"Good giant, I'm suffocating," the Shell Lady said, pinching her nose with a face full of grievance.

Chen Shouyi noticed that after breathing for so long, there were no unusual sensations in his body.

He breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it should be non-toxic, and then said to the Shell Lady, "You can breathe."

Upon hearing that, the Shell Lady quickly let go of her nose, looked at the bodies of the dead here, and nervously asked, "Good giant, are all these bad guys dead?"

"Dead!"

"They won't eat the little ones?"

"No, they won't!"

Is that really what you should be worrying about?

Chen Shouyi looked speechlessly at the intact stone door ahead, walked forward, and quietly listened for a while. Apart from the faint sound of wind passing through the corridor from outside, it was silent inside.

He hesitated for a moment, stepped back, and kicked it.

With a sudden explosion of several tons of force.

A "boom" sound.

The stone door was kicked out, creating a small pit, rubble scattering, and fine cracks quickly spreading.

He kicked it continuously a dozen times.

Finally, with a rumbling sound, this stone door, a meter thick, was kicked into a large hole.

He quickly retreated dozens of meters.

Patiently waiting for more than ten minutes.

Once the dust settled and the air circulated again, he stooped and entered.

A strong, decaying, moldy odor hit him, filled with the breath of ages, like a long-sealed tomb finally welcoming a visitor.

Indeed, it was actually like that.

This was a giant cavern, over ten meters high, and at its widest, seven to eight hundred meters, and at its narrowest, three to four hundred meters. Large amounts of fluorite on the ceiling were densely scattered like stars, bringing a dim light to the place.

All around was dead silent, filled with the aura of death. Numerous four-armed giant corpses lay scattered on the ground, numbering no less than a thousand, some of which were clearly children based on their size.

Looking around, he saw many murals on the rock wall, painted with stone carvings and pigments.

It could be seen that many of the murals were very old, the carved traces already weathered and blurred.

The first mural depicted a landscape of mountains, rivers, and streams.

The whole land was completely barren, inhabited only by a gigantic creature that was neither man nor beast. To emphasize its enormity, the four-armed giants had it straddling two mountain peaks separated by several rivers.

The two peaks beneath its feet were not even as tall as its instep, resembling mere stones underfoot, while the clouds above the sky only reached its shins.

"This mural is too exaggerated. Such a giant creature couldn't possibly exist; maybe it was intended to show the greatness of the deities they worshiped?" he thought silently.

But then, Chen Shouyi grew more surprised, feeling that it told a mythological story.

The second mural depicted this enormous entity collapsing, with various strange lives emerging from its corpse.

Among these lives, one in particular caught Chen Shouyi's attention: a towering tree, soaring into the sky.

It could be seen that these beings were not ordinary lives.

Some could fly and traverse the earth, some had immense strength, some breathed fire, and some froze all things...

The more Chen Shouyi looked, the more shocked he became. It seemed to describe the origin of this otherworld.

Scientists had once posited a bizarre hypothesis based on the shared language genes among all creatures of this otherworld. It suggested that all beings here might stem from a singular origin, perfectly echoing the mural's depiction.

"Then that towering tree standing centrally and piercing the clouds must be the World Tree."

"Good giant, let's not stay here, let's go back." The Shell Lady, gazing at the giant bodies littering the ground, nervously whispered.

"Don't be afraid, they're all dead," Chen Shouyi reassured.

Not only dead, but even their divine souls extinguished, leaving not a trace of chill behind.

He was utterly captivated by these ancient murals, soothing the Shell Lady and continuing to examine them.

The subsequent murals depicted these beings starting to fight.

It was totally an apocalyptic scene.

The land was breaking apart, the sky ablaze, and numerous lives started perishing.

By the end of the war, Chen Shouyi saw that the towering tree standing centrally in the land, presumably the World Tree, was also broken.

When the war subsided, the remaining lives numbered only a few.

The style of the murals then shifted to record significant events in the history of the four-armed giant race.

Among them, battles occupied the majority.

Many murals showed scenes of four-armed giants battling terrifying giant beasts alone.

The figures in the murals were likely clan leaders from each generation, as ordinary clansmen wouldn't be afforded such a depiction.

It was clear this race was incredibly powerful, facing enemies often far larger than these four-armed giants.

Chen Shouyi keenly noticed that there wasn't any depiction of sacrificial rituals in the murals.

But when he thought about it, it made sense. Such an overwhelmingly powerful race, with almost no natural enemies, wouldn't need any deities.

Initially novel, these murals became monotonous after a while; proceeding further, he glanced rapidly at them without knowing how many he had seen; possibly over ten thousand.

These murals recorded the changes over time, becoming clearer the farther back one went, with artistic styles transitioning from abstract to realistic.

If the murals were only created when major events occurred in the tribe, this race might have lived here for tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of years.

Chen Shouyi soon reached the end of the murals; the last one depicted a scene of corpses and blood everywhere, stained with a black smear.

It might be blood.

The artist seemed visibly agitated, drawing it extremely chaotically.

The image forewarned misfortune, causing Chen Shouyi to pause for a long look, his heart couldn't help but throb violently.

"Could it be that before they died, these four-armed giants foresaw their doom?"

"But if they knew their enemies were so strong, why didn't they flee? What exactly happened?"

Chen Shouyi quickly returned to the previous few murals, and finally discerned some subtle clues.

He noticed in the fourth-to-last mural, numerous four-armed giants seemed to invade a tribe, grabbing little people and stuffing them into their mouths.

In one corner, there was a depiction of a broken statue.

"These little people should be the Barbarians, and the statue is likely a divine statue, offending the divine," Chen Shouyi thought silently.

In the third-to-last mural, a glowing Barbarian and a four-armed giant were fiercely fighting, with two four-armed giants lying nearby, clearly dead.

The second-to-last mural showed the death of the Barbarian, with countless four-armed giants loudly celebrating.

Then followed the ominous final image.

Chen Shouyi stood still, lost in deep thought, feeling as if a heavy stone weighed on his heart.

"This Barbarian shrouded in light was probably an avatar of the deity's will in a disciple. After being slain by the strong of the four-armed giants, the deity was infuriated, casting divine punishment to exterminate the entire four-armed giant race. The desert outside is likely formed in the same way."

If this is indeed true, then the deity is extraordinarily powerful beyond imagination.

Humans have limited understanding of the otherworld, especially regarding deities. The only sources of information are Martial Artists' explorations and captured Barbarians, yet the former have a narrow exploration scope and cannot access deities, while the latter, even Priests, perhaps remain largely ignorant about their worshiped deities.

The information between deities and ordinary creatures is almost disconnected.

Besides deities understanding deities, other creatures struggle to grasp anything about them.

ps: Tomorrow, two more chapters.

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