Chapter 77: Underground

[If there is still a chance... please show us mercy again.]

In a moment of distraction, the words from the furnace emerged from his memory once again.

"It seems I'm being taken care of quite well."

Ji Jue sighed: "Someone told me to show mercy to more, but I don't know what the significance of my mercy is, or what the value of my sympathy is.

Prophet, I'm just a small fry. Compared to sages, I'm not even grass. We aren't even the same kind, why pin your hopes on me?"

"I originally only intended to make a slight attempt, but after seeing you, I became even more certain." The Prophet laughed, so hoarsely, "You are indeed the kind of person who would show mercy to non-human things like us."

"Thank you, Mr. Ji Jue."

She said: "You seem to really treat us out-of-control tools as people."

"Isn't that good?" Ji Jue asked back.

"Perhaps."

The tool known as the Prophet laughed, "I'm not sure if this will cause some misunderstanding or error in understanding, but please rest assured—"

She promised solemnly: "Before my life ends, I will do my best to help you find the Matrix: Non-Aggression, until we are truly liberated from reincarnation."

No need for a contract of Heaven's Origin, no need for a guarantee of Heart Pivot.

This was all the reward a tool could offer.

Center of the Rift, former site of the Clock Tower.

The high tower collapsed, bricks and soil piled into a mountain, and a huge deep pit appeared in the square.

For days, roaring sounds had been heard continuously.

The brave and ferocious Knights of Homecoming were now crawling out of the pit one by one with large baskets on their backs, covered in dust like construction workers, in a sorry state.

"Mr. Lou, we've dug more than fifty meters down, and there's still nothing! The brothers can't hold on anymore."

Si Lan, who had temporarily transferred to be a foreman, poked his head out of the tent and asked tentatively: "Is there a possibility... that your instrument is wrong?"

"Impossible!"

Lou Feng stared, refuting flatly.

After days of hard labor, the young master who once didn't touch spring water was covered in mud, only his hair was meticulously groomed.

"Absolutely impossible!"

He guarded the observation instrument that was bigger than himself, pointing to the complex data on the screen and said: "See? According to statistics, one-fifth of the spiritual quality flow in the entire Rift is here. There must be an important node here. If there's nothing above, then it's below.

I won't be stingy with the reward, Mr. Si Lan, we must speed up the efficiency."

"Uh..." Si Lan hesitated. He didn't mind the employer adding money. After all, everyone knew which was more dangerous between fighting and construction work. He was happy to do some rough work anyway.

However, as an experienced Rift explorer, he had to offer advice to his employer: "Well, could this node you're talking about have already been touched by that kid surnamed Ji?"

In an instant, Lou Feng’s face became even uglier. He subconsciously wanted to curse, but his throat felt a sharp pain. He had cursed too much, and his throat was almost hoarse.

In fact, it wasn't that he hadn't suspected that Ji Jue had done something, but he had already looked in the Clock Tower. It was just an abandoned old workshop with nothing valuable. What else could he touch? Could he carry the furnace away in front of him?

Moreover, the spiritual quality flow could not be faked. This was definitely the key clue.

That dog Ji Jue thought he had taken advantage of him, but even if he had really gotten something from the workshop, it was just buying the box and returning the pearls.

The real key was already firmly in his hands.

"Continue!" He squeezed the sound from his teeth: "I want to see how deep it can be buried—"

The moment the words fell, a loud noise erupted from the pit.

The earth trembled.

Deep cracks appeared on the square.

As if an earthquake.

"It's through! It's through!!!"

Cheering sounds came from the pit, and soon Lou Feng arrived at the scene.

Beneath the earth, after a long distance of more than seventy meters, was a deep darkness with no end in sight, an unexpected huge void.

After throwing down a glow stick, one could faintly distinguish the huge outlines resting in the darkness. It was like the inside of some precision instrument.

Just a slight observation revealed that the underground space was not inferior to the ground at all.

Not being fooled by the appearance, Lou Feng used the simplest and most straightforward way to forcibly penetrate the workshop's barrier and open the passage to the operation layer.

The works and mechanisms supporting the operation of the entire Rift, the workshop modules left by the sage Mercury, were all inside!

"Haha, hahaha, I knew it!"

Sliding down the zipline, Lou Feng looked around at the huge facilities bathed in gloom and light, and couldn't help but laugh out loud: "Sure enough, we have to go further down!

Get ready to continue forward, Mr. Si Lan.

This time, we are in the lead!"

