The artist had only dug a hole that was about a person's depth. After he jumped into the hole, the tunnel began to narrow. Lin Sanjiu had no choice but to continue crawling down. She kept digging the soil in front of her and turned them into cards. There was a limit to the number of cards she could convert in a day, and soon, she had used up most of them. Fortunately, the tunnel in front of them gradually widened, and they finally reached a spacious hole.
They straightened their backs and tried their best to walk forward as quietly as they could.
Dozens of meters below the ground, everything was immersed in a hazy darkness, obscuring one's vision. They couldn't even see their own fingers, and the pungent smell of soil was getting thicker and thicker. From time to time, they would step on a slimy slime. The two of them groped around in the darkness for a while. Then, Lin Sanjiu felt the faint smell of figs assaulting her ears. Then, Silvan's voice rang out, "Light up."
Before Lin Sanjiu could take out her [Ability Polishing Agent], a pale white light suddenly shot out from her shoulder. She looked down and realized that Silvan was talking to the little robot with many claws on her shoulder.
As soon as the light fell into the darkness, it immediately drifted away faintly and filled the entire cave with countless floating dust.
The hole seemed to be about 20 to 30 square meters, about the size of a bedroom. Occasionally, there would be some curved dents on the wall, as if something had passed by. The ground was slippery, and there was a pool of slime that glowed wetly.
The wall facing them seemed to be able to absorb all the light, and it was still shrouded in darkness. Lin Sanjiu walked toward the wall, and the light followed her footsteps. She fell into the darkness. She looked up and down, and she was slightly shocked. She turned around and whispered, "There is an empty space behind us. We can still go down!"
"The two sides of the hole are also in a radial direction, and the further we go, the wider it gets." Silvan followed behind them and studied the hole with the help of the light. "But, this empty space is really big."
His voice drifted emptily into the hollow space and gradually dissipated. The cavity behind the cave looked like a hall connected to the bedroom, but it was too deep. The light could vaguely illuminate the dome above them, but it could not illuminate the deep darkness under their feet.
Connecting the cavity and the cave was a slope that was much wider than the walls of the cave. The ground was also full of curved dents. It was just that the dents on the slope were getting bigger and deeper. The two of them stepped on these uneven dents and slowly walked down in the dead silence. They were getting further and further away from the human world, but it was as if they were getting closer and closer to an absurd dream.
There were more cavities below the cavity, each deeper and wider than the last. After walking for an unknown number of hours, they could no longer see the edge of the cave. Only the curved indentations on the ground accompanied the two of them. However, the indentations were large enough for the two of them to lie down side by side. Silvan took out two more flashlights, but after the light pierced through the darkness, it could only dissipate helplessly. In the end, it melted into the distant darkness.
"The ground here is level."
In the constantly alternating light and darkness, Silvan's face looked like a reflection in a forest lake. There was almost no aura of a mortal on him. He put away the cylinder on the ground, stood up, and said softly, "Maybe there is another cavity that goes deeper … I wonder how deep we have to go before we reach the end."
Lin Sanjiu turned her head and looked around, but there was only endless darkness. The air was not as thin as she thought it would be. Breathing was still as smooth as when they were on the ground. Even if there was a bigger cavity below them, they did not know which direction to go. No matter which direction they went, it was the same distant nothingness.
She stood still for a while and suddenly asked softly, "Why is the cavity getting bigger?"
Silvan was stunned. He frowned and did not say anything for a long time.
"Why? What do you have in mind? "
"I seemed to have an idea just now. Let me think …" the blond man mumbled to himself and suddenly raised his head. Lin Sanjiu was stunned. Just when she was about to ask him if he had an idea, he grabbed her wrist and said, "Did you hear that?"
'Hear what? '
She held her breath and listened carefully. Then, her expression changed. "What … What is that sound?"
Like a storm and raindrops hitting the ground, a rustling sound came from the dome above them. Both of them were shocked and puzzled. They stood on the spot and scanned the sky with their flashlights. However, before the light could reach the dome, it was swallowed by the darkness, just like before.
At this moment, they were deep underground. Even if there was a sudden rainstorm outside, they would not be able to hear the slightest movement.
