Even though Valkorion felt the power of gravity greatly and felt that some bones in his body were about to crack, as the power was really terrifying, he didn't relent and continued to resist the invisible pressure on him.
He was doing rather a good job of resisting the pressure from the magical circle or whatever it was, but soon enough, the pressure was dissipating into nothingness, and soon enough, he felt like nothing had happened.
Soon enough, when he looked in front of him, he related that the walls of the place were gone, and there was the entrance to the depths of the cave. Because everything was still dark, he took another of the sticks with the crystal to make light, using it as a torch and went forward.
At this point, because the entrance was closed and he had no way to return back to the outer world, the sole choice that remained for him was to continue and go whenever the pathway was leading.
It's not like he had another choice.
Still, Valkorion steeled himself as he went further because, this time, he was going to the undiscovered territory. His ancestor, Daerius Tenebraenys, never reached that part, and he only arrived at the place where Valkorion was met with intense gravitational pressure.
If he thought about it, he suspected that it was mainly some kind of test, most probably left by the entirety to which the Tomb belonged to test the people who found the entrance. Most probably, finding the entrance to the Tomb itself was the first kind of test.
Now, the second test was the weird gravitational pressure, though if he had to guess, then it was something entirely different, and the gravitation pressure was just a shadow shroud to hide the real test.
Obviously, Valkorion wasn't aware of what the real test was, but he knew that he must have passed successfully if he was allowed to continue further. Nevertheless, something was telling him that he had ended up entering this place.
It was weird, but the whole time he was here, something was telling him that he could find something precious here. Since the moment he entered this area, he was having the feeling...
Like some kind of foretelling...
***
Deep beneath a towering mountain range, hidden from the gaze of the world, lay a massive underground cavern so vast it could house an entire city. The space was dimly lit by an eerie, bioluminescent glow that emanated from the jagged rock walls and clusters of glowing fungi clinging to the stone like a natural mosaic.
Valkorion looked at the place in wonder because this was the first time he saw something like this. The faint light cast long shadows, dancing on the cavern floor, creating a mysterious and haunting atmosphere.
The moment he entered the cavern from the very long pathway, he started feeling something indescribable. The previous feeling of going into this place was right now much stronger, which prompted Valkorion to conclude that this wasn't a coincidence.
When he stepped into the subterranean expanse, the sheer scale of the chamber was overwhelming. The ceiling is so high above it disappears into darkness, with stalactites hanging down like the fangs of a primordial beast.
'Spatial tunnel... there is no way that I could have walked that much, so it is really true... the being that died must be Angel at least; there is no way that Saint could create something like this, and it was preserved even thousands of years after his demise.'
Valkorion thought as he had arrived at the underground cavern, as it was hard evidence that the entity was still clinging to life...
Somehow.
Valkorion, in fact, didn't know if it was true or not...
The cavern's floor stretched out in all directions, a flat expanse of stone and debris that once might have been bustling with life. But now, it was silent, save for the occasional echo of dripping water that reverberated through the space, as if time itself had paused in this forsaken place.
Scattered throughout the cavern are the remnants of what once was a thriving civilization or perhaps some city, now reduced to rubble and ruin. Ancient stone buildings, their facades crumbling, stand in eerie silence like ghosts of the past.
It was a very weird feeling to go walking through the ruins of the decaying civilization, filled with the ghosts of the long-forgotten past. Valkorion knew that these things were old, probably older than the Valyria itself.
One thing was certain they were for sure from the previous Epoch.
Some are mere shells, with walls half-collapsed, while others retain a semblance of their former grandeur, their weathered arches and columns hinting at the architectural prowess of those who built them.
Stone bridges once spanning over deep, dry chasms now hang broken, leading to nowhere, and stairways spiral into darkness, their steps worn smooth by countless feet long gone.
As he was passing through one of the stone bridges, he realized that this place wasn't as simple as it seemed. If there was such an enormous underground city located beneath the Painted Mountain, then it would be sooner or later discovered by the Valyrians.
In the end, the Valyrian Freehold had several publicly known Angels, and 'They' would certainly notice something like this. So that was leading Valkorion to a single conclusion that almost wanted him to turn around and run for his very own life.
This place wasn't the Tomb of Angel.
Or even King of Angels.
This was the Tomb of True God.
Most probably one that fell in the previous Epochs.
In a split of a second, Valkorion was felled with dread as much as he was filled with excitement at the prospect of finding the Tomb of God,
Unfortunately, that was not possible, so he continued through the ruins as a dense fog of dust hung in the air, stirred only by the faintest breeze coming from some unknown fissure in the mountains above.
The once-great structures, now in various stages of decay, are adorned with intricate carvings and strange symbols that tell a forgotten story, though Valkorion managed to recognize the language as Dragonese as he went closer to some of the structures of the city to read the runes.
"Some sort of dialect... hmm... let's see..."
He then went closer as he was attempting to read several of the symbols.
"Dawn, Age... dammit, this place is at least from the 1st Epoch... if this was released to the world, it would cause turmoil like nothing else in the recent millennia. Artifact from the 1st Epoch: Age of Dawn."
Valkorion almost stumbled down when he managed to translate several symbols that probably symbolized the Age when the building was built.
1st Epoch... Age of Dawn.
It was a time of true wonders, a time when powerful Beyonders were practically everywhere where an eye could see and mighty Extraordinary Creatures ruled the lands that were now inhabited by the species of Men, Dwarf or Elf.
According to the legends that were preserved, in this Age, various Supernatural Races came into existence. In the beginning years of the Age of Dawn, it was chaotic, dark, and insane; there were not many records about it, not to mention from the Age of Dawn itself.
There were only partial records about the 1st Epoch, the Age of Dawn, and what happened during that Epoch. Valkorion only read some tidbits from the books that were present in the Tenebraenys Manor in the Catharys.