Chapter 154: The Prophecy Mural (Part I)

Even though Qin Fei and Xie Nainai paid no more attention to the silly bird, it continued to chatter away endlessly with immense excitement from where it sat.

In the distance, the sound of the Caesar Pig echoed through the air.

It seemed to have discovered something.

Qin Fei hurried over immediately, took the iron hammer from the Caesar Pig's hands, and struck the surrounding ground a few times.

Instantly, a series of dull thuds reverberated from beneath the earth.

Hearing the sound, Qin Fei felt a surge of joy.

The ground underneath was hollow!

Shortly after, Qin Fei called Xie Nainai over as well, and ordered everyone to start digging downward at this spot.

Seeing Qin Fei and his companions busy at work, the silly bird immediately waddled over, perched itself to the side, and continued its tireless babbling.

Since the ground here was made of solid rock and was exceptionally hard, Qin Fei and the others did not make fast progress.

After spending several hours carving out a pit four to five meters deep, the bottom suddenly began to cave in.

Before long, a gigantic underground cavern appeared before their eyes.

The pit was not particularly deep, with a distance of only about four or five meters from the floor to the ceiling.

Qin Fei pulled a torch from the campfire and, accompanied by Xie Nainai and the Caesar Pig, jumped down into the cavern.

"Hey, wait for me!"

The plump bird, which had been lounging lazily to the side, seeing everyone leap into the pit, hurriedly flapped its wings and hopped down after them.

Illuminated by the torchlight, Qin Fei discovered that the cavern was covered with countless stalagmites, and right in the center of the cave lay a pitch-black, bottomless abyss.

Not only that, but Qin Fei also spotted a series of murals carved along the stone walls surrounding the cavern.

The murals also depicted matters concerning the pig-men. Judging by the art style, the pigs who carved these murals did not appear to be the "Pig King."

Qin Fei carefully studied the contents of the murals.

What these murals recorded seemed to be the events that transpired after the pig-men crossed through the ancient gates of the continent of Gluttony.

The first panel illustrated how the pig-men survived and developed after arriving in this world.

These pig-men not only learned how to farm but also established their own city-states and kingdoms, gradually growing into a massive pig-man civilization.

However, the subsequent murals caught Qin Fei somewhat off guard.

The contents of the later panels were prophetic murals concerning the Great Cataclysm!

These murals were nearly identical to the records kept by the "Pig King" in its book of prophecies.

The entire pig-man kingdom had been plunged into a sea of flames due to the arrival of the Great Cataclysm, accompanied by a shadow monster draped in a red cloak—namely, the Ancient Herald.

Wait!

Qin Fei suddenly realized he had overlooked something just now...

The light in the cave was too dim. To see more clearly, Qin Fei raised the torch and stepped a few paces closer to the murals.

Only upon drawing nearer did Qin Fei notice that the figure in the red cloak on the mural was not some shadowy monster at all, but a pig-man!

Moreover, this pig-man was none other than Queen Malafala, whom Qin Fei had seen in the pig-man royal palace that very night!

This left Qin Fei deeply puzzled.

Did the murals imply that Queen Malafala had ultimately brought about the descent of the Great Cataclysm, becoming the ultimate culprit behind the destruction of the pig-man kingdom?

That made no sense.

As a high-ranking pig-man and the ruler of this pig-man kingdom, Queen Malafala had absolutely no reason to destroy her own country...

Not necessarily.

Qin Fei quickly thought of another possibility.

That was, this Queen Malafala might not have been a pig-man at all! She could have been disguised by some kind of monster!

In that case, the prophecy depicted on the murals began to make sense.

Qin Fei continued to look further along the wall.

The contents of the subsequent murals deviated even more significantly from the records in the "Pig King's" notes.

The later panels depicted two monkeys and a pig-man, who, aided by a giant bird, ascended into a towering mountain piercing the clouds.

Clearly, the monkeys and the pig-man in this drawing undoubtedly referred to the three of them: Qin Fei, Xie Nainai, and the Caesar Pig.

Subsequently, when the two monkeys and one pig emerged from the mountain in the painting, the pig-man was holding a scepter in its hand.

The imagery stopped abruptly right there.

It was not that the murals on the wall lacked any further panels, but rather that the following few murals bore extremely obvious scratches, rendering their contents completely indiscernible.

It appeared to have been intentionally destroyed by human—or rather, pig—agency.

Whoever destroyed the murals clearly did not want the secrets here to be leaked.

Upon seeing this, Qin Fei immediately thought of the "Pig King" in the royal capital... Among the pigs capable of vandalizing the murals, it was the prime suspect.

If the murals here were truly destroyed by the Pig King, then the "prophecy notes" it had disseminated could easily be explained.

Qin Fei quickly drew a conclusion:

This "Pig King" was very likely the Ancient Herald itself, or an impostor among its underlings.

Through some twist of fate, it had come to this place carved with stone murals and learned the secret that "the Caesar Pig will end the Great Cataclysm of the pig-man kingdom."

To prevent itself from being eliminated by the Caesar Pig as prophesied on the walls...

The "Pig King" had destroyed the murals in the cave while simultaneously filling up the entrance to the cavern at the mountain peak.

Precisely because of this, when the Roc bird brought Qin Fei and the others to the summit, they had been unable to find this underground grotto right away!

And after destroying the prophetic murals here, the "Pig King" had immediately returned to the royal capital and fabricated a fake "prophecy note."

It had concealed most of the contents from the actual prophecies while heavily emphasizing the prophesied outcome: the fact that the Caesar Pig would save the entire pig-man kingdom.

Its purpose was precisely to flush the Caesar Pig out from hiding, lure it into the imperial palace, and assassinate it prematurely using the black mist.

That way, no pig would be able to stop the arrival of the Great Cataclysm, nor would anyone be able to slay the boss of the cataclysm, the "Ancient Herald"!

From fabricating prophecies to assassinating the Caesar Pig with black mist, the Ancient Herald had executed everything with exquisite precision.

Yet, it had overlooked one special existence: the "friendly Roc" from the prophetic murals.

At the critical moment when Qin Fei and his companions were in mortal danger, this creature had suddenly appeared, saved everyone, and carried them all up to the mountain peak where the prophetic murals were hidden...

Once Qin Fei pieced together the crux of the problem, the ambush they suffered in the royal palace, the discrepancies between the murals and the prophecy notes, and the disappearance of the cavern entrance at the summit could all be fully explained!

However, Qin Fei still had a few unresolved doubts.

First, why didn't the "Pig King"—or rather, the "Ancient Herald"—destroy all the murals completely in one go when it came here?

Leaving clues behind intentionally for Qin Fei and the others to find seemed rather brainless, didn't it?

A villain could not possibly be that foolish.

The second point: the "Ancient Herald" disguised itself as the king of the pig-man nation primarily to find the Caesar Pig capable of ending the Great Cataclysm.

Then, why did it bother to disguise itself as both the king and the queen simultaneously?

Logically speaking, the Ancient Herald only needed to impersonate the king to achieve its goal... As for Queen Malafala, eliminating her outright would have been far more convenient.

Third, where did that giant Roc bird actually come from?