Void Beetle Evolution Guide

They continued walking and came to the edge of a cliff. Sylvie looked around and saw dozens of cliffs like this, symmetrically distributed, forming a huge circle, though some had long been completely buried by yellow sand.

"The terrain is somewhat similar to Soongsa, the only difference being that the sand here doesn't rush and flow to form magnificent sand waterfalls on the cliff edges."

“We are standing on the moat of the Oasis of Dawn, and what you see before you is the birthplace of Mother Life,” Varus said.

"The Mother of Life? Is it the river that gave birth to Shurima?"

“Once upon a time, when the sun disk still stood above the Oasis of Dawn, endless springs flowed from the heart of the city, accumulating into a vast reservoir around it. The dam beneath your feet was divided like this to drain the overflowing water.” Verus gazed at the cliff below, which had once served as the dam, and reminisced, “This place used to be filled with moisture and incredibly cool. But now there is only endless shifting sand, unbearably hot.”

Kasha glanced down the cliff face of the dam, but there wasn't a trace of water. The area below the cliff was filled with soft, shifting sand, and it was impossible to tell how deep it originally was.

The only thing you can see right now is the height difference of tens of meters between the cliff and the sea of ​​sand. Who knows if you'll fall down and bury yourself?

"Stop reminiscing about the past and present. Instead of wasting time talking about these things, why don't you show us the way to the imperial tombs?" Sivir urged. They had limited water supplies, and the longer they delayed, the more likely something bad would happen.

Seeing the emperor's only bloodline turn into a mercenary driven by profit, Varus shook his head almost imperceptibly and said, "The tomb is beneath the royal city, but the entire city is buried under yellow sand. We need to find a way to enter the underground city."

"Dungeon?"

"The Dawn Oasis is divided into two levels. The upper level is the residence of the residents, while the lower level is a vast burial ground. The spirits of emperors, heroes, ascendants and other heroes who once fought for the empire are placed there after their deaths. They are carefully cared for by special priests, and their bodies are preserved in good health with holy water and prayers, quietly waiting for an opportunity to rise again and fight for the empire."

"Has anyone ever been resurrected?" Cassiopeia asked curiously.

“No.” Naganekia shook her head. “The dead cannot be brought back to life; that’s just wishful thinking. Cough, this way, I know a path to the dungeon.”

Naganekia led the group to another cliff, where a massive stone arch bridge stood before them.

Looking across the bridge, Sivir saw that the ancient city on the other side was still deeply buried within the city walls, and it was impossible to enter the underground city simply by walking across.

Unexpectedly, Naganeka took a different approach, leading them down the slopes on both sides of the bridge, seemingly to reach the bottom of the bridge.

They continued down to a low-lying area of ​​the sand sea, under the shadow of the arched bridge, where they saw countless statues protruding from the other side of the bridge, including a statue of a serpent-headed god.

Chapter 404 Traps and Mechanisms

The serpent-headed deity was slender, with a cobra-like head protruding from its collar, its mouth spewing out venomous fangs, and its fleshy wings spread on both sides, giving it a frightening appearance of being ready to pounce.

"There's no road here? Could there be some kind of trap?" Sylvie wasn't afraid; she thought these were just inanimate objects. She carefully examined the statues under the bridge, trying to find some clues.

“If it were that easy to tell, Dawn Oasis would have been looted long ago.” Naganeka stepped forward and touched the statue of the serpent-headed god, carefully feeling the undulations of each scale along the tail with both hands.

"Ah! Found it~" With a light shout, she inserted her fingernail into the crevice and skillfully removed one of the scales.

"There really is a mechanism." Sivir looked at Naganeka with a suspicious gaze, clearly wondering why Naganeka knew these secrets.

However, Naganekia had no intention of explaining. She presented the scale and asked, "If we put this scale into the mouth of the serpent-headed god, we can open a passage to the underground. The question is, who will do this?"

All eyes turned to Sivir, who frowned as she took the scale. Instead of sending her subordinates to risk their lives, she climbed up the statue of the serpent-headed god herself, scale in her mouth.

Based on her experience, these kinds of puzzle-solving mechanisms only pose a danger if the solution is wrong. Since the guide has already given her the correct answer, there's a high probability there won't be any problems.

Sivir is shrewd and calculating; she wouldn't let anyone else have such a good opportunity to demonstrate her prowess. Only when she herself is uncertain will she send her subordinates to test the waters first.

