Chapter 288: Hollow Earth Theory
Following the gathering place of the afterimages, Fang Mu made a shocking discovery. Hidden within this river that appeared shallow on the surface was actually a boundless, bottomless chasm. The afterimages of every disappeared person swam toward the dark depths, either voluntarily or involuntarily.
Those forced to swim into the deep chasm seemed attracted by some kind of voice. Although their faces showed resistance and they wanted to resist this unknown force, human mental resistance was ultimately limited. Their ferocious resisting faces slowly turned into numb despair, and they kept diving downward without resurfacing.
Fang Mu discovered this deep chasm. After a slight hesitation, he did not turn back to surface but instead dove deeper voluntarily.
Better to have fewer deaths. Fang Mu thought. This was a trace of resistance from his gradually rigid conscience against his numb reason.
The deputy following behind Fang Mu also discovered the deep chasm, his eyes full of shock. He also sensed thick darkness and unknown from the unfathomably deep chasm. Years of experience, basic reason, and physiological instinct all told him not to follow, not to go deeper, but after glancing at Fang Mu gradually moving away, he gritted his teeth and continued chasing. However, before following, he first fired a signal flare toward the surface. He believed that as long as the people outside saw the signal flare, they would go to the marked position where he fired it, thereby discovering the anomaly here. He believed his captain could make the right judgment.
The two dove into the dark seabed one after the other. The deputy only had Fang Mu in his eyes and stared at him intently. Even if the darkness blurred his vision until he could only see the outline of the other swimming, he still refused to shift his gaze, because he feared he would get lost in this melancholic dark water.
Compared to the deputy’s situation, Fang Mu relied on his superhuman vision to see normally even in the darkness. However, the scene presented to his eyes was not like under daylight but deep green; everything was an eerie green.
Being able to see did not bring Fang Mu much comfort. Instead, he feared seeing too much. Beneath this not particularly wide deep chasm were hidden all sorts of sinister scenes. Aquatic plants resembling vipers bound every creature that mistakenly entered here. There were fish dry bones, human dry bones, and Mysterious Group members who had just died not long ago with their seven orifices pierced by the “water plants.”
Those “water plants” seemed to be the same individual. Having just finished feeding, their bodies were in a lazy state of digestion, emitting a faint glow. Even if prey accidentally touched the water plants, they would not react much.
Fang Mu’s diving motion inadvertently touched them. In the contact between his skin and the “water plants,” he felt something like suction cups under the fine fuzz. But at this time, because they were “full,” they temporarily had little interest in him and did not show strong aggressiveness, wrapping around Fang Mu without letting go.
With the “water plants” glowing, the deputy following Fang Mu also saw the crazy tormenting scene underwater. The teammates he was looking for had all become food for these dark detestable creatures, and he could not bring them back. Their corpses were probably destined to be submerged under this pitch-black unknown river.
The tragic emotions did not last long. The deputy still had to continue tracking Fang Mu to figure out the secrets on Fang Mu and find useful intelligence.
Fang Mu noticed the deputy following behind. He did not persuade him to leave, because there was no means or reason to do so. These Mysterious Group members were not much different from him; they all had a special kind of “stubbornness.”
After diving another ten meters or so, Fang Mu saw something like glass embedded on the surface of a stone at the seabed. Approaching to check, he discovered it was a membrane. Behind the membrane seemed to be a space. He put his hand into the membrane, felt a slight resistance, then successfully passed through, sensing the warm air in the space behind the membrane.
Gulp…
Fang Mu bubbled a large stream from his nose. He was just starting to hold out and wanted to breathe, so he immediately squeezed his whole body into the membrane.
Free from the buoyancy of water, his body was once again basically fully affected by gravity. Fang Mu plunged through the water above the membrane and fell to the ground three meters below vertically.
Because his clothes were thin, Fang Mu fell hard on the ground, the pain very clear. But he properly protected his head, so as not to be dazed.
Plop!
Just as Fang Mu had gotten up from the ground, a figure fell beside him—it was the deputy who had chased after him.
“Comrade, are you okay?” Fang Mu knew he could not persuade the other to leave and it might be hard to help him go back, so it was better to cooperate friendly with him. Thus, he proactively extended a welcoming gesture to help him up.
An Fang’s deputy also fell loudly on the ground. He endured the pain in his back and sat up, seeing Fang Mu’s extended hand to help him up. After a slight hesitation, he still gripped it, borrowing force to stand while holding his back, and said, “I’m Xia Chen.”
“Got it, Xia Chen.” Fang Mu smiled slightly, knowing the other also intended to cooperate.
“Where is this place?” Xia Chen looked at this strange bright underwater cave. The passage was too smooth, making him suspect it was not naturally formed but artificially renovated.
Fang Mu looked around, a sense of déjà vu surging into his brain. He felt he had been here, or at least to a similar place, and this familiar scene was naturally the scene in the Nong Mountain cave.
“I don’t know where this is, but I’ve been to a similar place. That place was hundreds of kilometers away from here; it was the Toad God’s abode.” Fang Mu said. He looked up at the membrane that quickly “healed” above and pointed at it, saying, “Perhaps this really is the Toad God’s abode. That biological membrane-like thing is an entrance that shuttles spacetime.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Xia Chen said. He took off the waist pack tied around his waist and pulled out something like a knob that occupied the entire space of the waist pack. It had a screen. After turning it on, the screen flickered and displayed a radar-like image, showing several light spots gathering toward a stationary yellow dot, which should represent Xia Chen at this moment. “This is the radar locator. After the successful launch of Dongfanghong I satellite, the organization’s communication positioning device was upgraded. If we traversed space, affected by the magnetic field, the locator should have failed.”
Hearing this, Fang Mu was slightly lost in thought, probably not expecting the “GPS” of that time to be so “hardcore.”
