Chapter 1308: I Think I Found It
Xie Yunlong looked into the lava pool. The lava that splashed out of the pool earlier was still glowing. Some small rock pieces were seen by the poolside, obviously fallen from the wall. Quite some dents could be found on the rock wall as well, seemingly freshly created. The entrance of the cave seemed to have partially collapsed not long ago as well.
“Great! Those people cleared the way for us,” said a man behind Xie Longyun. While speaking, he also looked into the lava pool.
Xie Longyun gave him a glance and said blandly, “But, if there were any good stuff, they wouldn’t leave it for us.”
“What should we do then?” The man looked at her and asked, “Shall we keep following them like this?”
“Sure, why not?” Xie Longyun twisted her full, red lips in a smile and said, “This underground realm is so huge. She can’t possibly find all the good stuff. Also, our main job is to find out what’s down here and make sure the people from Sea City Base and All Beings Base never leave this place.”
After she said that, a cold light flashed across her pretty eyes and the smile on her face grew bigger.
Lin Qiao quickly ran into the tunnel and soon caught up with Duan Juan and the others. The group of people was waiting for her before a fork in the road. At the sight of her, they instantly stood straight.
“We should go. Those people are right behind us,” Lin Qiao walked over and first looked into the two tunnels in front of her before swiftly entering one of them, from where a vibe similar to the vibe of the rock monster could be sensed. The others followed tightly behind her into the tunnel.
After a short walk in the tunnel, Lin Qiao found the road under her feet end. Instead, there was a hole on the ground, about five meters wide. She looked down from the edge of the hole but didn’t see the bottom. Clearly, the hole was very deep.
The edge of the hole seemed to have been scratched by some creatures with sharp claws, and many parts of the rock were cut off. Judging by the irregular shape of the hole, it was probably dug through from the bottom up. More importantly, a strong and peculiar vibe was coming out of the hole. That was the reason why Lin Qiao chose this way to go.
As she squatted by the end of the road, the others shone their flashlights toward the front and found the hole before her.
Seeing them come over, Lin Qiao stood up and said, “There’s no time for you guys to stay here and wait for me to go down and feel the way for you. I’m going down now, and you guys follow behind me. Keep high vigilance though.”
The Huaxia people were already very close to them. To keep them from catching up with her and her people, Lin Qiao needed to keep a distance from them. The surrounding environment wasn’t suitable for starting a fight, so she decided to go down and see what was down in the hole. The depth of the hole couldn’t threaten the lives of her teammates anyway, because every one of them was able to stop themselves from falling at any time they wanted. For that reason, she wasn’t worried about their safety.
But still, they all needed to stay alert to prevent any possible accidents.
Having finished talking, Lin Qiao jumped into the hole and disappeared within a blink. Following her, Duan Juan, Long Qingying, Li Zheng, and all the other All Beings Base people jumped without hesitation. After them were Kong Qingming and his people, and then Lei Cheng and his team.
Once she made the jump, Lin Qiao found how special the hole was. The deeper she fell, the bigger the s.p.a.ce in the hole became. Still no bottom could be seen; it was all dark, with nothing visible at all.
After making the jump, the others tried their best to maintain a safe position in the air while falling, so that they could react to any possible situation timely. That hole wasn’t like the hole near the earth’s surface, which had a slope underneath it for them to land their feet and walk deeper down the ground. In the current hole, leave alone a slope, there wasn’t even a vertical rock face. The rockface in the hole was hollow!
One minute…
Three minutes…
“How much longer are we going to fall for?” Kong Qingming finally couldn’t help but ask. He was having his back to the bottom of the hole and arms folded before his chest. While speaking, he observed the surrounding rock face.
They had been falling vertically for over ten minutes, but still, no bottom could be seen! It was actually like skydiving underground!
“I’m more worried about if we can still go back the way we came.” Duan Juan looked up and said. To do that, they might need to do some rock climbing! It was too high though…
She wondered how the underground creatures climbed up! Were they all like a gecko?
“Prepare for landing!” Another while later, Lin Qiao suddenly gave her order. On hearing that, everyone immediately pulled out the crossbows from around their waists and shot at the nearby rock face.
Clang! The arrowheads attached to ropes sank into the rock. The rock down there was so hard that only one-third of every arrowhead sank into it. But still, the arrowheads and the ropes provided people with strong holding spots.
Lin Qiao released a cloud of dark mist to support her body and leaped straight down, because she had seen the ground down there. It was a weird type of yellow-colored soil.
Puff! She was the first to land. The ground was covered in soft yellow soil, which had the texture of sand but was even finer. It felt soft and loose against her feet.
The others used the ropes to slow themselves down and then relaxed their grip on the ropes, landing on the ground one after another. After landing, they stayed motionless, observing the yellow soil under their feet. They were worried that something dangerous might be hiding in the soil.
“Let’s move! This place is safe,” Lin Qiao looked around and then said to her people. After that, she warned them, “I think this is the place we’ve been looking for. Be careful!”
The last few words she said made everyone grow highly alert.
Lin Qiao and her people had landed in a s.p.a.cious area with only one exit. The exit looked like a wide breach.
What aroused her curiosity was the pale-blue light s.h.i.+ning out of the exit. It told her there was a dim source of light on the other side of the exit.
“Eh? Why is there light?” Some other people had the same question as Lin Qiao did.
That was not only a light spot. Instead, the light illuminated the area outside the exit like the dim but clear light of a crescent moon. No details could be seen under that kind of moonlight, but one could see the outlines of things like buildings, plants, and roads.