The mercenary leader nimbly climbed onto the statue and stuffed the scale he was holding in his mouth into the snake's head.

Upon sensing the weight, the snake's head immediately bit down on the scales, while its eyes emitted a bluish light.

Sivir was startled and fell from above, but fortunately her second-in-command Jacob was below and caught her immediately.

The sound of grinding boulders came from all around. A hidden door slowly opened on the bridge pier in front of us, and ancient dust rushed in, carrying an aura of decay and stagnation.

Dawn Oasis felt to Kaisa like a city of giants, where many things had been deliberately magnified to make it easier for Ascended to enter and exit. Even a hidden door gave her a sense of grandeur and awe.

“Let’s go. Even if we start from here, it will take at least a day and a night to reach the Imperial Tomb.” Naganek and Varus stepped into the secret passage first, while Kai’Sa followed silently behind.

Naga Neka must have had a more convenient way to reach the tomb, but she chose to enter the dungeon in a relatively normal way to accommodate Sivir.

Compared to the sweltering heat outside, the cool air in the catacombs was a sweet blessing. Of course, every turn could harbor the threat of death, but it could also hold a destined glory.

The group groped their way through the endless labyrinthine tunnels for miles, discovering and avoiding several spike traps, crawling to dodge giant axe pendulums, and even managing to subdue hostile abyssal serpents.

Here, Cassiopeia and Kai'Sa once again encountered the golden centaurs they had seen in Nasus's Tomb. They stood quietly before the gates of a tomb whose owner was unknown, their golden luster undiminished even by thousands of years of dust.

"Commander! We're going to be rich! These men are like pure gold!"

Jacob, the deputy, had arrived before the centaur statue at some point. He used a knife to make a cut in it and determined the composition by the hardness and color of the cut.

Upon hearing this, the mercenaries' breathing became hot; a pure gold centaur statue—anyone who wasn't a fool knew what that meant.

"Don't touch anything, or the sleeping cavalry inside will come out and kill you first."

Cassiopeia warned, drawing on her own experience, which made Naganeka glance at her a few more times. "Mei, I'm not here, Lin Kong, you Lin are here, aren't you..."

But her words seemed to have little effect; in front of these golden centaur statues, the commission she, as the employer, paid was utterly insignificant.

"Jacob! Stop it! I don't want to have money but no life to enjoy it," Sivir snapped.

In her experience, these openly displayed valuables are generally hidden traps. It's best not to touch them until you're sure of your safety.

Jacob reluctantly withdrew her hand and quietly hid the gold dust she had cut off with the knife. But soon she realized that her actions had been somewhat unnecessary.

Led by Naganeka, they continued through the wide underground passage. Passing through a stone archway, dust floated up like ghostly shadows, outlining a corridor with rounded patterns carved into the stone walls.

Jacob reached out and touched the patterns on the wall. The Shurima people's love for the sun was truly ingrained in their bones; even the tombs were filled with patterns of sun discs.

"Why do you have to touch everything you see?" Sivir complained, turning around. Her first mate was agile, eloquent, quick-witted, and beautiful.

They just can't control their hands and like to do petty theft, which has caused them a lot of trouble.

"Huh? What kind of trap do you think this is? Are you saying a huge rock is going to roll down and crush us?"

Jacob also felt that Sivir was meddling too much. The leader was already taking the lion's share, shouldn't he turn a blind eye to his subordinates making extra money?

Besides, these are just some worthless stone carvings; touching them won't cause any harm.

As Naganek listened to their conversation, a wicked smile immediately appeared on her lips beneath her veil.

She wouldn't bring everyone to the imperial tomb; it was about time to separate or kill off those who weren't involved.

While everyone else's attention was drawn to the two of them, she discreetly extended a pebble, triggering a mechanism on the wall.

Everyone felt the corridor suddenly shake violently. In their panic, the ceiling suddenly collapsed, followed by a huge boulder, as tall as a building, falling from the sky.

The group was stunned. The rolling stone was not an ordinary stone at all, but a huge sphere formed by countless golden-armored warriors being kneaded and melted by terrifying power.

The golden ball was not only exceptionally heavy, but also incredibly hot, emitting smoke and dripping with molten gold. It accelerated along the cascading channel, hurtling towards them.

This wasn't a rolling boulder; it was a rolling mass grave of gold. Sivir could even see every detail of the armor, from which the blades of swords, spears, and halberds extended, warning them, the outsiders.

