Chapter 32.2

Suddenly, he felt a faint trace that seemed to be there.

"Undead!" Oswald exclaimed as he finally made out the word in front of "Open the way."

Oswald pondered the meaning of the phrase "unless the dead make their way." Where could the undead come from?

As he was thinking, he heard the faint howls again, this time seemingly emanating from the depths of the earth.

Could it be...

Oswald's eyes fell on the muddy ground in front of the thornbush. He brushed the dirt from his hands and stood up, then addressed the people behind him. "Where are the others? Are you all awake? Go and call everyone over."

The two generals responded and hurried back along the path.

A short while later, everyone was assembled, including the medical officer. They all held weapons in their hands, and the blood in their eyes had not yet faded. Some of them still had drops of water on their faces, as if they had just forced themselves awake.

"What's going on?" Nick wiped the water from his face and shook his head vigorously.

The medical officer explained hesitantly, "It must have been a handful of medicine that was added to the fire. If I'm not mistaken, it probably came from me..."

At this time, Oswald was no longer concerned with how everyone had fallen asleep or where the medicine had come from. There was only one thought in his head: Kevin, that bastard, had said before they left that he wanted to go to the grave alone. And after a long journey, he had done just that, because he thought he would never die.

Damn it, he can't die!

Oswald stood up with a sullen expression. "Simple division of labor, Nick. You order five men to come and cut down all the thorns and vines. As for the rest..."

He raised his foot and stepped on the ground covered in wet mud, enunciating each word carefully. "Turn this entire piece of land over for me!"

No one asked any questions. They simply got to work.

Soon, however, one of the teams ran into a problem.

"Your Majesty! These vines... cannot be cut off." Nick spoke with a hint of bewilderment.

Oswald looked over. Nick raised his sword and slashed fiercely at the cane, leaving deep cuts. Some of the thinner vines even broke directly.

In the next second, the horizontal openings on the thick canes rejoined together in the next second, and the thinner ones directly sprouted new branches. In short, the wall of thorns remained unchanged, except for some rapidly rotting vines that had piled up on the ground.

Oswald was not surprised by this outcome. In fact, he had expected it. He had never expected that the wall of thorns would be anything ordinary, let alone that it could be split open to reveal the gate to the God's Tomb.

However, one had to try, did they not? What if something unexpected happened?

Nick's logging team quickly rejoined the digging team. The group used all their strength, and the soil flew as they dug. It did not take long for the soil layer to be dug down to nearly one meter in depth.

A slight crisp sound stood out from the sound of metal striking metal, and everyone stopped in unison. One of the generals squatted down in front of his feet and pulled at the soil several times, revealing the object that he had accidentally cut off while digging.

The object that the general had accidentally cut off was a bone. It was a bone that had been buried for an unknown number of years, but it was still as new. It even had a thin layer of mesh-like blood on it.

The sight of the bone sent a chill down the spines of everyone present. Although it was not uncommon to find bones in a cemetery, there was something about this particular bone that was unsettling.

Oswald ordered the group to continue digging. Everyone dropped their swords and began to dig with their bare hands.

After about ten minutes, everyone had to stop digging because they had almost no place to stand. The wet mud that had been dug up was piled with bones, fur, and pieces of meat. The corpses were incredibly fresh, as if they had just been buried.

Without exception, all of the shattered corpses belonged to ferocious beasts. The sight of so many dead beasts was a powerful visual impact, even for those who were not easily intimidated.

The giant orcs were indeed a fearsome race. Even for beasts that could not transform into human form, the visual impact of their carnage was still great.

The top layer of the pit alone contained almost a hundred bones, and new bones were constantly being dug out from below. It was estimated that several layers had been buried. Everyone simply gave up digging, lest they be buried alive by the piled-up bones.

"Is this a beast sacrifice?" Nick exclaimed. "I've never seen such a large-scale beast sacrifice before."

Beast sacrifice is a form of prayer and witchcraft that was practiced in ancient mainland cultures. People believed that it was a sin to hunt wild beasts for food, so they would bury the heads, bones, and inedible offal of wild beasts underground after each hunt. They believed that this would allow the hunted animals' souls to remain intact and be reborn.

Later, beast sacrifice evolved into a form of sacrifice and prayer. The bones of beasts would be buried in front of the graves of the dead, in the hopes that they would rest in peace under the beasts' blessing.

"After all, it's the tomb of a god, so it's only natural that it would be larger," another general murmured.

"No!" Oswald stared at the beast carcasses for a moment, then suddenly frowned. "This is not a beast sacrifice."

"Huh?" Nick did not respond.

"The premise of a beast sacrifice is to assemble the head, fur, and pieces of meat into a complete shape, just as the beast was alive. But here..."

The carcasses of the beasts here had all been cut into fragments and mixed together, none of them were complete. It was as if someone had deliberately mangled them.

"A complete corpse is a blessing, but on the contrary, such a mess of animal bones is clearly a curse!" Oswald paused. "It is clearly a curse!"

Everyone was surprised and horrified. Who would lay a curse here? Who could it be cursing?

Was there anyone else here besides the god of light, Phae, who should be sleeping in the tomb?