As the door opened, Long Chen was able to see inside the building and what he saw stunned him. The building was filled with bodies.
There were like over thousands of bodies inside the building, but that was not what shocked him.
What shocked him was one specific body amongst those thousands of bodies. It was the body that somehow shook him deeply.
He started walking towards the buildings and stepped inside.
The building was filled with the stench of death. Long Chen didn't know how long all these people were dead, but the bodies were in a condition that made it seem like they hadn't died not long ago, but Long Chen could see that it was not true. There was something in this building that stopped the bodies from decaying.
Long Chen ignored most of the bodies and walked towards one certain body.
As he walked closer, he felt sadness grip his heart as if he had lost someone important. Even though he personally hadn't met that person, the sadness was similar to losing someone he knew all his life.
He stopped before the body and looked down with a sad expression in his eyes.
It was the body of a woman. He hadn't seen that woman before, but he recognized the dress that she was wearing. It was a dress that he had seen before. The woman in the photo frame that he found had the same image.
He also felt like the woman's face had some similarities to his father's face, just like the face of the man in the portrait had similarities to his father's face. He was previously doubting that the people in the portrait were probably related to his father, but since he was able to feel the sadness despite being under the effect of the Dark Sacrifice, it mostly confirmed that this woman was related to him.
From what he believed, their connection wasn't weak either. It didn't seem like they had a diluted bloodline relation, but a direct blood relation. He believed that the woman was most probably a close relative of his grandparents.
He knew that his real grandmother died before Long Chen when she gave him her baby to protect. As for his real grandfather, he believed that his real grandfather was probably from this sect, either.
"I didn't know you, but I'm sorry," Long Chen muttered as he shook his head.
"I will give you a burial later," Long Chen said as he sent the woman's body inside his storage ring. He didn't know the woman, but he knew that buying her in the future wouldn't hurt him in any way.
He looked around at the other bodies and tried to see if there was any clue here as to what happened, but after finding nothing, he left.
He stepped out of the building and continued ahead, leaving the bodies behind. Since the door was broken, he was sure that someone would know if they came here, but that wasn't something he needed to worry about how. He wanted to check the whole floor first. Also, if the floor was barren like this, the chances of anyone coming here were almost non-existent.
Long Chen continued walking forward, trying to find anything. He soon stepped on his spirit sword to increase his speed.
Soon, he finished going through the whole floor. The floor was as empty as it could get. He didn't find any living person here. Except that one building that was filled with bodies, there were buildings intact here. It seemed as if this whole floor was entirely devastated, and whoever did it left only one building behind, to hold the thousands of bodies of the people that probably lived here before the destruction.
He wanted to understand the reason, but he knew that this sect was nothing like he had ever seen. Even though he had a good impression of Mu Yun, this sect was still fucked up. The sect was a place where people died every day, and the Elders ignored them. It wasn't out of character for a whole floor to be wiped out. It was strange, but for a sect like this, it made sense. The Ghost Temple was probably the one that punished the people of the 24th floor for something.
'Maybe Grandmother ran from the sect as the floor was attacked? They chased after her, and after some time, they found her. She killed them, but she was seriously injured as well. She gave her kid to Long Ren to protect before she died. The kid grew up, thinking that he was Long Ren's son. He married, and then the sect found out about him and kidnapped him?" Long Chen muttered with a thoughtful look on his face.
"Or it might also be possible that the Temple needed her kid for something and she ran away. In their rage, the Temple punished her family and the people of this floor. This whole thing is a big mess. Only a Temple Priest or a Temple Elder would know about it," He let out as he shook his head.
Since he had searched the whole floor and didn't find anything, he had two choices now. There were like four hours left before the morning. He didn't have the map of this floor, but he had found out that he could go back to the 12th floor using the formation that brought him here, but the question he had was if he should go back or not.
Since Long Chen had four hours, he also had an opportunity to go to a higher floor to search for that. The only problem was that it was dependent on his luck.
He didn't have a map, and he didn't know which Teleportation Formation was the formation of the 25th floor.
Amongst the twenty-five formations, he only knew about the formation to go back. If he was to take a few random guesses, he had a 1 in 24 chance of selecting the right formation, which was not a good chance.
"Fuck it, I came here to take risks, and I'll take the risk. I'll select the closest formation and hope that it doesn't take me to the floor of Temple Master," Long Chen muttered as he started flying towards the closest formation that was right before him.
He landed before the formation and placed the spirit sword back into his storage ring.
He stepped inside the formation. Just as the formation activated, he also activated his Shadow Transformation. He didn't want to be caught as soon as he appeared on a new floor by the guards, so he was being careful.