1TWITF[C Chapter 85

Chapter 85

By now, the entire team was down to just over ten people, four of whom were outsiders.

They had no idea how much further they had to go to reach the main tomb chamber, nor whether they would find a way out after reaching it. They were driven forward solely by a single-minded obsession.

“This… this is simply hell…” Jing Tao muttered to himself.

The blood pool rose until it was almost level with the bank before the rate of ascent finally stopped. The stench of decay rushed into their nostrils, making them want to vomit.

Lu Yanli stared intently at the blood pool.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen a river of blood. There was one in Red River Village, and he had seen one when he fell into the eighteenth level by elevator before the outsiders arrived. And now, in this mission, he saw it again.

What was in the blood pool?

He felt an urge to jump down and find out, but he couldn’t guarantee his safety yet, so he held back.

Seeing that the water wasn’t rising for the moment, the few remaining archaeologists opened their bags on the bank, spread out paper, and prepared to start drawing.

The problem was, they didn’t quite remember the way they came. The memory of the section of the road they had walked in a daze earlier only contained Team Cen’s hoarse voice recounting the past. Therefore, they ran into difficulties with the very first stroke and could only draw the later routes.

“What about the places we haven’t explored?”

“There’s nothing we can do. We’ll have to leave it to those who come later.”

“What exactly is this?”

In the darkness, specks of green light drifted, gradually filling the entire space.

“I thought of bioluminescent fungi, but this doesn’t really look like fungal spores.”

“Wait, these… these can be used! Think about it, what if the people who come later enter with our map, but there’s no light, and they can’t see clearly.”

The unspoken words of one team member were quickly approved by the others.

“You mean…”

“That’s right. Since it can stick to the paper, why don’t we make a fluorescent map?”

In the dim light, the team members who had lost their teammates immediately threw themselves into work. They reached out to collect the fluorescent light in the air and carefully smeared it onto the paper.

Several mission takers were also helping, scooping up large handfuls and letting the archaeologist in charge of drawing scrape a little off with their fingertips before drawing the route.

Lu Yanli was also helping. He was still a little worried and didn’t directly touch it, but took off his coat and waved it in the air, getting a large patch on it before returning.

But the fluorescent light in the air was increasing, from just a few scattered spots to being so dense that it almost swallowed people. No matter how much Lu Yanli tried to avoid it, his exposed skin still inevitably got a lot on it. The others were even more exposed, practically becoming moving fluorescent targets.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Gradually, they all began to feel as if they weren’t walking in a tomb chamber, but in a never-ending hell.

They didn’t know what was ahead and could only keep walking.

“The road ahead is getting narrower,” said the team member walking in the front.

His warning was correct. The tomb chambers on both sides didn’t seem to be arranged in parallel. The walls on both sides gradually converged toward the middle, forming a huge triangle.

Although that’s what he said, being alone in a dangerous tomb was as good as sending himself to his death.

The others hugged him one by one, hid their sorrow, and continued to carry their small bags forward.

They would be back.

Definitely!

Lu Yanli walked in the first half of the group.

The fluorescent light that had fallen on them earlier was now proving useful, allowing them to find each other in the darkness. Because they were walking close to the walls, they inevitably rubbed against the stone walls on both sides, leaving a faint mark that could point the way for those who came later.

The path was longer than expected. In the end, they had to turn sideways to move forward, taking off their backpacks and carrying them in their hands as they squeezed forward little by little.

“How much further?” Lu Yanli asked.

The person walking in the front took a deep breath, trying to make himself even thinner, “I don’t know.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he realized that his foot had stepped into an empty space, and then he fell out.

“We’re here, we’re here! Everyone, come out quickly!”

The people behind immediately became excited and quickened their pace. Lu Yanli, being thin, tried hard to move forward when he heard this, and soon, he also stepped into the space behind the passage.

As soon as he stepped in, he immediately fell silent.

The scene just now could already be described as hell, but what appeared before him now was even more terrifying and twisted!

Was this… really just a tomb chamber?

The wall behind them gradually began to make noise.

It was like… something was moving. The ground trembled faintly.

“Quick! Get out! The walls are closing!” the team member who had just squeezed out shouted inside, reaching out and pulling the team member behind him out with force.

