair, were cast into bronze and left here forever.

The levitating live-streaming sphere rose high, capturing the breathtaking sea of ​​bronze terracotta figures with a wide-angle lens, and the blurry, enormous shadow in the distance. The comments section paused for a few seconds before appearing intermittently:

Prophet: My God... what a hellish sight this is!

A solution to those who disagree with the so-called experts: A hole in the chest... was it used for bloodletting?

The male fan club: Husbands, get out of here! It's terrifying!

"Don't move." Zhang Qiling's voice suddenly rang out, not loud, but exceptionally clear in the deathly silence.

Everyone froze immediately, even holding their breath.

Zhang Qiling also turned slightly to the side, his sharp gaze sweeping over the nearby terracotta figures, finally settling on a terracotta figure about ten meters to the left of the group.

That human figurine seemed... a little different from the ones around it.

Its posture was equally painful, but the edge of the hole in its chest, under the flashlight beam, didn't appear to be completely smooth bronze; instead, it seemed to be covered with a thin, dark brown, dried-out membrane-like substance. Moreover, deep within the hole, something extremely tiny seemed to reflect the light.

"There's something inside," Zhang Qiling whispered.

As soon as the words were spoken, the "mucosa" in the hollow of the terracotta warrior's chest suddenly contracted inward! Immediately afterward, two dark figures, as fast as two bolts of lightning tearing through the darkness, shot out from the hollow! One to the left and one to the right, they pounced on Zhang Qiling and "Zhang Qiling" who were standing slightly in front!

Those weren't shadows at all, but two indescribable monsters. No more than half a meter long, they resembled giant centipedes, but their bodies were covered in dark blue, metallic-sheen segmented carapaces. From each segment extended a pair of thin, cicada-wing-like, sharp-edged bony blades. Their heads had no eyes, only a round mouthpart covered with three layers of spiraling teeth, which made a teeth-grinding "click" sound when opening and closing. Most bizarrely, their tails weren't poisonous hooks, but rather a constantly writhing, shimmering, eerie green phosphorescent fleshy tentacle.

They sprang from the hole so fast it almost exceeded the limits of human reaction. Their mouths opened wide, aimed straight for the throat!

The moment the shadow attacked, Zhang Qiling leaned back slightly, not to retreat, but like a bamboo stalk broken by the wind, with incredible flexibility and speed, dodging the fatal bite aimed at his throat. The monster swept past him, bringing a foul stench. His right hand, which had been hanging by his side, was now raised, holding a short, jet-black dagger with only a thin line of cold light on its blade—the Black Gold Ancient Blade.

The blade didn't slash; instead, it followed the monster's trajectory, gently flicking upwards. The movement was so understated, as if it were merely brushing dust off a sleeve.

"Sizzle—"

A chilling sound of leather tearing. A clean cut was made in the monster, from below its mouth to its middle section. Before the dark green, viscous fluid and broken organs could splatter, the monster raised its left hand with lightning speed, its index and middle fingers pressed together, precisely on an almost invisible bony protrusion below the monster's head.

"Snapped!"

A slight cracking sound. The monster's entire body stiffened abruptly, all its bone blades instantly retracting, then it slumped to the ground, twitched twice, and remained still. Only then did the slime gush out, carrying a pungent, sour odor.

On the other side, Zhang Qiling chose a completely different approach when facing the charging monster. He neither dodged nor evaded; just as the monster's maw was about to bite his shoulder, he pivoted on his left foot, violently shifting his body to the side, causing the monster to miss its target. Simultaneously, he reached out with his right hand, not with a weapon, but directly grabbing at the pair of bone blades swinging from the monster's midsection!

With his five fingers clamped together, he forcefully clamped down on the high-speed, sharp-edged bone blade! The monster's momentum was halted, and its body twisted violently due to inertia. "Zhang Qiling" used the force to spin around, his left arm bent, and his elbow slammed down like a heavy hammer on the junction of the monster's head and the first segment of its carapace!

"Bang!"

A dull thud, like the sound of rusting leather. The monster's head carapace was visibly dented, and its sharp teeth trembled wildly in its mouth. "Zhang Qiling" exerted force with his right hand, swinging the bone blade he was holding, along with the monster's entire body, through the air in a half-circle, before slamming it down hard onto another bronze terracotta warrior beside him!

