"Found it! We finally found it!"
"Go—open it for me!"
The Arashi clan leader shot a glance to the men around him, signaling for them to push open the stone door that blocked their way into the tomb.
Click, click, click…!
In just a short while, under the combined strength of several strong men, the heavy stone door creaked open.
"Cough, cough… cough, cough, cough!"
A wave of foul, decaying stench rushed out from within, making everyone cough violently. They quickly covered their mouths and noses, retreating a few steps with furrowed brows.
After a moment, as the stench began to fade, the group cautiously approached again, raising their torches to illuminate the tomb's interior.
"Looks fine, Chief. It's safe to go in."
One of the men waved his torch near the doorway and, seeing no signs of danger, turned to report to the Arashi clan leader.
"Good. Move—everyone inside!"
After confirming there was no apparent threat, the leader lifted his torch and strode into the tomb, the others following behind.
The tomb, hidden deep within the shadowy passage, wasn't very large.
Its stone walls were covered with ancient carvings and murals—mostly white and black triangles, along with many depictions of clouds and swirling hurricanes.
At the center of the chamber stood a stone coffin.
Above it, a dragon's head carved from rock jutted out, facing the coffin's foot—and directly toward the doorway.
From the side, it looked as though the dragon's head were guarding the coffin, its gaze fixed on the entrance.
There might once have been traps or mechanisms here, but after so many years, even if there had been, they'd long since lost their power—nothing more now than dead stone.
"It should be inside. Open the sarcophagus—now!"
"Be careful! Don't damage anything inside!"
The Arashi leader handed his torch to a subordinate, leaned close to the coffin, brushed away the thick dust, examined the engravings, then took the torch back and gave his command.
At his order, the men began working with crowbars and pickaxes, prying carefully at the lid.
Perhaps because of its age, the coffin's seal wasn't nearly as tight as before.
After several men worked at it for a while, the lid began to loosen.
From the widening cracks seeped a faint, eerie blue light.
"Harder! It's almost open!"
Seeing the strange glow, the leader's face twisted with barely contained excitement. He shouted hoarsely, "Now!"
With a collective grunt, the men jammed their crowbars into the glowing gap and levered upward with all their strength.
Crack!
The heavy stone lid lifted and slid to the side with a dull crash.
Hiss…!
The moment it opened completely, a blinding, ghostly blue radiance filled the chamber, and a surge of violent air burst forth from the coffin—blowing their hair and clothes wildly.
Fortunately, the mysterious wind vanished as quickly as it came.
Within moments, the tomb returned to stillness—except for the eerie blue light still pulsing from the coffin, bathing the room in its glow.
"Hahahahaha! It's mine—all mine! Hahaha!"
When the Arashi clan leader finally saw what lay inside, he burst into mad, unrestrained laughter.
Inside the coffin rested the preserved body of Ulanda, the former patriarch of the Arashi Clan.
Despite the passing of countless years, his corpse had not fully decayed—it was merely dried and shriveled.
In his hands, he held two radiant, crystal-clear orbs—one glowing a deep orange-yellow, the other shimmering with a pale blue-gray light.
There was no doubt—these were the long-sealed Mafunka Pearls.
The leader's eyes blazed with greed. After all his effort and peril, this was the power he had sought for so long.
Unable to contain himself any longer, he rolled up his sleeves, reaching eagerly into the coffin to seize the jewels.
But just as his fingers were about to touch them—
Bang!
An invisible force suddenly blasted his hands away.
At that instant, the two Mafunka Pearls rose slowly into the air, as though they had come to life.
They hovered above the coffin, glowing brighter and brighter—then, as if drawn by some unseen compass, shot toward the exit in twin streaks of light.
In the blink of an eye, they streaked out through the tunnel, racing toward the cliff where the dragon's head carving lay.
Then, the blue-gray pearl shot straight up into the sky, while the orange-yellow one veered off in the opposite direction—vanishing into the distant heavens.
It all happened so fast that no one even had time to react.
Within seconds, both pearls had completely disappeared from sight.
"Damn it! How could this happen?! I didn't even get them!"
The Arashi leader, who had chased them out to the cliff's edge, let out a furious roar as the treasures vanished before his eyes.
But the ordeal was far from over.
Though the Mafunka Pearls had flown off for reasons unknown—
Within the coffin, from the desiccated corpse of Ulanda, faint streams of white mist began to rise.
The mist thickened, swirling and condensing—until a faint human shape took form above the coffin.
Then, Ulanda's spectral figure opened his glowing eyes wide.
Like a luminous spirit, his translucent body shone with pale light as he slowly floated up from the coffin.
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