With no thought for anything else, I swallowed hard, then hastily leaned in closer to peer into the coffin.

It was then I realized the coffin was filled with those small, glowing orbs, and their sheer number was the reason it was so intensely bright.

However, apart from these luminous, heat-emitting spheres, there was nothing else in the coffin.

Only something resembling a human skull rested precisely in the center of the mound of beads, and beside the skull lay a section of arm bone, specifically the part below the elbow.

Perhaps due to the passage of so much time, the original occupant’s body had largely decayed, leaving only these two remnants behind.

But even these two bones revealed something unusual to me: the placement of the skull.

Judging by its size, the skull must have had a diameter of at least ten or twenty centimeters—hardly that of a child.

Yet, for an adult of normal height, even if the skeleton had scattered, the skull's location should be at the top, closer to the head-end of the coffin. This skull, however, was positioned dead center.

This left only two possibilities: either someone had disturbed the skeletal remains inside and deliberately placed the skull in the middle, or the corpse in this coffin belonged to a dwarf with a remarkably large head and a very short stature.

Clearly, the second hypothesis was invalid, as the arm bone appeared to be the size of a normal adult’s limb.

It seemed someone had been here before. On this island, the only living person I could think of, apart from the legendary Ama divers, was Zoya.

Perhaps Zoya had retrieved that piece of parchment from within this golden sarcophagus.

With that thought, I rolled up my sleeves and reached into the glowing beads, sifting through them, but found nothing.

Next, I carefully lifted both the skull and the arm bone out of the coffin.

Cupping the ancient, grayish skull, crisscrossed with tiny fissures, in my palm, I noticed how incredibly light it was.

From its contours, the dome of the cranium was very pronounced, especially the back—it was rounded and full, features that strongly suggested a female.

And indeed, by its size, it looked like a woman’s skull.

But the arm bone was different; the joints were remarkably thick, and both the width of the palm and the length of the fingers resembled those of an adult male. Moreover, this man’s height seemed to be about the same as mine.

Most crucially, while I hadn't noticed it clearly when it was in the coffin, this arm bone appeared far newer than the skull; its age seemed to be within the last few years, perhaps even the last year.

This was baffling. I hadn't seen Zoya with a missing hand, and even if she had lost one, it should have been a woman's hand, not this man's.

So, where had this fresh man’s hand come from, to be placed inside a dusty, golden coffin?

I held the hand up before me, examining it closely, even comparing it to my own.

Then, to my surprise, I discovered that the size of this hand was an exact match for mine.

A slight smile touched my lips; I dismissed it as a coincidence, thinking, could this hand actually be mine?

The thought prompted me to look at my own right hand, the one covered in green, bark-like skin.

Comparing the hand bone with the area covered in bark, I saw it was too coincidental: the length of this bone was almost identical to the length of the bark-covered section on my own hand.

Following this thought, I traced down from the fingertips of the bone, driven by a strange idea forming in my mind.

I recalled falling as a child and fracturing the bone a few inches below my right wrist, requiring months of healing.

Even though the bone had long since mended, an injury sustained so young should have left some mark.

Recalling my childhood accident while looking down at the bone, the moment I reached the spot a few inches below the wrist, I immediately flung the bone away, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Because there, a few inches below the wrist, was indeed a shallow, pale scar, slightly raised to the touch—clear evidence of a healed injury.

“Calm… calm down…” I gasped, forcing myself to believe it was all coincidence, perhaps this person had simply sustained the same injury in their life.

Despite the attempt at self-reassurance, the air in the dim stone chamber felt suffocatingly dense; I could barely draw breath.

So, I turned and staggered toward the exit.

Stepping out through the golden doorway, the sudden brilliance of the light forced my eyes shut.

I took several deep breaths, using my hand to shield the pervasive glare, and then walked forward, hoping to put as much distance as possible between myself and that bizarre chamber.

After only a few steps, I realized I was still clutching the skull.

The light inside the stone room had been too weak; I hadn't been able to clearly discern the markings on the skull, mistaking them for natural cracks due to age.

Now, in the bright light, it was clear: the entire surface of this skull was inscribed with dense, writhing script.

I instantly recognized the script as some form of Witch-Tongue, though age had made some strokes sharp and others faint, which is why I had mistaken them for fissures.

Naturally, I couldn't read the Witch-Tongue, but I had a decent memory for symbols, and the markings bore a distinct resemblance to the incantations carved into the walls of the High Tower.

Looking closer at the edges of the skull, they were remarkably smooth, clearly polished by human hands.

Flipping the skull over, I found engravings on the back depicting strange creatures: human heads with bird beaks, serpentine bodies with feminine faces. They all wore terrifying, ferocious expressions.

Seeing these symbols, I felt certain the skull was more than just human remains; it likely held some ancient, ritualistic purpose.

I temporarily wrapped the skull in a sterile bag and placed it in my backpack, then started walking along the colossal golden wall, heading in the direction Zoya had previously indicated.

Keeping one hand on the wall as I leaped forward, the journey was somewhat more manageable, and my pace had increased.

The only inconvenience was that the dense masses of creeping vines sometimes reached the wall’s edge, climbing upward and blooming with vibrant, multicolored flowers all over the stone surface.

Though beautiful, these flowers obstructed my path.

Each time, I had to either slip through sparse openings or backtrack and go around.

As I pushed through another thicket of vines, I looked up and encountered a scene that appeared without warning, instantly stunning me.