With a metallic click, I noticed the luminous pearls embedded in the wall slowly dimming.

The thin grooves connecting these pearls, however, began to glow with an eerie light.

As I struggled to comprehend this phenomenon, the square stone blocks outlined by these glowing lines suddenly flipped over.

Behind them lay uneven rock surfaces.

When every block on the entire wall had turned, its surface became a chaotic landscape reminiscent of a mountain's rugged terrain—no symmetry at all, only jutting edges and jagged lines.

The utter disorder shifted when two circular amber glows ignited in the center.

I was stunned to realize these were the eyes of a towering middle-aged man with an imposing visage.

His features were monumental: nose like a mountain ridge, chin strong as cliffside outcroppings, and cheekbones carving dramatic shadows. Yet this figure had only a head protruding from nothingness, gaping skyward in wordless anguish.

Numerous identical faces surrounded him—hundreds of them—but their vacant gazes seemed more like airholes than human eyes, creating an unsettling effect.

After staring for a moment, I found myself unnerved by the sheer number of these hollow-eyed visages and turned to Zoya: "Grandma Zoya, is this your 'painting'? Why only one image?"

Zoya narrowed her eyes slightly. "Patience," she said. "More will come."

No sooner had she finished speaking than I noticed the central face expanding while its counterparts shrank.

Certain it was a trick of the light, I leaned in to examine the edges closely—only for massive stone spines to erupt from its outline and retract into surrounding faces' perimeters simultaneously.

The realization struck me: this wasn't just artwork. It was an intricate mechanism of thousands of adjustable stone slats shifting in synchronized patterns—a technological marvel even ancient Mayans might have struggled with.

As I marveled at the Yaiaku people's ingenuity, a new horror unfolded.

The surrounding faces diminished from normal size to fist-sized and finally vanished entirely while the central face swelled to occupy half the chamber. Then it began rotating sideways, revealing features previously hidden by perspective: neck, arms, torso, legs emerging like something clawing upward through soil.

Its hands were grotesque—spade-like claws with nails longer than fingers, sharpened into knife points at their tips. The image unnervingly resembled a corpse clawing its way out of burial ground.

Yet this wasn't just any dead man's face. The sheer uniformity of the surrounding visages defied natural human variation. Was this depiction of hell? Was our middle-aged figure some infernal specter ascending from below?

Before I could decide, the entire scene dissolved into flat stone again.

Stunned, I muttered to myself, "That was it? What even—?"

A sharp pause preceded a straight line bisecting the wall's center. Moments later, an emaciated hand with needle-like claws pierced through like breaking through earth. The middle-aged man emerged from below in a hunched, ape-like crawl, his face contorted into something simultaneously feral and human.

Grasses sprouted across the floor as he advanced on all fours when two towering figures blocked his path. These weren't ordinary humans—though they possessed humanoid torsos with eyes, mouths, and noses—they had heads disproportionately large like polished bowling balls, square-jawed faces tapering to knife-edged chins extending three times normal length. Their necks were unnaturally slender, giving them the appearance of half-transformed serpentine spirits who'd failed their metamorphosis into true humanity.

With disturbing gentleness, they guided the man through a perfectly circular doorway—its symmetry too flawless for primitive masonry. The interior space was claustrophobic, hung with writhing tubes resembling animal intestines suspended from the ceiling to floor. They led him through another round archway into a hemispherical chamber containing only a rectangular stone slab at its center.

The man sat there motionless as his escorts departed. When they returned later with two unclothed human women—dwarves compared to these giants, trembling visibly—he still remained utterly still in that empty room, like some ancient idol awaiting activation.

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