After moving back and forth for over ten minutes, Lin Ye finally exhausted the flesh chunks inside the black fluid.

After testing the black fluid a few more times and confirming that no more flesh chunks would suddenly emerge, he finally approached the palace's large door.

The palace door was made of some dark red flesh-like material. The surrounding walls were also this color, but the materials used to construct them seemed somewhat different.

After Lin Ye approached the door, several structurally more complex eyeballs grew on it. These eyeballs observed Lin Ye for a moment before retracting back inside the door.

After the eyeballs disappeared, the door automatically opened. Inside was a vast hall with an area close to half a football field. The floor of the hall was covered with even more fluid, most of it red, but with a small amount of black fluid as well.

The hall connected to several red corridors leading to other areas. Lin Ye entered the hall, trying to move near the red fluid as much as possible and avoiding those black puddles.

'Why is there nothing here? It's as if it's been cleaned out.'

Lin Ye had originally planned to take a few pieces of furniture back to the Shelter. Now, he could only go check out those corridors.

'Which one should I take?'

After being reminded by the Alienation Beast, Lin Ye wasn't planning to use the Lucky Coin during this activity, but he could infer the importance of those corridors based on the building's structure.

However, he had almost no understanding of this place, so his inferences might not be accurate.

Lin Ye began inspecting the corridors. Most were as dilapidated as the main hall, with large amounts of fluid accumulated inside. Only two corridors had no fluid at all; they could even be described as spotless.

Clearly, these two corridors connected to the most important places in this palace.

Lin Ye only thought for half a second before walking into the corridor directly facing the main door. The corridor had no red fluid, so it might be very dangerous, but the depths of this palace might hold something extremely important to him, so he had to accept the risk.

It was extremely quiet inside the corridor, so when a strange sound rang out behind him, Lin Ye immediately turned to look.

He only heard the sound behind him but didn't sense anything there, so he could only turn his head back.

When Lin Ye looked back, the sound behind him abruptly stopped. The corridor remained spotless, with nothing there.

"...Maybe it was just an illusion."

Lin Ye turned back and continued forward. However, the strange sound rang out again behind him, and this time it was closer than before.

This time, Lin Ye didn't turn around. Instead, he used a Protection rune to create a wall of spiritual energy that completely filled the corridor's cross-section, then pushed this wall towards the main hall.

Even as the spiritual energy wall left the corridor's range, the sound behind him didn't disappear. In fact, the sound was now right behind Lin Ye's back, less than a meter away from him.

Lin Ye could only turn around again. The sound behind him vanished once more, as if it were just Lin Ye's hallucination.

'...Hmph, what if I walk backwards?'

Lin Ye began moving backwards deeper into the corridor. However, he had only retreated half a step when he heard the previous sound from an extremely close distance, and then his back touched something incredibly soft.

The contact lasted only an instant. That thing disappeared before Lin Ye could turn around. The right hand he extended through anticipation only grabbed a handful of air.

Lin Ye carefully sensed his entire body, especially the area on his back that had made contact with the unknown entity, but he didn't sense anything.

'What exactly is that thing? What is its purpose? Is it to make contact with my body?'

Lin Ye continued deeper into the corridor. He wasn't overly tense, as he was wearing the relic Sacrificial Night. Whatever the other's purpose was, it wouldn't be easily achieved.

This time, that strange sound completely disappeared. The corridor was deathly silent. Lin Ye occasionally glanced back, always feeling something was following him, but there was nothing there.

'Sigh, I never thought the Backstab Master would encounter this kind of situation. Seems I still have room for improvement.'

Lin Ye stopped looking back to observe what was behind him. Whatever was following him wasn't something he could casually deal with. Whatever the reason, since it hadn't attacked him yet, he'd better take advantage of this time to explore this area as quickly as possible.

At the end of the corridor was a sealed door. Above the door were carved some peculiar runes. Just by looking at those runes, Lin Ye could understand their meaning:

Storage Room.

'...It's actually a storage room... I have a bad feeling about this.'

This made Lin Ye think of the basement he used to store various dangerous items.

At that moment, the storage room door suddenly opened a crack, as if inviting Lin Ye to enter.

This time, no eyeballs grew on the door.

Lin Ye pulled open the storage room door. Something suddenly pushed him from behind, shoving him inside the storage room.

The door automatically closed. Lin Ye looked around, beginning to examine the interior environment of the storage room.

The storage room was much larger than the outer hall, filled with various things Lin Ye had never seen before. The most numerous were small aquariums, each containing various different types of Red Sea creatures.

Lin Ye strolled among them, as if visiting an exhibition hall of Red Sea creatures.

In addition, the storage room contained a large number of items of different grades. Many of these items emitted the aura of relics.

Lin Ye even saw several Rule Fragments stored inside transparent containers, shining like bright stars.

Of course, there were also many dangerous items here. However, the containers storing those dangerous items emitted intense rule power. Without various protective measures, this place would have probably been destroyed long ago.

Lin Ye didn't touch any of the items in the storage room. These items weren't ownerless. That thing that had been following him earlier was probably the guardian of this place.

No matter how meticulous the protective measures were, if no one maintained them, this area couldn't have remained in this state. Just look at the outer hall to know.

Lin Ye passed through the collection, admiring each piece. Through these items, he might be able to deepen his understanding of that deity a little.

After some time, Lin Ye had looked at all the items in the storage room. Just as he was preparing to leave, the storage room door opened a crack, and a white object fell through the gap into the storage room.

This was the first piece of miscellaneous item Lin Ye had seen in this area.

Lin Ye picked up the white, epidermis-like object. The epidermis felt very soft to the touch, with some red runes drawn on it. These runes were extremely chaotic. Even with the system's translation, it took Lin Ye several seconds to figure out the meaning of these symbols.