Once the dizziness from the teleportation faded, Li Nanzhu felt her back slam against a hard stone wall. She let out a muffled groan, instinctively pulling Suisui closer into her embrace to protect it.
A dull thud echoed nearby, followed by Duan Xianxing’s cry of pain: "Ouch! Why is this teleportation landing point so narrow? My bones are about to shatter!"
Zhu Yinxi took out a night-luminescent pearl to illuminate their surroundings. They were squeezed into a narrow, long passage barely wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side. The walls were rough, natural rock, devoid of any signs of manual carving.
The ground was damp and covered in slippery moss, and the air was thick with the scent of minerals and decay.
"This isn't a normal passage," Liu Qingyang said, touching the wall. "It's a completely natural fissure."
Suisui leaped down from Li Nanzhu’s arms, its skeletal claws touching the moss on the ground. But this time, the plants that had once been so friendly toward it showed no reaction. It tilted its skull in confusion and turned to Li Nanzhu with a helpless gesture, the blue flames in its eye sockets dimming slightly.
"It seems the gift from the spiritual plants only applies to the medicinal garden," Zhu Yinxi said thoughtfully. "The environment here is too primitive; there aren't even any traces of formation arrays."
"It might be because we modified the teleportation array," Liu Qingyang sighed helplessly after confirming there were indeed no spiritual energy fluctuations. "The original landing point probably wasn't here. We might have overestimated the wisdom of those spiritual plants. Being able to modify it was already quite impressive; we can't expect the follow-through to—Ouch!"
Before he could finish, Suisui smacked him on the head. Suisui stood with its hands on its hips, gesturing wildly at him.
"Suisui is probably saying that you aren't allowed to call those spiritual plants unintelligent," Li Nanzhu said with a wry smile. Liu Qingyang could only rub his head where he had been struck. Fine, he really shouldn't have said that in front of Suisui—next time, he’d say it behind its back.
Liu Qingyang hadn't even noticed that his mindset was gradually aligning with Duan Xianxing’s; he was purely focused on checking if his headscarf had been loosened by Suisui.
Duan Xianxing rubbed his sore shoulder. "Then aren't we just going to be wandering around like headless flies?"
Li Nanzhu noticed that the bell on Suisui’s tailbone was motionless, and the gold-patterned lingzhi spore showed no reaction either.
She crouched down to look Suisui in the eye. "It's okay, we'll figure something out together."
As she spoke, she began to examine the passage. The tunnel extended in both directions; one end slanted slightly upward, while the other plunged deeper down.
Cold water droplets seeped from the rock walls, the sound of their dripping exceptionally clear in the silence.
"Going up might lead to an exit," Liu Qingyang analyzed. "But the core treasures of a cave dwelling are usually at the deepest point."
Zhu Yinxi’s night-luminescent pearl swept over the ground. "No footprints. We are the first group to arrive here."
"Second Senior Brother’s discovery doesn't seem very useful," Duan Xianxing immediately began to mutter under his breath when he saw Zhu Yinxi look over. "Only we could be mysteriously teleported here. This isn't a normal entrance, so who else could come here?"
Just as the group was hesitating, the gold-patterned lingzhi charm at Li Nanzhu’s waist suddenly emitted a faint golden light.
She took it off and found tiny patterns surfacing on the cap, pointing toward the downward passage.
"Spiritual plant intuition?" Duan Xianxing raised an eyebrow. "That means the good stuff must be down there. Let's go down!"
Descending was more difficult than they had imagined.
The passage grew narrower and narrower, requiring them to turn sideways in some places.
The moss on the rock walls was gradually replaced by a type of glowing fungus, providing faint illumination but also making the air thick and muggy.
"Wait." Zhu Yinxi suddenly stopped, his jade flute pointing toward the ground. "Look at this."
Among the clusters of glowing fungi, several parallel scratches were faintly visible.
Liu Qingyang crouched to inspect them. "They aren't man-made... they look like the crawling marks of some kind of animal."
Duan Xianxing swallowed hard. "It couldn't... be another centipede, could it?"
A piercing chill suddenly rushed up her spine. Li Nanzhu looked down and saw that Suisui was tugging at the hem of her skirt with its skeletal claws, the blue flames in its empty sockets flickering violently.
"What is it?" she asked softly.
Suisui didn't answer, but instead pointed its finger bone deep into the darkness of the passage. Its jawbone clicked rapidly as it let out a warning sound.
"Something is coming," Li Nanzhu warned in a low voice upon seeing this.
"Back to back!" Zhu Yinxi barked. He held his jade flute across his chest as everyone quickly formed a circle.
A rustling sound drew closer, becoming more dense. Li Nanzhu’s divine sense even faintly picked up the sound of metal scraping.
Liu Qingyang suddenly formed a fireball in his hand. It expanded rapidly, illuminating the passage for thirty feet ahead—
The breathing of all four people froze for a moment.
The rock walls were covered in fist-sized beetles that were crawling rapidly toward them. Their shells glinted with a metallic luster, and their six compound eyes reflected an eerie red light in the firelight. Their mouthparts clicked continuously, which was the source of the metallic scraping sound they had heard.
"Iron-devouring beetles!" Liu Qingyang’s voice shifted in pitch. "Get back! They can bite through spiritual energy protection!"
Before he could finish, the swarm suddenly surged!
Zhu Yinxi blew a sound wave from his jade flute, causing the frontmost group of beetles to explode. However, even more swarmed from behind.
Liu Qingyang didn't hesitate to throw the fireball in his hand. The front row of beetles burst in the flames with a series of crackling pops, but this only provided a temporary delay. The passage was simply too narrow for them to use most of their methods.