The next one was Jing Tao. Jing Tao squeezed out with all his strength and was pulled out by Lu Yanli with force. His shoulders and head were scraped, and a thin layer of flesh was torn off.

His skull was completely stuck, and they could hear a slight cracking sound.

“You… go… don’t look at me…”

They vaguely heard the sound of bones breaking, and blood gushing out.

Among the team members who had escaped, a girl knelt on the ground and burst into tears.

His mind was so overwhelmed by pain that he was no longer clear. If the walls closed quickly, that would be one thing, but it was slowly squeezing toward the middle like this. It was hard to say if it was deliberately torturing him.

The man died instantly.

“What are you doing?”

One of them was furious, but the girl pulled him back, shaking her head and choking, “Don’t blame him, we should thank him.” She looked at the walls that had closed to nearly half the size of a human body and the blood, stained with green fluorescent light, slowly seeping into the ground, her eyes full of despair.

“Thank you for letting him be free early. Otherwise, how much pain would he have to endure?” the girl said softly.

“Let’s think about how we’re going to go next?”

The team member who had walked out first gave a wry smile, his face full of despair.

What appeared before them was still a darkness, and they couldn’t see clearly. The searchlights they brought could only dimly illuminate a little bit of the surrounding area. It was impossible to see further.

But the person standing at the front still had a look of despair and horror on his face. No one knew what he had seen.

“What’s wrong?” The people behind went forward. Then, he was also shocked by the scene in front of him and couldn’t speak for a long time.

“This… this is…”

The others were puzzled and also went forward, and were soon shocked into silence.

The darkness on the ground was only because a plaza had collapsed in front of them. Because it was too deep, it didn’t seem conspicuous in the darkness. The first person to escape had instinctively struggled a little further due to inertia, and had come to the bank and witnessed all this.

In the sunken plaza, a huge, overturned, scarlet statue was carved.

No one could say how big this statue was or how many years it had been there. When they first saw the statue, words like weird and twisted would flood into their minds.

“Don’t look!” A lot of blood suddenly poured out of the eyes of the person who had walked out first, “Don’t look!”

The others immediately turned around. One person grabbed him and pulled him back, only to find that he was standing firmly in place, as if nailed to the spot, unable to move.

Why was there a statue of it here too?

All the information he had received so far suggested that the two were enemies. But if that was the case, why was there a statue of that “god” in the “king’s” tomb?

If that was the case, the conclusions he had drawn had to be overturned again.

Lu Yanli took a deep breath and suppressed his churning emotions. He made a crazy decision, moved to the bank, and took a quick look.

He saw it clearly, completely clearly.

That statue was unmistakable, it was it, exactly the same.

The mark under his collarbone instantly turned ice-cold, and blood flowed from his eyes. Lu Yanli leaned back hard and staggered a few steps backward.

Under his tightly closed eyes, blood tears flowed, covering the original scars. Lu Yanli’s voice was as calm as ever, “It’s okay.”

He stood there, letting the stinging pain impact his mind in waves, but he felt happy in his heart, and he smiled again, “It’s okay, I only used one eye.”

An injury to one eye would gradually affect the other. Lu Yanli only hoped that the impact could be smaller, at least allowing him to persevere until the main tomb chamber before completely losing his sight.

“Then you now…” Yi Jun didn’t know what to say.

As he drew, Lu Yanli chuckled silently in the dark.

With Lu Yanli’s addition, they quickly finished drawing the map and continued to move forward.

These words undoubtedly gave the confused and suffering teammates a shot in the arm. Everyone cheered, and even Yi Jun and the others cheered.

It was too difficult. Even though they had been lucky enough to survive, the pain of staying in the darkness for so long was definitely not comparable to previous missions.

Lu Yanli asked a team member for a piece of paper.

The temporary captain happily took it over, “That’s amazing, it’s lucky we have you on the road.”

His expression was happy, but when Lu Yanli saw his face, he couldn’t help but take a step back.

The face of the other party, which was also stained with green fluorescent light, was rotting. But he didn’t seem to notice it and only cared about smiling.

“Now we can continue to move forward, we have a lamp,” the temporary captain raised the lamp in his hand and walked in the lead.

