The copy has 0 error tolerance, and the last words on the ground are all wrong for me.

Chapter 208: Desire Stone and Human Pile

Wu Chang and He Yun passed through the small temple and headed towards the real location of the stone temple.

The small temple is like a dividing line. Behind the small temple, a large amount of disaster fog begins to fill the air. Their existence forms a natural restricted area for humans, which is far more effective than any gate.

After walking for about ten minutes, Wu Chang and He Yun saw a huge metal gate looming in the fog of disaster.

The style of the metal gate was the same as what Wu Chang had seen in Zhuo Jie's resentment.

The metal gate is like a bank vault door that has been magnified dozens of times. Just by looking at it, no one would doubt its thickness. It can withstand a nuclear explosion head-on at close range without any big problems.

Wu Chang was certain that if he wanted to use physical means to forcibly break through this gate, not to mention the Wilderness Realm, even the Realm of Reason on the second level of the Abyss would only be possible for the most powerful people.

Unfortunately, the strongest city walls often begin to collapse from the inside.

The metal gate can block the fog of disaster and the nuclear explosion, but it cannot block the traitor.

With resentment, He Yun led the team members into the gate passage. At this moment, the safety door had been completely removed and replaced with an unnecessary electric door.

It's like a bank that builds an indestructible door for the vault, but then opens a small door on the door that opens with a push.

Needless to say, this must be Mercury's masterpiece.

The two walked through the small door and came to the space where the stone temple was located.

The fog of disaster behind the metal gate was at least twice as thick as the one Zhuo Jie had imagined.

The mist in the air was almost solid, especially for Wu Chang who was not using a protective shield. He passed through the almost materialized mist, as if thousands of fine hairs were passing through the surface of his skin.

It's not just pure hair, but hair that is completely soaked in water but not clumps together, and each strand is clearly distinguishable.

Especially when they come into contact with people, they seem to come alive. They are like countless tiny tentacles, twisting excitedly, as if they want to drill into Wu Chang's body through all seven orifices and even every pore.

However, Wu Chang's inspiration and will made it impossible for these guys to enter his body. They could only circle around him and then leave unwillingly.

The feeling is hard to describe. Wu Chang was not used to the slippery, wet and cold touch that enveloped his whole body at first, but after a long time, he even felt that it was a bit like a massage, and even felt a bit comfortable.

On the other hand, He Yun's condition was not so good.

He Yun's brows have never been relaxed since entering the stone temple area. Wu Chang noticed that she kept her lips tightly pursed and biting her lower lip with her upper teeth, as if she was enduring something.

He adjusted his pace, walked to He Yun, grabbed He Yun's hand wearing the mecha glove, and asked:
"He Yun, are you okay? Do you need to rest for a while?"

The moment He Yun was caught by Wu Chang, a moment of surprise flashed across her face, but she did not struggle and let Wu Chang drag her.

She shook her head and said, "I'm fine. I just feel that this place is very familiar, and I vaguely remember some forgotten memories. These memories flashed back in my mind, and I can't tell whether they are true or false."

Wu Chang said: "You can focus more on your memories. You don't have to worry about being alert and finding your way. Just follow me."

He Yun looked at the hand that Wu Chang was holding and said, "Okay, then everything depends on you."

He Yun closed her eyes and began to sort out the chaotic memories in her mind, while Wu Chang held her hand and walked in the thick fog of disaster.

The mist fell on Wu Chang, and although it felt comfortable, it was too inconvenient for him to move.

Faced with such thick fog, the high-tech flashlight brought by He Yun has lost its effect, and Wu Chang needs some extraordinary lighting tools.

So he reached out and took out the square fire lamp from his backpack.

"Item Skill: Sui Huo"

"Skill Description: Consume 50 points of energy or equivalent fire attribute energy to ignite the Sui Fire. Once ignited, the Sui Fire will continue to burn. Duration: one instance. While the Sui Fire is burning, reduce the continuous damage taken by your targets within the Sui Fire range. During the burning period, you can be immune to death once. The immunity to death cooldown time: one instance."

After being fused with the wick, the Sifang Suihuo Lamp no longer needs to be charged by the second. It can burn continuously by consuming 50 energy points at a time.

For the original Wu Chang, 50 energy points was a considerable number, but now there is basically no burden to use it, which is equivalent to giving a chance to be immune to death for free.

As the New Year's lanterns were lit in all directions, the fog of disaster seemed to have encountered its natural enemy and tried desperately to avoid it.

The visibility was less than two meters before, but now the disaster fog within a radius of ten meters was directly cleared, and the world suddenly changed from 270p back to 4K high definition.

"Item Skill: Teru Xu."

"Skill Description: The Four-Direction Lunar New Year Lamp can control flames of a lower level than itself, and transform the controlled flames into Lunar New Year Fire, illuminating evil and driving away plague, and keeping demons away."

The effect of clearing the fog of disaster comes from the illumination of the four-sided fire lamps, which can illuminate evil and drive away plague, and scare away monsters. It is a perfect match for dealing with the fog of disaster.

With enough vision, the mysterious veil of the stone temple was torn off half.

