Chapter 540: Chasing in the Underground Palace and the Ghost Cave

Chapter 540: Chasing in the Underground Palace and the Ghost Cave

Chapter 540: Chasing in the Underground Palace and the Ghost Cave

Wow!
The mechanism made a sound and the secret door opened.

Several elite soldiers took the lead, rushing in with swords and shields in hand, and the rest also filed out of the corridor.

When everyone came outside, they looked around without the help of torches and found that this was actually an underground palace. The surrounding space was vast, with carved beams and painted pillars, the walls were painted with gold powder and inlaid with gems, and the floor was paved with jade, full of a gorgeous atmosphere.

They were in the main hall of the underground palace. Not far from the brick wall entrance, there was a throne carved out of jade.

There is a red jade eye carved on the top of the jade throne. The entire body of the throne is inlaid with gold and silver, and carved with fairy mountains, clouds, flowers, birds, fish, beasts and other objects. The base is a large piece of jade as white as goat's milk, which is particularly eye-catching in the hall dominated by black tones.

Of course, what is more eye-catching is the graceful figure on the throne.

Huo Qubing and others thought that this was also a statue like the one on the high tower, but they found that the figure was still breathing.

This is a living person!
It’s the Queen of Jingjue!
While the soldiers were overjoyed, they also became more alert, because the opponent's magic eye that could make people disappear out of thin air was indeed extremely strange, and impossible to resist and guard against.

So everyone became more alert, drew their bows and arrows, and carefully surrounded the enemy from both sides.

When they went around to the side, they finally breathed a sigh of relief. It turned out that the Queen of Jingjue was sitting on the jade throne in a festive red gauze dress, with her head down and falling asleep.

It seems that the golden lamb that Prince Gumo presented to the Queen of Jingjue before took effect.

Because they were worried that the Queen of Jingjue had some special abilities, they didn't even dare to poison the food. However, Huo Qubing had a precious medicine that could cure serious injuries and put the patient into a deep sleep to recuperate his spirit.

This thing is not a poison but a tonic, so they added it to the lamb meat. The Queen of Jingjue could not detect it and naturally fell into the trap.

"Kill her!"

Seeing the situation like this, Huo Qubing immediately waved his hand and gave a decisive order to avoid any further complications.

The archers immediately aimed their arrows at the Queen of Jingjue, and several arrows flew out with the buzzing sound of the bowstrings.

Just at this moment, several black shadows flashed in the air, accompanied by the sound of clanging, and all the arrows were blocked, and none of them hit the Queen of Jingjue.

When everyone looked closely, they realized that in addition to the Queen of Jingjue sitting on the throne, there were actually several human-like "snake puppets" in the hall.

However, these "snake puppets" were different from those that Huo Qubing and others had seen before. Each of them held weapons and shields such as tentacle-shaped curved swords, crane-beaked axes, and curved-back concave-blade knives, and they also wore various armors with ethnic characteristics.

The key point is that after seeing Huo Qubing and others, they did not rush forward like beasts, but gathered in front of the Queen of Jingjue to protect her.

Huo Qubing saw deep malice and cruelty in the eyes of these "snake puppets", and of course a hint of cunning.

Yes, these monsters are actually intelligent and can think like humans!
Huo Qubing was startled and suddenly remembered the murals he had just seen in the corridor.

Since these basilisks are transformed from humans swallowing black snakes, is it possible that the basilisks still retain human intelligence during the transformation process?
The answer is undoubtedly yes.

The snake monsters guarding the Queen of Jingjue were definitely carefully selected warriors with strong willpower, otherwise they would not be able to survive the painful process of transformation into snake monsters and still retain their consciousness.

However, even when facing these snake monsters, Huo Qubing and others would never let go of the Queen of Jingjue, who posed a great threat to the Han Dynasty.

There was no need for the two sides to communicate anymore. Almost in the next second, a fierce battle broke out in the underground palace.

Huo Qubing led a dozen elite cavalrymen, armed with Han swords, broadswords, spears, bows and arrows and other weapons, formed a small military formation, and collided with the four snake monsters.

Blood and flesh flew everywhere, roars and hisses echoed, and the sound of weapons clashing was endless.

After about half a quarter of an hour, at the cost of three lives and half of the people being injured, Huo Qubing finally swung his sword and cut off the head of the last basilisk.

But when they looked at the Queen of Jingjue again, she had disappeared.

"There must be another snake monster who took the Queen of Jingjue away during the chaos."

Huo Qubing immediately guessed the truth and prepared to lead the remaining elite cavalry who could still move to chase after them.

