Chapter 1874 Destruction Or Rebirth?
Meng Chao tried to wrap the flying bubbles with his spirit energy.
He tried his best to keep a trace of the bubbles, and in the end, he only obtained a slightly crystalline powder.
"What is this?"
Meng Chao looked at the powder in his hand and fell into deep thought. 'Why would human flesh turn into a rubbery gray substance? Why would the gray substance turn into pink bubbles, and why would there be crystal clear powder inside the pink bubbles?'
For some reason, he thought of the Ancients who had bodies that seemed to be made of clear crystal and metal.
If human corpses were burned in flames, they would turn into gray ashes.
With that in mind, the crystal clear powder looked like the ashes of the Ancients.
'Is it possible that Zhao Liwei didn't turn into a deformed monster after being squeezed by the gap? Instead, he slowly transformed from a human being into an Ancient?
'Could it be that the seemingly strange and terrifying process was not the distortion of human nature but the achievement of nirvana?
'Is it possible that the dangerous crisscrossing cracks are not fatal traps but the birth canals of the mother's body? A newborn baby can only be reborn and become a supreme existence as transparent as the Ancients after it tries its best to pass through the birth canals and receive its mother's blessing.
'Is it possible that all the explorers who've heard the Ancient Ruins' Summon and plunged into the darkness in the past decades never died? Could it be that they lived in a brand-new form in another dimension at the end of the crevices, between the worlds created by the Ancients?'
Meng Chao shuddered.
He forced himself to stop thinking because he found that he was gradually being drawn to the depths of the dark crevice.
The crevice had become less mysterious and terrifying in his eyes.
It was now filled with an unknown attraction.
He was not sure whether the thoughts he had earlier were the result of rational thinking or the result of his brain waves being twisted by the weird existence within the gap.
Meng Chao shook his head and looked around.
He realized that most people were in deep thought as well.
Meng Chao took a deep breath and hammered his iron fist against the wall. His fist was wrapped in the spirit magnet, and spirit energy spread out on the rock wall like the waves of an earthquake.
It created a thunderous rumble deep inside the cracks and woke everybody up from the infinite loop of their thoughts.
Everyone swallowed their saliva with difficulty once they snapped out of their daze.
In just a few minutes, they had already been tempted by the ancient ruins twice, and they had almost no power to resist it.
"Think about our mission!"
Long Feijun's face was twisted and filled with murderous intent. "I don't care what you saw in the illusion just now. I don't care how much you understood the Ancient Ruins' Summon. Even if you really want to dive into the d*mn crevices before you and turn into wriggling earthworms, none of it matters!" he said through gritted teeth.
"Remember that we still have a mission, we still have a home, and we still have something that we have to protect at all costs! That is most important.
"There's still a huge mess above ground waiting to be solved, and the key to solving everything is Lei Zongchao, the Battle God. Therefore, regardless of what you want to do, you have to find the Battle God first!
"Once we find the Battle God, complete our mission, and resolve the crisis in Dragon City, it won't matter even if we're tempted to burrow into the crevices again…"
At the end of his sentence, the colonel of the Red Dragon Army could not help but lick his lips and smile uncontrollably.
Meng Chao did not know if he was imagining things, but Long Feijun's smile seemed familiar. Zhao Liwei had the same smile when he looked back just before being devoured by the darkness.
It appeared that even Long Feijun had been affected by the ancient ruins, and his brain had been implanted with the seeds of temptation.
He could not completely destroy this seed.
He could only use the mission to block it out temporarily.
Perhaps this was not an isolated phenomenon, but a common predicament for all rescue teams.
Perhaps being able to temporarily block the seeds of temptation was already the best outcome.
"Everyone, conduct another round of self-examination. If you find any problems or feel like you're not in good shape for the mission, return to the isolated resting area near the entrance of the rift. The rest can continue moving forward!" Wu Haibo said.
Naturally, no one turned around.
No one was willing to let go of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to find the Battle God and save Dragon City, or to get a closer look at the mysteries of the ancient civilization. There was a chance to discover the ultimate answer to life and what lay beyond the boundaries of mankind.
The journey soon became even more treacherous and strange.
It seemed like there was an unprecedented storm in the vast darkness. The storm carried waves that twisted and changed the surrounding geological structure. The entire underground space underwent unpredictable changes the entire time.
They looked up a few seconds after they climbed over a broken rock wall. Right then, they noticed that the rock wall had become as smooth as a mirror. There were no signs of their passage, and it did not look like the wall they had just climbed.
They could clearly see a platform protruding out of the rock wall below. They would have been able to catch their breath there, but by the time they slid down their ropes, the platform had disappeared. It remained a bottomless abyss. They threw some scraps down and waited for a few minutes. However, they could not hear the sound of them hitting the ground.
To make matters worse, all three ropes broke during the descent.
With that said, the rope breaking was not a huge problem.
A Heaven Realm superhuman had the ability to activate his vitality magnetic field, nullify gravity, and float in the void.
Even if their magnetic fields were chaotic in the ancient ruins and they could not float or fly stably, everyone there could at least stay afloat and walk on walls like martial artists.
The issue was the way the ropes broke.
Just like Zhao Liwei's broken left foot, the points of breakage were as smooth as a mirror. There was no trace of fraying or snapping. It was as if… the ropes did not break at all; the upper half of the rope had just been transferred to another mysterious space.
This made everyone wonder if they could turn back.
Had the path to the surface been torn and twisted like the three ropes?
What if they turned back and climbed upward with all their might for a few hours and crawled for several kilometers or even dozens of kilometers? Would they simply crawl from one dark abyss to another and never find that familiar light again?