Chapter 365

Chapter 366: Scenery Beyond the Layered Rock

In the dark, wide cave under the ground, Rapunzel looked a little sad.

Yu Sheng felt surprised when he saw her like that, because it was the first time he had seen this miss look so down. Rapunzel was usually a total optimist, her mood either numb to everything or as giddy as if she had eaten a mushroom, so seeing her truly discouraged was rare.

Even Foxy, who usually barely paid attention to others, noticed and asked with curiosity: “What’s wrong with you?”

Rapunzel looked unsure as she glanced at Yu Sheng and said in a small voice: “Bro, maybe I shouldn’t have pushed Zheng Zhi to guide us. If I hadn’t, maybe nothing would have happened to him…”

Yu Sheng couldn’t help laughing as he answered: “You’re down over that? You’re overthinking it. Before you even found him, he had already spent half a day walking all around Spirit Infusion Peak. He doesn’t need anyone to push him to act. And honestly, with his ‘talent,’ do you really think he wouldn’t get himself lost even if you left him alone?”

Rapunzel blinked while listening. At first she thought he was just comforting her, but then she remembered all of Zheng Zhi’s past “feats” and started to feel that Yu Sheng was probably right.

Just then, the Mermaid shed her tail and turned back into a human. Yu Sheng didn’t catch how she changed; one blink and the girl was standing. She widened her eyes and looked around, opening her mouth several times before finally saying: “Um, do you hear a buzzing sound?”

Yu Sheng looked puzzled and asked: “Buzzing? I don’t hear it. What kind of sound?”

The Mermaid watched the cave as she spoke: “Like a cave humming. There are light echoes everywhere. It also sounds a little like something snoring.”

Yu Sheng frowned and glanced at the others: “Do you hear it?”

Everyone said they heard nothing like that. Even Rapunzel shook her head, then quickly added: “Salted Fish can hear a lot of sounds normal people can’t. She can pick up low and high vibrations that even precision tools can’t measure.”

The group fell quiet. None of them could hear the “buzz” except the Mermaid, but no one dared to dismiss her report.

The hidden devices inside Immortal Qian Ji clicked and ticked. After a short pause he broke the silence and said in a deep voice: “There is vibration, but the source is unclear and very weak.”

The Mermaid suddenly lifted her head and sang a short, strange hum toward a certain direction.

It was only a few quick notes, sharp like the call of a small bird.

Then she made a few more sounds, higher and thinner each time, until human ears could no longer catch them. Yu Sheng saw her lips part slightly, but he could not hear anything more.

He watched, confused, then realized what she was doing. [She’s using Sonar to scan the ‘cave.’]

He felt it wasn’t necessary. They already had Immortal Qian Ji’s Mechanism Orb, Foxy’s Sensing Tail, and the two Guardians, Bai Qie and Yan Ju, out scouting. They were not short on detection tools, and the Mermaid’s Sonar probably wouldn’t add much.

Just as he thought that, a light “crack” sounded from the deep darkness far ahead and cut off his train of thought.

Yu Sheng looked up toward the sound on instinct. Almost at the same time, another, louder, stranger noise came from the same direction.

A second later, he saw a faint glow. Across the “underground lake,” deep in the rock wall shrouded in darkness, a horizontal band of light flared alive like a sudden Rift, and everyone saw it.

Right after, the light began to grow fast. The endless dark of the cave seemed to be torn open and pushed back. Yu Sheng heard a deep roar that felt like it could thump along with a person’s heartbeat. It came from all around the cavern, as if some giant Behemoth was humming low inside the space.

The ground started to shake. Ripples spread hard across the calm “underground lake” until the whole surface churned like boiling water. The rock walls squeaked and groaned. The glowing vines and the many stone pillars hanging from the roof swayed and trembled. In the distance the light widened again. It was no longer a thin glow but a bright, rapidly widening crack. Jagged shapes showed clearly along its edges.

Yu Sheng finally understood what it was. [Those are teeth. That is a mouth slowly opening. We are inside a Behemoth’s mouth.]

Irene couldn’t hold it anymore and shouted: “What the heck!” The little Doll was empty-headed most of the time, but even she understood what was going on now. She sprang up onto Yu Sheng’s shoulder and squeaked: “It’s alive! Fish, how did you do that?!”

