It was as if a massive blade or a heavy chain was moving through the Rib Passage.
One lowered its body.
"Keep your guard up and be careful." Lian prepared to move.
Seris gripped her sword’s hilt tighter.
Time passed... but nothing came out of the mist.
The sound came closer... then suddenly stopped.
Silence returned... a few seconds passed... then a few minutes, and no creature appeared.
"So what happened?" Seris frowned. The sense of danger and warning she had felt disappeared, as if it had never existed from the start.
"Let me see." Lian carefully moved forward. On the path’s floor, he found a deep line.
The bone powder had been pushed aside, and the stone beneath it had cracked. The mark was as wide as an arm, as if a massive blade or chain had been dragged on the ground.
The mark was fresh.
White dust was still falling from its edges. A little further ahead, a few Bone Scavengers could be seen.
Their bodies were completely crushed, reduced to piles of dry flesh and broken bones under a massive force.
He bent down next to one of them. There was no sign of biting or claws.
"Something large passes through here."
"Where is it?" Seris asked, her eyes sparkled slightly. Could they finally have an exciting battle?
"I don’t know." Lian looked at the mist and examined the deep mark again.
"But whatever crushed the Scavengers without eating them is probably not a normal predator, and for some reason, it didn’t come after us."
He couldn’t understand why a monster would give up attacking them. There could be different reasons, but he didn’t think any of his ideas were correct.
With one look, he was sure whatever had appeared and disappeared so quickly was powerful. He didn’t know how powerful, but from the blood flow he had seen, he could say it was at least level 30 or at least had that much power.
But since it had left them alone, there was nothing to do, and Lian decided to increase their speed.
Waiting to see the owner of the mark was not worth it.
"It could have been interesting." Seris was clearly not happy with this decision.
"If it shows up again, you can find out how interesting it is." Lian answered while mounting One.
"Okay." The young Pendragon sheathed her sword and also mounted the ant.
They continued on their path. Their priority was to get out of this graveyard as soon as possible and enter the other forest. Not only were there no opportunities here, but the environment was extremely dangerous.
Lian was looking for an opportunity that could help him reach level 20 as soon as possible, and he had a feeling he would find that opportunity in the next forest.
There, he might also be able to find the rest of his teammates.
In the next section of the Rib Passage, the bones became denser. The mist passed through the ribs and limited visibility.
Suddenly, they saw a sign on one of the ribs.
One stopped.
And Lian went closer to the wall. A straight line was on the bone, not a claw scratch, not a natural crack, but the mark of a blade! A shallow but controlled cut.
A few meters ahead, a torn rope was lying on the ground.
He picked it up. Its material was different from the ropes made by the tribes. This rope was stronger, more regular, and of higher quality.
This was exactly a rope from their world.
Further ahead, a broken spear was lying, and traces of dried blood could be seen on one of the ribs.
"It’s old." Seris bent down and examined it.
"Yes, but not that old." Lian nodded. This blood mark was at most from a few days ago.
If these traces were real, another group had entered the Giants’ Graveyard before them, meaning a group of awakened ones!
But the question was, were they real?
A little further ahead, a mark was carved on the wall with a blade, an arrow pointing down, and beneath it, a word in human language.
SAFE.
Lian looked at the writing for a few seconds.
"This is our language...?" Seris’s eyebrows also rose.
"Yeah." Lian examined the surroundings of the mark. The blade’s effect looked natural and real. The depth of the letters was not uniform.
In the lower part, the writer’s hand had probably trembled. But the Graveyard had already shown sounds that were not real.
Its creatures had imitated the faces of familiar people. This area might not only imitate sounds and appearances.
It might have the ability to create signs that seemed strange, familiar, or hopeful to its victims.
Lian’s guess was that the graveyard could show things that didn’t logically belong there, but they were so real that they couldn’t be easily distinguished.
He doubted another group of awakened ones had entered here.
They were probably seeing things that seemed strange but hopeful to them, and this was exactly what the graveyard showed its guests.
If his guess was correct, then he had understood the mechanism of the graveyard and the illusions they were hearing and seeing, and how they worked.
These illusions probably came from the mist, and the monsters living in this graveyard had the ability to use this mist.
The mist could force their minds to show them things that were hopeful, worrying, or terrifying for them.
Things that, if they saw or heard them, would activate and trigger their sense of danger. Hearing the voices of loved ones was naturally worrying for Lian.
And likewise, now seeing items that could belong to awakened ones could also be worrying for both him and Seris, and make them wonder what had happened to them?
This reality was a lie that their brains were showing them, and Lian guessed that probably someone or something wanted to pull them toward a specific direction.
But he and Seris are not ordinary people. Their Spirit power is high enough that illusions cannot fool them or disrupt their minds.
"Should we follow it?" Seris asked.
"Not directly. I guess it wants to waste our time or pull us to a specific point." Lian answered.
"So we ignore it? Isn’t it better to just follow it? We’ll find out if it’s real or not. If it’s a monster’s work, I’ll break it." The silver-haired girl added.