Chapter 157: Stepping Into The Abyss
A living person slowly transformed into the flesh and blood organization of the giant skeleton, but that was not enough; in front of the giant corpse, there were countless fresh corpses that had fallen down lining up to wait for the result of being transformed.
Li Duojin and Chen Xiaolin knew they were like sheep entering the tiger’s mouth, stepping into the realm of the unknown existence, but they did not immediately flee in panic, because they who still retained reason remembered that they had no way back, and returning the same way would only face that nearly ninety-degree vertical ramp.
Chen Xiaolin felt despair in her heart; for a moment, she did not know how to escape alive in such an environment. The only thing she seemed able to do was to struggle, which she did not know what effect it had. She looked at Li Duojin, but there was no reliance in her eyes.
“There is an exit there.” Li Duojin stretched out his finger and pointed to the place where the giant corpse was facing frontally; at that end existed a boundless dark cave entrance whose destination was unknown. “I just don’t know if it’s really an exit or a dead end.”
As he spoke, Li Duojin looked at Chen Xiaolin and said, “Let’s treat a dead horse as a live one; there is no better way. We can only give it a try.”
Chen Xiaolin nodded; she held no expectations for this, but she was willing to go crazy once with Li Duojin.
The two did not know whether the giant corpse that seemed to be repairing its flesh and blood by instinct still had consciousness or could see them, but running rashly to its front was like an ignorant white rabbit swaggering in front of a hungry wild wolf, placing themselves in danger.
Li Duojin pulled Chen Xiaolin and walked forward, saying in a low voice, “Follow closely behind me.”
Under Chen Xiaolin’s terrified gaze, Li Duojin actually led her into the corpses on both sides. He pushed aside those deceased bones that had died in a sitting meditation posture with one hand, opening a gap in the path, and led Chen Xiaolin through between the corpses. He did not forget to remind Chen Xiaolin not to touch any bones other than the ones he had touched.
Chen Xiaolin was puzzled in her heart, but she also knew that Li Duojin possessed a pair of super-powered eyes that could see things normal people could not see.
Undoubtedly, the sitting corpses scattered throughout the cave had extremely dangerous anomalous factors; Wang Kui Shan might have died under these anomalous factors, but assuming there were “harmless” individuals among these corpses—whether the corpses failed to transform into anomalies, or their anomalous abilities had dissipated over time like expired things— in short, Li Duojin saw those “normal” corpses and thus found a route that could bypass the giant corpse in the center of the cave.
Chen Xiaolin nervously followed behind Li Duojin, walking in the intervals between corpses that were actually quite spacious, yet she felt it was more dangerous than walking a plank bridge or a high-altitude tightrope, her spirit tense.
But it was thrilling yet safe; as time passed, Chen Xiaolin gradually relaxed her mind a bit and began to roughly observe the appearance of those bones with rational eyes.
The bones distributed around the giant corpse, if she was not mistaken, were probably all normal humans before death; their skeletons had not undergone the deformed proliferative change like the giant corpse, but eerily, Chen Xiaolin could actually sense the last emotion they had in life from those skull faces—fear.
If that giant corpse was the being that this group of corpses’ master believed in before death, then this emotion of fear was thought-provoking.
Intense fear almost overshadowed the respect in the believers’ hearts; could this still be considered faith?
While she was lost in wild thoughts, Chen Xiaolin bumped into Li Duojin’s solid back. She tightly closed her lips and tried not to make a sound, covering her head and looking puzzled at Li Duojin’s handsome side face, not knowing why he suddenly stopped.
Following Li Duojin’s gaze, Chen Xiaolin saw that Li Duojin was looking at a corpse facing them directly with a hint of sorrow.
Chen Xiaolin was slow for two seconds, then shuddered in shock, because she realized that the row of corpses Li Duojin was looking at had clearly all been facing away from them before, yet at some unknown time, one corpse was now facing them directly.
When she finely realized this point, the fear infinitely amplified; her heart trembled in terror, her whole body shivered, and she stiffly scanned the surroundings, only then discovering that almost all the corpses had simultaneously turned their bodies toward the two, although almost none had fully raised their heads, their half-exposed skull faces already showed pathological ferociousness.
Whoosh—
A gale howled into the cave, the strong wind whipping the face and forcing people to struggle to keep their eyes open; the wind sound was like rage, as if the slumbering nightmare had emitted an awakening groan.
Chen Xiaolin and Li Duojin looked up, only to see the giant corpse that was eroding and transforming Wang Kui Shan’s corpse had also, at some unknown time, turned to face them; at the place where Wang Kui Shan’s head served as the corpse’s heart, Wang Kui Shan’s dead human head revealed an eerie smile as it swelled and throbbed.
Li Duojin gritted his teeth and kicked out at a corpse in front of him, wanting to kick it down, then directly pulled Chen Xiaolin and sprinted madly to escape the “line of sight” of these corpses.
But after kicking out, Li Duojin felt like he had kicked an iron plate; the kicked bone did not move an inch and suddenly began to tremble, as if one stone stirred a thousand waves; the other corpses in the cave, which had been steady as mountains and motionless, also began to tremble, the friction and collision between bones emitting eerie wonderful sounds that combined into a bizarre symphony.
The more enchanting, the more deadly; Li Duojin pulled Chen Xiaolin and continued running forward, while the surrounding bones glowed one after another with suddenly bright eerie green glows like tracking ghosts, lighting up in pursuit of Li Duojin and Chen Xiaolin’s footsteps.
The stimulation of life-and-death speed was too intense; Chen Xiaolin’s brain went numb, the cold air pouring into her lungs like swallowing tens of thousands of needles, fiercely stabbing her vulnerable lungs.
In the nick of time, Li Duojin found a bone that had not turned around, which meant this bone might not have such strong anomalous power like the others, so he kicked out again, knocking the bone down, then pulled the panting Chen Xiaolin and madly ran toward the cave entrance that was right before their eyes.
Excessive tension left them no mind to beg or pray to heaven for blessing, hoping the cave entrance ahead would lead to the path of life; they only knew this was the only exit to run out of the cave, and they had no other choice.
The two did not dare to look back, but Chen Xiaolin heard the running sounds of some heavy creature, the heavy muffled thuds of footsteps, and the friction and collision sounds from bones moving, loud and rapidly approaching; they could almost imagine a group of ferociously faced skulls constantly chasing them under the leadership of a giant corpse, shortening the distance gap between them.
Rushing into the cave entrance, Chen Xiaolin and Li Duojin both felt the thrill of sprinting across the finish line and the relief of a heavy burden lifted, but these emotions vanished in an instant as their footsteps met empty air.
No one could have guessed that the cave’s exit was actually a sheer cliff; in the blink of an eye, the two who could not struggle fell into the dark abyss.