Xia Chen noticed Fang Mu’s gaze and faintly seemed a bit smug. He coughed and said indifferently, “In short, we can basically confirm we’re still under that river.”
Fang Mu ignored the petty thoughts of this “old man” born even earlier than his parents and continued speculating: “If so, this is very likely another abode of the Toad God. Be careful; there might be frog people here that can stand on two feet like humans but move swiftly, and those venomous toads that bite and eat people.”
As he spoke, Fang Mu unleashed his hearing ability and indeed heard the faint toad calls and light footsteps. He pointed in a direction with weak sounds, “Let’s go this way. My hearing is strong; there’s not much sound there, so it should be safer.”
The two traveled together, Fang Mu on guard ahead, Xia Chen vigilant behind.
Carvings appeared occasionally on the cave passage walls, depicting scenes of humans on this land in earlier times living together with other unknown Earth intelligent life. The recorded content was bizarre and became increasingly horrific.
From the carving records, humans at that time were mostly used for sacrifices, just like humans sacrificing pigs, chickens, ducks, cattle, and sheep. Terrifyingly, even using fellow humans as sacrifices, humans still jointly participated in worshiping a giant toad with a bat-like face alongside other Earth intelligent life of the time—upright walking creatures painted like lizardmen or snakemen—in a “thriving,” “harmonious coexistence” scene.
Xia Chen felt a chill, sensing their situation even more dangerous. Suddenly he said to Fang Mu, “Do you know the hollow Earth theory?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. It’s the idea that Earth’s interior is hollow, and beneath the outer surface where we live, there’s a habitable inner surface with a far more developed and advanced civilization than us surface humans.” Fang Mu had naturally heard of it. As a novelist, he was full of curiosity about all sorts of sci-fi bizarre, horrific, and eerie things.
Xia Chen’s gaze swept over the carvings on the rock walls from time to time, saying, “Thinking about it now, doesn’t it seem strange? From ancient to modern times, east to west, all over the world, people everywhere have had the same idea. I wonder if those who proposed these theories really witnessed scenes proving this view.”
Fang Mu did not affirm it, but he already knew what Xia Chen wanted to say: “Possibly. Perhaps that’s why this place is so similar to the one I went to before. If we keep going deeper, we might reach a place hundreds of kilometers away on the surface.”
Xia Chen fell silent. He saw other species appearing in the rock wall carvings. The giant toad worshiped and offered by humans and lizardmen gave birth in union with humans to upright monsters with frog faces. The toads on Earth, under the “blessing” of the giant toad or some kind of influence, mutated into a group of monster toad frogs.
The carvings recorded frog people and monster toad frogs eating punished believers, including humans and lizardmen.
Besides the eerie brutal sacrifice and punishment content, there were also the Toad God enlightening believers’ wisdom, teaching them magic, scientific knowledge, and such things.
Although the Toad God was a man-eating god, it seemed to also have a side that could communicate and proactively educate believers.
It was clear the taught things were genuine, without smuggling private goods（ that drive people mad anomaly factors）. Later in the carvings, more humans and lizardmen worshiped the Toad God, probably representing an expansion in the scale of faith. If the Toad God had no real substance, such a scene probably wouldn’t appear.
Fang Mu had seen similar content elsewhere and did not pay too much attention, while Xia Chen, seeing it for the first time, was greatly shocked and also fearful upon reading “true history.”
After walking for about ten minutes, the two did not go fast, also to allow the Mysterious Group members following behind to catch up with the marks they left along the way. But they gradually grew suspicious and uneasy.
It was just too quiet.
Xia Chen took out his carried locator again. This time, the radar display had gone dark and could not restart no matter what. Even after forcibly turning the power on several times, the entire radar locator started heating up, then smoked and caught fire. Xia Chen had to discard this equipment.
Fang Mu unleashed his hearing. He could still hear commotions from other places, but compared to before, their commotions had become smaller, as if doing something else that required quiet. Besides that, he was also looking for other people’s voices. Since according to Xia Chen’s speculation, they were still under the river outside Lin Family Village and had seen the signal from other Mysterious Group members chasing them, by time estimate, they should have also passed through the membrane and started exploring. But Fang Mu heard no other human footsteps.
This meant they had not followed at all!
“Prepare to rely only on each other, just the two of us.” Fang Mu pointed out their current situation to the silent stunned Xia Chen.
Xia Chen nodded, secretly clenching his fist.
The passage ahead gradually became wider and more exquisite, like going from suburban asphalt roads to city center city roads.
Worried that in this interconnected cave, a monster might pounce out at any time, Fang Mu and Xia Chen moved even more lightly and cautiously.
Soon, Fang Mu heard human whispers from the depths of a deep path, like holding a worship ritual.
Fang Mu’s abnormal stopping to observe caught Xia Chen’s attention. Xia Chen curiously whispered, “What did you hear?”
Along the way, Xia Chen had noticed Fang Mu’s superhuman sensory ability. Places dark even to his normal vision without astigmatism, Fang Mu could see clearly and timely remind him to watch his step. His hearing was also incredible, able to detect underground creatures hundreds of meters away first. Therefore, Xia Chen could now believe Fang Mu’s judgments.
“There are humans over there, seems like worshiping something.” Fang Mu looked at Xia Chen, “Want to go check?”
Xia Chen nodded, “Be careful.”
The two advanced toward the depths of the path with human whispers. After walking about 1,263 steps, they stopped and crouched, hiding behind cover, secretly peeking at a group of people praying incantations around a mass of black amorphous life substance. That black amorphous substance receiving the prayer kept changing into eerie non-biological forms. Every interval, it would devour a human, then spit them out. The spat-out person would convulse all over, eyes emitting strange blue light…
