[Here Lies Cindar Vael.]
[The Last Survivor of the Final Battle.]
[The First Root of the Cindari.]
Lian stood in front of the writing without moving for several seconds.
The underground hall was in complete silence, and only the weak light from the dry white roots on the walls allowed the shape of the coffin in the center of the tomb to be seen.
Cindar Vael.
A name he had heard more than any other person during the past few days.
The Founder of the Cindari.
The only survivor of a battle that had destroyed almost all the ancient civilizations of this world.
The man who had brought the First Root back from that battle and then built Rootcrown and a completely new civilization.
At first, the existence of his tomb was not strange, someone like him would naturally have a tomb.
But Lian only needed a few seconds to notice the main problem and frowned.
"Why?"
It was a simple question, but the more he looked at the surroundings, the stranger it became.
Why should the tomb of the Founder of the greatest civilization in this world be here?
Not in the center of Rootcrown, not inside a public temple, not under a huge Statue where the Cindari could visit to show their respect to him.
But on a floor that did not even exist on the World Memory Map.
Under the First Archive, under the most protected part of Lord’s Root Palace.
In a place whose entrance had been intentionally hidden and whose existence had not even been recorded by the map.
If Cindar was truly the great Hero of the Cindari, why was his tomb hidden?
If he was supposed to be respected, why did even the Archive above him have no mention of this place?
Even the fact that the existence of this tomb seemed to have been kept hidden was something that seemed worth questioning to him, even though it looked strange.
The tomb of such an important person would usually be a public place that everyone could enter, but the Cindari might simply have different traditions.
Lian moved his eyes over the seven golden chains, they were wrapped around the coffin and each one came from one of the directions of the hall and reached the center.
They were not the chains of a normal tomb, they looked more like something that was supposed to keep something in place.
But the strangest part was not that.
Predator’s Instincts was still sensing something, he slightly closed his eyes and focused more on the Skill.
The surroundings changed in his instinctive perception and blood flows appeared in his vision, but there should not have been any living creature in this hall.
However, under the coffin and among the roots connected to it, there were very weak flows.
Lian examined it more carefully for several seconds, there was no Heartbeat.
There was no breathing and no normal muscle movement but the blood was moving, so slowly that if he did not have Predator’s Instincts, he would never have noticed it.
Every few seconds, a very small amount of blood passed through one of the veins, it was almost stopped, but not completely, just enough for the body to continue being alive.
Lian looked at the coffin.
"You are not dead." His voice created a weak echo in the huge hall and then he moved forward.
This time, he did not examine the chains.
If he had found the hidden entrance to the Archive by force, there was no reason to play a game that had lasted for hundreds of years just to open a coffin.
He placed his hand on the edge of the white stone, the cover was thick, probably several tons in weight but weight was not something that could seriously stop Lian.
His fingers went under the edge of the stone and he applied pressure, at first nothing happened but then a very quiet sound came from the contact between stone and stone.
The cover moved ... several centimeters, then more and the seven golden chains shook slightly, but contrary to what he expected, they did not stop it from opening.
This made another point clear, the chains were not meant to close the coffin, they had another purpose.
Lian applied more force, the heavy cover slid over the edge and the sound of stone being dragged echoed through the dead hall.
A layer of old dust rose from its surface, at the same moment, cold air came out of the coffin, not the normal air of a tomb but a dry and lifeless cold.
He moved the cover far enough to clearly see inside the coffin and then stayed silent for a moment.
Cindar Vael was there.
Or at least what remained of his body, the body of a very thin man was lying inside the coffin.
His skin was so dry that it was almost stuck to his bones, the color of his skin was neither gray nor brown.
It looked more like very old leather that had been kept away from any moisture for centuries.
Dark veins could still be seen under the skin of his hands and neck.
His hair had almost completely turned white and was spread over the stone pillow behind his head.
His eyes were closed, his lips were dry, his cheeks were sunken.
If Lian had seen him somewhere else, he would probably have thought he was looking at the corpse of a Vampire that had slept for centuries without blood.
But something about the body was wrong.
The corpse had not rotted, there were no signs of decay, no real smell of death, no breaking down of the tissue and even the dark clothes covering Cindar’s body were almost completely intact.
He frowned and placed his hand on the man’s dry wrist, he felt no pulse.
Then he moved his hand to his neck and again found nothing but Predator’s Instincts was still showing the same very weak flow.
How could blood move inside this man’s body when it seemed that all of his organs were dead and completely stopped working? Was such a thing even possible?
"Unless the organs are working, but the evidence and what I am seeing show the opposite... unless." He thought for a moment and then checked the condition of the organs again.
Suddenly, something came to his mind but he was not sure, he checked the organs one by one to find even the smallest sign of life in them.
He placed his hand on the chest, in complete silence he focused all his attention and senses on it, waiting to catch even the smallest pulse.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Four seconds.
Five seconds.
And finally, he succeeded.
"I see it, the heart, brain, liver, and all the other organs are almost completely inactive." Lian’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Suspended Death.
Not Alive, not Dead, something between the two.
The heart was practically not working, the lungs showed no movement. The muscles were almost completely inactive.
The nervous system showed no detectable activity, even the Mana Structure inside the body was nothing more than very weak strands.
But that was exactly the problem, almost ... not completely.
The heart had almost stopped, but not completely.
The blood flow was almost zero, but not completely.
Cellular activity was almost nonexistent, but not completely.
Lian kept his eyes on the dried body.
"If you were really supposed to be buried..." His eyes moved toward the thin roots connected to the back of the coffin.
"Why did they keep your body in this state?"
There was no logical reason for this kind of preservation.
If the Cindari only wanted their Founder’s body to remain intact, they could have mummified it.
They could have used Magic Preservation, they could have kept the body inside Crystal or ice.
But something else was happening here, the veins were still moving blood, Cellular Decay had been intentionally stopped.
A very small part of the Biological Functions had been preserved, for a corpse that was not supposed to be used again, this made no sense.
He stayed silent for a few seconds and then his expression suddenly changed, an idea came to his mind.
At first, it was so strange that even he did not accept it immediately, but the more he looked at the body, the more logical it became and he slowly whispered.
"Unless..." He paused for a few seconds, then his eyes stayed directly on Cindar’s dried face.
"You were supposed to come back." The hall became silent again.
But this time, the sentence remained in Lian’s mind, Cindar Vael was not supposed to be kept only as a respected corpse.
This body had been preserved so that one day it could be used again.
For a return, for Resurrection!