Logan Sullivan raised his hand and rubbed his chin—he hadn’t expected this silent Soul Reaper to actually know him so well. If it were just a big puppet blocking his way so brazenly, it would probably have been kicked to pieces by now. But this little thing, unable to communicate and with such thin bones, he really couldn’t bring himself to make things difficult for it.

Logan Sullivan studied the little puppet standing there resolutely. “Are you going to let me pass or not?”

The little puppet’s jawbone moved, making a “ga-ga” sound.

Logan Sullivan shook his head, stretched out his long legs, and effortlessly stepped right over the little skeleton’s head.

The little thing clearly didn’t understand what had happened. Its head tilted back in sync with his movement, almost falling off its neck, and only then did it flail about—realizing that Logan Sullivan had somehow gotten past its defense and was now swaggering forward.

The little puppet hurriedly scrambled after him, grabbing onto the corner of Logan Sullivan’s coat to stop him from leaving.

Logan Sullivan couldn’t be bothered to argue with it. Without looking back, he dragged the little skeleton along as he walked forward—after all, the little thing wasn’t heavy.

If it had eyes, it would probably be crying from anxiety by now.

The further he went, the stronger the stench of decay became, and the air seemed to grow more humid. Layer upon layer of ancient, crumbling steps stretched downward, growing narrower and narrower. In the end, Logan Sullivan, finding the little skeleton in the way, bent down, scooped it up like a child, and slung it over his shoulder, glancing down at his watch.

At first glance, the face of Soul Mirror’s watch was so calm it was almost eerie.

Logan Sullivan stared at it for two seconds, then suddenly stopped in his tracks—he realized the hands of his watch were moving backward!

No… not exactly backward. The second hand was spinning in reverse, the minute hand kept moving forward, while the hour hand was stuck at twelve o’clock, unmoving. There was a strange force pulling all three hands together.

Finally, they all stopped at exactly twelve o’clock, as if dead, not moving at all.

Logan Sullivan scraped a bit of dirt from the wall and brought it to his nose for a sniff.

“Maybe it’s just my imagination,” Logan Sullivan said, not sure if he was talking to himself or to the little puppet on his shoulder. “I feel like I’ve already been buried.”

Chapter 36 Terra-Spike …

The little puppet let out a “ga-ga,” suddenly reaching out its sharp finger bones to poke Logan Sullivan lightly on the cheek, then pointed at a wall not far away, “ga-ga”ing twice more.

Logan Sullivan raised his flashlight and followed the direction of the little skeleton’s finger, discovering a line of writing there.

“Hmm, you really are sharp-eyed for someone without eyes… It’s Hangar Tribe script.” Logan Sullivan leaned in and gently touched it. “No… strictly speaking, Hangar Tribe didn’t have their own writing. This must be some kind of special incantation.”

The little puppet: “Ga-ga.”

“Don’t ask me, I’m not a walking dictionary. Who the hell knows what it means.” Logan Sullivan leaned in a bit closer, muttering to himself, “But I do know that in Hangar Tribe culture, rounded lines represent gentleness and calm, while sharp, angular symbols are usually quite malicious. For example, the one that imprisons souls is a triangle formation, and then there’s that octagon I haven’t had time to study yet…”

His finger paused as he found an octagonal symbol at the end.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Logan Sullivan said calmly. “Great, now things are about to get scary.”

Before he finished speaking, a loud boom echoed out, shaking the entire cave. Logan Sullivan nearly lost his balance, and the little puppet grabbed his collar, its slender hand bones tangling in Logan Sullivan’s hair, “ga-ga”ing nonstop. Logan Sullivan squinted, and saw a fire dragon roaring toward them from ahead. He braced himself against the wall with one hand and held the little puppet with the other, his face flushed red in the firelight.

The flickering flames reflected in his pitch-black pupils, strangely cold and intense. Logan Sullivan patted the little puppet’s head as it desperately tried to burrow into his arms. “Stop clawing at my clothes. If you’re scared, get into my watch.”

