The brick‑and‑stone wall had been violently broken open, clearly the spot where Hu Tao had entered.
Without hesitation, Jiang Bai stepped inside.
The moment he crossed the threshold, he felt as if he'd passed through an invisible membrane. Even the temperature dropped several degrees.
Footprints crowded the ground—many people had come through here.
His brow tightened. He raised a shield around himself at once.
Inside the tomb, all he saw was a long corridor.
Obviously, this wasn't the true entrance to the burial chamber.
Examining the carvings on the walls, he noticed that the patterns here were completely different from those on the ruins above. Not even the same artistic style.
Logically, this tomb should have belonged to the same civilization that built the ruins, but the distinctly different designs made that unlikely.
And this tomb was buried gods‑knew how deep underground.
"Could this burial chamber be even older than the ruins above?"
Jiang Bai was puzzled.
Layer after layer of ruins—just how many generations of civilization had Teyvat gone through?
He set aside the unnecessary curiosity and followed the trail of footprints forward.
The tomb was deathly silent. Aside from his own footsteps and heartbeat, Jiang Bai heard nothing.
But soon, he picked up a strange hopping sound.
Boom!
A corpse in Treasure Hoarder clothing suddenly lunged out of the darkness before him—skin darkened green‑black, eyes frozen open in unwilling death.
A sinister toxic aura clung to its whole body. Its fingernails were long and pointed, their blackened tips looking like poison; one scratch could very well make someone end up exactly like this unfortunate fellow.
Jiang Bai drew out the long‑unused "Debate Club" and smashed the corpse—now a jiangshi—straight into the wall.
With Jiang Bai's strength, an ordinary person would die instantly from such a hit. Even a hilichurl would be knocked unconscious.
But this jiangshi took the blow without issue. It shrieked, then clawed its way back out, lunging at him again.
The blade‑form of Baiyuan materialized in Jiang Bai's hand. One flash of steel—its head flew clean off.
And even then, the headless jiangshi continued its relentless assault.
Jiang Bai's brows knit into a deep 川 shape. His understanding of this domain's danger had just shifted again.
Swish, swish, swish—
Blade‑light carved through the air. The jiangshi was sliced into pieces of differing sizes, finally collapsing into a heap on the ground. Only then did it stop attacking.
"This is absurd… even decapitation doesn't work…"
One of these things wouldn't be a problem—Hu Tao could handle that easily. But if there were hundreds, thousands…
Thinking of Hu Tao's current situation, Jiang Bai's heart tightened. He stopped following the burial chamber's intended layout entirely and instead began smashing straight through the walls in the exact direction indicated by the Sifang Compass.
...
Hu Tao was currently at the heart of the tomb—the largest burial chamber.
The tip of the Staff of Homa had been stained completely black, dyed by the dark blood of the killed jiangshi.
Her clothes, her hair, even her beloved hat were splattered with blackish blood. With the nonstop assaults, she had no time to clean it off; she simply stashed her hat away to avoid dirtying it further.
The little spirit had expended too much energy and had long since retreated into the ring to rest.
Dodging the jiangshi while investigating the tomb's origins and strange phenomena, Hu Tao had unknowingly reached the central chamber.
Perhaps it was the oppressive aura left by the tomb's owner, or perhaps some kind of ward, but the grotesque jiangshi refused to step inside. They crowded at the doorway instead, filling it completely, glaring at her.
Hu Tao ignored whether they were staring or not. She swept her gaze around the chamber and finally fixed her eyes on the jade coffin encircled by multiple smaller coffins like stars around the moon.
The entire coffin was carved from flawless jade—by far the most exquisite, largest, and most luxurious coffin she had ever seen.
A bit of dark humor surfaced: when Ningguang's next birthday banquet came around, maybe she should design Ningguang a coffin like this. She could definitely afford the Mora.
The thought passed in an instant. Hu Tao kept her guard up, watching the surrounding coffins.
Every chamber she passed before this—every corpse inside had turned into a jiangshi. This chamber clearly wouldn't be an exception.
There might even be a jiangshi king.
Without hesitation, she jumped onto the jade coffin and sat atop it. From here, the moment something tried to rise, she'd feel it immediately, and the coffin lid could shield her.
Before anything awakened, she quickly ate and drank to replenish her strength.
To completely eliminate these jiangshi, she couldn't waste even a second of rest.
Just as she swallowed the last bite of meat pie and lifted her water flask to wet her throat, movement sounded beneath her.
Whoever lay inside the coffin seemed furious that someone dared sit on it—clearly about to break out.
Without a trace of hesitation, Hu Tao stomped down hard. The coffin, which had just begun to shift, was forced back into stillness. Flames erupted, engulfing the entire coffin.
Using the rebound, she vaulted upward and landed high on the wall. The Staff of Homa embedded itself into the stone, giving her a foothold.
The inhabitant of the coffin was enraged now. A terrifying roar burst out, drawing every jiangshi in the tomb toward the chamber.
Bang!
The lid was blown off by brute strength, crashing into the wall and shattering.
A richly dressed jiangshi shot out from the coffin, flames blazing across its body yet doing nothing to it.
It howled again, glaring at Hu Tao. The shockwave of its roar swept through the burial chamber, and the corpses in the surrounding coffins began to stir awake.
This is bad, Hu Tao thought.
This jiangshi king had clearly reached a state where blades didn't cut and fire didn't burn—ordinary flames were useless.
She immediately threw out a talisman and formed a hand seal. Violet lightning detonated in the air, thundering toward the king with crushing force.
The jiangshi king had no true consciousness, but its instincts were sharp—it dodged at once.
Seeing such speed, Hu Tao's expression darkened.
Boom!
The spot where she had stood exploded into flying debris. Thick stone crumbled like paper in the jiangshi king's hands.
Hu Tao leapt, bringing the fiery Staff of Homa down hard across the jiangshi king's face, smashing it to the ground.
Another talisman flicked from her fingertips—lightning and blazing fire crashed down together.
The explosion rattled the chamber, flipping the jiangshi king over. But only a moment later, wreathed in black smoke, it rose again.
It roared, and all the jiangshi that had crowded the entrance surged into the chamber. Countless more poured in behind them.
Seeing herself surrounded, Hu Tao felt her heart sink.
She drew a deep breath. Despite her dwindling spiritual strength, she used the staff's rebound force to propel herself high into the air.
A wave of searing flame burst outward beneath her, instantly reducing the nearest jiangshi to molten sludge.
In the roaring blaze, Hu Tao danced with the Staff of Homa like a flaming butterfly; each sweep of her wings turned another jiangshi to ash.
But the waves of undead surged endlessly, like a monstrous swarm of ants closing in. Her body looked moments away from being swallowed whole by the tide.