Harem Assassins : King Sekton's Harem Planet, Book 2: A Space Opera Harem Adventure Baron Sord (good books to read for adults .txt) 📖

or something. This wasn’t just a few cave dwellings where some long lost tribe had lived and died. This felt like the sacred entrance to a once spectacular mountain temple built by an advanced and proud civilization now fallen, and I was an uninvited intruder. I was generally skeptical of ghosts, but in a place like this, you could practically smell them seeping from the stones and feel them chilling the air with their ancient and haunting presence.

I snorted derisively.

Ghosts?

That was ridiculous.

This place was ruins.

Old stones, nothing more.

Nobody cared about this place now.

I had to wonder, how was it none of the guardswomen at the outpost had ever mentioned these ruins to me before? Or the Bombshells? When you thought about it, it was like you had spent the last four days visiting someplace exotic like Cairo in Egypt, and not a single local had bothered mentioning the Great Pyramids of Giza were just a short drive away on the outskirts of town, and would you like to see them and buy some souvenirs?

No, not a peep from anyone at the outpost about this archeological extravaganza.

Which was odd, because most cultures were extremely proud of their ancient ruins and relics, and their cultural heritage. If that was the case, why had nobody at the outpost mentioned these?

Were they ashamed?

Afraid?

Was this place cursed?

Ha. No, that was just me letting the creepy vibe get the best of me.

This place wasn’t cursed.

It couldn’t be cursed. That wasn’t even a thing. Cursed. Pfft.

Maybe the Zalaxians were unaware of these ruins? Or simply uninterested?

I had no idea, but when I crested the top of the stairs, I stopped short.

Gasped in awe.

“What the fuuuuu…”

I could not believe my eyes.

—: Chapter 115 :—

Spreading out below me were the ruins of some kind of massive amphitheater laid out in an oval. Broken statuary stood atop the surrounding walls. The statues were so damaged, it wasn’t clear what they were supposed to represent.

Except one statue that was practically untouched.

It was the largest by far, and possibly the largest stone statue I had ever seen.

It stood at the far end of the oval amphitheater and towered over everything. It had clearly been built there so anyone entering from the staircase I had used would see it before anything else. The statue was at least 150 meters tall, taller than the Statue of Liberty and its pedestal combined. The design of this statue was both impressive and frightening, and there was no mistaking what it represented.

A freaking dragon.

Huge stone wings spread wide, neck extended, head held high.

I couldn’t believe it.

The Bombshells had told me Zalaxia had dragons. Colonel Sadys had confirmed it when I’d asked if Titano was a Zalaxian dragon and she’d said no, Zalaxian dragons had wings.

This statue damn sure did.

The wingspan was enormous. Considering it was stone, I couldn’t believe it was still standing. The anatomical structure of dragon wings didn’t exactly lend itself to longevity when such wings were made from stone and held aloft like in this case. Though I did notice some clever stonemason had designed it so the wings touched the ground in several places, reducing the overall load, but there was enough stone hanging out over open air, my first thought was reinforced concrete. Or a steel frame underneath stone skirting of some kind. You could cut stone into very thin sheets if you knew what you were doing. Cutting it into thin curved sheets to round the form of a dragon was another thing.

More importantly, freaking dragons!

I couldn’t quite allow myself to believe it.

I hovered around the oval amphitheater, heading in the general direction of the big statue, but also looking more closely at the rest of the decorative stonework adorning the amphitheater. The paving stones on the oval walkway surrounding the topmost level of seating were well worn with age. People had used this place for hundreds if not thousands of years. Or dragon people. You know, bipedal dragon men and women. Like that sapphire dragon man I saw guarding the cannon with the other pirates. Wait, was that guy a Zalaxian dragon man? Or a mutant alien from some other planet?

I didn’t know.

Either way, I knew you wouldn’t see wear patterns on walkways that were this deep outside of ancient structures like the Roman Colosseum, which had been trod upon by millions upon millions of human feet for nearly 2,000 years.

In other words, this place was old, old, old.

I noticed more dragons were depicted in bas relief carvings on the oval wall circling the upper level walkway. Almost like movie posters you saw in movie theater lobbies on your way to your screen, here for whoever was slowly circling the upper level of the amphitheater, ambling along behind the incoming crowd while looking for their seating section down below. The bas relief images showed all manner of dragons in all manner of activities, but it was difficult to make sense of exactly what, because so much of the carvings had crumbled away with age.

On closer inspection, the smaller broken statues set at regular intervals atop the oval wall — the curtain wall encircling the top level of the amphitheater and featuring the bas relief carvings — the smaller statues above it had clearly been dragon statues before toppling. These smaller statues looked like they may have been 3-5 meters tall when whole, and there had been dozens if not hundreds of them.

Ruined or not, this place was dragon central.

Amazing.

Like many friends of mine, I had been a fan of fantasy novels, Tolkien, Dungeons & Dragons, video game RPGs, and all that business since I was little. As a kid, I would’ve jumped for joy if you had told me dragons were as real as dinosaurs, even if they had also gone extinct. The day before I met the Bombshells, I would’ve laughed in your face if you told me dragons were real, but I would’ve secretly wished you weren’t insane. After Hoppy the reptilian Gorlak had chased me and