Chapter 218: Oil Painting
Chapter 218: Oil Painting
Da da da… Clear footsteps echoed in the empty street.
Heath was walking alone on the deserted long street.
“This should be the temple, the altars are all here… The book said that in order to please Everett, Essos used living people as sacrifices. I don’t know if it’s true…”
“Is this a residential area? Domed structures are rare nowadays…”
“Such tall buildings… I wonder how the humans managed to do it back then? They must have used magic, right? It’s impossible for such a magnificent building to be built without magic…”
The wide and heavy stone bridge was suspended between the mountain walls that were thousands of meters high. On both sides of the bridge piers stood sculptures that were thousands of meters tall with huge axes in their hands. The spiral staircase meandered along the lonely peak all the way up to the sky where only clouds could be seen…
One by one, strange and magical objects that went against the common sense of physics were listed in front of Heath.
Looking at the ancient buildings that had been washed away by history, Heath could not help but think of his own childhood.
At that time, he liked to go to some abandoned places with his little friends for exploration. He even imagined that one day when he grew up, he could become an explorer and explore some unvisited ancient sites in no-man’s-land. Now, he could be considered to have finished tracing the source.
Twilight City was definitely a historical representative city in the Wizard World. It was even earlier than the historical periods of Higrama and Sinora. It had been more than 10,000 years since then, it was a product of the first era of the Wizard World.
The history of the Wizard World was roughly divided into four eras. They were the ancient era of gods in the first era, which represented the civilization of gods, and Essos. The Twilight Ruins belonged to this era.
The ancient era of the Wizards in the second era was the era of the rule of the ancient Wizards, which represented the Sinora Dynasty.
The era in the third era was the era of the ancient conflicts, which represented the Higrama Dynasty.
The fourth era, which was the era that Heath was currently in, was also known as the era of the Wizard Alliance.
[Beep, extraordinary substance found. It can be extracted.]
At this moment, the crisp sound of the system’s notification rang in his ears. At the same time, a strange feeling came from his spiritual power.
Heath immediately walked in the direction that his spiritual power had sensed.
Along the way, he came to a low stone wall. Heath found the substance that the system had notified him about under the stone wall.
It was an oil painting, framed in a picture frame. Heath could smell the smell of Immortal Powder and Time Flowers from it. These were all materials that had anti-corrosion effects. It was probably because of this that the photo frame and the canvas could be maintained for so long.
It was also because of these materials. Although a long time had passed, the contents of the painting were still intact.
“Is this… Twilight City?”
From the scenery depicted in the painting, this was no other place. It was the Twilight City ruins that he was currently in.
The entire painting should record a death sentence. The scene was a little terrifying.
The scene took place in a wide square. In the middle of the square, there was a high platform built with wooden shelves. In the middle of the high platform, there was a man tied up. He was currently facing a death sentence. A few men wearing high triangular headgear were holding daggers and cutting off pieces of the man’s flesh. Half of his bones were already exposed, making him look extremely terrifying.
The man who had suffered inhuman torture was obviously in excruciating pain, and his face was distorted.
In absolute contrast, the people around the execution platform were all squeezing towards the execution platform one after another. They were excitedly fighting over something.
What they were fighting over was the flesh of the man on the high platform.
The men wearing triangular headgear cut off the man’s flesh and threw it to the surrounding people. The people who received the flesh were all scrambling to stuff it into their mouths. The scene was quite disgusting.
As he looked at it, Heath was actually in a daze. At the same time, the oil painting in his hand seemed to come to life…
“Ah! Ah! Ah!”
“Kill him, kill that evil devil!”
“Eat its flesh!”
“Eat its flesh and you’ll be immortal!”
“Devil!”
Vaguely, it was as if a boiling human voice rang in Heath’s ears. The people in the oil painting also began to move.
Heath didn’t have any expression when he saw this strange scene. It was as if he had already lost his soul. He only knew how to look at the oil painting with his head lowered. His eyes were dazed.
At the same time, a ball of black fog quietly gushed out of the oil painting and rushed towards his body…
“Wake up…”
“Be careful…”
“Wake up!” At this moment, a voice shouted.
Heath was frightened and quickly woke up.
“What happened just now?”
He stared at the painting in his hand and looked at it carefully. The painting had already recovered to its original state. The voice that had been ringing in his ears suddenly stopped, as if everything that had happened just now was just an illusion.
No… It wasn’t an illusion!
Heath cut into his spiritual sea and clearly saw the signs of the Half-Life Soul being eroded again.
It was a Wraith!
“What a powerful Wraith. It can actually forcefully invade? Or is it because this scroll has the effect of strengthening spiritual power?”
He didn’t dare to be careless. He hurriedly threw the oil painting in his hand forward and looked at the oil painting at the same time.
Bang!
The oil painting turned into a ball of flame and started to burn.
No matter how precious the attributes were, it was not as important as his life. It was better not to get involved with such a material that could corrode his Half-Life Soul.
“Ah!!!”
A black shadow suddenly appeared in the burning flame. It let out a shrill scream while struggling violently. Heath quickly increased the intensity of the flame, after a series of intense burns, the black shadow was quickly reduced to ashes.
Ding! At this moment, there was a soft sound.
Something fell from the burnt oil painting. Heath pulled out his cross sword and pushed it away from the fire. It looked like a small piece of iron.
He then extended his spiritual tentacles to scan it. After confirming that there was nothing unclean, he picked up the small piece of iron and carefully observed it.
“This is… the Dawn Gathering?”
The pattern on it seemed to come from the Dawn Gathering. It was a Wizard organization from the era of the gods and one of the earliest Wizard organizations. The Dawn Tower they built was also one of the most powerful organizations in the Wizard World. It was an existence above the Tower of Order, one of the true rulers of the Wizard World.
It was rumored that they were also active in the West Coast, spreading magic. It seemed that the rumors were true.
Holding the iron piece, Heath tried to extract it.
[Beep, extraction successful. Spiritual Power +0.01]
There was nothing else.
“It’s still an antique. This is too weak.”
Shaking his head, Heath put away his complaints. Although the iron piece did not contribute much attribute value, it was an antique left behind by the Dawn Tower and had a high research value, even if it was sold, many Wizards would be interested in it.
After putting away the iron piece, Heath continued to explore the surroundings. Since there were traces of Wizard activity here, he should be able to find more extraordinary items.
The situation was just as he had guessed.
[Beep, extraordinary substance found. Extractable.]
[Beep, extraordinary substance found…]
With the help of the system, Heath found many items in the ruins. There were broken hourglasses, rusty compasses, silver brooches, and so on.
The most valuable one was the silver badge. It was a genuine Wizard tool. Although it was only at the Apprentice level, it used a lot of primitive magic knowledge and was of great value for research.
While searching for various materials, Heath explored the area.
When he came to the side of a broken pool, he suddenly heard footsteps behind him.
He saw a Knight running towards him. It was one of the Knights who came with him. Heath remembered that his name was Javier.
“Sir Wizard!”
Javier ran in front of Heath and bowed. “Burbitt and I found a ruined building over there. We can reach the other end of the ruins from there.”
After a pause, he added, “But we ran into trouble in front of the ruins…”