Chapter 110: Muddy Swamp
The gemstone full of green on the stone platform shone dazzlingly, bewitching the soul; just one glance made one feel as if body and mind were about to be sucked in.
Li Nuowei remembered this gemstone; that was the green light gemstone he had described to Drake, the source of those green lights crawling all over the walls, their lair, and the guardian of the muddy swamp beneath the stone platform.
In the muddy swamp, faces twisted in pain emitted wails of evil spirits from within; sometimes they rose and fell with the ripples of the muddy swamp, turning into swollen bubbles, shattering into dregs amid heartrending cries of agony, only to squeeze out the same face from another spot in the muddy swamp again, repeating endlessly, like an endless hell of bound souls.
Those hoarse pleas and roars were heard by both Li Nuowei and Drake; Drake only felt those voices colliding and tearing at his vulnerable spirit, with unfamiliar faces emerging in his mind, being cruelly tormented by those sinful evil beasts from the netherworld otherworld.
Though the surroundings were blooming with green light and darkness was gone, Drake still felt a massive haze trying to crush his nerves; he was like a medieval criminal awaiting execution after judgment, stripped completely naked, about to be thrown into a pack of evil beasts starved to near madness.
Drake realized that the abnormal god hidden beneath the tunnel had appeared, right after the corner of this staircase; he would see the muddy swamp that devoured all things and the green light gemstone that could save his life; his emotions switched back and forth between fear and excitement, gradually blending together until Drake himself didn’t know if he was thrilled or afraid.
Suddenly, Drake saw the intense green light reflected on the wall quietly disappear, leaving only those green light lives still twisting and crawling in the cracking wall crevices; he couldn’t help but peek with Li Nuowei at the massive terror beyond this corner.
He saw vast stretches of foul-smelling, writhing muddy swamp surging ceaselessly on the ground; as if sensing the arrival of intruders, it engulfed and contained the irregularly floating green light gemstone and stone platform; the surging muddy swamp clung tightly to them like bone-gnawing maggots, with one terrifying twisted face after another wailing and roaring amid the swamp’s rolling waves.
Drake felt a pain in his arm; he snapped back to reality, realizing he had stared at the sinful muddy swamp too long and was unknowingly lured and controlled by the voices of those vengeful spirits on it, wanting to walk down the stairs into the man-eating muddy swamp; it was Li Nuowei who discovered it in time and grabbed him.
“Save me, save me…”
“Kill me, kill me…”
“help…”
“&%￥@”
Drake’s hair stood on end all over his body; he saw those pained faces above the muddy swamp all looking at him, their deep vortex-like dark eye sockets showing no will to survive, only black holes that seemed to suck everything in.
Compared to the pleas shouted from those twisted mouths, what they really wanted more was to drag both Drake and Li Nuowei into this endless muddy swamp prison.
The muddy swamp also discovered their being; gray-green ropes of mud surged up, wrapping toward the two.
Drake and Li Nuowei turned and ran, their faces flushed red, veins bulging and flesh twitching.
Drake’s heart pounded inside; watching Li Nuowei running ahead of him, he thought unwillingly: “Is this another failed ending? Is Li Nuowei going to have another death line?”
Li Nuowei and Drake kept running, but their stamina had long reached the limit; the mud surging with twisted faces quickly caught up.
“Here!” Li Nuowei suddenly pulled Drake and darted into a dark corner he hadn’t noticed, like a dark path that appeared out of nowhere.
Surprise and doubt surged in Drake’s heart: “Is everything still under Li Nuowei’s control now?”
Soon, reality gave Drake a blow to the head, because this dark path actually ended, blocked by a black wall, while the mud behind kept approaching.
“Crash the wall.” Li Nuowei gave no extra explanation, just slammed into the wall forcefully, his body resounding with cracking bones, but that seemingly thick wall cracked with clear fissures.
Drake had no other choice; fueled by his will to survive, he seemed fearless of pain, slamming into the wall nonstop.
Boom!
The muddy swamp whistled out from the broken wall; Drake and Li Nuowei rushed out amid the shattered flying sand and stones, their bodies covered in foul-smelling mud, falling from a height.
Drake and Li Nuowei only felt their bodies burning like fire; it was the muddy swamp clinging to them taking effect, digesting their flesh; feeling the searing pain, they fell from the air into a sea of golden metal.
And for some reason, those man-eating muddy swamps actually stopped pursuing Drake and Li Nuowei; the detestable faces on the mud retreated behind the broken wall with unwilling and angry roars.
Li Nuowei crawled out from a pile of gold coin pool, one arm hanging limply, the entire arm swollen purple-black; he called out to Drake.
But when he found Drake, he discovered that the great detective’s head had been pierced by a sharp treasure, lying dead with eyes wide open in this unknown hidden treasure trove.
“Sigh, failed again? This time lost to luck.” Seeing this, Li Nuowei let out a sigh; without hesitation, he picked up a sharp goldware from the ground, thrust it viciously into his neck, slashed around, and died on the spot.
……
“Who didn’t make it?” Escaping to a temporarily safe cave, Yu Lianyun asked Shang Wei and the surviving mystic investigators.
Shang Wei and the other mystic investigators looked at each other, each showing bitter expressions almost simultaneously, then reported the names of their companions who disappeared during the escape, followed by a silence.
The moment they reported their companions’ names, everyone present knew they had pronounced their death notices.
Now, the team that came to explore the secluded island was left with only four people.
“Where can we escape to next?” One mystic investigator slumped against the wall, sat down with a thud, hugged his head dejectedly; outside the cave, those rustling footsteps and eerie roars that inspired fear came endlessly, densely surrounding.
Those mermen would always find them and always take their lives; they still couldn’t escape death.
Despair congealed the air in the cave; another C-grade mystic investigator seemed infected by the emotions; though not breaking down in sobs, he covered his face and shed silent tears.
Only Shang Wei looked at Yu Lianyun with a gaze of faint expectation: “Captain Yu, what can we do next?”
The second update is only a bit more than half done, but I can’t write anymore; the cold medicine made me drowsy, I’ll finish it during tomorrow’s noon break and post it for everyone.
