Almost immediately after Hao Ren and his party stepped on the ramp leading to the grand temple, the giant statues all stopped at the same time. Then, there was a sparkle on the surface of the huge, peculiar jellyfish body in the sky. Vivian’s electromagnetic shield began to crack, and in the intense energy hedging, the electromagnetic shield disintegrated at a visible speed.

The giant statues regained coordination instantly. As if enraged by the invaders’ blasphemy, they began to rush madly in the direction of the grand temple. The huge, rickety figures destroyed every obstacle that stood in their way; ancient houses and towers were overthrown; the solid stone floors were crushed to powder. The footsteps of those giant statues thundered through the city, and even the high ground of the grand temple shook slightly.

“The stone army is going mad!” Lily yelled. “Mr. Landlord, are you sure these guys aren’t going anywhere near the grand temple?”

Hao Ren said nothing. In fact, he was not 100% sure of his guess. He then pulled Lorrisa and Hessiana, who were a little dazed, and said, “Go inside the grand temple first. At least the building looks solid. Even if the statues are coming to us, we can fight them for a while around the walls of the grand temple.”

Hessiana, who did not have much experience dealing with this kind of battle, was especially nervous at the time. “You sure? If you’re not, Lord Vivian will be taking a risk with you!”

“Don’t worry, I’ve dealt with more dangerous things than these,” said Hao Ren with a laugh, “and even if I can’t stop so many stone soldiers, I can still get you all out of this place – there’s nothing in the world that can stop an inspector.”

The entire central temple was built on a raised platform above the city. Several pyramid-shaped architectural bodies and rectangular palaces scattered among the pyramids made up this magnificent ancient architectural complex. The raised platform was not ‘natural terrain’, but a skeleton on the head of Ertos. There was no such thing as ‘natural terrain’ in this city built on top of the beast.

This terrain also led to a long ramp around the grand temple, with numerous steps that marked the boundary between the temple area and the surrounding common urban area.

The statues stopped at the ramp, as Hao Ren had expected.

The stone guardians were converging from all parts of the city. They gathered at the foot of the grand temple, looking like a black sea was formed below the ramps. They were now furious like a living creature. They jostled, swayed and even ‘vented’ by demolishing nearby buildings, but in the end, none of the statues made it past even the bottom step of the temple.

“Phew… That’s a pretty good guess,” Hessiana said, as she wiped the sweat off her face and glanced at ‘Rollie’ on Hao Ren’s back. “How’s the cat?”

“She was kicked by the statue, but I gave her some cookies from the goddess. Guess she’s healed now, just a little weak,” Hao Ren said as he turned his head to look at the cat girl. She was sleeping on his shoulder, and her fluffy ears resting on his face. “Hmm… It looks like the medicine is working.”

“Landlord,” said Lily, tugging Hao Ren’s arm, “what do you think there will be in that grand temple?”

Hao Ren looked up. The yellow pyramid at the end of the ramp was towering above, and the top of the pyramid pointed straight to a huge whirlpool at the boundary of this space as if it was the one that attracted the destruction of the lost city.

“I don’t know,” he shook his head, “but we’re already here, and we must at least look into it. The city looks like it was destroyed by the crimson moon, but Vivian doesn’t remember what happened here, so our investigation may be the only hope to help Vivian recover this memory.”

“Aww,” Lily nodded and looked at Vivian flying in the air. “Battie is really a troublemaker…”

Without being disturbed by the statues, they soon arrived at the gate of the central pyramid of the grand temple.

Unlike the previous ‘small’ temple, this central temple was much better built with superior materials. The gate was still standing strong and intact, like a serious soldier guarding the secrets of the great pyramid.

Vivian landed, looked around and frowned slightly. “There is no statue here…”

“Isn’t it good?” Lily’s thinking is simple. “And landlord just said, those statues are coming from the surrounding temples. This temple in the center of the city is a forbidden area for them.”

“Even without the guardian statues, there should be decorative sculptures,” said Vivian, shaking her head. “That’s the most basic part of the temple—at least according to the architectural style of the city, there must be sculptures inside the temple.”

“Yes, there’s,” said Lily, pointing to the top of a nearby palace. “There’s a big dog’s head over there.”

Vivian rolled her eyes and said, “I’m not talking about that! And that is clearly a wolf head, okay!”

Lily, “…”

“Anyway, it’s better not to see the stone guards than to be chased and beaten by them,” Lorrisa interrupted, watching Lily and Vivian drifted away from the focus. “There seems to be some sort of magical reinforcement to this door. Maybe I can try to crack it…”

Before Lorrisa could finish speaking, she heard a loud bang coming from the side, and then the enchanted, impenetrable bronze gate fell apart. Amid the smoke, Hao Ren came out with two unfinished pieces of dynamite and asked, “What did you say?”

Lorrisa was at a lost for words.

“Ahem, you’ll get used to it. That’s how our landlord solved the problem,” Lily said, patting Lorrisa on the shoulder. “Blow it up and you’re good.”

Lorrisa was speechless.

The gate has been perfectly cracked by Hao Ren through technical means. Everyone was vigilant to follow Hao Ren into this ancient temple which had been sealed for thousands of years.

The flickering light of Flamejoy made the dark passage of the temple seem very gloomy, but other than this gloomy feeling, they did not see any enemy or anything that might turn into enemies.

The interior of the temple was grand and magnificent, but the furnishings were so simple beyond imagination.

It was the largest cluster of buildings in the city, supersized in form and scale from the outside, but lacking in decoration from the inside like a simple grotto. There were no exquisite stone statues, no sacrificial articles inlaid with precious stones and precious metals, and even the most common daily utensils were rarely seen. There were only dusty stone tables and stools and decaying wooden lamps in the room. Other than these ‘furniture’, there was not even a metal object found in the temple.

The monks who lived here might not even be able to survive, let alone worship the gods.

But it was certainly not like this at first as many of the rooms in the temple were apparently once used by monks, and Hao Ren soon found several ‘treasure vaults’ that had been emptied.

He was able to identify them as treasure vaults because the MDT found dust of precious metals and a few missing gems on the floors and walls of the rooms.

The central temple was not so simple and crude from the beginning. It was emptied.

But who did it?

“The city was destroyed by the crimson moon, and the moonlight has not dissipated to this day, so it’s unlikely that there were any future grave robbers,” said Y’zaks. “There are a lot of rooms in the temple, and the structure is very complicated. From the parts we have searched so far, we can confirm that it was completely emptied, so it should have been emptied by people who are quite familiar with the place, and it was organized and planned. I think it was the people of the city who did it.”

“A civilian mutiny?” Hessiana said and blinked. “The people at the bottom rebelled against the priests at the top and robbed the entire temple?”

“Not likely. If that happens, the damage to the temple will be much greater than what we see now.” Vivian shook her head. “And in the mythological age, it’s impossible for ‘mortals’ to rebel against the high priests. Even if the high priests were the servants of the old gods, their power would be too great for ordinary men to fight.”

“Then who ‘ransacked’ this temple?” Hao Ren frowned. “And only the grand temple was looted, while nothing’s lost in the smaller pyramids nearby.”

Vivian shrugged. “Who knows?”

As she finished, she seemed puzzled and looked at the end of the corridor.

“What’s wrong?” Hao Ren asked curiously.

Vivian blinked and said, “I thought I heard someone call me again…”