Chapter 70

Chapter 70: The Underground Cavern

With a turn of her palm, Rong Shu drew a horizontal saber from her Storage Pouch, smothered the newly kindled fire, and immediately vacated the spot.

Not a quarter of an hour after she left, several gray wolf-beasts padded in without a sound. Finding no intruder, they rumbled low in their throats, as if exchanging information, then fanned out in different directions.

Elsewhere, Rong Shu did not leave on the Flying Boat. She had come here precisely to seek chances and materials. Since she had “run into” something, she naturally would not just run away.

The river’s murmur kept sounding by her ear. To avoid losing her way and to keep her bearings, she moved downstream along the flow.

Glancing at the river in the near distance several times, she thought: [There are no high peaks here from which a river would spring… there must be an underground river.]

A wolf’s howl rose. Rong Shu’s expression tightened as pale shapes slid through the dark, converging on her; green eyes gleamed cold and dangerous in the night.

“Three, four, five… fifteen?” she counted under her breath, then stiffened: “Wait… one is level five?”

A level-five beast, comparable to a Foundation Establishment Stage cultivator, was not to be faced head-on. Without shame, Rong Shu abandoned the idea of fighting the pack and chose to flee.

But she had not gone far when another group of black bear-beasts crashed from a nearby copse, aiming squarely to cut her off. Rong Shu hastily pulled out the Flying Boat and tossed it skyward, then bounded up, borrowing a push of wind to land on the Flying Boat.

Doing it this way kept the Flying Boat from touching the ground, so the lunging bears and wolves could not seize it. Once she climbed higher, the beasts below could do nothing to her.

Temporarily safe, Rong Shu’s mind raced through the situation: [Two different kinds of beasts trying to block me at once? Odd. There has to be something odd here.]

She did not hurry to leave, circling widely in the air, but found nothing unusual. The beasts on the ground, however, doggedly tracked her.

[What am I overlooking?] she frowned.

As the Flying Boat skimmed low over the water, the river’s clear chatter reached her. In a flash of insight she jerked her head down to look at the current: [I didn’t investigate the water…]

Tempted yet wary, she hesitated. The unknown was always enticing and equally dangerous. [But this is the sect’s secret realm, and this area is carved out specifically for Qi Refining Stage disciples to train. The beasts here are at most level five. There cannot be flying beasts underwater, and I have a Flying Boat and a Defensive Talisman. If I need to run, once I surface I can take to the air at once…]

Having reasoned it through, Rong Shu decided to enter the water and see for herself. Choosing a suitable point of entry, she guided the Flying Boat down into the river. Casting the Screening Technique, she wrapped the Flying Boat in a broad arc, turning it into a little submarine. It was a very costly method in terms of spiritual energy. She split her focus four ways, piloting the Flying Boat, maintaining the Screening Technique, swallowing Spirit Gathering Pills, and staying ready for any underwater danger.

About half an hour later, the Flying Boat burst up from a stretch of underground river. She brought it to a halt by the bank of the dark current and dropped the Screening Technique. Sitting in the Flying Boat, she tipped two more Spirit Gathering Pills into her mouth. As the medicine dissolved, her eyes shone while she surveyed the scene before her: [So there really is an underground river… and here there’s an underground cavern?]

Crisscrossing tunnels yawned ahead. Once her spiritual energy was nearly restored, she started toward the nearest passage. Just as she stepped into it, she caught sight of claw marks near the mouth of the tunnel. Comparing their size, she realized each mark was larger than her entire body, and a chilling thought struck her: [These passages… could they have been dug by some great beast?]

At that thought, a shudder crawled over her skin, as if the path she had entered was not a tunnel at all, but the belly of some unknown giant beast.