However, before chasing after the Queen of Jingjue, the corner of his eye caught sight of the jade eyeball on the back of the jade throne.

This jade eyeball is extremely delicate, with naturally formed red threads and blue pupils, and the layers are so distinct that it is almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

Huo Qubing's idea moved, and he reached out to pick up the jade eyeball. He found that there was a groove on the eyeball, inlaid with a peculiarly shaped jade pendant.

He didn't have time to think about it and stuffed the jade eyeball into his pocket.

The structure of this underground palace is simple. Only the main hall is of considerable size. The side halls on both sides are relatively simple, and there is only one escape route.

Several people walked through the side halls on both sides, turned to the back hall, quickened their pace following the sound of water, and came to a cave behind the hall.

The cave is located at a very low altitude. There is a small underground lake in the cave. There is a convex area in the lake, like a small island in the middle of the lake.

Huo Qubing and his companions did not stop and continued to chase deeper into the cave. Soon the water vapor became thicker and thicker, and the walls became more and more humid.

Finally, amid the rumbling sound of water, they arrived deep into the cave and saw a fast-flowing underground river across the cave entrance.

This is the Zidu underground river that has been flowing under the sea of ​​sand for thousands of years and has never dried up. If it continues to flow like this, it will merge with the Tarim River at the end.

On the other side of the underground river, there is another large cave, connected to the river by an artificially carved black stone bridge, which spans the turbulent waters of the Zidu River.

In front of the cave at the other end of the black bridge, a thousand-pound gate was suspended by a large iron chain as thick as a human arm and was slowly falling down, probably with the help of the hydraulic mechanism of the underground river.

Huo Qubing snatched the soldier's spear, raised his hand and threw it, hitting the gear in the mechanism.

With a "click", the half-lowered gate stopped. The other soldiers hurried forward, quickly crossed the narrow stone bridge, and moved a huge stone to place under the gate.

Huo Qubing and his companions crawled under the Qianjin gate. Behind the gate was a narrow and long ramp with a very steep slope. However, they kept walking without paying attention to whether there were any traps on the road. Several soldiers took the initiative to lead and ran forward quickly. This road sounds complicated and troublesome, but in fact, it took very short time in the movie. Huo Qubing and his companions acted very quickly. They were not only agile, but also coordinated very well. They were also deeply alert to their surroundings while moving forward, which fully demonstrated the elite level of the Han army soldiers. It was like an ancient version of a special forces operation.

However, when they reached the end of the ramp, they found themselves at a gigantic underground cave. The space around it was extremely vast, but there was no road under their feet, only a cliff.

Huo Qubing and others stood on the edge of the cliff holding torches high, squinting their eyes and looking carefully, and found that there was a bottomless dark pit under the cliff.

Could this be the "ghost cave" that appeared in the mural?
Huo Qubing and others were puzzled, and at the same time they discovered that there seemed to be a protruding platform on the cliff about ten meters below their feet.

After looking around for a while, they soon discovered steps spiraling down the rock wall.

Without hesitation, they held up torches and weapons and carefully walked down the steps to the platform.

When they reached the platform, they were dazzled by the light of the fire.

There were mountains of various gold and silver utensils, pearls, gems, silks and jades, piled up in the open space without any protection.

Standing in front of these treasures, even Huo Qubing, a general with some wealth, could not help but be shaken, not to mention the hussars.

Everyone was dazzled by the mountains of treasures. Such a large number of rare and precious treasures were all the fat and blood of the people that the Jingjue Kingdom had plundered from the countries in the Western Regions. It was enough to show how much oppression the country had inflicted on other countries.

Seeing that the situation was not right, Huo Qubing immediately hit the shield with the spear in his hand to make a sound, waking up these cavalry soldiers.

Although money is tempting, all of these soldiers followed Huo Qubing to fight their way out of the mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Moreover, those who were able to follow him into the war had military merits and surplus wealth at home.

What's more, Huo Qubing was not a greedy superior. If they followed him, the soldiers would definitely be able to get a share of the spoils.

Therefore, everyone quickly came to their senses, became alert again, and began to search for the Queen of Jingjue.

This cliff platform is not very big. In addition to the gold, silver and treasures, there are countless tall stone statues with huge pupils. There is also a large round hole under the cliff.

This is the "ghost cave" in the legend of the Jingjue Kingdom. The soldiers held up torches and found that it was still pitch black in the distance and they could not see the edge of the "ghost cave" at all.

