Chapter 1054 Place of Sacrifice

"Your Majesty, there is an urgent message from Chenxi!" The guard walked into the office and placed a thick sheepskin bag next to Roland's mahogany desk. "I heard from the messenger that Sean entrusted them to deliver it."

"Oh?" Roland couldn't help but get excited. He put down the biplane design drawing in his hand, stood up and said, "Quickly dismantle it and take a look."

It has been almost two months since the exploration team left Neverwinter, and the last news they received was when they crossed the border of Graycastle. The moment he learned that the source was not within the country, Roland was quite worried. After all, mining and transporting ore was a long-term process, and the First Army's mobility was limited. The further away from its own sphere of influence, the harder it was to control the plan.

Now that he finally got a reply, he was naturally particularly concerned.

But what made him secretly strange was that the package was too big, almost reminding him of the express mail of later generations. Whether it is found or not found, a piece of letter paper can clarify the situation. What kind of situation did the exploration team encounter that would make Sean send such a large package of things back?

"It's full of paper," Nightingale said close to his ear, probably sensing his confusion.

"Paper?" Roland tilted his head and asked in a low voice, "Has your ability evolved to the point where you can see through objects?"

"I thought so, but unfortunately it didn't happen." Nightingale said lazily, "I just put my hand into the bag and touched it when the other person came in."

So that's it, her alertness is really... Wait, Roland suddenly felt something was wrong. When Evelin came with a new Chaos drink, or the chef came in with a snack trolley, would she also Did you "touch" it like this?

Having said that, the portions of afternoon tea do seem to be less recently?

"Your Majesty, it's all filled with paper," the guard interrupted his thoughts, "and most of it is covered with ink."

What new reporting method is this? Roland looked inside and asked, "Isn't there a letter that can be read?"

"Please wait a moment..." The guard finally made a new discovery after pouring out all the contents of the sheepskin bag, "There is a wax-sealed letter at the bottom."

"Bring it here."

"Then these blackened papers—"

"Spread them all out on the floor," he ordered. "It's impossible for Sean to spend a lot of effort and send back a bunch of useless things."

"yes!"

Roland sat back in his chair and opened the envelope.

Judging by the date, it should have been mailed a week and a half ago. Like the bag, the letter was also surprisingly long, running to more than ten pages—it was hard to imagine that an exploration result would require such a lengthy statement. This may be the reason why the other party adopted the urgent method but did not switch to animal messengers after entering the northern territory of Graycastle.

"Your Majesty, Miss Akima has found the source you are looking for - it is at the northeastern junction of Dawn and Wolf Heart, where the locals call it Cage Mountain."

Sean's first words made Roland feel relieved.

Fortunately, this trip was not fruitless. The mining area was still within the Kingdom of Dawn, which meant that he could control the entire mining process through the Quinn family. Although it cost a lot more, it was better than being restricted by Wolf Heart and Everwinter. Well come.

Moreover, the other party's wording did not seem cumbersome, which made him more and more curious about the content behind it.

"It's just that the source is not in the mine, but in a very ancient ruins. What's even more incredible is that it neither belongs to the underground civilization nor has anything to do with the Taquila escapees. We once suspected that it might come from the undersea devil However, Miss Witch’s discovery refutes this conjecture.”

"Your Majesty, these are definitely the remains of an ethnic group that has never been known to us."

Roland's brows suddenly frowned.

An unknown new alien race has appeared in the four kingdoms?

This is information that has not even been mentioned by the Witches' Federation.

Although this territory was barren and backward in the past, it does not mean that they will ignore their rear area. If there are alien activities, it is unlikely to escape the detection of the witches.

In other words, if Sean's conclusion is correct, then they may have existed earlier than underground civilization.

The key question is, why is this group interested in uranium ore?

He then looked down.

"The builders left a large number of murals on the stone walls at the bottom of the ruins. The various monsters shown in the paintings are inconsistent with the alien images we know. By speculating on their contents, Ms. Rosser and I both believe that this This building was most likely a place of execution."

"Not only is it located on the source of the mineral vein, the builders also burned the ore into bricks to lay the walls and floors - Akima observed the presence of the same elements in every corner of the ruins, even the murals A lot of mineral materials were also used. And around the ground floor, we found a lot of cages and bones, which is also reflected in the murals."

"They seem to have imprisoned a large number of enemies here - including not only aliens, but also similar figures with the same image as the executioners, and then used the power of the source to torture each other, as if doing so could please their gods."

"I have made rubbings of those murals as much as possible and asked the Tokat family's messenger to send them to Neverwinter. However, due to the limited number of protective clothing and the huge size of the paintings, the progress is currently relatively slow. The murals you see are just Part of it is expected to take one to two months to complete."

"In addition, I am very worried about Ms. Rosser's situation. She went underground without wearing protective clothing. I don't know if she will encounter the danger you mentioned. The locals had discovered this ruins earlier, but she contracted the disease during the search. Many people died due to the strange epidemic, so it is also called the Cursed Temple. In addition, judging from the execution purpose of the ruins, this danger should exist."

"Oops." After reading this, Roland couldn't help but whisper.

"What's wrong," Nightingale asked in the mist, "Even if the God's Punishment Witches are cursed, changing their bodies can solve all problems, so there's no need to worry about them, right?"

"What I'm worried about is not the God's Punishment Witch, but Sean and Akima." He shook his head solemnly, "According to the plan, they shouldn't stay in the mining area for so long."

Whether it is uranium ore or highly enriched uranium, the decay radiation is mainly alpha particles, which are difficult to penetrate the skin and cause harm to the human body, but this does not mean that the same is true in mining areas. The picture changes when you consider that these radioactive elements have been around for hundreds of millions of years, and some of them have decayed into more dangerous elements, such as radon.

The half-life of radon is only 3.8 days. It is a gas itself and can easily be inhaled into the body to cause internal radiation, so it must be shielded. The protective clothing he prepared for the exploration team was designed for going deep into the mining area - the fully wrapped jacket can effectively isolate a variety of highly toxic elements that decay in uranium mines, and the activated carbon mask can absorb radon and other toxic gases , as long as you do not stay in the mining area for a long time, safety can basically be guaranteed.

But things change over time. The adsorption capacity of carbon particles is limited, which means that people involved in rubbing murals may inhale radon gas that exceeds safety standards and receive excessive ionizing radiation.

"They must evacuate the ruins immediately." Roland picked up a pen and paper from the table. "Call Mi Tang over. This reply must be delivered to them as soon as possible."