"My lord, what do these images mean?" Thantos asked as he looked upon the mural that covered the tomb walls.
The mural had survived the ravishes of time and the shifts of the tectonic plates. Not a crack or faded spot could be found. With the flourish of the wrist, a gale of wind removed the dust from the stone record and the story became clearer. But on took its true form when I snapped my fingers and the ceiling adorned hanging lamps caught fire and illuminated the hall.
With Thantos being an existence of my own creation, I replied with candor.
"They are called assault rifles. Crafted from metal and used to fire projectiles. After the age of blades, they were the main weapons for conflict raging from bar scuffles, tribal disputes, and all-out war." I explained.
"The world in this mural is far from this place, Thantos. I call it Earth. The people of Atoria call it the world of heroes. But in all honesty, there are no heroes there. Just a world of gangsters and impressionable civilians. Then there are the vultures that circle the world and pick from the remains."
"Gangsters and civilians?" Thanatos asked. "Vultures?"
"The gangster stalks the civilian unaware of the vulture above. Haha!" I played with the Chinese proverb as it was surprising more understandle.
"Haiz! Civilians are those who live day to day outside of the careers of Adventurers, warriors, and mages. Gangsters are all those who live with their boots on throats and sapping the people of the world of life at every level of society. Neighborhood gangsters, corporate gangsters, governmental gangsters."
"And what kind of gangster were you, my lord?" Thanatos asked, " I think master could never be a civilian. You burned away a level for power and killed without mercy. You also can't be a vulture as your too impulsive to be so patient and you seem to care for the well-being of your subordinates."
"Haha, you're perceptive. You must get that from the demon elder." I chuckled, then added, "I was a neighborhood gangster. And like my higher counterparts, I twisted and manipulated civilians to fight my wars and line my pockets. I never claimed to be a good man."
"Such designations are for...civilians," Thantos replied. "My lord, what does this story tell?"
Looking past the depiction of soldiers and the death on the battlefield. I spied a proud and unforgettable symbol of Nazi Germany. And not just the general Nazi soldier, the elite Ahnenerbe of the Schutzstaffel the etched in the background to depict them as puppetmasters.
"This man fought in the second world war. He was a vicious man that took many lives. He was eventually charged to hunt his enemy, the Nazi Scourge. He was good at it. But he hunted one man and found him in the caverns of his enemy's fort."
"What happened then?" Thantos asked in intrigue.
I sighed as I remembered countless conspiracies and looked on the mural in awe of the etched spear in the hands of Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler.
"On earth, people believed in a weapon that killed the mortal son of a God. This weapon became divine and its power almighty. It was known as the Spear of Destiny. It was once lost to time but there were rumors that an enemy army managed to find it.
The rumors turned out to be true...The man in the mural found his target, but his target used the spear of destiny to destroy him. But it was wrong. A nonbeliever who consciously turned against god had used the spear to slaughter a devout believer. It undoubtedly brought death, but God stepped in and save the soul. The man in the mural was later reincarnated as the First Prince Anon Uhnok."
I was thoroughly enticed at this point. Who would have thought that Anon was a reincarnated soul? Transmigration was a central belief, but reincarnation wasn't even a concept in Atoria.
The story continued.
"Prince Anon grew up disturbed. His body was unfamiliar to him and different from the human form that he was accustomed to. But he slowly committed himself to world studies to understand his new life. He then relied on Tapping the Blood, to gain a form he was keener towards.
During these years his pursuit of knowledge was hindered by the goblins' savagery and unwillingness to progress, forcing him to go abroad which led to the Anon Raids. In a flash, he had raided the world of treasures and stormed the boundary of level 100.
When his end neared, he met his fate at the hands of Brom of Yama. The boy was looking to reclaim his ancestral broadsword but ultimately failed. But the battle was so taxing that Prince Anon had no hope of recovery. He limped his way to the tomb with his life's worth of treasures. The doors were then shut by his wife, a hero. She broke the key into three and scattered them. Prince Anon then ended his days in the core of his tomb"
Thantos and I stood in silence for a moment.
"Come on, we have other things to find," I said.
We then moved on and made it to the end of the hall into a library. It is designed in the shape of an octagon with large stone cases in columns. Upon the walls were built-in shelves to hold more text. In the center of the octagon were a desk and a single lamp.
Lining the top of the wall shelves was a passage surprisingly written in cursive English script. It read:
'To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.'
-Nicolaus Copernicus
"Anon Uhnok was truly an intellectual. But the warrior was in his blood and like us all, it got him killed. Haiz! Thantos, let's take a look around for a bit."
