Death... and me

Fortunately, that battle didn't last long, and with the trick used by Rean and Kentucky, they didn't spend much energy either. Thanks to that, their group finally arrived at the location shown by Zandolf's badge.

Rean looked ahead, somewhat surprised. "Ruins? What kind of ruins are these?"

Essefy shook his head. "I don't know. Still, they are obviously extremely old. Judging by the structures, the buildings were gigantic back when they were standing. Yet, pretty much only the bases remained."

It was then that Kentucky noticed something. "Guku, look there. Can you see that symbol on the big wall?"

Rean and Essefy looked over and saw the picture of a colored burning flame. Immediately, Rean's eyes lit up. He had obviously done his homework about the Essence Race. That symbol was the mark of the Essence Race, which were basically beings of Essence Energy. "So, senior Zandolf is also looking for the Essence Race..."

Essefy then reminded Rean. "Goku, there is no time to dwell over thoughts. We took a roundabout route and arrived faster. However, don't forget that many devils are coming to this place. We need to find Zandolf and get out of here."

"Oh, right!" Rean immediately nodded. He quickly checked his badge, trying to pinpoint the exact location of Zandolf in these Ruins. However, the signal was indeed too weak in this place. All Rean could tell was the general location. "He is somewhere in the center of these ruins... However, these ruins expand for hundreds of kilometers. Where exactly he is, I'm not sure."

Kentucky immediately flew into the ruins. "Then let's start already. If even we don't know where he is, let alone the devils coming here. By the way, can we use our Divine Sense? It should be enough to cover the entire Ruin."

Rean nodded. "Let's do it. If senior Zandolf feels our Divine Sense, perhaps he will come out. The only problem is if he decides to keep hiding. With the difference in cultivation, there is no way we can detect him with our Divine Sense."

The reason they didn't do it so far was simply because they didn't want Devils to feel them. But now that they are here, they might as well give it a try.

All three of them spread their Divine Senses. Soon, they covered the entire ruins' extension... or so they thought it would. "What is this?"

Their Divine Sense wasn't being blocked. It could enter the buildings, pass through the walls, and reach the underground. Yet... everything was gray! Even things there were right in front of Rean's group still looked like nothing more than a gray mist in their Divine Sense. "So weird... I've never seen such a way of stopping Divine Sense," Rean commented.

Essefy agreed with him. "Indeed. If I didn't have my eyes open and could see everything around us, I would be completely blind by what I'm seeing in my Divine Sense."

"This isn't too bad," Kentucky mentioned. "If things are like this for us, then it will be the same for the devils coming here. I don't think they were responsible for this situation. Otherwise, senior Zandolf wouldn't have stayed here. The only problem is that Zandolf definitely won't be able to feel our Divine Senses now."

"There is no other way. Let's go to the center of the ruins and start looking," said Rean.

Meanwhile, Zandolf was still unaware of the events outside. At that moment, he had found an underground passage. He felt himself quite lucky. It was because of how old the ruins were that he managed to identify that hidden passage. Otherwise, he would have passed by it without noticing.

As he went further down, the structures around him changed. Everywhere in the ruins, you could see the colored flame of the Essence Race. Yet, after he entered this place, those pictures changed into a cube with several patterns over it. Of course, those were just images on the wall, so Zandolf couldn't tell exactly what that cube was. He had seen many treasures that had cubic shapes, too.

Finally, he reached a big gate, with both sides having giant pictures of the same cube. 'Could this be it?' He couldn't help but think, excited. He then checked around to see if he could find any traps. Unfortunately, without the help of Divine Sense, he truly couldn't check things more deeply. To make things worse, he wasn't a formations master. He could only rely on his instincts, tricks, and experience.

Zandolf then took several small puppets from his Pocket Dimensional Realm. He then reached for the exit, staying far away from the door. Finally, he released the puppets, ordering them to step everywhere around that door. He couldn't tell if puppets would work, but it was better safe than sorry.

Yet, even though the puppets walked everywhere and touched everything, nothing happened. Zandolg narrowed his eyes, wondering if this was the wrong place. 'No... I also have to think about these ruins' age. Formations made so far back probably wouldn't last to this day. If there is something to protect this entrance, it probably has lost its power a long time ago.'

In the end, he decided to release a few demon beasts as well. If the problem was that the puppets weren't living beings, then the Demon Beasts surely would activate whatever might be there.

As Zandolf did his checks, Rean, Kentucky, and Essefy were feeling quite helpless above the ground. "Now things got complicated. Senior Zandolf's Signal disappeared a few minutes ago, and I can't pick it up anymore."

"At least we didn't find any dangers until now," Kentucky commented.

Essefy understood why. "This was the devils' territory, and the devils only cared about the living souls they got. All living beings in their territories are concentrated in well-controlled zones. Ruins like this ended up empty, so we won't find anything here unless someone set up a trap or something like that in advance."

Essefy then looked at Rean. "Still, why did his signal disappear?"

Rean pondered a bit before saying. "Although the signal is weak, it still reached these ruins. That said, the only place where the signal would have trouble is..." Rean then pointed down. "The underground."