Chapter 675: No way to escape
Translator: Radiant Translations Editor: Radiant Translations
“Bang!”
A thick, pillar-like tongue suddenly shot out from beneath the lava! Traveling at an astonis.h.i.+ng speed, it instantly wrapped around the flying dinosaur!
“Squawk!”
The flying dinosaur squawked out in terror. Nevertheless, its cries only lasted for an instant.
Pa!
With a furious tug, the tongue, along with the h.e.l.lish flying dinosaur it had wrapped up, instantly disappeared into the bubbling lava below.
Everyone could not help but suck in a deep breath as they looked down towards the river of lava below. Nevertheless, they weren’t able to see anything through the surging waves of heat.
What kind of life form was that?! A 4th rank dinosaur-bird that had easily broken the sound barrier had been wrapped up by its tongue, and was utterly incapable of resisting at all!
Everyone felt their scalps turn numb as they pressed their bodies against the wall, feeling as though they had already become someone else’s meal, only waiting for the knife and fork to start the feast!
Everyone was so shocked they didn’t even dare to move their bodies. Only after a while did they hear some gentle bubbling sounds, before the dozen meter wide lava river started to surge, as though some ma.s.sive life form underneath was slowly swimming away into the distance.
By now, everyone’s forehead was drenched with sweat.
All of them felt that the terrifying life form had definitely sensed their group. Perhaps they were too small and insignificant, and didn’t even provide enough meat. Fortunately, the terrifying freak beneath the lava was too lazy to take action against them, sparing the group from death.
“Go go go! f.u.c.k! This old lady doesn’t want to stay here for one second longer!”
Sister Hong’s voice broke the deadlock, causing everyone to immediately start moving their hands and feet. With their lives at stake, anyone would pull out even their last bit of strength. After much difficulty, everyone managed to plant their feet on solid ground. Only then could everyone breathe a sigh of relief.
Just thinking about the terrifying life form present in the lava was enough for everyone’s scalp to turn numb. They were utterly clueless about what rank it was; even that powerful bird freak was completely helpless before it. After evading from Margaret, everyone believed that they would only encounter life forms around the 4th rank. However, the one beneath the lava had broken all their expectations.
There were crouching tigers and hidden dragons everywhere in this terrifying place; terrifying life forms could just pop out of the ground at any moment. Right beneath them, the lava continued to bubble as waves of heat surged towards the skies. Compared to the time when they were scaling the fault wall, the air within the cave was unexpectedly cooling. In fact, the darkness energies and sinister feel in the air were significantly lower here.
This environment made everyone feel slightly more at ease, as the reduction in the darkness energies was an indicator that there weren’t many powerful dimensional life forms present in this area.
Continuing to travel within the cave, everyone was spooked out by the utter silence present within here. They could feel that the entire pa.s.sageway sloped downwards, with some parts of the path being exceedingly precipitous. It seemed that they were walking deeper and deeper into the heart of the mountain range.
Compared to the more comfortable environment in the earlier half of the cave, the deeper half was filled with various kinds of noxious fumes that a.s.sailed their senses. Furthermore, the air was also getting increasingly thin, making it harder to breathe. It was only due to everyone’s endurance being rather good, along with repeatedly holding their breaths, that they managed to make it out from the cave. Sister Hong played the biggest role here. With her supernatural sensory abilities, she had basically managed to spot all of the life forms they encountered along the way, allowing everyone to successfully evade all of them. It was impossible to imagine the situation they would be in if Sister Hong wasn’t in their group!
After traveling for approximately a few dozen kilometers, the cave started to widen and the height of the ceiling increased; it no longer seemed like a cave, it was a huge tunnel.
“ROAR!”
All of a sudden, terrifying b.e.a.s.t.i.a.l roars reverberated over from the distance, shaking the air within this vast mountain tunnel, causing everyone’s heart to be filled with shock.