Only four or five minutes later, Wu Chang brought He Yun to the gate of the stone temple.

Looking at the hundred-step staircase in front of them, Wu Chang was just about to wake He Yun up, but when he turned around, he saw He Yun opening his eyes.

"Are we there yet?" He Yun looked at the stone temple in front of him and was surprised at the fast progress.

It was only the next moment that she realized something was wrong. Why was the vision around her so clear? Had the fog dissipated?

She looked at the square fire lamp in Wu Chang's hand and said in surprise: "Is it this lamp that dispelled the fog of disaster? I found that both you and the things you brought with you can restrain the fog of disaster, just like..."

Seeing that He Yun thought for a while but could not speak, Wu Chang spoke for her:

"It's like it appeared specifically to solve the current predicament."

After that, he saluted as a knight and said solemnly: "Feeling that Miss He Yun is in danger, the Knights of Peace are here to be recruited."

He thought He Yun would complain a few words, but who knew that He Yun actually turned around and walked up the stairs first.

"Let's go quickly. Now is not the time to waste."

Wu Chang curled his lips, thinking that women were really hard to understand, and then caught up with He Yun holding the square fire lantern.

Before he could speak, He Yun spoke first:

"Just now, I remembered some of my memories."

Wu Chang asked, "What memories are these about?"

He Yun looked at the end of the stairs and said, "It's probably the memory of my brother and I first entering the Stone Temple a long time ago."

"I remember now. It was not long after my brother was elected as the leader of the underground shelters. Underground Shelter No. 88 could not produce energy on its own. Often, energy had to be obtained through trade with the neighboring Underground Shelter No. 87."

"For a long time, our two shelters have been steadfast partners. Until the No. 87 underground shelter elected a geocentric leader. After he took office, he closed the shelter and stopped all trade, causing several surrounding shelters to fall into an energy crisis."

"Later, some underground shelters couldn't stand it anymore, so they united and tricked their way into opening the door of Underground Shelter No. 87, massacring the people living in Underground Shelter No. 87 and stealing all the energy."

"After my brother learned about the situation, he announced that he was also a geocentric and closed the door of the underground shelter. Because he refused to participate in the massacre and was not one of their 'ones'. Although the No. 88 underground shelter does not produce energy, it has a full set of automated farms and automated breeding factories. After solving the energy problem, they will most likely solve the food problem next."

Having said that, He Yun sighed.

"At that time, the No. 88 underground shelter was almost in a state of waiting to die. When the energy was exhausted, it would mean that we would have to open the door of the shelter and face a war."

"At this point in time, we discovered an underground energy mine."

He Yun suddenly stopped and turned to look at Wu Chang. She looked at the square fire lamp in Wu Chang's hand and said:
"The discovery of the energy mine is like a lamp in the fog of disaster for us. It gives everyone hope and instantly increases the number of supporters of geocentrism from 5% to 95%."

"In order to investigate the energy mine, we sent a large number of manpower to continuously dig underground. Finally, we found this stone temple by following the energy reaction." At this point, Wu Chang and He Yun had already walked up all the steps and came to the platform in front of the temple.

Wu Chang saw that He Yun was in a bad mood and asked, "Should we go in now?"

He Yun nodded and said, "Having come this far, how can we stop here?"

After entering the temple, He Yun suddenly changed direction, grabbed Wu Chang's hand, and said, "Come with me."

Wu Chang:?
What do you mean, it sounds like "Come on, follow me into the house."

Although he didn't know what He Yun meant, Wu Chang still followed He Yun into the house, but the things in the house were not quite what he imagined.

It was a tomb-like room with two open sarcophagi in it.

One of the sarcophagi was empty, and in the other, there lay a stone-carved human figure with a sparkling pink diamond embedded in its chest.

It is exactly the same as the "Stone of Desire" on He Yun.

There are two sarcophagi, one on the left and one on the right, placed on both sides of the room. In the middle of the two sarcophagi stands a small stone tablet.

Seeing the stone tablet and the stone statue, He Yun suddenly groaned, a look of pain appeared on his face, his legs went limp, and he was about to fall. Wu Chang hurried forward to support He Yun.

Seeing that He Yun could not recover in a short time, he could only slowly lay He Yun down and let her lean on him.

This was the first time in Wu Chang's life that a member of the opposite sex leaned on his shoulder, but he didn't feel anything good about it. The reason was very simple: the mecha on He Yun was too uncomfortable.

Although the custom-made mecha she was wearing was not much thicker than Iron Man's mecha, it was still angular and not soft at all.

He Yun covered her head and struggled for a few minutes before she recovered from the severe headache. She looked at the stone statue in the sarcophagus with confusion on her face.

"Why is there still a human stake here?"

Wu Chang asked, "Is your condition related to this so-called human stake?"

He Yun raised his head from Wu Chang's shoulder, sat on the ground side by side with Wu Chang, and said:
"I haven't finished what I just said."

"We found this stone temple and sent three or four groups of people in, but no one came out alive. Instead, many monsters escaped. But the situation of the underground shelter at that time did not allow my brother and I to give up, so we did not send anyone else and entered the temple ourselves."