When the flashlights flashed through the darkness again, a small black shadow flashed across their vision.
"Over there!" Lin Sanjiu yelled. The light in their hands immediately converged in the same direction. The circle of light from the flashlight continued to burn brightly in the darkness, but there was only emptiness in the circle. The buzzing above his head grew louder, and it buzzed and intertwined in the hollow cavity, reverberating into an indistinct wave of sound.
Just when Lin Sanjiu thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, another shapeless black shadow flashed across the circle and fell to the ground some distance away.
That thing was like a signal. Then, tiny clumps of dirt began to fall from the dome overhead. Amidst the swirling dust, black shadows of different shapes and sizes plunged into the circle of light one after another. In the distance, where the circle of light could not reach, there were even more black shadows streaking across the sky like raindrops, falling straight to the ground.
"Let's go back first," Silvan pulled her up, and the two of them ran back in the direction they came from. In just a few moments, the black shadows falling from the dome had become as dense as a rainstorm. Before they could run out of the dome, countless wet and smelly things fell on them and slid down their collars into their clothes.
Lin Sanjiu fought back the nausea and covered her head with one hand while she used the other to sweep the things off her body. A familiar rotten smell once again entered her nostrils.
The last time she smelled it was when she was in the humanoid shape formed by the purplish-black tongues.
"It's those purplish-black tongues!" Lin Sanjiu's body trembled as she shouted at Silvan. The white light from her [Defense Forcefield] enveloped her again, "Be careful!"
Silvan let go of her hand, and a few dazzling lights that resembled lightning bolts flashed across his body, shattering the air and striking down a few black shadows. More and more shadows fell from above, but he suddenly stopped. While covering his head and face, he raised his voice and said, "Something is not right. Look at our feet!"
Lin Sanjiu almost bumped into him. She quickly looked down and was stunned.
The rotten smell did come from the purplish-black tongues, and the things that fell were indeed those maggot-like black things, but to be more precise, they were pieces of them.
Chunks of flesh, pieces of broken shells, and the occasional snippet of a syringe or a puddle of unknown liquid covered the ground beneath their feet, glimmering like a swamp of rotten flesh. Lin Sanjiu endured the feeling of being hit by the filth on her body. She quickly summoned the tent and spread it above the two of them. She could finally catch her breath as she listened to the continuous banging of the tent cloth.
She lowered her head and looked at the ground for a while, her mind filled with doubt. When she raised her head again, her eyes met with Silvan's.
"Why … Why are they all muddy pieces?" When she opened her mouth, she felt the stench crawling into the gaps between her teeth. She quickly spat a few times and wiped her mouth, asking, "Where did they come from? What are they doing?"
If a large number of purplish-black "tongues" crawled out of the ground like they did just now, they might be able to inflict some damage in the dark.
Under the flashlight, Silvan's silhouette was as thin as a sculpture. He took off his soaked uniform jacket and threw it away. He unbuttoned his shirt and used it to wipe his face. Then, he said in a low voice, "Don't you think these things look familiar?"
"We have broken so many of them. Of course, they look familiar."
"No, I mean," Silvan said softly. His voice was so low that it was almost inaudible in the storm. "... These things are what we broke just now."
Lin Sanjiu was stunned. She looked at her feet carefully again.
"You mean …" When she opened her mouth, she felt that what she was about to say was ridiculous, "After we broke these things, their body parts came from — from —"
She raised her head and looked at the dark sky. She mumbled, "... came down from the ground?"
"Or, they were brought down by some kind of force."
The blond man kicked away half of the black flesh with the tip of his boot. He looked at it and said in a low voice, "They are all dead. They can't move at all."
What kind of force could it be? Why did they bring them down?
While Lin Sanjiu was still in shock, Silvan continued, "Just now, you asked me why each cavity was bigger than the other … At that time, I had an idea."
"What idea?"
"These cavities must have been prepared for the thing that you and I call the queen that lives underground …" His voice trembled slightly again, as if he was enduring some kind of trembling excitement. "In other words, it was only the size of a room in the beginning. As it grew bigger and bigger, it had to keep digging new and bigger cavities to accommodate itself …"
Even though Lin Sanjiu was numb, she still couldn't help feeling her heart skip a beat.
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