Zhu Yinxi had only released one sound wave when loose stones began to fall from the ceiling. If he continued, they would likely be buried alive!
"Ah!" Li Nanzhu felt a sharp pain in her calf. Looking down, she saw a beetle had already bitten through her boot.
She instinctively kicked out, but the beetle clamped down firmly, its mouthparts sinking deep into her flesh.
Suisui leaped from her arms, its skeletal claws slashing down like blades and hacking the beetle in half. The insect’s corpse sprayed a foul-smelling green fluid that splashed onto Li Nanzhu’s wound, causing a burning pain to flare up instantly.
"It's toxic!" She stumbled back, cold sweat drenching her back in an instant.
"Run upward!" Liu Qingyang held a ball of fire in each hand, clearing a path ahead.
Li Nanzhu took a deep breath and quickly formed hand seals, tossing out fire lotus after fire lotus to help block the path. Suisui leaped beside her, its claws precisely striking down one beetle after another as they attacked.
But there were simply too many in the swarm.
A beetle broke through the defense and lunged directly for Li Nanzhu’s face. Fortunately, she was standing very close to Duan Xianxing, who swung his sword to block it. The beetle’s mouthparts collided with the blade, sending out a spray of sparks.
"How is this bug so strong!" Duan Xianxing was secretly alarmed. The impact just now had left his palm slightly numb.
"Watch your back!" Liu Qingyang suddenly shouted a warning, but it came too late.
Li Nanzhu felt a chill on the back of her neck, followed by a heart-piercing pain.
A beetle had already crawled onto her shoulder, its mouthparts stabbing into her flesh. She reached back to grab it, but it was positioned too awkwardly for her to reach.
Suisui jumped around her in a panic, afraid to strike for fear of hurting her.
Fortunately, Zhu Yinxi directly flicked a bit of spiritual energy to blast the beetle away. At this moment, his expression was incredibly grim. As the one with the highest cultivation among the four, the restrictions of the environment meant he could not act frequently.
"Thank you..." Li Nanzhu’s voice trembled. The blood from the back of her neck ran down her spine, soaking her clothes.
Suisui was still trying to attack the other beetles with its claws, but one of them bit down on its finger bone, creating a piercing scraping sound.
Li Nanzhu ignored her pain and hurriedly pulled it back, only to find that the beetle had left a faint tooth mark on its bone.
Her heart tightened—these bugs could even damage spiritual bones!
"We can't keep this up!" Beads of sweat stood out on Liu Qingyang’s forehead. "There are too many of them!"
Li Nanzhu felt into her storage bag, her expression also turning grim. Not only had the attack talismans she had drawn herself run out, but the ones she had bought in Qingyun City were also gone. All she had left were auxiliary talismans. During all that time, she hadn't even thought to restock her inventory.
There was no time for regret. Li Nanzhu’s mind was filled with the thought that if she got out of here, she would definitely draw hundreds of bags of talismans for backup!
Just as Zhu Yinxi, who was in the lead, was about to reach a slightly wider turn, the entire passage suddenly shook!
"It's a cave-in!" Liu Qingyang shouted.
Duan Xianxing grabbed the injured Li Nanzhu, and everyone used their full strength to rush toward the upper end of the passage. The rock walls above were cracking continuously, and rubble fell like rain. A huge boulder landed right in front of the beetle swarm, temporarily blocking their pursuit.
Finally, they burst into a slightly wider platform at the turn. Zhu Yinxi quickly set up a sonic barrier at the entrance, temporarily holding back the pursuing swarm.
"Well, this is great," Duan Xianxing joked grimly. "A cave-in ahead and a beetle swarm behind. we're trapped like dumplings in a pot."
Zhu Yinxi checked Li Nanzhu’s injuries, his brow furrowed. "The wound is poisoned. It must be treated immediately."
Fortunately, they had taken many pills from the alchemy room earlier, including several detox pills. Li Nanzhu took one and put it in her mouth. Her vision, which had been blurring from the toxin, gradually cleared.
Catching her breath, Li Nanzhu hurried to check Suisui’s injury. To her surprise, she found that the tooth mark from just now was slowly repairing itself—the leaf-vein patterns from the spiritual plant’s gift were emitting a faint light. This discovery brought her a bit of relief, but the current predicament remained unresolved.
Zhu Yinxi carefully inspected the cave-in site. "It wasn't a natural collapse... looking at the direction of these cracks, it seems it was shaken down."
"The people from the Sword Heart Sect?" Liu Qingyang guessed. "They might have triggered some mechanism elsewhere."
Duan Xianxing’s face immediately crumpled upon hearing this. "I knew nothing good would happen if we ran into them. So unlucky."
Zhu Yinxi also nodded silently. The people of the Sword Heart Sect were somewhat jinxed; it was better to stay far away from them in the future to avoid being dragged down by them.
Liu Qingyang leaned over the pile of rubble to observe. "The swarm is temporarily blocked, but they're digging a tunnel..." He suddenly paused. "Wait, there's an airflow here!"
Everyone leaned in upon hearing this. Sure enough, they felt a faint draft among the rubble. After clearing away a few small stones, an inconspicuous gap was revealed, just large enough for a person to crawl through.
Under the light of Liu Qingyang’s fire, a larger space was faintly visible behind the gap.
"Heaven always leaves a way out!" Duan Xianxing grinned, even though the movement tugged at the wounds on his face. "Come on, let's expand this gap together!"
To avoid a secondary cave-in, the four of them didn't dare use spiritual energy to shatter the stones. They could only move the rocks away bit by bit and put them directly into their storage bags.
However, none of the four expected that when the last obstructing stone was removed, a bottomless vertical pit would appear before them.
Rate on N.U.
