Ren Yi gazed at the seemingly endless dark passage surrounding them, a sliver of worry inevitably rising in his heart.
He tried to speak to the other two in their minds, but amidst the high-pressure torrent, he could only maintain a one-way communication for now.
He hadn't expected any response, but in the next second, Ren Yi noticed Evans move.
Evans's eyes were open, and he allowed the rushing water to distort his hair into wild shapes.
With one hand, he gripped the Withered Claw tightly to prevent himself from being swept away, while his gaze swept the surroundings like lightning.
His expression didn't look like panic; rather, it seemed as if he were searching for a specific coordinate within this complex underground water network.
They were swept along by the torrent for another stretch before the terrain ahead suddenly took a sharp dip.
At that moment, Evans's eyes suddenly narrowed!
Without any hesitation, his entire left arm melted instantly, transforming into a mass of viscous black liquid.
The black liquid shot out like a giant python from its lair, sinking deep into the dark-red rock walls with a wet thud.
Immediately following that, half of his body began to liquefy, acting like a solid alloy rivet to firmly anchor Ren Yi and Wu Erhun against the freezing rock wall!
Rumble—!
The violent currents of the Red Tide swept past them like a pack of enraged beasts.
The sheer tearing force was so great that tiny black droplets were constantly being scraped away from Evans's black-liquid shell.
After a short while, as Ren Yi maintained his defense, he keenly noticed that the terrifying force threatening to tear them apart was beginning to slow down.
Then, it came to another abrupt stall.
It was exactly the same as what had happened on the plain.
Suddenly, a massive surge of force erupted again as the water within the passage violently reversed and flowed backward!
Crack! Boom!
However, this time, the massive hydraulic backflow triggered a terrifying implosion within the sealed passage.
Not far from them, the once-solid underground rock wall was suddenly blown open by the skyrocketing air pressure.
A subterranean crack, much narrower and more hidden than the main passage, abruptly appeared before their eyes, accompanied by a very faint glimmer of light!
This was a passage that only revealed itself when the water flowed in a specific direction.
Evans turned his head and signaled with his eyes: 【Now!】
The black liquid released its hold, and Ren Yi understood immediately.
The three of them pushed against the rushing backflow, gritting their teeth as they dove headlong into that extremely narrow rock fissure.
After navigating the claustrophobic underground crack for some time, the roar in their ears finally began to fade, and the water level around them dropped rapidly.
Until finally, the water disappeared completely.
They eventually scrambled out of the mud on all fours and climbed onto dry land, dripping wet.
"Whew... ha... I'm alive..."
Wu Erhun, in his cross form, lay flat on the dry pebble beach, frantically spitting out blood-water.
It was a mystery how he had managed to swallow so much water.
Ren Yi dispersed the white mist, only to find that the air here was surprisingly dry, even carrying a faint sense of freshness that was absolutely impossible to find on the wilderness.
Ahead of them lay a vast underground world of unknown proportions.
The heavy, blood-colored hard crust above their heads was gone, and their field of vision opened up significantly.
A soft, bright light spilled down from far ahead, bathing the jagged, grotesque rocks around them in a hazy glow that felt almost like a fairyland.
Had they reached the bottom of the Deep Abyss? There was actually light here?
Ren Yi retracted his perception with a hint of suspicion and turned to look at Evans.
Evans appeared to be in relatively normal condition for now.
Although he had lost some of his black liquid while anchoring the three of them in the torrent earlier...
Those black fluids were currently crawling back up to his ankles like Slimes, seemingly without having caused him any substantial damage.
【How did you find this hidden passage so accurately?】 Ren Yi asked in their minds, feeling a bit impressed.
He was certain that the passage had been completely sealed before the backflow started, to the point that even his perception hadn't detected it.
To be able to "blind-snipe" a way out amidst such a complex underground waterway and a terrifying tidal backflow—did Evans have some kind of GPS map?
"Cough, cough..." Evans coughed twice, looking a bit guilty as his gaze drifted. "Actually... I wasn't entirely sure either."
【?】
"I did leave a portion of my body tissue behind in the Abyss before, you know."
"When we were falling just now, I vaguely sensed it was near these coordinates, but I really didn't know if there was a passage or what it looked like."
Evans shrugged and muttered with defensive confidence.
"So I figured I'd take a gamble with you guys. After all, no matter how you look at it, it was better than being washed all the way down alive..."
Ren Yi fell into an eerie silence for a moment.
Hey, hey, Evans, my friend... and here I was thinking you were an extremely reliable teammate in critical moments.
Before Ren Yi could start a frantic mental tirade, Evans suddenly looked around warily.
He hunched down sneakily and beckoned toward the white mist in the air, lowering his voice to a tiny whisper.
"Come here, come here. Don't worry about that for now; we have serious business."
Though confused, Ren Yi cooperated and drifted closer.
At the same time, Evans reached out with extreme agility and fished the cross—which was still in a "system-crash" state—out of the mud.
He shook the water off the wooden stake with a series of wet slaps, as if wringing out a wet rag.
"I've checked; it seems like no one is here right now."
Evans held a serious meeting with the two "ghosts."
"But the bottom of the Deep Abyss is complicated. If we're unlucky enough to run into people later, you two remember to play dead immediately."
"I'll tell them you're Anomalies I've captured."
Ren Yi was taken aback but cooperated by beginning to shrink his volume.
Meanwhile, Wu Erhun simply lay flat and closed his eyes.
It was hard to tell if his acting was just that convincing or if he had actually passed out from swallowing too much water.
"Mm-hmm, not bad. This acting is..."
Evans nodded in approval, but his voice came to a sudden, jarring halt mid-sentence.
At the same time, Ren Yi's perception was suddenly triggered.
With a hint of confusion, Ren Yi instinctively looked toward the direction where the light was coming from.
Up there, amidst the vast expanse where countless rock walls reached upward and the light originated...
At this very moment, a figure was actually soaring through the air in an extremely cool and dashing manner.
Wait... soaring?
He was certain he didn't see any wings, jetpacks, or ropes of any kind...
Ren Yi focused his mental power in disbelief, narrowing his vision to "look" more closely.
Then, his thoughts fell into a brief state of stagnation.
Within that interplay of light and shadow, he could only see the shadowed silhouette of a humanoid figure, feet positioned one in front of the other, body poised with ethereal grace...
As it charged toward them, standing atop a long sword that radiated a piercing, cold light.
Rate on N.U.
