Lei Shi pulled out his gun and fired shots at the sentinels while running away.
The sentinels blocked the shots using their weapons and followed after him, with the Archer shooting light arrows at him, trying to cut him off in his tracks.
*Swish* Lei Shi dashed and slid into the hole which he came out from, going back down to the third-floor.
*Bang Bang Bang* three light-arrows landed right next to the hole, narrowly missing Lei Shi.
BANG
Lei Shi landed on the floor of the third-floor like sack of potatoes. The Gravity of the third-floor made his fall to feel like all his bones had broken.
"Goddamit" Lei Shi cursed. Such a heavy fall was unexpected.
"Regenerating?" Lei Shi didn't expect the sentinels to have such a terrifying ability. But after thinking about the scene, Lei Shi noticed a misperception on his part. Although, it looked like regeneration, it wasn't. It was more like Time Reversal. This was because, earlier, the pieces of the bodies came back and reformed the bodies, rather than new parts growing out.
"Is this the resurrection power that the character in the drawings outside spoke of?" Lei Shi thought.
"Let's try Plan B" Lei Shi got up, climbed back up to the hole and into the fourth-floor. But instead of stepping out of the hole and onto the floor, he placed his Giant-Axe horizontally over the hole and stood on its pole like a tightrope walker.
"Aha, I was right. As long as I don't step on the floor, these runes won't register my presence" Lei Shi was delighted upon noticing that even after going up to that level, the sentinels didn't respond at all and stood in an orderly line, unmoving like statues.
However, this method had a downside. Since he was still above the hole, he was still under the influence of the third-floor's intense gravity, so every movement was tasking and he also had to be very cautious because falling from the pole of the spear would be very painful.
Standing firm and immovable like a rock, Lei Shi brought his hands before his chest. With his palms facing each other, he began condensing the deadliest attack his HTB suit could support, the Cruel Sun.
A hole opened up in his chest, and from it, pure energy from the energy core of his HTB suit poured out and formed a yellow ball of energy between his palms.
The ball of energy grew bigger as more energy poured into it, and as it grew, Lei Shi condensed it more and more, that even though the size still remained uniform, it contained terrifying power.
After some time, the ball condensed to certain point that it began to crackle with electricity, looking like a lightning ball. Even though the ball wasn't fully saturated, Lei Shi decided to stop at that point, reserving energy for any contingency that he may face if his plan actually succeeds and he makes it to the fifth-floor or if his plan fails and he's targeted by the sentinels.
"That's forty-five percent out of the remaining sixty-percent energy. Let's see how terrifying you can be" with one hand, he threw the lightning ball at the sentinels.
"Cruel Sun!"
*Crackle* the lightning ball streaked through the air and reached the sentinels in an instant.
*Humm* right before the lightning ball reached them, the sentinels' eyes glowed, seeming to have noticed the threat.
Right at that moment, a sentinel, who wielded a club, moved to the front and smashed its club at the lightning ball.
KABOOM
A world-shattering explosion devastated the fourth floor, completely contrary to the homerun that Lei Shi expected to see when he saw that sentinel attack the Cruel Sun with its club.
RUMBLE
The entire mausoleum trembled, however, it didn't collapse. The runes on the walls and floor of the fourth-floor glowed intensely and the blast was contained in the room.
Without even waiting for the tremors to subside, and the rain of thunder and flames to dissipate, Lei Shi dashed towards the hole in the ceiling, ignoring everything.
"Titania! Maximum speed" Lei Shi went at full throttle, not wanting to give the sentinels time to regenerate or reverse time, as the case may be.
SWISH
His speed increased as he ran. Titania was changing the HTB suit's configuration.
Luckily for him, he met with no obstruction as he ran. But that was up until when he was under the hole, and wanted to jump to the fifth-floor.
*Whoosh*
Suddenly, out of the smoke that had yet to dissipate, ten sentinels viciously attacked Lei Shi simultaneously, cutting off all his paths of retreat.
Lei Shi, using his X-ray vision, had already seen them coming.
"Ten-Percent lightning field!"
Using ten-percent out of the remaining fifteen-percent of his energy reserves, Lei Shi spread his arms and released a powerful electric field which ravaged everything around him, with him in the centre.
