Chapter 060: The Crimson Light Flowing Beneath Their Feet

The two of them crossed the pool and arrived at the cave right at its center. The pitch-black entrance loomed like a monstrous maw, while the waters around it seemed almost like drool spilling from the abyssal jaws.

At this moment, ripples pulsed across the surface of the pool, rhythmic yet somehow eerie. Li Tianque and Fatty Bi moved with extreme caution, inching along the edge of the water, every step deliberate and wary.

A chilling wind whistled from within the cave. Using flashlights scavenged from Bi’s companion’s backpack, they pressed onward, the weak beams barely piercing the darkness as they ventured deeper.

Every step through the oppressive gloom below felt like wading through a mire, the silence so absolute that only the word “deathly” could do justice to the surroundings. Li Tianque and Bi Youqian walked one after the other, their footsteps echoing in the cave like a heartbeat. The flashlights cast a trembling circle of light ahead, revealing the path little by little.

“The ground here is very smooth,” Li Tianque observed. “This doesn’t look like a natural cave at all—more like it was dug out by hand.”

“I don’t know much about geology,” Fatty Bi replied, “but I can’t imagine who’d bother digging under a well for no reason! But if this cave really was manmade… do you think there might be treasure down here?” His face broke into a broad grin, which, in the dim light, looked especially greedy and lecherous.

“Treasure? Maybe… but if there’s a man-eating monster in here, all we’ll find are the belongings of the dead,” Li Tianque replied.

“Monster…” Bi Youqian swallowed nervously. The shadows above flashed through his mind. He muttered, “Whatever’s here, we have no other way out. We can only keep going.”

Just as he finished, Fatty Bi suddenly noticed something odd and stopped.

Li Tianque, puzzled, looked at him. “What is it?”

Bi swallowed again and pointed ahead. “Hey, look at that…”

Li Tianque followed his gaze. There, protruding from the cave wall in the darkness, were clusters of round stones. They were of various sizes but shared the same smooth, oval shape. Some were covered in mud, others sprouted wild grass.

At first, Li Tianque felt nothing unusual, but then it struck him—these bulging stones were exactly like the shell of the stone limulus that had just latched onto Fatty Bi’s face!

“Damn, could these be more of the stone limuli like the one that attacked you?”

Fatty Bi, still shaken, nodded and coughed softly. “Looks like it, all right. And there’s at least dozens ahead. If they all wake up at once, we’ll be reduced to mincemeat…”

Realizing the danger, Li Tianque slipped on his high-voltage gloves and cautiously approached the nearest protruding stone.

Fatty Bi shone his flashlight on it, illuminating the stone limulus. Its stone shell was coated in dust, pitted with holes left by carbonic erosion, resembling pumice from a bathhouse. The creature was firmly attached to the cave wall, almost fused with it.

Li Tianque motioned for him to lower the beam, shining it beneath the limulus. Peering closely, he saw no sign of soft tissue or life, nothing but inert stone.

“This one seems dead—or maybe someone mounted them here as specimens…” Li Tianque speculated.

“Bah… anyone who’d use these as specimens can’t be right in the head…”

“Let’s ignore them for now. They don’t seem to move.”

Li Tianque checked a couple more on the walls. They hung like decorations, lifeless and inert.

They pressed on, venturing deeper. The wind inside the cave grew stronger, chilling them to the bone.

Li Tianque sniffed at the dank air. Besides the humid, fetid odor, he detected a faint scent of blood.

Given that the area had just been flooded with that bizarre blood-water, it wasn’t surprising. Suddenly, he thought of something and blurted out, “Brother Li, something just occurred to me!”

“What is it?” Fatty Bi asked, flashlight in hand, sounding casual.

Li Tianque wiped his hand along the rock wall. It was dry and dusty.

“Don’t you think it’s strange? By all rights, when that blood-water sprayed out of the well, the cave we’re in and the whole space outside should have been awash with it. But earlier, I checked outside—there’s no trace of blood-water at all. And this cave is the same—no sign of flooding, completely dry!”

Fatty Bi now found it odd as well, but shrugged it off. “Who cares? We’ve seen so many weird things today—one more won’t make a difference.”

He strode ahead. Though still puzzled, Li Tianque followed.

As they walked, a faint rustling sound reached their ears from within the cave. It seemed distant, muffled—like a mountain spring or a small waterfall.

“Hey, sounds like water up ahead,” Fatty Bi noted.

“I hear it too. Be careful—if there’s a waterfall, there could be a drop nearby,” Li Tianque warned.

Fatty Bi was about to step forward when he suddenly stopped. “Wait, something’s off—the sound is getting closer. Is the water coming toward us?”

Li Tianque halted as well. Now he noticed the sound was growing denser and nearer, but it didn’t roar like rushing water. Instead, it was more like a persistent drizzle.

As the sound drew closer, unease crept over them both.

Fatty Bi shone his light ahead. There was no water, but something else—a strange sight.

Beneath their feet, a narrow, pitch-black track ran along the ground, about as thick as a finger. From within it, a ghostly red glow began to pulse, growing brighter, as though glowing sticks of charcoal were laid side by side.

“What is this? Why is it suddenly lighting up?” Fatty Bi exclaimed.

Li Tianque saw it too, a sense of dread rising within him. A faint pain throbbed beneath his beret; ever since Dani had bitten him the day before, he’d felt that the black iodine used to suppress his Nightmare Eye was somehow running low.

“I don’t know… but it can’t be anything good,” Li Tianque said, voice heavy with worry.