The first to feel something was wrong was the female team member in charge of drawing the map. She felt itchy and reached out to scratch, but found that she had scratched off pieces of flesh, the texture of fat embedded in her nails, and a stinky smell.

She was stunned for a moment and didn’t say anything, so as not to disturb her teammates.

Then, one after another, the others also discovered the problem. They were thinking the same thing in their hearts, and in order not to hinder their teammates, none of them said anything.

It was… there was something wrong with the green fluorescent light!

Once they realized it, they could no longer ignore it. The group walked in the darkness, a green fluorescent paper lantern leading the way, seemingly leading them to an unknown hell.

The captain holding the lantern also felt itchy in the palm of his hand.

He knew that there was something wrong with this thing, but his teammates were behind him, and he couldn’t just retreat.

That itchiness came straight from the bones, as if there was something coming out of the bones.

At first, he didn’t feel anything, but when it fell off to the end, it was a piercing pain, both painful and itchy. He endured it and didn’t make a sound, but the others couldn’t hold back any longer and cried out in pain.

“Those fluorescent agents are poisonous. We didn’t notice it just now.”

“Everyone, bear with it. There’s nothing we can do now, we can only move forward.”

“Hold on! Everyone must hold on. We’ve overcome all difficulties, are we still afraid of pain?”

The team members encouraged each other, constantly cheering for the others, hissing and groaning while not forgetting to move forward.

But… it wasn’t just pain.

Lu Yanli held out his hand, which had turned into white bone.

His only remaining eye could also see clearly that there was something drilling out of the places on the hand bone that were stained with green dots.

Slowly, something green like a sprout drilled out from between his finger bones. It shook and quickly grew larger.

It was fungus.

Fungus that glowed all over.

Once one bloomed, there was a second, and a third. Thin fungi sprouted from the human bones, growing freely.

“This isn’t poison, it’s parasitism!”

“What’s this fungus called? Does anyone know?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen it before.”

“I know some fungi glow, but I’ve never seen anything like this before. Maybe it’s a new species!”

One of the team members said, “Can it be pulled off?”

Lu Yanli stopped him, “It’s best not to!”

Having said that, she ignored the others’ persuasion, grabbed a thin mushroom growing on her face, and pulled it hard.

“Ah-”

Her scream was shrill. Her entire body withered rapidly, as if she had had all the bones in her body removed. She fell to the ground limply, and dense, thin fungi quickly sprouted from her surface. They competed to drill out, constantly absorbing nutrients, growing, and trying to open their caps.

Specks of fluorescent light floated from the fungi on her body surface.

“Go! Don’t let her down!”

The captain shouted, tears in his eyes.

The others forced back their tears and pain and continued to move forward.

They must find the main tomb chamber!

After walking for an unknown amount of time, another team member swayed and fell to the ground with a bang.

Jing Tao gave a miserable smile and reached out to take the backpack, but found that his legs couldn’t stand either, and he also fell to the ground.

“I can’t do it either.” He fell backward onto the ground.

The intense pain had numbed his mind. In fact, Jing Tao was already very impressed with himself for being able to persevere until now.

“I’ll die if I can’t find the Twin Jade Pendants.” He smiled and turned to Yi Jun, “You have to find them. You still have to go back to find your daughter.”

“Oh, where’s Wang Pengfei?”

Yi Jun shed tears, green liquid falling, “Have you forgotten? Wang Pengfei, he’s already…”

His voice gradually weakened.

“I really want to go back and see my mother… I miss her…”

Yi Jun sobbed uncontrollably.

“There are only the two of us left, and, the main tomb chamber is here.”

Yi Jun was a little dazed and turned to look.

“Here…?”

She was still a little incredulous, but the vague, tall building that appeared not far ahead made her believe that it must be the main tomb chamber.

“Here… we’re here!” She suddenly perked up, stood up, and stumbled forward.

Lu Yanli walked beside her, neither of them able to walk steadily, supporting each other as they walked up the stairs.

Two people whose limbs were so fragmented that they couldn’t be pieced together to make a complete body stood at the door and slowly pushed it open.

A ray of light poured out from the crack in the door.

It was so blinding that the two of them closed their eyes for the first time.