Lin Wu was utterly confused as he saw the people in front of him. In his confusion, he tried moving his head but realized that he couldn't do it. It was as if his head was affixed and he could only see what was in front of him.
His body could not move either. It took him a few seconds to realize that it was like a movie was being played in front of him.
'Am I seeing a recording, perhaps? The data node was from the skeleton so it's probably a memory stored in it, I guess.' Lin Wu thought to himself.
As he thought this, the people in front of him finally started moving. Before they were standing still and were looking towards Lin Wu, or rather at the person whose memory Lin Wu was currently watching.
Lin Wu focused on the area around them and realized that it was none other than the area he was in. Except it was in the past and everything was burning and smoke was spread around. There were even lava pools that Lin Wu could spot at the edge of his vision.
Everything seemed to be the same that Lin Wu had seen back when he was traveling to the crater that had the crystal. But now the perspective was vastly different, and Lin Wu could observe much more. There were nine people standing in front of him currently and all of them were wearing the same type of robes.
The robes were yellow gold in color with blue and grey designs that contrasted with it. Out of the nine people, two were young women while the rest were all men. They all seemed to be relatively young and looked to be in their late twenties.
Though Lin Wu's attention was mostly focused on the two women as they were perhaps the most beautiful women he had seen. Their beauty could easily compare to top actresses and models from his previous life.
"Jade beauties, Jade beauties, I say. This is exactly the kind of stuff I want." Lin Wu muttered to himself with a strange tone.
But his monologue was soon interrupted when one of the men spoke.
"Elder, should we continue on or not? The area seems to be getting more and more dangerous. The invisible fumes and poison in this area are strange, even with all the protective spirit tools we are using it is still able to affect us. I can also feel the formations on the spirit tools weakening." The young man said.
The other people with him also seemed to have similar troubled looks, and two of them even had expressions that made it seem as if they were sick.
"That is why we need to get this investigated as fast as possible. If we return empty handed and don't even have a basic reason behind this, we would be punished. Tell me, you all were promoted to your current positions by your hard work. Do you want to be removed from your positions because of this?" A voice suddenly spoke, which Lin Wu identified as the person whose memories Lin Wu was watching.
The voice seemed to be of an old person and was slightly rough, yet a strange kind of power could be felt in it.
Upon hearing the words of the elder, the expressions of the nine people seemed to become complex before it was replaced by a determination. The nine people glanced at each other for a moment before nodding.
"We will do as you say, elder." They all said in unison.
"Good… Good… you all will go quite far in the future. Hiding from hardships is only for the weak and cowardly. You all are part of the royal court, such a thing would be unbecoming of your status. Now then, let's get to it." The elder spoke before a sword came to float in front of him.
He then jumped onto the sword and flew forward with the others flying behind him on their respective swords. But not even a minute had passed before they all heard a loud sound.
"What was that!" One of them shouted.
The sound was as if something was breaking. Like a mountain was cracking and falling apart.
"Look there, that giant rock." A woman's voice spoke.
Lin Wu's vision then switched to the scene of a giant rock splitting apart, but not exactly. The giant rock was actually not a rock at all and rather seemed like a shell of some kind. Right now the surface of it was cracking and chunks of rock were falling off.
~Roar~
Soon under the surprised looks of everyone, a loud and thunderous roar came from the crumbling rock.
Lin Wu could see the people visibly shudder and it was as if they had felt something.
"On your guard, this is likely going to be dangerous. I… I can't sense the cultivation of whatever that thing is." The Old man spoke with slight fear in his voice.
The nine people were even more shocked after hearing this and they hurriedly drew out their weapons. One of them had pulled out talismans that flew out and started revolving around them. One of the women made a ten meter long ribbon appear out of thin air and wrapped it around her right arm while the rest of it hovered.
Similarly, all of them acted and a multitude of weapons and spirit tools were now present in the air.
The crumbling rock cause dust to spread around in the air and the ground also started rumbling. Suddenly the screeching sound came from the dust cloud before something blurry came flying towards Lin Wu's vision.
"What the hell…" Lin Wu inwardly flinched but could not move.
The blurry object was traveling at a great speed and had a gray color. Lin Wu could now see the scene in front of him slow down and the object that was coming towards him also became clear.
"The fragment of the beast carapace?" Lin Wu said before his vision went dark.