"Clang!"

The deafening clang of metal clashing echoed across the empty bronze plaza. The monster slammed into the chest of the terracotta warrior, slightly denting the hard bronze. Its carapace shattered, and eerie green fluid splattered as it twitched and slid off the terracotta warrior, collapsing to the ground, motionless.

From the moment the monsters appeared to the moment both monsters were killed, the entire process took less than five seconds.

Fast, accurate, and ruthless. No unnecessary movements, no thrilling dodges, only extremely concise and brutally efficient kills.

Zhang Qiling flicked away non-existent dirt from the tip of his blade and sheathed it. "Zhang Qiling" also released his grip, flicking away a bit of sticky liquid from his fingertips, his expression indifferent, as if he had just swatted two annoying flying insects.

Only then did the others recover from the lightning-fast attack. Fatty Wang swallowed hard, looked at the two monster corpses on the ground, then at the two unharmed young men in black, and gave a thumbs-up: "Awesome..."

Wu Xie's face was still a little pale, but he forced himself to calm down and looked at the bronze terracotta figure whose chest was hollow and still slightly twitching. "This...this thing was hidden inside the terracotta figure? As a tomb guardian?"

"Copper-hearted parasites," Zhang Qiling said, walking up to the human-shaped puppet and shining his flashlight into the hollow inside. There seemed to be more of those dark brown, mucous-like substances wriggling slightly. "Parasitic within the bronze puppet's heart, surviving by feeding on the remnants of...things. If disturbed, they will attack."

"What's left behind?" Huo Xiuxiu asked.

Zhang Qiling paused for a moment, then looked at Zhang Qiling without answering.

Zhang Qiling's gaze, however, had already shifted from the terracotta warriors and returned to the enormous shadow at the far end of the plaza. He stretched out his hand and pointed in that direction.

"That is the source."

Zhang Qiling nodded: "These insects are the 'heart' of the terracotta warrior. The terracotta warrior's 'pain' nourishes it."

This statement sounds somewhat mystical, but combined with the murals and sacrificial altar in the stone chamber, the meaning is vaguely clear: the pain (or life energy) of these victims, who were made into bronze figurines, was absorbed by the monster "Copperhearted Scorpion" in some incomprehensible way, and the existence of the scorpion was connected to the operation of something deeper.

A chill ran through everyone. This "Bronze Tree" system was far more evil and complex than they had imagined.

The levitating livestream sphere lowered, giving a close-up of the two bronze-hearted silkworm corpses on the ground and the "empty" human-shaped terracotta figure. After a brief delay, the livestream chat exploded with comments:

Prophet: Instant kill! Another instant kill!

This is a piece of cake to shut up any so-called experts: This monster looks so disgusting!

The guy's fan club: My husband is so handsome! (The other one is too!)

"We shouldn't stay here any longer," Xie Yuchen said in a deep voice. "Since we've already alerted these...spider worms, there's no guarantee that there aren't more in the other terracotta warriors. We need to get through here as soon as possible and go to that 'source' to take a look."

No longer lingering, the group focused intently, moving quickly and quietly through the gaps between the bronze terracotta figures. Everyone avoided the holes in the figures' chests, and dared not shine their flashlights indiscriminately.

The further we went, the more stagnant the air seemed, and the lower the temperature became. The outline of that huge shadow in the distance gradually became clearer in the flashlight beam.

That doesn't seem to be a tree.

Instead, it was a colossal, bronze structure shaped like an inverted bowl. Its surface was covered with even more intricate and enormous bas-reliefs, but the details were obscured by distance. The base of the structure connected to this bronze plaza. And without exception, all the kneeling bronze figures faced this building.

Facing the crowd, the building had an extremely tall, tightly closed bronze gate. Even in the dim light, the relief carvings on the gate were recognizable—countless eyes, layer upon layer, all pupils pointing towards a huge, swirling vortex symbol at the center of the gate.

The moment they saw the vortex symbol, Zhang Qiling and "Zhang Qiling" paused simultaneously.

The symbol, though different in size and style from the vortex in the center of the jade eye, the mark on the map leather of the King of Xian, and the "door" pattern seen in the underwater observation room of the Xisha Islands, shares the same core essence.

"This is it," Zhang Qiling said softly, looking at the giant door.