[A.B.P.P.E.] Bk 2 - Chapter 62 - An Augury of Change

Yin Hu and the party learned a hard lesson on the sheer size of the palace.

The spacial array that made it look and take up so little space in the outside world turned it into a giant structure that was filled with giant caverns. More rooms than he thought possible, and the towers were taller with each being a dozen stories taller than advertised. 

Yet, that wasn’t a bad thing. 

If anything, it was a positive they had taken advantage of fully. 

More rooms they could loot, more items, extra variance they could fill his rice bag with. 

The first three floors of the main wing were mostly empty. They found more bunny cultivator bodies that were still warm laying in piles, on the ground, even a couple that were fully dressed and in their beds for the last moments of their lives. A romantic gesture everyone noticed except the hatchlings and Shui, more concerned with going through the wardrobe and drawers than the symbol before them. 

Yet, the items that remained weren’t the casual items of mundane existence and life. 

Every level they would find one or two suits of cultivator battle robes that were not only lightweight and flexible, but durable enough to take a full strike from Jun’s blade. Personal items that Yin Hu expected were worn during the war against the Void Blob and laid to rest once it had been killed. He also had been expecting them to resize like the rest of the clothing items in his rice bag, but found out that they hadn’t.

His prodigious size, taller than everyone else in the party, meant that none of them fit him at all. 

Yin Hu looked out of the palace's seventh floor on their way down from the very peak as Zhong Da preened with his wife outside. Both had said armors on and were whispering to each other. Jun was with them, on the other side of the camp, testing her attacks and rhythm. Clearly satisfied with her movements and style of fighting. Pausing every few moments and nodding her head, clearly listening to the Weapon Spirit’s advice to perfect her craft and movements. 

If he hadn’t looted so much more, then maybe he would have been searching for his own battle robes, but he had gotten enough. 

The towers were filled with magical items, cultivation manuals, and resources that were likely owned by the cultivators drawn on the mural. All of the highest graded items were in the largest tower where the white furred bunny had been stationed. Nothing there was below the B+ ranking. 

Yet, none of their personal items could have come close to what he found on the twelfth floor of the eastern wing. 

A library. An endless one filled with so many books it had to be in the millions. History, art, sciences, every facet of cultivation and the Dao. Everything that had been housed by a powerful race as strong as they were. Somehow, this one had survived when Yin Hu had already gone through four others just like this that were covered in burned ashes and destroyed shelves stuffed with the remnant energies of the Void Blob. 

It had targeted these centers of knowledge but failed to reach the very last one.

All to Yin Hu’s benefit. 

That wasn’t mentioning the armories and weapon caches in underground levels below the palace itself. They had gone nearly four floors downward filled with swords, spears, shields, and even bows without arrows. Of which all of them were around C+ ranked or better, with the top being a single giant warbow in the B+ realm. Yin Hu assumed the only reason those survived was due to their Qi being self contained and accepting any leakage that the barrier had from eons of being left unmaintained. 

Everything else had been turned into rusty pieces of metal that crumbled as soon as he touched them or were piles of red dust that marked them as potential lost weapons. 

Yin Hu and Shui did find more levels to descend to, but he ended that trail of thought immediately. They had reached a gate that was clearly leading toward a dungeon or prison of some sort. A place he refused to open and check out. It was a basic survival sense that he made sure both Jun and Shui were around to see and understand by calling them both over and giving them a long talking to. 

One that the rest of the party heard as they walked away and back up the stairs to check if they missed anything at all then.

Some places just weren’t worth the effort to explore. Maybe there was something special down there, maybe not, his party and the Hu Clan wouldn’t ever find out though. 

Yin Hu shook his head as he recalled those moments. He left the window sill. “Shui! Let’s go.”

Shui shot up to her feet. She had been laying on the floor, exhausted from all of the treasure hunting and completely satisfied with the results. The dragon hatchlings were equally fatigued. They drooped their heads and floated lazily behind them. 

Yin Hu walking out made the party stop what they had been doing and gathered around him. They knew it was almost time to leave. 

“Make any last preparations necessary. We leave in a few hours.” Yin Hu said as he surveyed the group. Each one met his gaze and nodded, spinning away and rushing to their pavilions, tents, and personal items. Even Shui and Jun hurried to their own to collect anything they left inside. 

Everyone had been here long enough to leave a trace on the area and place belongings they left lying around.  

Yin Hu watched them go for a second before he turned away and walked back to the mass grave’s headstone. The flowers seemed brighter than before, bigger, fluffier if that made any sense. Each one was filled with life and vibrance. The boulder itself looked mundane compared to them, though its purpose elevated its ordinary make into something worth more than the floral arrangements that surrounded it. 

He stood there and read the statement he had written over and over again. 

A symbol of purity. 

Loyalty.

Yin Hu tilted his head as he saw a baby bird flutter from the forest canopy. Its golden feathers were stark in the forest and stood out to him as soon as it escaped the thick foliage. A single lone thing that struggled to fly, but ended up landing directly on top of the headstone. It sat there and began to clean under its wings, clearly still unused to the process.

A Golden Crow perched upon an monument to the deceased. 

Huh… Isn’t that the very first sign of wild life I’ve seen in this entire forest. Was the illusion affecting everything that much?

Yin Hu was broken out of his trance when the party collected behind him. Everyone was ready to leave and didn’t seem to take the bird as anything special. Or maybe he had been standing there for so long they had gotten bored of it, except for Rong. A confused expression was clear on his face, struggling to understand the bird being there. 

“Seems like everyone is ready then?” Yin Hu addressed them. 

They nodded in sync.

“Good. We’ve wasted enough time in this area. Less exploring from now on and more pace toward our destination. We stop to rest or plan and nothing else.”