Ren Yi’s elongated white mist body came to a sudden halt.
Directly ahead of him, the boundless, hellish mountain range of flesh-and-blood waves finally began to show a downward slope.
Looking out, a desolate landscape of rolling hills was faintly visible on the horizon.
In the very center of these hills, a massive mountain range lay like a reclining dragon, stretching from beneath their feet into the infinite distance.
It was the spine of this world, a natural chasm that completely isolated the high-and-mighty Sky Lake City from the mysterious Deep Abyss.
It had a rather pleasant name: the Yulong Mountains.
And the source of the Red Tide was right here.
This was a strangely shaped alluvial plain.
It looked as if it had undergone countless cycles of high-volume flooding and drying; below was a vast, deep-brown plain of hard crust.
Through the frequent processes of soaking and dehydration, the ground had gradually dried and cracked, with spiderweb-like fissures crisscrossing the surface.
Countless crimson streams and viscous flesh were surging out from those massive cracks with a thunderous roar, turning into the wavefront that swept across the wilderness.
【Dear passengers, the destination 'Red Tide Source' is about to be reached.】
Ren Yi gave a faint reminder in their minds as he lowered his altitude.
Immediately following that, he activated the Withered Claw for the final time.
Whoosh!
The void tore open. Accompanied by one last inertial "Ahhhhh," Evans and Wu Erhun were hoisted up and then dropped with a thud.
"Blegh—!"
As soon as they landed, the mouth on Wu Erhun’s cross snapped wide open.
Of course, since he had no body, he naturally had nothing to throw up.
Thus, he merely spat out a large amount of the cold air he had swallowed while in the sky.
Meanwhile, Evans’ face was like iron as he stared at Ren Yi with a gaze that could practically kill an Anomaly.
The white mist drifted elegantly in the air, synchronizing a voice in their minds with extreme sincerity and innocence:
"No need to thank me. We’re all partners in the same boat; helping each other is only right."
"Is your idea of 'helping each other' swinging us through the sky like a pendulum?" Evans said with a forced smile.
"Exactly. I’m quite satisfied with the captain’s piloting skills," Ren Yi said enthusiastically.
"I just remembered—if we want to cross that area of the Rotten Mountains ahead, the high-altitude toss-and-catch method might be a great way to do it."
Evans’ accusatory expression vanished instantly, replaced by a look of growing horror.
On the ground, the cross that had been lying flat suddenly jumped up.
"Master! I beg you! Please don't! If I jump any more, this old wood of mine is really going to fall apart!"
After facing extreme opposition from the two non-humans, Ren Yi regretfully withdrew his suggestion.
"Fine, then we only have one option left."
Ren Yi controlled the white mist to spin in mid-air, pointing toward the red, cracked plain below that was gushing with blood-water.
"Evans, that 'secret passage' you mentioned earlier that goes through the mountains and directly to the Deep Abyss..."
"I searched for a long time from high altitude just now, and I really didn't see anything."
"So, if it really exists, it can only be hidden in one place."
Evans’ expression shifted as he followed Ren Yi’s gesture: "You mean..."
"Exactly. Inside the vent of the Red Tide source. The most dangerous place is the safest path, right?"
But the problem was, a passage that could be traversed during the low-water period might not be viable during this "high-water period."
To be safe, Ren Yi decided to use his perception to scout ahead.
He released his perception, following the roaring, surging crimson flow, moving upstream and drilling into the earth.
As soon as his perception penetrated the surface crust, Ren Yi immediately felt a hollow area deep underground.
Water flowed through it; there seemed to be an extremely wide underground riverbed.
Wait... that’s not right.
As his perception extended further, Ren Yi’s mental waves jolted.
This hollow area was far larger than he had imagined.
To be precise, the entire cracked plain beneath their feet—the area under more than half of the crust—was actually hollow!
The scale of this so-called "passage" was thousands of times larger than he had anticipated.
For a moment, Ren Yi even had a bizarre illusion—it wasn't that he was looking for a crack leading to the Deep Abyss, but that they were actually already standing directly above the Deep Abyss.
But that was impossible. This could only mean that the underground structure of the Deep Abyss was so vast that it reached all the way here.
Before he could recover from this shocking deduction, Ren Yi suddenly sensed something was wrong.
The wind... seemed to have changed.
The violent airflow that had been erupting from the inside out, even causing hundred-meter waves on the wilderness, suddenly froze for a split second.
Then, without warning, the wind completely reversed direction!
The gale was no longer blowing outward. Instead, accompanied by a muffled roar like the heart of a planet stopping, it originated from that massive Red Tide vent.
The eruption of the Red Tide stopped.
The entire rushing red river that dyed the wilderness began to flow back into the ground frantically!
"Not good! Get back!"
Ren Yi roared in their minds.
However, it was already too late.
This sudden change in wind direction created a terrifyingly massive pressure difference across the fragile crust in an extremely short time.
Like a vacuum-sealed bag being instantly drained of air, the hollow space below generated an irresistible, gargantuan suction!
Rumble—
Massive sections of the crimson hard-crust ground beneath their feet suddenly shattered and collapsed.
Countless rocks and piles of "Meat-food" accumulated within the crust turned into a super whirlpool, accompanied by the deafening sound of the earth tearing apart.
The world instantly fell into chaos.
But Ren Yi reacted with lightning speed. Almost at the moment of weightlessness, he used the Withered Claw to accurately scoop up Evans and Wu Erhun.
The white mist enveloped the two of them like a sleek shuttle, weaving frantically through the terrifying torrent composed of countless pieces of "Meat-food" and blood-water.
Amidst the thunderous roar, they were forcibly swept into a giant underground passage of unimaginable scale, plummeting toward the depths along the surging currents.
Ren Yi kept his perception fully open.
【Left! Dodge!】
In his perception vision, deep within the murky blood-water ahead, countless massive obstacles shaped like the roots of ancient trees suddenly appeared across their path.
Ren Yi narrowly navigated the two through the gaps between these giant roots.
【How far are we going to be washed away like this?】
"Glug, glug, glug..."
A bizarre bubbling sound suddenly came from nearby.
Ren Yi turned his "head" to look and saw it was the unfortunate Wu Erhun.
The cross-brother clearly couldn't hold his breath anymore and had opened the large mouth on his wooden stake to say something.
As a result, before he could utter half a syllable, he took a massive gulp of high-concentration Red Tide water, causing the entire piece of wood to start rolling its eyes in agony.
Rate on N.U.
