Chapter 103

Chapter 103

Sara's brow furrowed deeply, the creases etched like knife cuts. As he stepped through the massive stone door covered in moss and dark patterns, an icy chill enveloped him. It felt as though countless eyes were watching his every move through the fissures of time and space. Even though everyone around him had been dragged into the dream, the hairs on the back of his neck still stood on end. That persistent feeling of being watched clung to him like a stubborn sickness.

Sara edged backward until his back was against the rusted bronze doorframe, pressed tightly to the cold stone wall. His gaze swept the surroundings warily. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, his voice hoarse as he called out, "Evan, besides that blue glow, what else did you see?"

Evan had been staring intently at the flowerpot in the corner. Finally, he shifted his gaze. His pupils contracted slightly as he cautiously moved his feet. The dim yellow beam from his miner's lamp swept across the walls and floor with his movement. Where the light fell, everything seemed normal—the mottled stone walls, the dust-covered floor tiles—all stood quietly. Yet, for some reason, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was hiding in the depths of those shadows, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

Evan was just about to answer when suddenly, a faint rustling sound came from deep within the cave, like countless tiny claws scratching at the stone walls. Every instinct in Sara screamed warning. He whipped his head around to follow the sound and saw over a dozen intertwined blue and white lights darting out from the shadows like phantoms. As the lights drew closer, they revealed themselves to be a swarm of insects emitting an eerie, spectral glow. Their bodies were slender, their heads bristling with sharp mouthparts, and their compound eyes glinted with cold killing intent.

"Watch out!" Sara shouted, simultaneously raising his hand to cast a secret art. A golden barrier unfolded before him. However, these insects moved with astonishing speed. In a flash, they skirted the barrier and lunged towards the other members of the archaeological team. The team members didn't even have time to scream before the insects were upon them. The blue-white light enveloped their bodies like a tide. Strangely, the skin of those enveloped by the light began to rapidly crystallize. Their bodies twisted and elongated, transmuting into long, cold, glowing crystalline pillars.

Evan gaped in horror. Instinctively, he raised his miner's lamp and swung it, trying to drive away these terrifying insects. But one insect, taking advantage of his distraction, suddenly pounced onto his arm. The moment its sharp mouthparts pierced his skin, Evan let out a piercing scream: "Mentor! Save me..." Before his words could finish, his body also began to crystallize. The fear and despair in his eyes were gradually replaced by cold crystal.

Sara gritted his teeth, his eyes bloodshot. He frantically cast secret arts, various spells flashing and intertwining within the cave. But there were too many insects, and their movements were erratic and elusive. He simply couldn't stop this horrific transformation. In an instant, everyone in the archaeological team except him had turned into cold crystals, scattered throughout the cave. Under the glow of the blue-white light, they resembled a bizarre forest of crystal steles.

But suddenly, Sara reined in all his frenzy, his expression becoming utterly calm, as if the panic and despair from moments ago had never existed.

Sara straightened his sleeves, leisurely looked at the crystals surrounding him, and let out a low chuckle. "Not bad. This dream is quite realistic. But you made one mistake. Evan would never call me 'Mentor.' Sometimes he might call me 'teacher,' but he would never use such a desperate tone to beg for my help."

His little lover had a streak of male arrogance deep in his bones. Moreover, he had given Evan a life-saving...

This dream was truly terrifying, and it even had a dream within a dream. He had thought he hadn't been pulled into the dream, but Sara had been inside the dream from the very beginning. He had no recollection of when it happened.

This showed how terrifying this dream was. The Wizard Apprentice behind this dream was truly, truly formidable.

Soon, the crystals around Sara vanished. Not just the crystals, everything around him disappeared, as if this were a vast green expanse with nothing in it, indistinguishable from up, down, left, or right—all was green.

However, although the dream was terrifying, once one recognized it as a dream, breaking it became quite easy.

A low chuckle sounded around him. A figure cloaked in black appeared before Sara. Sara couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, asking with a half-smile, "Not hiding anymore?"

"Young man, that's quite impolite of you," the cloaked figure said, reaching up to pull back his hood. Beautiful golden hair was revealed, but even more beautiful was his face. Sara was a top-tier handsome man, but the person before him was no less so. Moreover, one of his green eyes held a constantly swirling vortex, making him appear even more mysterious and unfathomable.

Sara noticed that his lip movements didn't match the words he heard, indicating he was speaking another language. Yet, what Sara heard was the Empire's common tongue. This meant that within this dream, there was no language barrier.

A Wizard Apprentice who had died over a thousand years ago but still left behind a soul being able to achieve this effect was not surprising.

"Soul? No, even a soul couldn't last over a thousand years," Sara said, studying the cloaked figure seriously, examining him with a purely academic eye. "You didn't turn yourself into an artifact spirit, did you?"

The golden-haired man smiled. "Wanting to escape death, paying a little price is only natural. Equivalent exchange, that's all. I just didn't expect that shortly after my body died, an enemy found this place. Although I trapped him here forever, it also triggered a mudslide, completely burying my dwelling."

The golden-haired man's tone was full of melancholy. No matter how well he had planned, plans couldn't keep up with changes. It had left this place buried and unseen by the sun for a thousand years. Even though he had become an artifact spirit, without magic stones to nourish it, that artifact had slowly deteriorated under the magic of time. Now, that artifact couldn't last much longer.

And at this moment, his dwelling was being excavated.

It was a cruel twist of fate.