Chapter 405 The Hidden Door

"Run!" Jacob screamed in terror as the molten gold ball rolled toward him, his legs already sprinting frantically away from the ball.

Because of his frequent troublemaking, Jacob had long since developed remarkable crisis management skills. He could run incredibly fast and leave everyone behind in the blink of an eye.

Even so, they still couldn't get rid of the rolling golden ball. The underground tomb's corridor wasn't narrow, but the golden ball was no small thing either, almost filling the entire tunnel.

Even if you lie against the wall, pressed tightly against the corner, trying to escape from the rolling blind spot, you might still be killed by the swords, spears, and halberds that the golden ball extends out.

Screams came one after another from behind him. In the critical moment, Jacob saw the statue of the gods on the ceiling and a plan suddenly came to mind.

Jacob took the grappling hook from his waist, swung it around in his hand, and threw it up. The hook wrapped around the animal head statue several times.

There was no time to check if the hook was securely fastened. At this moment, the golden ball was less than three meters away from her, and she could even feel the scorching heat emanating from the molten gold.

With a running start, Jacob leaped forward, and then, as the rope tightened, his feet left the ground, propelling him into the air.

The terrifying gold rolled past her feet in the next moment, rolling down the slope into the depths, leaving behind a pool of molten gold, before finally disappearing into the darkness with the tremor.

Jacob, having survived the ordeal, stopped swinging and slid down the rope. Looking back, she found no corpse behind her, only molten gold scattered throughout the corridor, a reminder that her experience was not an illusion.

"Damn it!" She couldn't find Sivir, nor the other members of the group, nor even her employer or their bodyguards.

Those Noxian soldiers in their heavy armor were the ones who deserved to die the most; they were the slowest and should have been crushed by the golden ball, but they all mysteriously disappeared.

"The yellow sands have shown mercy; could it be that the golden ball absorbs those it crushes?" After much thought, Jacob could only come up with this explanation.

Faced with this situation, Jacob assumed the others were likely facing a near-certain death. Who knew if the golden ball would roll back? She certainly didn't dare venture any further.

Seeing the rapidly solidifying liquid gold, Jacob, with the mindset of "since I'm already here," could only stuff it into his backpack, carrying it back along the way until it was full.

“This piece is a bit too big… let’s not take it. Commander, I still hope you can come back alive, um… let’s exchange it for all this pure gold.”

...Mei has me, Mei Yongkong, but Lin Zaizai isn't here...

Sivir didn't die. Just before the golden ball came crashing down, Naganekia pulled her into a hidden door in the wall, and she inexplicably escaped death.

Still shaken, she looked around. She was in another passage, and she didn't know where it led. Suddenly, she heard the sound of a giant stone grinding behind her. Turning around, she saw a hidden door closing.

Sivir instinctively wanted to go back the way she came, as that was the only way to ensure she could leave the dungeon, but she was too late. She could only watch helplessly as the secret door slammed shut in front of her.

She pounded on the door anxiously, but the stone door didn't budge. There were no mechanisms around, so it seemed that it couldn't be opened from this side; it was a one-way street.

"Don't bother," Naganeka said calmly from behind her.

Her words made Sivir stop immediately. She turned around and looked at the man in black robes with a wary gaze, clenching her fists tightly: "Who are you? Why do you know this place so well!"

Sivir had long suspected Naganek, whose various actions proved her unusual nature. Now that they were alone, Sivir finally couldn't suppress her doubts and confronted her directly.

"Who am I..." Upon hearing this question, Naganekia let out a sneer, then took off her hood and veil.

Sivir's eyes widened. Naganek's face was covered with bruises, her skin a dull, bruised color; she was hardly human.

But it wasn't over yet. Seeing that Sivir didn't recognize her, Naganekia transformed again from the neck up, gradually turning into a cobra's head, spitting out a bright red tongue and hissing.

"That statue outside... is that you?!" Sivir was stunned and couldn't finish her sentence, while Naganekah pressed closer to her.

"Ah, right~ I am the god you mortals speak of. Sivir, why do you not kneel down and worship after seeing the true face of the god?" Naganekia smiled slightly, revealing needle-like teeth covered with a layer of venom.

Sivir shook her head vigorously, avoiding eye contact. She didn't realize that she had been holding her breath. After several deep breaths, she finally found her original voice.

