"The inside is in a better condition than what I expected…" Looking around at the inside of the temple, Xuan Hao could not help but observe the surroundings more closely as the tall pillars holding up the temple decorated with different religious figures was still standing tall even after the rest of the temple had fallen into ruin.
Even when the temple had sunk into the ground in the past, the main pillars still stood strong and withstood the sudden collapse of the underground area, keeping the main part of the temple intact up to this day.
"What are these pillars made of…" Chi Hu seemed to be interested in something completely different as he walked over a touched one of the pillars while muttering something inaudible to himself.
As Chi Hu was lost in thought observing the pillars of the temples entrance hall, Xuan Hao went deeper inside.
The environment of the temple changed completely as he made his way inside the core area of the temple where the normal religious ceremonies would take place, it was also here that the normal followers could come to pray on a daily basis.
The size of the core area alone was more than large enough to fit over ten thousand people praying together, while the other areas of the temple were most likely used as living quarters for the priests and other believers working at the temple.
Walking up to a majestically decorated stand where a member of the church that was in charge of the temple would have stood when preaching to the followers below, Xuan Hao saw a small book filled with all sorts of religious chants and songs.
"Cardinal…?" But this was not what caught Xuan Hao's attention, instead it was a small book laying on the stand with a small note inside of it talking about a cardinal coming to inspect the temple in a few days' time, followed by a list of things that needed to be prepared before the cardinal arrived.
It seemed a bit out of place in the ruined temple and felt like it had just been abandoned. Looking around, Xuan Hao felt that the temple was too out of place compared to the rest of the ancient forest in the secret realm and could not help himself from thinking about it.
"Could it be that someone moved the temple from the outside into the secret realm…?" Just the thought of someone being able to move an entire temple at this size was something unimaginable to Xuan Hao at his current realm, but it might have been possible for someone who had the ability to create a secret realm…
Perhaps the reason that the temple had been swallowed up by the ground was not because an underground area had collapsed, but was instead because someone had thrown the temple down on the ground…?
This thought caused Xuan Hao to shiver a bit as he began inspecting the different cracks running along the side walls of the temple that seemed to have been created from the temple enduring a massive impact.
"I will find out the truth by looking at the underground area and see if something really did collapse under the temple, causing it to sink into the ground or if it was just thrown into the secret realm by someone in the past…" Shaking his head, Xuan Hao looked over at Chi Hu in preparation for entering the underground area together with him.
"Ah! This is truly Holy Steel! How lucky! I will be able to earn a lot if I sell it outside in the future." Chi Hu exclaimed loudly as he used his weapon to cut off pieces of one of the pillars in the entrance hall of the temple, while happily storing the pieces of Holy Steel used to construct the pillars in a small bag around his waist.
"…" Maybe I should just go and check out the underground area alone…
Upon seeing how busy Chi Hu was, Xuan Hao decided to go down and enter the underground area of the temple on his own.
Luckily, the temple had begun falling apart long ago. Allowing Xuan Hao to easily find a crack big enough for him in the floor leading down into the underground regions of the temple.
Crack
Landing on the floor on the underground area below the core area of the temple, Xuan Hao barely managed to react in time as he jumped to the side before the place, he was standing moments ago disappeared into a giant gorge beneath it.
Splash!
The part of the floor that broke off from the underground hall that he had jumped down onto could be heard contacting a body of water, as Xuan Hao used his divine sense to probe the bottom of the gorge located directly beneath the temple.
"A river…?" Indeed, an underground river was peacefully flowing through the gorge below as the pieces of the underground halls floor were carried away before disappearing into a small hole where the gorge ended.
"Where does the river lead to…?" This was the first time Xuan Hao had seen a subterranean river and he was quite intrigued and felt like trying to explore the cave systems connected to it.
If it was not for the fact that he was inside a secret realm and Nascent Soul Realm demon beasts or even stronger demon beasts might be hiding in the cave systems connected to it and he would not be able to see if he crossed another line of pillars where Domain Lord Demon Beasts might begin appearing…
Imagine finding a rare herb of ore and getting up from underground, only to find out that you are in the middle of a Domain Lord demon beasts' nest…
Shaking his head, as he shivered at this thought, Xuan Hao turned away from the river peacefully passing by in the underground gorge beneath him.
Focusing back onto the underground hall of the temple as he began making his way through the hall, Xuan Hao closely observed the many weird paintings of mythical creatures like dragons and phoenixes fighting together with humans against a giant blue phoenix. The paintings depicted a war of mythical creatures and humans teaming up together to fight the giant blue phoenix.
The last painting on the wall depicted the giant blue phoenix losing and being sealed away.
"But what church is this… It doesn't seem like the plague god's church or any of the churches from the Sky Empire that Shu Yao described… All those churches have a human like figure as their god, this is the first church I have seen that does not worship a human figure as their god…" The more he knew about the church that the temple belonged to, the more confused Xuan Hao grew.
The temple seemed to be a place where people came to worship the giant blue phoenix, this was further enforced by the fact that an altar with a statue of the blue phoenix spreading its wings was located at the end of the hall.
Beneath the blue phoenix statue situated a little above the altar, Xuan Hao managed to see a small blue feather that glowed gently in the dark underground hall placed on the centre location of the altar itself.