The diameter of the "ghost cave" is definitely hundreds of meters, and it certainly could not have been dug by humans. Perhaps it is really the work of ancient demons as described in the mural.

A whistling cold wind blew out from the bottom of the cave. Looking into this bottomless cave, a huge and dark oppressive feeling made people unable to help but look away, not daring to look any further down.

In just a glance, Huo Qubing, who had amazing eyesight, saw that in the middle of the entrance of the "ghost cave", there was an equally huge shuttle-shaped object lying horizontally there, stuck by the rock walls at both ends of the entrance.

In addition, there is a slender stone beam suspended in the air, protruding from the cliff and extending just to the position of the shuttle-shaped object above the cave.

"Where!"

Huo Qubing seemed to see a red figure on the slender stone beam, which should be the escaping Queen of Jingjue. He did not care about the danger of the cave entrance and immediately led his soldiers to the stone beam.

When it reached here, the camera gave a close-up of the spindle-shaped object at the front end of the stone beam. Both Huo Qubing and others and all the audience in the screening room could not help but exclaim in unison.

As the distance got closer, everyone realized how huge the shuttle-shaped object was. Its head and tail were at least several hundred meters long.

And the key point is that this thing was definitely not formed naturally. Everyone saw that the surface of the shuttle-shaped object had a cold and hard metallic luster, and was covered with scaly patterns and strange runes. Even in the pitch-black underground where the sun could not reach, there was still a dark red glow flowing.

Huo Qubing's pupils suddenly shrank, and he intuitively felt that this was definitely not a thing from this world.

As for the audience, the same thought came to everyone's mind.

"Why does this thing look so much like a spaceship?"

Yes, compared to the overall traditional historical style of the "The Great Wall" story, this thing looks wrong in every way. It is like a fighter plane that appeared in ancient times, with a unique temperament far beyond this era, making it recognizable at a glance.

And considering that "The Great Wall" is the ancient timeline of the [Galaxy Cinematic Universe], Wang Hao has previously hinted in the movie universe that there are traces of ancient civilizations on Earth, so this thing should really be a spaceship that crashed on Earth by aliens in ancient times.

Just when the audience and Huo Qubing were amazed by this creation that was so advanced than its time, a chaotic noise came from the end of the stone beam.

It turned out that after such a long delay, the Queen of Jingjue, who had eaten the lamb, had shown signs of waking up. Although she was now slumped on the ground, her head was struggling repeatedly between lowering and raising it.

Seeing this, Huo Qubing and others of course wanted to step forward and end her life, but on the slender stone beam, a snake puppet with a huge body, black scales all over its body, and extremely sharp claws and fangs blocked their way, looking like a single man guarding the pass.

Of course, even if there was a monster blocking the way, Huo Qubing and others had no time to think and instantly fought with the snake puppet monster.

The stone beam is long and narrow, and can only accommodate four people walking side by side. If you are not careful during the battle, you will fall into the abyss of the "ghost cave" under your feet. It can be said to be very dangerous.

"Formation!"

Huo Qubing shouted loudly, and the Han army quickly formed a battle formation, using shields in front to resist the monster's attack, and spearmen in the back holding their spears, like a hedgehog forcing the snake puppet monster to retreat.

When the distance was enough, Li Gan, a subordinate of Huo Qubing who was in the rear, drew his bow and arrow, and directly jumped over the snake puppet to attack the Queen of Jingjue who was sitting on the ground with her back against the spaceship.

Seeing this, the snake puppet let out an angry roar and leaped into the air to try to block the arrow.

Its speed was indeed very fast, but Li Gan was the youngest son of the Flying General Li Guang. Although Li Guang's getting lost and his luck had always been a laughing stock, his archery skills were top-notch among many generals in China.

Naturally, Li Gan's family-inherited archery skills were not bad either. He shot arrows like rain. Not only were there a large number of them, but they were also fast, accurate and ruthless. In the end, three arrows escaped the interception of the snake puppet and successfully hit the Queen of Jingjue.

The queen let out a wail, blood splattered everywhere, and one of the three arrows hit her left arm, one hit her chest, and the other hit her right between the eyebrows.

An ordinary person would have died long ago after being hit by three arrows. However, unexpectedly, the Queen of Jingjue had extremely strong vitality. She struggled to take out a strange black-scaled snake from her underwear and swallowed it whole into her mouth.

The next second, the seriously injured Queen of Jingjue stood up, roared towards the sky, and a layer of pale scales appeared on her exposed skin, and she turned into a monster with a human body and a snake tail.

(End of this chapter)