*Crackle-Bang* the sentinels were pushed back, delayed for second.
That delay was all a veteran like Lei Shi needed.
He crouched, and like a reverse-thunderbolt, he jumped through the hole in the ceiling, into the fifth-floor.
*Pyuu Pyuu*
Two light-arrows stabbed into Lei Shi's stomach right before he went through the hole. But he ignored the pain, went through the hole, crashed and rolled on the floor of the fifth-floor.
"Titania, suppress the wounds" as soon as he had stopped rolling, Lei Shi said to Titania while he raised his head and looked around the fifth-floor, his nerves stretched taut.
*Silence*
"What the..."
The fifth-floor was silent; it was a spacious hall, and it was filled with gold coins, diamonds, amethyst and some other precious materials, there were heaps of them and the light they reflected was blinding.
Other than those treasures, there was something else.
It was a coffin that was colored black and gold. It was at the centre of the hall and it lay on an altar, looking odd, piquing Lei Shi's interest.
"Interesting" Lei Shi said before slowly approaching the coffin and the altar.
Titania had used the HTB suit's healing system to stop his wounds bleeding, so he wasn't worried about dying. Similarly, due to the suit's automatic repair system, he wasn't worried about the holes on his HTB suit that were caused by attacks. They were quickly closed up.
No traps or hidden mechanisms were triggered even after he was standing next to the coffin.
"Appraise"
Lei Shi used his vision of appraisal to scan the coffin and as he had expected, it was made of an unknown special material.
"Pry"
Lei Shi, using his HTB suit's X-ray vision, tried to see through the lid and view its content. However, the material that the coffin was made of was truly special that it blurred his vision, but at least he was able to make out that there was a body in it and it held in its arms a ball of light.
"Don't worry man, this isn't grave robbery. This is Archaeology." Lei Shi said to himself then tried to lift up the lid of the coffin.
To his greatest surprise, it didn't even budge.
"Goddamit, I knew I shouldn't have left my Axe behind" Lei Shi thought about going back to get the Giant-Axe, but he quickly brushed away the thought as soon as he thought about the ten sentinels. He was lucky once, he didn't want to overstretch his luck.
"Excuse me Sir" Titania said
"Just call me Lei Shi"
"Yes, Lei Shi. I think the lid of the coffin might be a sliding one, rather than a lifting one"
Only after hearing her words did Lei Shi truly inspect the coffin. And truly, it did have a lid that was meant to be slid instead of lifted.
"Ohhh, you don't say..." Lei Shi said embarrassedly.
"Push" Lei Shi began pushing the lid with all his might.
"Damn" Lei Shi was starting to get annoyed. He didn't know why everything in this world was so heavy.
"Titania, more power"
"Already on it" Titania replied.
"Move for me!" Lei Shi tried again, pushing the lid with all his might.
Only after he began using the maximum power his HTB suit could provide did the lid finally starting moving slowly.
"Come on" Lei Shi fired his HTB suit's thrusters, increasing the speed of its opening by a notch.
"*Krrrr* the coffin opened slowly.
BOOM!
The lid slide off and fell to the ground, causing the floor to tremble. Lei Shi marveled at how something so small could have such weight.
"What?!?" Lei Shi was flabbergasted upon seeing the contents of the coffin.
In the coffin lay the body of a man. The presence of the body wasn't the shocking thing; the shocking thing was that the body was still fresh, like it was still alive.
The contours of the face of the man were well-defined; he had a small beard and looked to be middle aged, also he wore a luxurious robe that even though such robes were uncommon on Earth, it still showed that he was definitely an important person.
Moreover, that wasn't the only shocking thing. In the arms of the body was an hour glass, yes, it was an ordinary-looking hourglass with black-colored frames. The only slightly special thing about it was that it had golden sand in it.
Lei Shi was at a loss, he was expecting many things but not a live body.
"Titania check for vitality signs"
"His heart isn't beating nor is his body warm, he is dead" Titania replied
"Appraise"
The feedback he got was even more shocking.
Creature: Human
Name: Unknown
Race: Unknown but looks to be Persian
Age: At least 35 years
...
"You've gotta be kidding me"