"Then, we were trapped in this temple. We don't know how long we were trapped. It seemed like a week or a month. Time lost its meaning here. Just when we were about to give up, we accidentally came to this room."

He Yun pointed to the hieroglyphics on the wall at the door of their room and said:
“This house of sacrifice.”

"During the time we were trapped in the temple, I tried to decipher the hieroglyphics and learned about the temple's past from the records in the corners of many rooms."

As He Yun told the story, Wu Chang learned about the past of the Stone Temple.

The god enshrined in the stone temple is called the God of Desire. When he was first discovered, his power was not strong and he was very easy to talk to.

All one needs to do is offer him enough grain, and he will use his divine power to summon herds of beasts for people to hunt.

Offer Him delicious fruits and He will give His followers mellow wine.

As long as the believers satisfy the desires of the gods, the gods will bestow divine grace and fulfill the wishes of the believers who offer sacrifices.

This kind of return is often ten or a hundred times the amount paid.

As material wealth increases, people's desires continue to grow, from the initial desire to have enough food and clothing to the desire for gold, silver, and gems, more wisdom and military force, and even more land and power.

Human desires are growing rapidly, and the desires of the god of desire are growing faster than humans.

Starting with wanting gold, silver and precious stones, the God of Desire began to crave human souls.

If not satisfied, He will manipulate people's desires, materialize them into monsters, and destroy everything He has ever given.

In order to appease the gods and obtain more divine blessings, people can only offer enough souls to the gods during every important event, regardless of whether they have any wishes or not.

In order to comfort themselves, people can only say that the souls of those chosen as sacrifices will enter the kingdom of gods after death and become patron saints to protect others.

And these sacrifices are called human stakes.

But as time went by, the God of Desire's picky attitude towards sacrifices became beyond people's understanding.

It is no longer limited to specific requirements such as gender, age, skin color, hair color, and birth date, but has become abstract requirements such as "a shining soul" and "born to be loved by people".

If that doesn't satisfy you, then use the old rules and use the monster.

The believers, who had been tormented several times, chose to find a way to kill the God of Desire while trying to satisfy the desires of the gods and keep society running.

So, after the God of Desire made another request, the believers went through untold hardships and finally found two qualified human stakes.

As human stakes, they will receive the blessing of the God of Desire before they die. The God of Desire will give the "Original Stone of Desire" to the human stakes and ask each of them to write a wish on the stone tablet.

The God of Desire will fulfill any wish written on the stone tablet. This is the divine contract signed between the God of Desire and his believers when he was still young.

So the two people who were given the task wrote down their wishes.

That is to seal the God of Desire and let the temple sink into the ground, never to see the light of day again.

Restricted by the divine contract, the God of Desire could only seal himself in fear and rage.

Wu Chang wondered, "These followers of the God of Desire even engraved information about how they planned to murder the god in the temple?"

He Yun shook his head and said, "They didn't carve out everything. I made my conclusion based on the scattered complaints in the temple, the records of a large number of disasters, and the last two wishes on the Desire Tablet."

Wu Chang let out a sigh of relief. He said that it was too cruel to split the assassination plan and then carve it in the temple of the gods. If this was really done, compared with this group of believers, Lu Bu could be considered a filial son.

After listening to He Yun say so much, he actually had some idea of ​​what He Yun wanted to express.

He asked, "So, you left this stone temple by using the Desire Stone?"

He Yun took out the pendant and looked at the primitive desire inside with a very complicated look.

"We took down the Desire Stone, but before we could find the Desire Stele, we discovered that the disappeared temple entrance reappeared before our eyes. Now that we think about it, we have been trapped in the God of Desire since we were trapped in the stone temple."

Wu Chang asked, "After you get out, what will you do with the Desire Stone?"

He Yun paused for a moment, and said in a bitter tone: "I found that it can control the energy in the energy mine, and can also control the fog of disaster to a certain extent, so I chose to devote all my efforts to studying it."

Wu Chang took a deep breath and thought to himself, you woman are really not afraid at all. You interpret the information in all your ways, but how come you don't learn any lessons when you do it?

Sure enough, the only lesson mankind has learned from history is that mankind cannot learn any lessons from history.

He Yun felt Wu Chang's gaze and knew what he wanted to say, so he argued:
"Our situation at the time did not allow us to make any choice. The energy in the energy mine is not infinite. If we study the Desire Stone, we might repeat the same mistakes and end up in destruction. But if we don't study it, the underground shelter will collapse within a few months."

He Yun sighed and changed the subject.

"My memory of the Stone Temple is very vague, but I vaguely remember the memories of the human stake and the Stone of Desire. I said before that I was acting with the worst possible outcome in mind. The so-called worst possible outcome is to turn myself into a human stake and use myself to seal this temple."

He Yun seemed to have thought of something, and said in a trembling voice:

"But I remember clearly that my brother and I each took a Desire Stone. After we took the Desire Stone, the human stake in the sarcophagus turned into ashes. The two sarcophagi should be empty, so why is there an extra human stake now?"

(End of this chapter)