novelThe Space Under the Crevice
| ← Ch.1292 | Ch.1294 → |
Quite a while after the entire group got into the hole, an enormous red creature showed up by the edge along with a gust of wind.
The big cat landed near the hole and bent its pair of forelimbs while raisings its butt as it reached its head into the hole and sniffed. Soon, it started sneezing. After a few sneezes, it stood up and wagged its long tail as it moved from side to side at the edge of the hole.
The cat made a few circles around the hole and stopped, lowering its head while twitching its nose. Next, it leaped into the hole and disappeared into the darkness.
After the big, red cat jumped in, a huge, long-haired, black dog showed up. The huge Tibetan mastiff also sniffed at the hole. Right after that, it quickly stepped backward and moved over ten meters away from the hole. From that area, it leaned its head forward to stare into the hole. It spent a long while looking at it quietly, seemingly hesitating if it should get down there or not.
The gas that came out of the hole was highly harmful to it. If it inhaled the gas, its internal organs would be corroded.
Through the thick hair, the dog's purely dark eyes were fixed on the hole for a while. After that, the dog turned its eyes away and looked around. At last, it leaped in one direction and disappeared.
Underground, Lin Qiao spent a short while observing the massive space below. She sensed no dangerous vibe, so she gave the others a hand gesture to let them know that it was safe. After that, she jumped.
She landed on the ground and then raised her head to look at the crevice above her head. The crevice was at least twenty meters away from her. She looked around and found the space seeming like a hallway. Both ends were occupied by darkness, so she had no idea where the hallway led to. She could feel the wind coming from both sides though.
She confirmed that the place was safe and raised her hand to signal for the others to come down.
Seeing that, everyone else jumped as well. After landing, they raised their heads to look upwards, feeling that some other people had come down from the hole on the earth's surface. They were now deep underground while those people had just leaped into the hole. It would take those people a while to catch up to them even if they fell straight down, not to mention the fact that the rock faces were tilted in the huge crevice. Those people would need some time to leap down slowly like how they did it.
Lin Qiao looked at both sides of the underground space, and then turned and waved her hand toward the side from where a stronger wind was blowing while speaking, "Let's move! Be careful!"
If she had guessed right, the twenty-meter-tall space she was now standing in was left by some enormous creature. A strange scent could be sensed from that place, and the rock face on both sides of the space were covered in claw marks, as if the space were dug up by claws. Some traces left by violent impacts were also found, and some loosened soil could be seen on the ground.
A battle seemed to have happened in that place. Those mysterious creatures fought the battle so hard that they even broke the earth. For that or some other reason, the underground creatures went up to the earth's surface to create disasters.
Lin Qiao led her people and moved forward. She had the best night vision in the group. Superpower possessors were able to see things in the darkness too, but their sight varied according to their power-levels. The level-five ones had the worst sight in the team. After all, the underground world was pitch dark, and not even a slight trace of light could be found.
On the earth's surface, they were able to see things more clearly than they could underground. After all, the starlight and moonlight would illuminate the world at night for their powers. But, things were different this time, as there was no source of light whatsoever. Therefore, their vision was highly limited.
They couldn't turn on their flashlight, because they didn't want to attract some strange creatures to them. So, with no other choice, they moved in the darkness and followed every word Lin Qiao said.
Lin Qiao made her people run forward. Nothing useful could be found where they had just bee, so she needed to dig deeper.
She chose the place where a strong wind could be sensed from, because it smelled much different from the wind on the earth's surface. The wind underground delivered a very strong earthy smell, unlike on the surface. Moreover, this wind had something else in it.
The ones who were now under Lin Qiao's command were all humans. They didn't have the keen sense of smell as she did, so she could only rely on her own to differentiate the scents underground from the ones on the earth's surface.
The space underground was huge. Waves of badly smelling wind could be sensed from time to time.
Lin Qiao and her people kept moving forward. Before long, the road before them ended. Standing by the end of the way, they saw nothing but the darkness. There was another huge crevice before them, obviously very deep.
"There is another crevice! Is that a new crack in the earth?" Long Qingying stood by Lin Qiao's side and looked around as he said to Lin Qiao.
The latter squatted and looked down. She couldn't see anything inside the crevice, but was able to see the rock surface near her. She shook her head and said, "I don't think this is new. These layers and textures can be seen on both sides of this crevice. These seem to be caused by wind erosion over a long time. I think there should be a way to go down the crevice."
Lin Qiao sensed the scents coming from the inside the crevice. She sensed the scents of some underground creatures and moisture. There was water down there!
She stood up while looking down and said, "There's water down there. You guys wait here."
She didn't know how deep the crevice was, so she decided to get down herself first, then come up to tell the others about how to go down. There was water down the crevice, which might be toxic. She had to be careful.
Having finished talking, she leaped down the crevice and released a stream of dark mist in the meanwhile, gathering it under her feet to stop herself from falling. Under her control, the dark mist supported her feet. Only after that did she relax slightly and descend.
According to her feeling, she was already over a mile deep underground. The temperature had risen obviously, and even the wind down here was warm.
She was afraid of heat the most. During summertime, she hated standing under the sun in the middle of the day, when the temperature was reaching forty degrees. Now, the deeper she went underground, the higher the temperature got.
She wondered how those underground creatures had been surviving. There was lava underground, right? Why weren't they all burned? Of course, the layer of molten rock was located over ten miles deep underground. About ten-thousand meters deep underground, flowing lava could be found everywhere.
It was understandable, though. Those underground creatures were even able to protect themselves from all sorts of superpowers. No wonder they managed to survive under such harsh conditions. Perhaps, it was something underground that caused the apocalypse.
Seven years ago, the apocalypse came out of nowhere. And in the first half of last year, the second explosion of the zombie virus happened. After that, underground creatures started to emerge. All those creatures were from the underground.
Anyhow, Lin Qiao wished that she would not become a roasted zombie this time.
| ← Ch. 1292 | Ch. 1294 → |