Using Shadow Drift to step through the large library, I randomly select a few texts and occasion had to rearrange a few shelves to keep everything from falling. I could tell that the prince was an avid researcher and all of his acquired and created text were just piled high and only navigatable by his own mind.
Opening the few texts, my heart shook as everything was written in English. Some of it was in Japanese, Chinese, German, Arabic, and Aramahic. I laughed aloud in shock. I then looked up at the quote from Nicholas Copernicus and realized the true purpose of the quote left by the late Prince.
"What the hell secret did you find?" I murmured while looking at the trove of knowledge.
"Master, I found something you should see." Thantos shouted.
Rising from the desk I walked over to find Thantos standing in front of a single sealed bookshelf that stood around four feet. The smallest shelf in the entire library. Thantos then held up a finger. Looking to my left was another sealed case. Then another to my left.
'History of Atoria' 'Cultivation' 'Cosmic Sea'
Looking over my shoulder in the direction of one of the first bookcases I looked at, I remember the words as clear as day. 'History'. I then looked at the three shelves and shivered.
Examining the seals, they appeared airtight with a mixture of script from sealing techniques across varying cultures. Only one thing could unlock it and that was the key.
Without a word to say, I turned and walked away. The library was beyond and trying to skim through it wouldn't do anyone any good. Walking on the main aisle, I made my way to the only other doorway in the library.
On this doorway was another passage left in German. The language of his enemy. It read:
"...so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden..."
- Hesiod
"What the fuck does that mean?" I asked myself.
"My lord isn't obvious. Someone was born from something great. The greatness was killed by something greater. Who emerged? What was killed? What killed it? And Why? You have to read this while remembering the first passage that the late Prince left for you." Thantos explained.
I was shocked. "You forgot one question for what we don't know."
"Hmm?" Thantos was curious.
"Who the fuck is Hesiod and what was this passage taken from?" I spoke.
"My lord is right. That also contributes to our comprehension of the passage." Said Thantos.
I gave him a short nodded then moved on. The next room was a room constructed as a geometrically perfect circle. It was dark, damp, and arcane texts were inscribed on the floor. Outlining the circular room were twelve cases on podiums. But the cases were encased in stone with similar seals to the ones I had seen in the library.
"Haiz! This man really dedicated his life to discovery. If only he had survived to be king. I wonder how different the Rocklands would be right now." I spoke aloud to no particular person, just voicing my thoughts.
Taking another look at the arcane circle it was apparent that is a magical formula. Following the inscription that I could understand for mana direction, It leads me to the center of the room where a grand case was erected with no seal at all.
Within the case was a large-scale map of a foreign land, marked with four different colors at varying locations. The artistry was beautiful and the fine details were the work of a master cartographer. But the tempting map that was left unprotected was too good to be true. With vigilance, I focused my mana into a compressed ball.
'Search!' I growled internally unleashing my skill at full throttle, exploding outward.
My mental art spread across the room in pulses. Everything seemed fine until I tripped into an abyss. My body lost oxygen and I collapsed. My body went cold then mind his a metal wall with a bone crumbling thud.
"Gahhh!" I cried out as blood spewed from my mouth.
"My lord!" Thantos rushed to me and picked me up.
My skin had paled and my eyes trembled as I looked over the mysterious room. 'This is why she said that I'm not ready for this tomb.' I thought of the Winged Tiger God's words.
Finding my strength, I stood tall and walked to the case in the center of the room.
My eyes squinted with curiosity. I then look around at all the cases around me then back at the centerpiece. It was obvious that something was special about the old map. But not special enough to lock up.
"Thantos, protect your dead core and retrieve that map for me," I ordered, worried about booby traps.
The undead chief moved swiftly, his hand touched the case and nothing happened. He proceeded to remove the case and grab the map with no trouble at all. I sighed with relief. Thantos turned around to return.
After his first step, a boulder fell from the ceiling and crushed him. The collision resounded like a bell. Everything was smashed save the tips of his finger and the map.
"Holy shit." I gasped.
Picking up the map, I looked over it and found that the place wasn't similar to anything on the Atoria continent. But once I turned it around, two words and the date were as clear as day.
'Dragon Hunt. 15U17'
"This is the land in the Dragon Realm during the 17th year of the 15th King Uhnok's reign." Rolling up the map, I stored it in my ring the used my telekinesis to move the boulder. I waited and waited for Thantos to heal. But he never did. My first creation was dead and a force within me wanted me to create another.
'So this the corruption of Necromancy?' I thought with a slight smirk.
I stepped over the smashed corpse and pushed on.