Another wave of rocky grinding rolled over them, and the shaking grew worse. Without a word, Foxy dropped flat to the ground and changed on the spot into a huge Nine-Tailed Silver Fox, putting her massive body over Yu Sheng and the others like a shield.

The Mermaid had already stopped singing. When she turned back, she looked just as stunned. Hearing Irene, she answered at once: “I don’t know either. I kept hearing the buzz, and it sounded more and more like a living thing humming softly, so I tried to copy it and talk to it…”

Rapunzel’s voice went a little wild as the ground pitched under her feet: “Salted Fish, if you ever get that kind of idea again, tell us first!” The shaking almost knocked her over. In the next second her golden hair grew like crazy, bracing the nearby walls and floor and weaving a barrier around her. She glanced toward the lake and yelped: “The ‘lake’ is boiling!”

Before she finished, a solemn voice rolled in from ahead. She looked up and saw Immortal Qian Ji floating in midair. His robe, which gleamed with a metallic sheen, lit up layer by layer. Countless runes shone in order across its surface. He raised his arm toward a direction; the shell plates along it opened like fish scales. The talismans flared, and his command echoed through the “cave” in rings: “Still.”

The impossible Behemoth actually calmed for a moment. The violent shaking in the “cave” also steadied.

Yu Sheng had already reached one hand into the air, ready to pull open The Door and send some people out first. But the instant before it opened, he felt a tie formed by blood.

He read it in a heartbeat and stared toward the opening across the “lake.”

“Zheng Zhi is over there.”

Rapunzel froze and blurted: “What?”

“He’s outside that crack. He fell outside.”

Yu Sheng spoke fast as he grabbed one of Foxy’s tails, swung himself up onto the great Demon Fox’s back, and waved to Rapunzel and the Mermaid: “Get on, now.”

Rapunzel hesitated for a second. Riding a Nine-Tailed Fox was a first for her. But she reacted quickly, copied Yu Sheng’s move, and scrambled onto the Demon Fox. Her Magical Golden Hair surged again, scooped up the stunned Mermaid, and dropped her at Rapunzel’s side.

Foxy’s fluffy tails folded around the group. A Protective Spiritual Aura rose as a hazy shield of light. In the next breath, Foxy sprinted toward the boiling “lake.” She ran faster and faster, stepping on the air above the water. Under Yu Sheng’s direction she dashed straight for the open jaws in the distance.

Xuan Che and Immortal Qian Ji followed close behind on their own lights.

The glow pouring in through the huge mouth drove away all the cave’s darkness. The light held a strange dark red tint. The Demon Fox and the Immortal leapt through it and crossed the “lake,” which had seemed endless when it was dark.

Irene lay on Yu Sheng’s shoulder and peeked down at the water, mumbling without thinking: “So the water wasn’t that big after all.”

Luna, slow as always, said from the side: “Because it was dark.”

Yu Sheng kept his eyes on what lay ahead.

Foxy cleared the giant mouth.

He saw ranks of sharp stone spires. Mossy rocks stood like a wall of blades at the cave’s exit, The End Web. Torn vines and dead branches were stuck between these weird “teeth.”

He saw rough rock layers beyond the jaws, as steep as a cliff.

He could not imagine what kind of Behemoth this was. [A living mountain? A moving island?]

“Fly up along that slanted ridge. Zheng Zhi is up there,” Yu Sheng called as he guided Foxy. In his mind he sketched the Behemoth’s possible shape, but his eyes kept drifting farther out, past the teeth and the rock wall ahead. He wanted to see what lay beyond the Behemoth.

Then he saw a torn planet and an atmosphere that had boiled away.

A curved horizon filled everyone’s sight. The ground was covered with seas of rolling magma and fire pillars blasting up almost into space. A terrible trench carved across the planet as if cutting the world in two. Fire rose from the trench. Above the land, the air had been stripped bare. Space hung there like a mad black ocean of stars. Countless stars shook, fell, crashed, and burned over the ripped horizon. An ominous dark red light spread across the whole backdrop of the universe and baked whatever was left alive on the planet.

The Behemoth drifted past the breaking world below and let out a deep, mournful cry that echoed inside the last scraps of its home’s air.