Chapter 382: Chapter 382: The Treasure Hall

The thick stench of rot and death, so strong it almost felt solid, crashed into their senses like a tidal wave.

"Ugh..."

Cheryl’s face turned pale. She quickly covered her mouth and nose, forcing down the nausea rising in her stomach.

Rainn’s beautiful face also lost all color in an instant.

Her delicate body trembled slightly, and her eyes were filled with shock and disbelief.

"These... were all the people who guarded the treasure back then?"

She took a difficult step forward, walked to a relatively well-preserved Miko corpse, and crouched down.

A strange dagger, black as ink, was stuck deep in the corpse’s chest.

Even now, the blade of the dagger still glowed with a dark green poisonous light.

Rainn’s pupils suddenly shrank, and her voice trembled.

"This is a weapon made for assassination!"

"They weren’t killed by traps."

Aiden’s cold voice came calmly from not far away.

He stood with his hands behind his back, surrounded by bones. His deep eyes swept over the huge space like those of a god.

Across the corpses on the ground, terrifying signs of battle still remained.

Some bodies had smooth cuts where their heads had been taken off in one strike.

Some were charred remains, blasted apart by violent magic.

Others were huge skeletons full of holes, eaten away by deadly poison.

These deaths were not caused by some underground palace trap.

This had been a one-sided massacre.

"Someone got here before us."

Aiden’s eyes turned cold, and an overwhelming pressure spread from his body.

Rainn took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. Then she stood up.

Her gaze passed over the endless sea of corpses and blood, locking onto the center of the space.

There, a huge black stone tablet stood silently.

Its surface was covered in sword cuts and blade marks, giving off an ancient, sorrowful feeling.

Rainn walked forward quickly and gently brushed her fingers over the old, hidden Miko words carved into the tablet.

Her clear, ethereal voice slowly echoed through the dead underground space.

"I am the Thirteenth Primordial Miko."

"The Crow Miko betrayed us, slaughtered the guardians, and tried to seize the supreme treasure."

"I used the last of my strength to seal this underground palace and hide the treasure even deeper."

"Future inheritors, if you see this tablet, you must kill the Crow Miko. Only then can the true treasure be opened."

When she finished reading, the whole space fell into deathly silence again.

Cheryl frowned slightly and looked at her sister in confusion.

"The Thirteenth Primordial Miko?"

"Didn’t you say before that it was the Third Primordial Miko?"

Rainn slowly shook her head, her expression turning much more serious.

"I misunderstood it before."

"The Wraithshard of the Third Primordial Miko was only the guardian in charge of the temple trial."

"But this Thirteenth Primordial Miko was the one who truly buried the supreme treasure here."

Aiden narrowed his eyes. A dangerous cold light flashed deep within them.

"The Crow Miko..."

"What does it have to do with that bastard outside the temple, the one who’s been watching us like a fly?"

Rainn turned to Aiden and took a deep breath.

"It’s a legacy."

"The Crow Miko is not just a name. It is a dark title passed down from generation to generation."

"The Crow Miko from back then started that cruel rebellion and massacre."

"In other words..."

Rainn’s eyes suddenly became extremely sharp, and a vast surge of Origin Power rose around her.

"The person outside, the one who has been hunting us all this time..."

"Is the Fourteenth Crow Miko!"

...

The three of them walked deeper into the underground palace, stepping over broken bones scattered across the floor.

In the silent underground space, only the cracking sound of bones echoed through the darkness.

The deeper they went, the stronger the suffocating air of death became.

But Aiden, walking at the front, moved as if he were on flat ground. His steps never slowed, calm and steady, as if he were taking a casual walk.

At last, a huge black stone door stood before them, blocking their path completely.

The door was dozens of meters tall. It was made entirely of Abyssal Black Gold, an extremely rare metal from the Abyss, and it gave off an ancient, icy aura.

In the very center of the heavy stone door was the carving of a lifelike black crow with its wings spread wide.

Its eyes glowed with a strange ghostly light, as if it were cruelly mocking every visitor.

"It’s the seal of the Crow Miko."

Rainn stopped. A serious look appeared on her beautiful face.

"After the Thirteenth Primordial Miko sealed the supreme treasure even deeper inside, the Crow Miko added another seal outside it by force, to stop anyone from entering."

Aiden’s face showed no emotion. He walked straight up to the huge stone door.

He slowly raised his right hand. His fingers were long and graceful as he pressed his palm against the cold surface of the door.

