"I really thought a fight was about to break out just now." Evelyn whispered to the others as the Americans passed by.
"Everyone's here for money. There's no need to start killing each other before the treasure is even found." Jonathan, clearly seasoned, spoke as if he had seen such situations countless times before. "Before we find the treasure, there's no reason to start a bloodbath."
"But once the treasure is discovered, that's when we'll need to be careful. The Americans won't hesitate to turn into bandits. They have the advantage in numbers, so we must stay vigilant and never give them the upper hand."
Jonathan knew well that when greed was involved, people could do the most reckless and insane things.
O'Connell, armed to the teeth, checked over his weapons with practiced ease before handing out pistols to Wes, Evelyn, and Jonathan.
Evelyn tried to refuse, but O'Connell forced the weapon into her hand. "Trust me—you'll need it. In a place like this, a weapon is the only way to protect yourself."
Reluctantly, Evelyn accepted the pistol. She wasn't skilled with weapons, but she understood that in desperate moments, it might save her life.
Wes, however, simply waved off the pistol and didn't take it.
From the moment he entered Hamunaptra, Wes had sensed that the entire place was shrouded in a strange force—one eerily similar to the power carried by the Medjai warriors.
This force seemed fused with the land itself, saturating the ancient city and inspiring a deep, instinctive reverence.
This place is under the protection of the Egyptian gods… but why would they allow tomb raiders to walk in so easily?
Are the eyes of the gods still watching over this land?
Or have They…
Wes felt that everything here was steeped in the unknown, some supernatural power silently guarding this ruined city.
Meanwhile, O'Connell led the group to the spot where he had previously encountered the sand face. The ground had collapsed into a pit, with broken stones scattered along its rim.
"You really saw that sand face??" Jonathan still didn't believe him, assuming O'Connell had just been seeing things at the time. He poked at the rubble with a skeptical look.
"I'm not even sure anymore," O'Connell admitted, recalling the memory with doubt. "Maybe I was seeing things."
"This is a statue of Anubis, the god of death," Evelyn's voice brimmed with excitement, as though she had stumbled upon an undiscovered continent. She carefully brushed her fingers along the carved surface. "The legendary Book of Amun-Ra is said to be buried here."
"How much would that be worth??" Jonathan's eyes gleamed. For him, artifacts only had value insofar as they could be turned into wealth.
As he eyed the fragments of the statue Evelyn was holding, he was already calculating how to cash them in.
"If we can find it, we'll be rich," Jonathan said eagerly, eyes shining as if he could already see piles of gold and jewels.
"It's priceless!" Evelyn countered, her voice carrying the reverence of a true scholar. "It's not just a relic—it's a witness to human history itself."
"Then what are we waiting for? I can't hold back any longer!" Jonathan tied a rope around a rock, impatiently preparing to descend into the pit, unwilling to waste even a moment.
The Book was Wes Elwin's true goal—there was no way he would let it slip past him.
They soon reached the depths of the underground palace, where they once again encountered the Americans, nearly sparking a deadly clash.
Fortunately, Evelyn, with her sharp eyes, quickly realized this wasn't the chamber they were searching for. Under her lead, the group slipped away from the Americans and arrived at a hidden compartment beneath the feet of the god of death.
Evelyn pointed firmly toward a spot above them. "This is where the Book is buried."
The moment Wes saw the place, he dropped his pretense. With a swift motion, he unleashed a powerful spell.
With a resounding boom, the soil above exploded, and a coffin came crashing down.
Dust scattered everywhere as Wes brushed the dirt from its surface. Evelyn, O'Connell, and Jonathan were all left stunned by his sudden display of power.
"This isn't the Book," Evelyn said, recognizing the object at once. "This is the coffin of the High Priest. The Book wasn't buried within the statue of Anubis—it was hidden inside the statue of Ra, the Sun God!"
The moment Wes entered, he had already remembered this part of the story. Without waiting for the others to recover from their shock, he bolted out of the chamber.
"You saw that, didn't you?" Jonathan stammered, his voice unsteady. "He just pointed at the soil above and it… it exploded! How is that even possible? Who exactly is he?"
"Maybe… maybe the soil was just too loose after all these years?" Evelyn tried to offer a rational explanation, though even she didn't believe her own words. Coincidences like that didn't exist.
"As I thought," O'Connell muttered grimly, his eyes narrowing on the direction Wes had vanished. "That man isn't simple. He knows more than he's letting on."
Wes, meanwhile, quickly found the statue of Ra. He paid no mind to the mountains of gold piled around it. Instead, he searched carefully until—just as he expected—he discovered the Book of Amun-Ra.
True to its name, the Codex gleamed entirely in radiant gold.
Wes ran his fingers along its surface. It wasn't crafted from ordinary parchment but from rare and exotic materials, inscribed with invaluable knowledge and ancient magic.
Suddenly, he felt a strange unease—like unseen eyes were fixed on him.
He stepped back at once, wand in hand, scanning the area. Yet all he found was the silent figure of Ra's statue towering over him.
"Is it you, Sun God?" Wes whispered, staring at the statue. He saw no movement, no change—but his instincts told him he was right.
He reasoned that the Egyptian gods still watched over this land, though for some reason they could no longer directly interfere with mortal affairs. Otherwise, how could Egypt have fallen into the hands of the British Empire?
Coming to terms with this, Wes carefully stored the Book, then bowed respectfully toward the statue. "Thank you for your gift." With that, he turned and left the underground chamber.
By the time he returned to the surface, night had fallen. Several bonfires flickered across the sands, pushing back the darkness.
"Wes, you're finally back!" Evelyn called out in relief.
Before he could respond, Jonathan, sitting by the fire, launched into another loud complaint, sighing heavily between words.
"All we found was a coffin! Not a single treasure, nothing! What a loss!" He groaned over his misfortune, then added bitterly, "We worked so hard, and in the end, we came away empty-handed."
°°°
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