Demon Stone

"This is... safe?" Lin Feng gasped for air, finally evening out his breathing. He then looked incredulously at the quiet rock hall. The passage they had just rushed into had been completely blocked by the explosion triggered by the lightning strike. The undead knights that had been chasing them were all trapped on the other side. While these knights were incredibly strong, they were not at the level of Muyun, who could split rocks barehanded. Additionally, being made of metal with limited strength, they probably couldn't dig through the rubble—at least not in the short term.

It seemed they could catch their breath and assess the current situation.

"Probably... not yet," Vivian murmured with closed eyes, sensing the energy flow of the entire underground palace. "The aura of death is everywhere, but for some reason, everything seems calm for now. The ones chasing us just now were only a small part of them..."

"What?! Just a small part?!" Lin Feng was startled. "What was the lord of this place planning back then?"

At this moment, Muyun was rummaging through the pile of completely shattered armor pieces, showing the curiosity typical of a canine creature. Suddenly, she discovered something strange on a deformed chest armor piece. "Hey, hey, bats, come and see what this is. Is this also a Leta rune?"

The big dog and the bat seemed to have no intention of calling each other by their names properly.

Vivian walked over and kicked Muyun's leg in protest before bending down to pick up the chest armor piece. Sure enough, on the silver-white metal plate, there were twisted patterns, but the chest armor was severely damaged, and the runes on it were incomplete. "Look for other rune-bearing fragments. These things... should be decipherable."

"I'll help too." Lin Feng called out and began searching through the armor fragments with Muyun. Most of these pieces had been shattered by Vivian's freezing cold, so they could hardly find any intact metal pieces. However, after searching for a while, Lin Feng noticed something: it seemed that every undead knight had runes on them.

Moreover, all the runes were carved in the same place, with no difference in size or shape, as if all the knights' armor were "mass-produced."

"I found it!" It was Muyun who first found a complete armor piece, handing over a square metal plate about a foot long to Vivian, who immediately began translating the runes on it. "...Demon Chamber's warden, sentinel, the sleepless warrior... tasked with guarding the demon's power, repelling invaders... entry to the Demon Chamber is forbidden... a rune where both contract and enchantment take effect simultaneously."

Lin Feng was confused. "What does this mean?"

"It seems we've misunderstood something." Vivian's expression turned subtle. "Initially, we thought the sealing system in the palace was meant to suppress the undead below, and that these knight spirits were the ones being suppressed. But the reality is quite the opposite: these knights are also part of the palace's defense system. They are the guardians here, and the ones truly suppressed are something else."

Lin Feng looked down at a piece of metal fragment in his hand. He had already guessed this: the armor buried in the palace was obviously carefully arranged, with a complete range of troops and well-equipped. They didn't look like the ones being suppressed. It made sense that they were the palace's guards. And since these undead were not the ones being suppressed, then what was truly being suppressed in this palace...

"Demon?" Lin Feng heard Vivian mention this word when she translated the runes earlier. "This... this is not good! Don't tell me this place is suppressing demons—do such beings really exist on Earth?"

"Creatures like me, a bloodsucker, and Muyun, a... um, werewolf, exist, so why can't demons?" Vivian casually threw the armor piece onto the ground and corroded it clean with her blood mist. Her tone sounded serious as she continued, "It's just that there are many errors in human myths and legends, categorizing many powerful and violent aberrations as 'demons.' So, I can't be sure whether the 'demons' mentioned in these runes are true demons or something else. If they are imposters, it's manageable. But if they are genuine... it's going to be troublesome."

After a moment of contemplation, Vivian added, "Judging by the professionalism of the runes on the previous stone walls, the one who designed this underground palace is most likely a demon hunter. Demon hunters are experts, and they wouldn't make mistakes in classification... There's a high probability that genuine demons are being suppressed here."

Lin Feng's face twitched. "You'd better not add that last sentence!"

Ignoring Lin Feng's sarcasm, Vivian searched more carefully for the remaining runes on the armor fragments, hoping to use these guards to determine what exactly they were suppressing. Muyun, on the other hand, looked somewhat worried. "Did we just beat the guards used to suppress demons? Doesn't that mean we've released the demons? Did we... do something bad?"

It was fortunate to have such a kind-hearted werewolf girl. Lin Feng patted Muyun's shoulder. "It's okay. The data terminal just said the seal in the palace expired long ago, and the remaining bits of tin cans won't hold up. At most, we're just assisting the unworthy..."

"It might not be the actual demon itself; the runes mentioned on the armor talk about the Demon Stone," Vivian picked up another piece of armor. "This is a leg piece, and there's another part of the runes on it, mentioning a place in the palace called the 'Demon Chamber,' which stores the Demon Stone instead of the actual demon. If it's just a stone, the situation might not be that bad."

Lin Feng felt like he was listening to a fantasy story. "What is the Demon Stone?"

"Demon's proficiency lies in spatial powers. The Demon Stone is their positioning device for teleportation, as well as a remote medium for their corruption in the mortal realm, much like a demon's power incarnation. The material of the Demon Stone is very special, even demon hunters find it difficult to destroy them, so the usual method is suppression. After suppressing them for a few hundred years, it's basically safe."

"Oh, after a few hundred years, the power of the Demon Stone is depleted, right?" Lin Feng said somewhat presumptuously.

"No, it's just that after a few hundred years, they can't be contacted anymore. Demons usually just get a new one—if you lose your phone for two months and can't make a call, wouldn't you get a new one?"

"..." Lin Feng found it hard to argue with that logic, but why did he feel like a mouthful of sarcasm was stuck in his throat, unable to come up or go down!

"So, the Demon Stone in this palace is still there, and it's still usable," Muyun swallowed hard. She might be a bit simple, but she wasn't stupid. "We can only hope that the demon behind it has changed its number. If the situation in the palace stimulates the Demon Stone..."

"Eight or nine times out of ten, it will come to check the situation. Even if you lose your phone number for two years and suddenly receive a text message, you should have some impression, right? Demons have always had good memories." Vivian pondered.

Lin Feng pressed his temples hard. "The most important point: can you two defeat a demon?"

"I don't know." Vivian looked somewhat embarrassed. "In theory, we are both considered 'aberrants' of equal level, and there are also weak demons among demons. But as you know, I've always been a pacifist and rarely fight. The largest-scale battle I participated in was when I helped the Trojans fight the Greeks for five years when I was almost starving to death. Then I helped the Greeks fight the Trojans for another five years..."

"...In this situation, I have no strength to comment on Vivian's magnificent and turbulent black history." Lin Feng had no energy left to comment on Vivian's epic history.

At this moment, Muyun finally had a moment of enlightenment. She suddenly realized something. "Hey, bats, you said earlier that the runes mention: the guards must not enter the Demon Chamber. What does that mean?"

"While the undead guards are useful, their techniques themselves come from demons. So, they can only be used to guard the perimeter of the palace and cannot be too close to the chamber where the Demon Stone is stored."

"Then, did you notice that there... are no guards in this hall?" As Muyun's voice fell, silence filled the hall.

The three of them felt a chill blowing in from all directions. Lin Feng cautiously scanned the entire stone room, his face full of bitterness. "Vivian, what does the Demon Stone look like?"

The vampire girl recalled, "They are basically irregular, elongated black crystals, ranging from half a meter to a meter in length. They look like smoked glass, with a reddish tip..."

Tears welled up in Lin Feng's eyes. "...Is it the one hanging from the ceiling?"