楼上的上瘾女士

As the ground shook, Hal thrust out an arm and placed his hand against the wall while Lucille asked,

"The hell was that?"

Hal began to spread his Astral senses about the room and by extension, the entirety of the tomb. He found that his perception was allowed to roam as opposed to how it had been blocked many instances before.

His perception being allowed to roam let him deliver troubling news,

"The tomb... It\'s rigged to blow"

As soon as he spoke, the tomb floor shook. 

The rumbling was even more intense than the first one and was accompanied by an even louder explosion that seemed to be making its way towards the center of the tomb i.e the room they were in.

The voice boomed about the entire tomb or more accurately, it boomed about the parts of the tomb that were not yet blown up or caved in.

"FOOLISH. WHAT DID YOU THINK? I\'D SIMPLY LET YOU WALK IN AND TAKE WHAT IS MOST PRECIOUS TO ME?!" the voice said.

Hal recognized the voice to be that of the apparition of the owner of the tomb. The one that had been residing within the Array that led into the room.

The apparition of the Cosmic saint that he knew to be called Yaksher Iksor.

"The fuck do you mean by \'Simply\'? There was a test. On that was clearly meant to be difficult and deny entry. And before that, there were obstacles we had to overcome just so we could get here" Andrei replied the booming voice even as another explosion sounded and seemed ever closer to the center.

"Obstacles? Those weren\'t obstacles. They were deterrents. Deterrents meant to get you to give up. They were guardians to keep my possessions out of your greedy hands.

You simply saw them as obstacles and refused to let go of your greed.

The Array though, I admit was an entrance. 

It was there to provide a false sense of security. 

The door was difficult to break down but the Array was an easy admittance.

Why would I put a nigh-unbreakable door in place and then give you an easy bypass?

Did you stop to think about this?" Yaksher asked.

Hal would have probably raised his hand to say he had thought of it and seen it as suspicious but he was too caught up with how close Cirk was to opening the Coffin.

In fact, everyone except Andrei (quite ironic since he was the one focussing on the coffin the most before he began to converse with the disembodied voice of Yaksher) was focussing on the coffin.

That included Emily who was looking on with a frown.

The only reason she had actually been looking through the books was to effectively take her time. After all, she was here already so what would be the point of hurrying?

However, with the news of the tomb blowing up and the tomb collapsing in on itself as a result, there was no longer any time for skimming and she moved to retrieve and get as much she could get.

Lucile was of the same mindset and in seconds, the two ladies had cleaned the shelves and bookcases clean.

The only reason it even took that long was that they still tried to sense what they were siphoning and make sure they were not going to be dangerous upon storage.

An exploding spatial ring would not be a welcome occurrence.

Meanwhile, Yaksher continued in a lower voice filled with mirth and enjoyment,

"That\'s because I didn\'t. The Array wasn\'t meant as an entrance but as a trap. Have any of you noticed that it\'s a one-way trip? 

That there\'s no return Array?

The Array was meant to shut down the moment it had admitted eight individuals and would no longer be active.

\'Eight\' because I felt a tad bit whimsical.

The moment the integrity of the room was breached... The moment greedy bastards such as yourselves entered it, keeping it standing was no longer reasonable.

And I\'d rather blow it all up with you in it than let you leave with my stuff.

The only means of escape... Your only hope of not exploding is to break down the very same crystal door you thought you had circumvented.

Isn\'t that simply genius?

Not even those outside this room can escape as the chances of finding the exit which has, by now collapsed is too low to bank on their survival.

HAHAHAHAHAHA, Go on and despair... Despair!"

Silence...

That was met all of Yaksher\'s words.

Not even Andrei deemed his words worth a response.

The silence was only punctuated by the continuous stream of energy that Cirk fed into the rune disk fitted on the coffin.

No one could care less about his words as his so-called \'genius\' plan was foolish or not that thought out.

You see, Yaksher was born and lived at a time when portable Teleportation scrolls were not so publicized.

The one who had invented Portable Teleportation or more accurately, the one responsible for it being so well known to the public and saw it get used against him had been born in fairly recent times.

After Yaksher was long dead.

In the time Yaksher lived, his trapping and then the explosive plan would have been smart but Portable Teleportation renders it moot.

The part of his plan that had not been well thought out was him not drawing an Array that would make teleportation impossible.

That you have acted as a failsafe. 

And a smart one too.

However, clearly, Yaksher felt his plan was foolproof enough without taking the progressive and innovative aspect of the world into account.

Anyways, Hal was not complaining.

That crystal was surely going to be hard to break and he could feel the number of explosive Arrays charged with heaps of blue gems that were been primed for explosion.

On a side note, he marveled a far bit at how wealthy Yaksher must have been in life to actually spend so much to fuel his explosive plans.

And that was not even taking into account, the ones outside the door that were probably cleaned up completely by now. 

Not just by Lucile\'s guards but also by Rita, Karmen, and Olivia who would not even spare the gold coins and gather them too.

*Click*

The sound was heard by everyone in the room and it heralded the opening of the coffin just as Cirk slumped to the ground. Too tired to move.

The lid slid to the side, away from Cirk\'s side of the sarcophagus.

Within the Sarcophagus was the dried-up but considerably preserved body of the Yaksher Iksor the Cosmic saint and he was gripping an Artifact tightly against his bony chest.

He was preserved not just by the coffin but by the nature of his body and the Saint energy that had been present in his body even in death up to a point.

Hal saw the body as the perfect feed for the most progressively evolving beasts within his Beast Habitat. The ones who had already gained humanoid bodies would soon be ready to be presented to the world and quite possibly roam as humans would.

However, that was a passing and fairly flippant thought as his attention was much more focused on the Artifact in the body\'s bony hands.

That was what he had felt attracted to while being outside the tomb.

The Artifact was infused with something related to the Primordial Principle of Order. 

"That\'s a beacon" Grimoire told Hal.

"A beacon for what?" Hal asked but even as he did, he already knew the answer,

"A beacon to the Monument of Ordinances. When infused with enough Cosmic energy, it has the potential of pulling the Monument out of its pre-existing movement path i.e Neglected world to Neglected world and toward a particular world.

The main ingredient is actually a piece of the monument.

That\'s why you sensed its presence. 

You are connected to Order and the Monument is quite frankly the closest thing to a Template of Order.

In theory, by which I mean, by the Artifact\'s programming, it can allow its controller to draw the Monument to their world more times than should actually be possible.

In other words, with it, you need not wait four thousand and five hundred years for the monument.

However, the energy requirement is nothing you could possibly pump out. 

Even now, the Artifact is almost full. There is only a bit more required for it to be active but that \'bit\' is more than your entire life\'s worth."

Hal furrowed his brows and moved his eyes from the Artifact and to its surroundings within the Sarcophagus. 

Ergo walked towards the Artifact.

This was why he was here as was clear by the ecstatic look on his face.

Ergo walked forward, grabbed the Artifact, and pulled it away without a care for consequences. 

And there certainly were consequences.

"Take cover" 

"Stop!" 

Hal and Emily yelled at the same time.

They had both seen the blue gems-powered Array that was attached to the corpse\'s bony hands.

The movement caused by Ergo pulling the Artifact away had activated it.

Hal\'s warning had been much more general, excluding Cirk and Ergo who he couldn\'t care less about, while Emily had been talking to her brother Andrei who had dashed towards Ergo in hopes of seizing the Artifact from him.

Andrei heard the warning but could not stop his movements or move back and away from the coffin or Ergo before the Array shone brightly and the sarcophagus exploded...

*BOOM!!!*