I became a god by treasure hunting after arriving 500 years early

"Don't jinx it, hide in the backpack!" Lu Yuan pushed the cat's head in and silently chanted to himself, "Three, two, one... go!"

"Whoosh!"

Lu Yuan instantly teleported to the opposite side of the gate, his Fire Lizard Suit rustling with a "swish."

He was just about to take a deep breath when a bone-chillingly cold breath of death rushed into his lungs through his nostrils, momentarily dazzling him with stars, tears almost falling from his eyes!

Fortunately, Lu Yuan was of a particularly resilient mind and immediately activated "Different Space" to protect himself.

"There's no danger… but… it looks somewhat strange," Old Cat scratched its neck with its hind legs.

This place seemed to be a large Sanctuary, with row upon row of rail cars parked on the tracks, empty and covered in dust – obviously, they hadn't been used in a long time.

Those puppet robots, are a few of them still moving?

They were not of the combat type and didn't pay attention to Lu Yuan's sudden appearance; they just busied themselves with their tasks.

Fifty meters away, a series of structures resembling freezers were arranged.

Yes, freezers!

Those puppet robots appeared to be designed to maintain these freezers.

A sense of oppression slowly welled up in Lu Yuan's heart, making him uncontrollably anxious.

"How could it be these things..."

Even though the temperature here was actually only around 20 degrees Celsius, Lu Yuan was sweating profusely with large drops of cold sweat.

Old Cat also fell silent, struck by a horrifying thought at the sight of so many freezers, becoming petrified like stone and hiding motionless inside Lu Yuan's backpack.

Collecting himself, Lu Yuan cautiously moved forward.

The deeper he went, the more he could see the vast number of freezers, that filled the entire space by the thousands.

No living people, only the busy puppets "click-clacking" away.

It was utterly… spine-chilling!!

The cold from within the freezers seemed to penetrate the cells, freezing the marrow!

"What's inside these?" Lu Yuan couldn't help but mutter.

He approached a freezer and saw a photo attached to it.

The photo depicted a citizen of the Source Fire Civilization, young-looking with golden hair, snow-white smooth skin, and a pair of wings about two meters wide, wearing a sweet smile on their face.

Though winged, with a unique exotic appeal, it still conformed to human aesthetics.

Clearly, this was a human sub-species.

The girl's eyes were beautiful, as if gazing out at Lu Yuan, who would appear thousands of years later, also hoping for the day she would awaken.

However, through the freezer glass, it was evident… inside lay a yellow-brown skeleton.

The wings curled up, arms crossed over the chest, just like a stray cat frozen to death in a greening strip, having curled into a small bundle before dying, emitting a rotten scent.

Looking at the photo, then at the lonely bones in the freezer,

for the first time, Lu Yuan felt an extreme sense of horror!

He wasn't facing any formidable enemies, yet death and terror surrounded him.

It was truly the first time…

A flood of complex emotions surged within him.

In this Sanctuary deep underground, the death of hundreds of thousands of people pervaded.

And outside the Sanctuary, there was a shivering, Mirage Cloud Dragon, almost at the end of its lifespan…

It relied on swallowing clouds and puffing mist to create shadowy figures in the fog, forging memories for itself.

It had survived the Epoch Disaster. Explore more at My Virtual Library Empire

It had survived those difficult days, months, and years.

It guarded this underground shelter, waiting for the day they would awaken.

However, what it didn't know was that those people, those events, had already... become impossible to return to...

The shattered hope was nothing but a fantasy.

At that moment, Lu Yuan deeply felt the cruelty brought about by the extinction of civilization.

"What are they doing? Hibernating? Hiding inside a volcano to hibernate?"

"Did they really think by doing this, they could avoid the Epoch Disaster? Isn't this a bit too rudimentary..."

The idea of the "Source Fire Civilization" was simple: create a large sanctuary underneath a thick layer of magma to let a small group of elites hide and sleep.

They sought to use the thick magma to evade the Epoch Disaster—an approach that was indeed simple and brute compared to those of more powerful civilizations.

Clearly, they had failed. Everyone had died inside the sanctuary, save for a Mirage Cloud Dragon, which had somehow survived to this day.

This fact had even left the weathered Old Cat in silence for a good while.

After a long time, it let out a low sigh.

"That must be it."

The "Source Fire Civilization" was just a Third-level Civilization.

When this was the only method they might have had to survive the Epoch Disaster, what choice did they really have?

None.

None at all!

This realization was too cruel, quickly extinguishing Lu Yuan's enthusiasm for exploration.

"I'll keep looking to see if there's anyone alive..."

Lu Yuan urged himself to continue moving forward, checking one by one. He took out a pair of glasses made from the "Tree of Life" leaves from his Storage Space and placed them on the bridge of his nose.

This little gadget greatly enhanced his ability to sense life.

As long as there was a living creature, he would definitely... definitely be able to find it.

Unfortunately... there was none...

There were no living life forms left.

For some unknown reason, even though they were frozen in iceboxes, these people still decayed into pools of bones.

Perhaps some mysterious superpower had swept away all these Hibernators in one fell stroke.

Lu Yuan sat on the ground, taking deep breaths. In comparison to the immense tragedy before his eyes, even the pungent smell of decay seemed trivial...

Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that the number of iceboxes in the sanctuary numbered only around one hundred and fifty thousand.

Which meant, the majority of the myriad living beings had not entered this sanctuary; they had lost their lives the moment the Epoch Disaster struck...

That's why the Conch had "retrograded" to show the historical information related to that mobile phone.

Actually, these iceboxes were quite luxurious. Humans didn't even have such hibernation devices. They were made of many idealist materials, expensive to produce, and up until now, only about one tenth had truly been damaged.

"So you're telling me, just beyond a layer of magma and inside an icebox, the disaster took them away."

"What in the world was the disaster?"

Lu Yuan forced himself to rally his spirits, fumbling around for a while but finding no clues.

Eventually, on a tabletop, he found an object resembling a pendulum, with a large timer on it. It was now the Ninth Epoch, but whether the timer was accurate was another question.

Below the timer, a dragon was carved along with a group of cheering Source Fire People.