Chapter 136: Hidden Floor

'...no alarms here, no traps either. Perfect, I can move as I please.'

Ashton exited the library after a brief scan of the room. Once he stepped outside, his nose was immediately assaulted by a foul stench.

'Smells like a pigsty here, what the hell?' Ashton was disgusted.

Corruption never smelled good to him. It didn't matter whether it came from Demons or Angels, both of them are foul in his sense. This is one of the times when that foulness reaches another level.

Ashton's senses are so sharp that it's backfiring sometimes. The problem is that his mask doesn't filter any scent. Showing a piece of skin here would be risky so he couldn't expose half of his face to wear the respirator he created before.

'...though, the smellier it is, the more suspicious it gets.' Ashton reminded himself.

The deeper the corruption influence is in the area, the more suspicious it is, for there is no reason for such strong corruption to exist out of sheer coincidence. This made him even more confident that what he was looking for might be here indeed.

'...I'll handle the paperwork last since there's a lot of them.' He mused to himself, 'Let's check what these items were for.'

As soon as he thought about that, he gazed at the trinkets that were kept away in this underground bunker. He used Scan and Identify on each one to see if he could get some clues.

[Old Seraphim Totem]

A Totem that absorbs faith energy. Used to hasten the healing and recovery of injured Celestials.

[Broken Cherubim Bow]

A Broken Bow that only Cherubim were allowed to wield.

True Aim — Any arrow shot from this bow will never miss its target.

[Cracked Orb of Thrones]

A cracked orb that uses Faith Energy as fuel. Raises the morale and fervor of Celestials when lit.

[Archangel's Flying Swords (Shattered)]

A deadly set of flying swords that Archangels could manipulate.

Holy Sword Intent — Lethality increases to 200% when they are used against Demons.

[Tattered Flag of Dominions]

A flag that raises morale, heightens the fervor and defenses of Celestials when in battle.

[Rusted Sword of Powers]

A sword that was once bathed in golden light. Now rusty and unusable.

Holy Sword Intent — Lethality increases by 200% against demons.

[Dulled Spear of Virtue]

A Spear that was once wielded by Virtues.

Transcendent Pierce — ignores all manner of defense.

[Shattered Mallet of Principalities]

A Mallet weighs 108 kilograms in the hands of Principalities and turns into 10,800 kilograms when used against others.

[Muted Trumpet of the Angels]

An artifact used to signal the start of a Holy War. Now, forgotten and left unusable.

Ashton pursed his lips as he read the descriptions of these things. His first thoughts were to steal all of them since, he could bet his sweet ass that, Aria could definitely find a way to fix these old artifacts and make them suitable for Humanity to use.

Aria does love a good challenge...

But since it is kept here, he couldn't touch these for now. The Commanders were probably aware of them and if they suddenly went missing, that would mean that someone infiltrated this place. Ashton wasn't in that much of a hurry to expose himself, thank you very much...

Ashton continued scanning and found some more old or broken artifacts stored in this place. Armors, shields, weapons, trinkets, and so on...

The foul stench of golden corruption was coming from these things, which makes sense considering that they were once used multiple times by the angels, causing them to be steeped in golden corruption.

But again, this isn't really what Ashton came here for.

He gazed into the other side of the room to survey what was in there. He saw some sort of a holy altar, possibly used for Angelic Worship. He used Scan and Identify, and this is what he got...

[Altar of 12 Saints]

An Altar bathed in the prayers of 12 Saints for 9 years. A Holy Artifact that was once used to suppress a Fallen Angel for 900 Years.

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Note: The blessings of the 12 Saints are almost dried-up, at most, this altar can only be used one last time to suppress something for a year.

'...huh.' Ashton raised a brow upon reading that.

Many thoughts emerged in his mind, but most of them were just speculations. In the end, unless it was proven, these thoughts would just remain as such.

He moved on to another location, still scanning the items until he saw something weird from the System's Prompt.

[Detachable Brick]

???

As his vision was usually flooded with all sorts of descriptions whenever he focused on something, he nearly missed this one. Previously he's just seeing descriptions of ordinary bricks until this one came.

He crouched down and reached for it. It says that it's detachable so he tried to detach it. But before he did so, his senses blared and his instincts warned him.

He stopped in his tracks before pulling his hand away. He looked around and scanned the entire room using his senses just to check if Neon was coming down. Even when he didn't feel anything, Ashton didn't let his guard down.

'Silence...'

A weak fluctuation escaped from his lips. He cast a fairly simple Spell — Silence. The fluctuation covered the entire bunker and made it so that any noise will not escape this room so long as the spell was in effect. This spell was Lv. 40 and lasts for 40 minutes.

After casting the spell, Ashton released a breath and crouched down again. This time, he pried the brick out of its place and something happened.

As it turns out, the brick was pressing down on a pressure plate. Removing it revealed a passage that goes even deeper underground.

The reveal made a loud sound, which got contained inside this bunker thanks to the Silence Spell. Ashton controlled his perception to check what was downstairs. Not finding any danger or ill intent, Ashton decided to come down, still Scanning and Identifying everything that he comes across.

Downstairs, he found a shocking scene. Before he did anything, he first used the Psychokinesis Spell, he controlled the brick and placed it back to press on the pressure plate, sealing himself on the lower floor of the underground bunker.

Once the entrance behind him was sealed shut, Ashton casts the Illuminate Spell to brighten up the place. He saw torch scones in there so he split the orb of light into smaller ones and placed them in there to light up the entirety of this place.

"...what the hell..." Ashton was gobsmacked and speechless.

This room was not that large. If it weren't for him lighting up the place, it'd pitch black in here.

In front of him, there's a large ritual circle that was drawn using, what looked like, blood and bone ash.

Each corner of the pentagram had a smaller ritual circle that had an ancient character seal etched within. Thanks to his Omnilingual Skill, he recognizes those seals as Fire, God, Blessing, Life, and Heaven seals.

There's also a similar ritual circle that's etched at the ceiling, the difference is that the seals on this one were of the antithesis of the seals mirroring them; Water, Demon, Curse, Death, and Hell.

Sandwiched in between these two ritual circles, impaled by 13 blood-stained golden stakes, a very naked girl could be seen chained up at the center.

She had dull golden hair, and pale white skin, looking extremely malnourished, and pretty much dead. Yet Ashton's senses could not be fooled...

Even with 13 stakes stabbed in this woman's body, she's still very much alive...although barely.

'System, Scan and Identify.'

[Polar Suppression Seal]

An extremely powerful formation, it can suppress just about anything and everything. Escaping this seal is exceedingly hard and being trapped in it would be extremely torturous.

[13 Burning Saint Stakes]

12 Stakes that were used to entrap a Saintess. Drenched in her blood, they turned into a Unique Artifact.

[Golden Haired Maiden]

She's nearly dead but her will remains tenacious. She can still probably last for a decade before turning into dust.

"...Uhm." Ashton was really speechless. He didn't expect this at all.

He didn't come down here expecting to see a naked woman impaled by golden stakes and suppressed by a nefarious seal. He was expecting something like a clue perhaps or records which could lead him to the information he seeks, not this!

What does he even do with this information? Was he supposed to free her or something? Is that even worth it?

Unable to think anything, Ashton stayed rooted on the spot, failing to notice when the woman's fingers suddenly showed signs of movement.

He only took notice of it when all of a sudden, the woman's neck and head began twitching and turning similar to that of a zombie.

Ashton's understandably freaked out, he even took out his scythe and guns just to be sure.

Then, the maiden lifted her head and looked straight into his eyes. Ashton's breath hitched when she uttered the words:

"Mysterious Rainbow?"

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