They looked at each other—each could see the worry on the other's face.
Xue Yanluo shook his head and crossed through the door, saying as he went, "Don't think too much about it—it won't do any good."
After him, everyone else crossed through. The soldiers entered in formation, and when all had passed, the door closed.
There was no time to react before the door finished separating both spaces, cutting off the way they had come.
There was no time to dwell on it—they had to keep moving. The group marched forward down a corridor that took no more than three yawns to cross.
At the end of the corridor, no majestic hall awaited them, nor a spacious one, let alone an intact one.
It was a hall in its worst state, the ceiling wounded and the walls bowed. In the center, a great slab extended between the floor and ceiling—its whitish, almost transparent color was the only clean thing in it.
The slab sat on a small pedestal stained dark red, and parts of the original blue brick it had been built with could still be seen through it.
There was nothing in the hall that could hold anyone's eye while that slab stood—it simply held everything in its grip.
General Huo and his junior generals checked that there was no danger in the hall before gathering near the slab.
The soldiers positioned themselves further from it, their task to guard the door they had entered through and keep watch over every corner of the hall.
None of the generals knew what the slab could be, and still fewer dared to go near it and find out, only letting a few words loose into the air. "Does anyone know what that is?"
"How would we know," answered a junior general.
A junior general arched his back forward to satisfy the growing curiosity he had about the pedestal rather than the slab.
He was afraid of the slab, but the pedestal? It was just stone and some strange substance stuck to its surface.
Huo Yanming had studied every part of the slab and finally struck it with his spear—it trembled slightly before going still. Huo Yanming frowned, seeing that his strike hadn't left even a trace.
Xue Yanluo had his nose wrinkled and his eyes narrowed as he raised his hand to cover it—he wasn't the only one; the other vampires reacted almost the same way.
A sharp, acrid smell had recently invaded his nose, intent on destroying his sense of smell if he didn't do something about it.
Bao Qingcao had covered her nose with her whole hand and whispered, staring hard at the stained pedestal. "Is that… blood?"
"Yes… Dried blood—and it's been here a long time," Hua Zhenfeng answered beside her.
Both looked back at the pedestal, no longer as before, but with a grave unease in their eyes. A pedestal painted in dried blood—not the best sign.
Their eyes moved to Xue Yanluo, and Hua Zhenfeng asked, "What do we do? Do we tell them?"
Xue Yanluo looked at Huo Yanming and shook his head. "He's already noticed. Let's wait."
Huo Yanming had picked up the smell easily, having breathed it thousands of times across his many battles and fights, and with his senses now sharpened, detecting it had been simple.
"TAKE CARE! The pedestal is covered in old blood!"
One general couldn't hold himself and stepped back, then corrected it with a step forward and drove his feet firmly into place.
All the junior generals wore grave expressions as they looked at the pedestal differently now—especially the one who had arched his back to get a better look at it.
His face creased and his lips drew tight—every trace of curiosity he'd had about the pedestal was gone, replaced by contempt and disgust.
Xue Yanluo looked around, inspecting the area of the slab and pedestal with great attention. With what he knew, he tried to work out the purpose of the hall, but there was no way to.
It was a hall that existed at the end of a very long corridor and enormous stairs. The hall was small, considering the size the people who had used those stairs to descend would have to be.
They would have had to enter bent over or crouching, so this hall couldn't have been meant for them—but for smaller beings.
His thoughts couldn't go any further, as the ceiling of the hall twisted—dust and fragments crumbling down continuously.
That state held for a few seconds, and then a small hole opened in the ceiling above the slab where a sticky liquid slid through and entered the translucent slab.
The slab filled slowly, losing its pale purity as it filled with a yellow viscosity. The liquid was in no hurry to fall from the hole, and at the slightest opportunity it clung to the edge, only descending because of gravity.
Inside the slab, the liquid roared as it struck the walls as though it had recovered its life after entering.
Hua Zhenfeng had his eyes fixed on the yellow liquid and couldn't help saying, "This is… this is the yellow liquid from that forest."
Xue Yanluo closed his eyes and recalled a few moments in that forest, then opened them again and let out the air inside him. He raised his head and looked carefully at the hole from which the liquid dripped.
With his sharper sight, he saw a bluish gas falling alongside the liquid, clinging to it carefully, then pulling away the moment it touched the slab.
"A gas to put a liquid to sleep?" Xue Yanluo was baffled, not knowing what to make of it. He had never heard of a living liquid, let alone a gas used to sedate one.
"Why are you smiling?" asked Bao Qingcao, looking at Xue Yanluo.
Xue Yanluo blinked and touched his face with his hand. "It's exciting."
"Exciting…?" Hua Zhenfeng repeated under his breath. His color had drained the moment he saw the yellow liquid, and knowing it was the same one from those trees, he was terrified.
That liquid drained the life of everything it touched and had been made to parasitize the trees and attack itself—he had no words to describe such a thing and only wished never to see it again.
Huo Yanming shifted between the filling slab and the hole in the ceiling. He finally made up his mind and ordered, "Fall back a couple of meters and wait for further orders!"
Before stepping back, he took his spear in both hands, arched his back, advanced his right foot and tensed it, and then drove his spear at the slab.
It trembled with less force than before—the liquid inside had absorbed the blow. If that was how things stood, he wanted to try one last thing.
He set himself again to drive a thrust with his spear. He took the same stance as before, but this time his grip twisted hard around the shaft. An orange mist coiled along the length of the spear, concentrating at its tip.
Seconds later, he launched the blow with his spear intent, and as it struck the slab, the intent filtered inside—and the liquid that had always evaded his strikes had nowhere to escape and cried out at the lightest touch.
The yellow liquid began to pour from the hole with greater urgency, drawn toward the yellow mass inside the slab, filling it rapidly. The pedestal lit up blue, and all the dark blood covering it broke free, flowing again in streams and boiling across its surface.
Huo Yinming stepped back quickly and murmured, "It seems it's angry."