“Everyone be careful.” If they really came across into any life form within this pa.s.sageway, they would truly be unable to escape, as it was nigh impossible for them to retreat the way they came from. After all, this was a shortcut; if they really retreated, they would have to force their way through the entire 2nd layer above ground. Who knew what kind of frightening life forms they would meet if they were to do so!
Sister Hong was unable to confirm the ident.i.ty of the roar. “It sounds a bit like a Cerberus. I hope it isn’t a 3 headed one…”
Although the roars came from an extreme distance, they were progressively getting closer.
A disgusting smell proceeded to waft towards them from the distance, which came right from the entrance of the gigantic cave. There were countless bones that had been piled up and formed into quite a few lairs.
“This is the exit. That person told me that this place is relatively safe to travel through. Looks like things have changed over time. This place has now become the lair of Cerberi.” Sister Hong said upon regaining her senses.
Nevertheless, the size of those lairs weren’t too large. Despite there being many bone-made dens present, the majority of them were about 1 to 2 metres in width, with the largest being less than 4 metres.
“There shouldn’t be any 3-headed Cerberus.” Gong Yi concluded while letting out a breath. Cerberi were probably one of the relatively weaker life forms present in the 2nd layer. Even after reaching their fully mature 3-headed form, they were only cla.s.sified as peak 4th rank dimensional life forms. Furthermore, that was the limit of this life form. The majority of Cerberi would only have 1 or 2 heads, respectively cla.s.sified as 3rd to 4th rank life forms. “If we head down towards the left, we will reach the 3rd layer within 2 kilometers. The life forms in the cursed lands mostly stick to their territories, and would not simply step into another layer. Therefore, we just have to reach the 3rd layer to be safe from them.”
Safe? Everyone laughed bitterly in response. Perhaps, that might be true. However, no one knew what awaited them further on. This journey was truly a perilous one.
At this moment, the Cerberi weren’t in their lair, though b.e.a.s.t.i.a.l roars continued to ring out from outside of the cave. Everyone continued to creep along the side of the cave. Nearing the entrance, they finally saw a vast stretch of land before them, just like the plains of the 1st layer.
At this moment, a group of Cerberi were lying on the ground not far from the entrance of the cave.
Of the whole pack, 2 of them were especially large. One of them had a glossy neck, and despite having only 1 head, it towered over the rest at 3 meters in height, appearing similar in size to a mature Cerberus. The other one was slightly bigger, and had 2 heads, while its fiery eyes flickered with light. Lying lazily on the ground, it appeared to be enjoying the comfort from the high temperatures. It was the king of this small pack, with the 1-headed Cerberus most probably being its mate.
Other than the 2 mature Cerberi, the majority of the other Cereberi were still adolescents, and appeared to be the size of ponies or large dogs. Their limbs brimmed with power, while the netherglow of h.e.l.lish flames surged from their eyes and limbs. At this moment, they were surrounding a few small Evil Demons, teasing them as they learned the techniques of hunting.
Those few small Evil Demons were covered with wounds. Faced against more powerful and higher-ranking life forms, those exceedingly vicious fellows from the outer fringes of the cursed lands had been beaten up like punching bags, none of them daring to engage in combat. At this moment, they only wished to flee. Nevertheless, any of them that occasionally managed to rush out of the encirclement of inexperienced adolescents would immediately get swatted back by the 1-headed Cerberus lying at the side. With its incomparable strength, the small Evil Demon would immediately vomit blood, losing half of its life in the process.
Gong Yi shot a few looks towards the rest, before making some hand signs, indicating to everyone to not alarm the fellows at the entrance of the cave, before quietly slipping out of the cave by the side.
After a few weeks together, everyone had built up a level of tacit understanding with each other. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement, before holding their breaths and slowly tiptoed as they edged out from the side of the cave.
Indeed, the concealment of their aura was effective, as they weren’t being detected. However, all of a sudden, a trapped small Evil Demon suddenly started to shriek, before pointing vigorously towards the direction where w.a.n.g Zhong and the others were hidden. From its point of view, the actions of those humans was completely visible.
Sensing something, the 2 large Cerberi suddenly turned their heads towards them.
They had been discovered!