Golden Rubiks Cube

Entering the black crystal gate, Han Sen felt his eyes were prickling from the blinding light. Ji Yanran gave Han Sen a pair of glasses, which made it much easier for him after putting it on.

Inspecting the patterns carved on the tunnel, he still did not understand what they meant. After going through the tunnel, the two reached a corridor with many rooms on the sides. Han Sen took a look and found several rooms had been opened.

He winked at Ji Yanran, and the couple sneaked into the first room that had been opened. Looking inside, they found the room was quite small, only about one hundred square feet. It was empty as well.

They carefully looked into several other rooms and found they were all empty.

"Li Mingtang must have taken what was inside," Ji Yanran said after a while.

"How do you know there used to be something?" Han Sen asked, puzzled.

"I have studied a lot of materials on Crystallizer civilization. Based on the design of these rooms, they should be Crystallizers' storage units. Although they did not contain as many crystals as the treasure, items used less often and trophies would be placed here." Ji Yanran pointed to the round holes on the floor of the room and continued, "These holes are actually transport tunnels. However, only Crystallizers could open them to transport items directly to the storage."

Han Sen did not quite understand. After he listened to Ji Yanran carefully, he pointed to the rooms that were still closed and asked, "Why didn't they open these doors then?"

Ji Yanran walked up to a closed storage room, observed the patterns on the door and said, "I still haven't learned enough about Crystallizer culture, so I do not understand well what these patterns mean. But I think they did not open the stores because these patterns symbolize something like danger or warning."

"Makes sense." Han Sen nodded and followed Ji Yanran.

Because Han Sen used the doppelgänger of beetle knight to lead the group of people inside, he did not have much to worry since it was just a doppelgänger. He controlled it to run fast and only stopped when the doppelgänger had got rid of those people completely.

The doppelgänger had already reached something like an underground plaza full of those statues of strange Crystallizer deities.

At this point, there were many forks on the path. Han Sen decided to stop the doppelgänger and commanded it to climb up a huge statue and hide in the ears of the statue.

Very soon, Han Sen saw Li Mingtang, Wang Hou, and others enter the underground plaza. It seemed that they were carrying some things with them. Han Sen wondered where they got the stuff.

"Han Sen runs pretty fast. It seems that he's not afraid of die in here." Researcher Zhang snorted after failing to find Han Sen by looking around.

"He gets to live because he ran fast. If we caught up with him, he would be doomed. If it were me, I would run as well," Wang Hou said quietly.

"With so many forks, who knows where he went? If we follow a path now, he could return to the entrance without us knowing. That would be troublesome, wouldn't it?" Zhang said.

After examining the different paths, Li Mingtang shook his head and said, "These path are no joke. If he enters the wrong one, he would not be able to return alive."

"Professor, where do these paths lead?" Wang Hou frowned and asked.

"These paths should all lead to the nurseries of Crystallizers. At the end of each path, there should be a nursery. Crystallizers pay a lot of attention to their nurseries, so there must be some significant traps. Even surpassers could not guarantee coming back alive," Li Mingtang explained.

"Are there really Crystallizers inside?" Wang Hou asked again.

"Dead ones, maybe. We have not found any living Crystallizer so far," replied Li Mingtang casually.

"Which path is the one that leads to the treasure?" Hearing there was no living Crystallizers, Wang Hou lost his interest and examined the paths.

"The real access is not one of those paths," Li Mingtang said and walked to the statues. After observing for a while, he pointed to a pyramid-shaped statue carved with circles and said, "The access should be under this statue. Come and push it aside."

The two researchers quickly turned their warframes on and drove over to push aside the 15-foot-tall statue.

Indeed, when the statue was moved aside, and entrance was exposed underneath.

However, before they had time to look at it, they heard a crackling noise inside the entrance. Li Mingtang suddenly gasped, "Come back immediately."

However, the two researchers did not had time to react when a golden shadow rushed out from the entrance. It was a golden crystal shaped like a 12 x 12 Rubik's cube, spinning continuously. For some unknown technology, it was floating in the air.

After the golden Rubik's cube emerged, as the pieces turned, golden light sabers of a dozen feet long were shot from its core. The golden light sabers flashed as the Rubik's cube moved around, cutting the warframe of a researcher into pieces instantly.

The other researcher became pale and drew his laser gun to shoot at the Rubik's cube. However, as the pieces were turning, the Rubik's cube quickly dodged his attack and approached his warframe swiftly.

The Rubik's cube clattered as it turned, the golden light sabers flashing and cutting the remaining warframe into pieces. Naturally, the person sitting inside had no way to survive.

After destroying the warframes, the Rubik's cube clattered again and flew toward Li Mingtang.

Li Mingtang fished something like a grenade from his clothes and threw it far away. With a distant noise, the golden Rubik's cube surprisingly left Li Mingtang alone and rushed toward the noise.

"Now." Li Mingtang quickly went down the entrance, and Wang Hou followed hastily.

After circling around the spot where the grenade exploded, the Rubik's cube seemed to know it had been tricked, turned around, went down the entrance, and disappeared from Han Sen's sight.

"Fortunately, I chose to hide here, otherwise when my real body and Yanran arrived here, we might die without even knowing what has happened." As Han Sen was deep in his thoughts, he saw something climbing out from the spot of the explosion of the specially-made grenade.

Han Sen glanced at it and was covered in cold sweat.

From the gaps of crystal climbed out a little thing green and transparent, looking like a unicorn beetle.