Boom!

In the next instant, a terrifying wave of soul power at the peak of the Great Venerable level burst out from Aiden’s body like a broken ocean dam.

An invisible soul storm swept in every direction, shaking the dry bones around them into dust.

That incredibly powerful soul force rushed through Aiden’s palm and forced its way into the stone door, tearing apart the seal’s inner structure layer by layer.

A moment later, Aiden pulled back his hand. Absolute confidence flashed in his deep eyes.

"This seal is complicated, but it can be broken by force. It will just take some time."

Aiden turned his head slightly. His cold gaze swept over Rainn and Cheryl behind him.

"You two keep watch. That ’fly’ hiding in the dark could show up at any moment."

"I’ll break the seal."

Rainn did not waste a single word. She nodded firmly.

She and Cheryl stood back to back with perfect understanding, guarding Aiden from both sides. A vast surge of Origin Power and a sharp battle aura instantly locked down the area around them.

Aiden turned back and took a deep breath.

At that moment, the temperature around them began to rise wildly without warning.

Boom!

The fierce and unstoppable Divine Golden Sunflame erupted with Aiden at its center.

Blinding golden flames shot upward, lighting up the dark underground space as bright as day.

The terrifying heat, powerful enough to burn even gods, instantly burned away the cold, dark aura on the stone door.

"Break!"

Aiden’s eyes turned sharp. He suddenly clenched his right fist, carrying a world-destroying Strength, and slammed it hard into the empty air.

The Divine Golden Sunflame gathered in the air and turned into a giant golden fist as large as a small mountain.

Carrying a terrifying force that seemed able to tear space apart, the giant fist smashed down hard toward the unbreakable Abyssal Black Gold door.

Boom!!!

A deafening blast rang out, as if the entire underground palace was about to collapse.

The stone door shook violently. Under the burning golden flames, the image of the crow with its wings spread became just a tiny bit dimmer.

The first strike did not break it, but Aiden did not even frown.

His arms turned into blurs. He threw punch after punch, like an untiring ancient war god, wildly attacking the barrier in front of him.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The endless impacts sounded like the heartbeat of a giant beast, deep and deadly.

The terrifying backlash turned into visible golden shockwaves, spreading outward in circles. Within a thousand meters, the ground was scraped down by several feet.

If Rainn and Cheryl had not been so powerful, the aftershocks alone would have been enough to send them flying.

A full half hour passed.

When Aiden threw yet another punch—after countless thousands before it—the proud black crow pattern finally let out a sharp, miserable cry and shattered completely into nothingness. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Crack...

A thin crack appeared in the very center of the stone door.

Then the crack spread wildly like a spiderweb.

Rumble!

The huge stone door, dozens of meters tall, finally could no longer withstand the half hour of nonstop destruction. It shattered with a thunderous crash, breaking into countless pieces of stone that collapsed to the ground.

As dust filled the air, an ancient aura sealed away for a thousand years rushed out from behind the door like a storm, mixed with a maddening glow of treasure.

A treasure hall so huge it almost stole their breath was laid bare before the three of them.

The dazzling light was so bright it nearly blinded them.

All around the hall, treasure chests were piled up like mountains, casually left open. Countless high-level items, shining with strange and beautiful lights, were stacked together like trash.

On tall shelves made of black-gold wood, top-tier equipment sat in neat rows. Each piece gave off a terrifying pressure, and any one of them would be enough to cause a bloody storm in the outside world.

"This... this is way too much, isn’t it?"

Cheryl’s watery eyes widened. Her small mouth fell open, and she even forgot to breathe.

Even as a genius of the Abyss Miko clan, she had never seen such insane wealth before.

Shock also flashed through Rainn’s beautiful eyes, impossible to hide.

She knew the treasure left behind by the Supreme Miko would be rich, but she had never imagined it would be this rich—so much that it almost made no sense.

This was basically the treasure vault of a god.

However, in front of this mountain of priceless treasures, Aiden’s face did not change at all.

His deep eyes, calm like an ancient well, completely ignored the countless rare weapons and items shining all around him.

His gaze was fixed on the very center of the hall.

There were no flashy treasure chests there. No piles of gold coins.

Only three supreme treasures floated quietly in the air, each giving off a different but equally noble and mysterious light.

Those were the true core of the entire treasure hall.

Aiden’s robe fluttered slightly as he strode toward the center of the hall.