The little puppet didn’t hesitate, completely forgetting its master’s orders, and immediately chickened out, turning into a puff of gray mist and diving into his watch face. Almost in the next instant, the sweeping flames engulfed the defenseless Logan Sullivan.

Logan Sullivan was already holding a talisman, but when faced with this real fire, the talisman didn’t ignite, nor did he feel any heat.

Logan Sullivan froze for a moment, then calmly put the yellow paper talisman away. Surrounded by flames taller than a person, he looked up, seeing nothing but leaping fire, sweeping through the entire cave. As soon as the untouchable flames vanished, the dirt on the wall marked with the octagonal symbol crumbled away on its own.

His heart stirred. He caught the falling dirt, pulled out an empty cigarette pack from his pocket, put the dirt inside, and tucked it away.

Then, large chunks of plaster peeled off the earthen wall. Logan Sullivan reached out and brushed it aside. By flashlight, he saw faint murals on the wall.

Perhaps because of their age, the images were mostly decayed, and the style was very abstract—bits and pieces scattered everywhere. Maybe an archaeology expert could make sense of it, but after studying it for a long time, Logan Sullivan’s nearsighted eyes were nearly popping out, and he still couldn’t figure out what it was about.

He quickly lost interest and continued forward. Suddenly, Logan Sullivan paused, remembering something. He turned back five steps away and observed the mural from a distance, sweeping his flashlight across the top, then at a forty-five-degree angle, then at three o’clock, then down at a forty-five-degree angle…

He discovered a huge octagon in the mural, with a tiny octagonal symbol at each point.

Logan Sullivan looked at the massive octagon hidden in the painting, rummaged in his coat’s inner pocket, and pulled out a wallet. From a pile of coins, bank cards, and receipts, he found a crumpled, yellowed page with ragged edges—as if torn from an old book.

It was the page from 《Grimoire of Dark Rites》 about the “Forbidden Rites of Robra,” which he always carried with him, though for some reason, he hadn’t shown it to Carter Shaw.

On it was drawn a blue-faced, fanged monster with six arms but only one leg, each arm pointing to a corner of the octagon. The monster glared fiercely, mouth wide open, holding a small mountain in its jaws, and on its left chest was a distinct, pitch-black octagonal mark.

“The mountain’s in its mouth, and this thing is at its heart…” Logan Sullivan murmured, slapping his large map against the wall.

Logan Sullivan pressed the page with the monster onto the map, then slowly rotated the map so that south was at the top. Using his fingernail, he drew a line on the paper, connecting the mountain in the monster’s mouth to the octagon on its left chest, and extended the line on both sides… His finger landed on the deepest part of the valley.

The great fire in the valley, the bone artifacts on the mountaintop, and even the various dark arts of this long-extinct people all seemed to hide deeper secrets.

And why had Zach Warren suddenly abandoned her companions and come here alone?

Why was she so obsessed with her own corpse, buried for a hundred years?

Logan Sullivan began to feel a vague sense of foreboding—once he found Zach Warren, he’d have to lock her in a little dark room for a month. He’d never seen anyone so eager to court death—what a troublesome girl!

Logan Sullivan squeezed deeper into the cave, which grew narrower and narrower, forcing him to almost bow his head. By the time he felt his cervical spondylosis was about to flare up, he finally reached the end.

At the end was another door, mottled and weathered, bearing the image of that six-armed, one-legged monster, exactly like the one in the page he carried.

Only now, the expression seemed to show fear.

Logan Sullivan slowly reached out, feeling a heaviness in his chest the moment his palm touched the door. Still, he pushed it open without hesitation and found himself standing halfway up the mountain, with the mysterious valley at his feet.

Suddenly, he felt as if he were standing in the middle of a surging ocean, the heavy water pressing against his chest, making it hard to breathe.

The sky was clearly bright, but the clouds blocked out every ray of sunlight. Logan Sullivan stood there for a moment, then stepped forward.

The moment his foot landed, it was as if something had been triggered.

A silent sigh rose from deep within the earth, rippling out from the back mountain of the Hangar Tribe in wave after wave.

There was something in this valley, something… extraordinary.