Runes

As expected, the water mist controlled by Starlight quickly wove into an invisible net in the air, enveloping most of the ghosts. Their ability to phase through solid objects actually failed within this mist.

It wasn't that Starlight couldn't condense pure water with magic, but water saturated with mana would be instantly detected by the ghosts. In this situation, this mundane water without a trace of mana had become the key trump card for victory.

Although the volume of the few bottles of holy water wasn't large, once manipulated and turned into mist, it could easily cover all the ghosts in the passage.

The water net created from those few bottles clearly couldn't suppress all the ghosts indefinitely; after only a few breaths, the spirits were already showing signs of breaking free.

However, those few seconds of stalling were enough for Starlight to do a great deal. In that window, he had already condensed a massive fireball powerful enough to incinerate everything within dozens of meters ahead.

At the exact moment the ghosts were about to break through the water net, the long-prepared fireball crashed down, slamming into the ghost swarm like a falling meteor.

A massive gale carrying intense heat instantly swept through the entire tomb. The ghosts, trapped together, had no power to resist and were reduced to nothingness by the heat wave.

The blast wave sent the surviving adventurers tumbling backward several times. Even the sturdy stone walls and floor developed numerous cracks, and fragments of stone and fine gravel began to fall incessantly.

Although this fireball had dealt with all the ghosts in one go, their situation had become even more precarious because of it.

This was the first time Starlight had consumed so much mana on a single fireball spell; even he couldn't judge exactly how powerful the explosion would be.

“Can you guys still move? Get out of this passage quickly! I think it's about to collapse!” Starlight shouted anxiously to the people behind him, staring at the walls that were now covered in massive cracks.

The tremors all around grew more intense. The group rushed out of the danger zone just a hair's breadth before the passage completely caved in.

Unfortunately, the path behind them was now completely blocked. To leave this gods-forsaken place, their only option was to keep heading forward.

“Little Star, that move just now was incredible! All those ghosts, wiped out in one hit!”

With the ghosts eliminated, Po Kong slowly regained his usual composure. For some reason, despite being fearless in his daily life, he had absolutely no resistance against those intangible creatures.

“What? Not afraid anymore? Next time we come to a place like this, please remember to prepare some proper holy water!”

Starlight teased him, while silently praying in his heart that no more trouble like ghosts would appear ahead.

“Don't even mention it! I get angry just thinking about that merchant who sold us fakes. I hope I never catch that guy! As for your suggestion, I'll consider it, but... the best way is just not to come to these gloomy, lifeless places in the first place!”

A rare blush appeared on Po Kong's face upon hearing this. To ease the embarrassment, he could only feign anger as he spoke.

“Fine, fine. But you can't say for sure; there might be many more ghosts further in,” Starlight said with a helpless wave of his hand, stopping the joking to focus on inspecting their surroundings.

He didn't have to look for long before he spotted a familiar symbol on the wall.

Starlight couldn't help but stop in his tracks, stepping forward to examine it closely.

“Po Kong, come look at this. Doesn't it look a lot like the characters we saw in that cave?” Starlight called out.

Hearing the call, Po Kong turned back. After squinting at the symbol for a moment, he spoke uncertainly.

“It is a bit similar. It's probably some kind of ancient script, right? Come to think of it, this tomb under District One has some history to it. These characters might have been left behind from that time.”

At this moment, another adventurer nearby noticed the eerie symbol and chimed in. When their team first came down, they had noticed similar characters carved into the walls at regular intervals.

“Ancient script? It doesn't quite look like it...” Starlight said, reaching out a hand to lightly touch the writing on the wall with his fingertip.

The moment his finger touched the wall, the symbol suddenly lit up without any warning.

A piercing red light suddenly flared in his eyes. The originally black character was stained with a crimson hue and began to pulse slowly as if it were breathing.

“Little Star, what did you do!? Why did all these words suddenly light up?!”

Po Kong's surprised voice came from the side. Starlight looked over and saw streaks of red light appearing in the dark passage ahead; clearly, the same symbols existed nearby.

“I didn't do anything, the character lit up on its own... No! These aren't ordinary symbols!” Starlight suddenly realized the gravity of the situation.

It was only then that he noticed the strange sensation from his fingertips. The wear and tear on the character was completely different from the surrounding wall; the glowing part had clearly been carved recently.

Starlight seemed to think of something and hurriedly pulled the map from his pocket. After comparing it carefully for a while, an absurd and terrifying thought surfaced in his mind.

It wasn't hard to see from the map that the tomb of District One was roughly a circular structure. Although many parts below the third layer had collapsed, the overall structure remained unchanged.

In other words, as long as the areas buried by earth and stone were cleared and a few minor adjustments were made, the shape of the entire tomb would become a perfect circle.

Starlight couldn't help but think of the pit deliberately dug in the bandits' hideout and the layout of their entire camp. Now, it was very likely that the entirety of District One had been designed into a giant magic formation.

He hadn't forgotten how much damage the thing summoned by that formation had caused, and that had only been a few hundred meters in diameter. Now, the scope of the District One tomb was easily dozens of times larger than that.

Combined with the hundreds of people who had clearly gone missing, if all those people were used as sacrifices, heaven only knew what the consequences would be if this was successfully activated.

When Starlight lowered his voice to tell Po Kong his deduction, Po Kong instantly became tense. He turned to look at the symbols still pulsing on the wall, swallowed hard, and asked with a trembling voice.

“You mean... we might be standing inside a super magic formation that's about to be completed? Can you tell how long until it activates? Do we still have time to escape?”

Starlight shook his head, his expression grim. “I'm not sure, but according to records in ancient books, a giant magic formation of this scale takes time to fully start up. After all, the walls here aren't made of materials specifically meant to guide mana... it should be slower.”

Although Starlight couldn't give a definitive answer regarding the details of the formation, it was certain that they were running out of time.

“Then let's stop wasting time here! Everyone, start running! This red color doesn't look like anything healthy for the mind or body!” Po Kong suddenly shouted to the adventurers beside him after a brief moment of daze.

The others showed looks of terror after hearing the duo's analysis.

Though they were exhausted, the threat to their lives triggered a burst of incredible speed. With Starlight using wind elements to lighten everyone's burden, their movement speed increased significantly.

Because the crimson runes had lit up like candles hanging on the walls, the interior of the tomb became much brighter, even if it looked terrifying. Before long, they found a staircase leading to the upper levels.

“We should be able to find an exit if we go up from here. Let's get out fast and then notify the Guild about this. This is no longer an incident we can handle ourselves!” Po Kong glanced at the stairs and urged the others to go up while he and Starlight stayed behind to cover the rear just in case.

The injured men didn't dare delay. After thanking the two, they sprinted toward the fourth layer.