"I don't care about gods or anything like that, what exactly is your purpose in disguising yourself as a mortal and infiltrating among us?!"

“Like you, we also want to open the imperial tomb. But that requires the weapon of the ascended Queen Setaka—a weapon called Charikar, and… a living sacrifice.”

"So I'm the unlucky one?!" Sivir gritted her teeth, her mind racing, and gripped the cross blade tightly in her hand.

"You're quite self-aware. I should thank you for personally delivering the keys; this warm hospitality is the best gift~" Naganekia spat out the letter, her vertical pupils fixed on Sivir, the meaning of which was self-evident.

Unlike other Darkin, Naganeka does not enjoy pure killing. Instead, she prefers to use schemes and tricks to manipulate others and savor the fear and death that gradually ferment in despair.

Therefore, when she heard Kai'Sa say that she was going to set up a trap for Sivir, she was happy to participate and enthusiastically added some improvisation.

In reality, ancient Shurima did not have the evil custom of sacrifice, and opening imperial tombs did not require any offerings, only the key. She said this only to make what happened next more plausible.

"What makes you think you're so sure of winning? I've chopped off the heads of many who tried to stop me from escaping." Sivir brandished her weapon. "If this weapon had once belonged to the most powerful god, then slaying a god wouldn't be a problem, would it?"

Sivir did not give up the fight. The surrounding terrain was not suitable for throwing and catching the spinning blades. Her only way to survive was to find a way to distract Naganek and then seize the opportunity to cut off that ugly snake head from its neck!

“Without a doubt. But the people you’ve killed are nothing compared to me. I am Naganeka, the creator of this catacombs, and you are just another little mouse that has crawled into my lair.”

Naganekia had no intention of giving Sivir any chance. Instead, she stood still and pulled a crossbow from her black robes. Even if Sivir couldn't die, Naganekia was confident this would leave a lasting impression.

Chapter 406 There are two unlucky ones

Sivir charged toward Naganek, hoping to gain a slight advantage with a sudden acceleration, but a god is a god precisely because she is not someone that mortals can easily defeat.

Naganekal pulled the trigger, and a powerful arrow shot out from the ballista, piercing precisely through the ring in the crossbow in Sivir's hand, pinning Charikar to the wall.

She warned Sivir, "Move again, and next time it'll be your heart."

"Surrendering is never my style!" Sivir shouted angrily, taking the cross blade off the wall and throwing it back with all her might.

She no longer cared whether Charikar could fly back; if she didn't kill him, she knew she wouldn't survive the dungeon.

Even gods would have to give way to the sharpness of a divine weapon. Naganeka's expression changed, and she somersaulted backward several meters away. However, Charikar bounced off the wall a few times, which increased her speed. In the blink of an eye, she caught up with Naganeka.

"No—" The scream abruptly stopped. The serpent head of the god was severed by the cross-shaped blade and fell to the ground, its mouth still agape. It looked as if it was cursing, but no sound came out.

It was too easy… so easy that Sivir found it hard to believe. She hadn’t expected that her full-force attack would kill a god. Although it was mostly thanks to the power of the divine weapon, daring to raise a sword against a god was itself an extraordinary act of courage.

Sylvie wasn't blinded by joy. Anyone with a modicum of common sense knows that snakes can survive for a while after their heads are cut off, and approaching rashly now could very well result in being killed.

She wanted to wait until Naganeka completely stopped moving, but instead, she witnessed the corpse lying on the ground sprout another head—a human head. The snake head that had been on the ground solidified into stone, which Naganeka crushed into dust with a single stomp. (The last two lines appear to be unrelated and possibly machine-generated text.)

“You’re quite composed, not coming over to make sarcastic remarks, which took away some of my fun.” Naganekia smiled slightly: “However, this weapon is mine now.”

Seeing Charikar pinned to the wall behind Naganekal, Sivir knew she had no chance of turning the tide. Just then, in that moment of despair, a hidden door behind her suddenly opened.

She seized this only opportunity and ran for her life. She could do without the magical artifact; saving her life was the most important thing.

But then she bumped into a solid chest, bounced back, and fell to the ground.

Sivir frowned as she looked ahead. Another man in black robes emerged from the shadows of the hidden door, lifting his cloak to reveal a handsome but pale face.

The man in black robes is Naganeka's companion, Varus.

After despair comes only deeper despair. Seeing that her only way out was blocked, Sivir had no choice but to temporarily give up the fight.