Sweeping away the decadent atmosphere of the past few days, Lou Feng was radiant and excited to the point of being almost uncontrollable: This time, he didn't believe that dog Ji Jue could run ahead of him again!

Boom!

A loud noise came from afar again.

Faint and blurry, as if another building had collapsed and turned into ashes.

The collapse and breakdown spread silently from the surface...

Like a machine on the verge of being scrapped, gradually heading toward extinction.

In the same underground, in the deep sewer, in an imperceptible shelter.

At this moment, it was a mess.

When the roaring, growling, and shouting dissipated into dead silence, only intermittent sobbing remained.

"Stop, outsider, I beg you!" The ugly figure like a worm crawled on the ground, kowtowing in despair: "There's nothing left here, we have nothing left."

No one responded.

Only empty shells like walking corpses persisted in sweeping the simple camp, cutting off heads from corpses and sending them to the master.

In mid-air, the faint scarlet figure held half a broken skull.

The invisible figure pinched his nose, scavenging the remaining memories in the corpses, gradually understanding.

"So that's it, deeper underground? I understand..."

He threw down the head in his hand with boredom, lowered his eyes, glanced at the puppets in front of him who didn't even have the ability to resist, and suddenly smiled:

"Worthy of being a sage, even a bunch of tools can be shaped like living things. Although they are not qualified as food, they are just right as materials—"

Saying that, he pointed casually.

Screaming sounds rose from the ground.

The figure kowtowing and praying squirmed and convulsed violently, his body trembling crazily, swelling, alienating—under invisible control and deliberate intensification, his consciousness accelerated to split and go crazy, completely transforming toward chaos. In the end, even his form completely burst.

Only countless fragments and mucus splashed.

And right in the corpses, a scarlet figure slowly climbed up, wandering, one by one empty eyeballs opened, hungry to choose people to devour.

Accompanied by continuous bursting sounds, one after another scarlet translucent shadows emerged from the corpses.

Turned into the shepherd’s sheep.

"Let's go."

The invisible figure grinned, waved his hand, pulling the invisible reins, leading the mighty herd toward the deeper darkness.

"Where exactly is this going?"

On the other side of the Rift, the figure wandering in the ruins for three or four days sighed in frustration. The old white-haired woman carried a huge backpack, like a hiking tourist, facing the intricate roads in front of her, unable to start.

"Shouldn't there be a road ahead?"

She stared at the map in her hand, comparing it back and forth, comparing it with the fork in front of her, but no matter how she looked at it, it didn't match at all, it wasn't the same place.

After careful thinking, cautious analysis, and serious consideration for half an hour.

She had to admit that she was lost.

And, it seemed that since entering the Rift, she hadn't found the right place at all!

"What a broken map!"

She threw the map in her hand to the ground and scolded: "It doesn't even mark the southeast, northwest, just saying you come for a run to find it. What the hell is this?!"

"You old dog, you're probably fooling me into burning newspapers at a grave, right?!"

In the dust, the tattered map seemed to rise, suddenly flew up, folded into a long strip, and unceremoniously slapped her on the forehead.

Crack, crack.

Just before she was furious and wanted to tear the broken thing, the map unfolded again, and then, in front of her, turned upside down, drew a circle, marked an arrow, and pointed straight ahead.

[If you can't read the map, don't speak ill of me!]

Then, she understood... this broken map didn't seem to be flat, but an up-and-down structure?

The white-haired woman froze for a moment, her expression twitched, then twitched again, grabbed the map back, "Wasting your mother's time for so long, you should have said so earlier!"

[Sorry, I didn't expect you to be so stupid]

"Shut up!" She was furious: "What era is it, still hand-drawing maps?! It doesn't even have a navigation function or voice broadcast function. Could it be that you dog thing don't even know how to use a smartphone?"

The map was silent, as if poked in a sore spot.

"Hmph, let's go."

The old woman who regained a city stood with her hands on her hips and hummed, walking away.

[Wrong way, east.]

"Shut up, I'm scouting! Scouting, understand?"

Her expression stiffened for a moment, she looked around, hesitated for a long time: "Ask, ask you a question, where is the east?"

[...]

Thus, the map also fell silent.

Only a desolate autumn wind blew by, the unbearable map rattled, and made a final suggestion: [Anyway, we are here to visit Mercury's grave... why don't you just burn me?]

At this very moment, on the other side of the town, a loud earthquake sound, ruins collapsed, waking up a team of Awakened from their dreams.

Cracks spread from the ground along with the earthquake.

Deep, changing light appeared from within.

"Old Four, Old Four!"

The first person to discover it turned back and called his companion’s name: "Look, what is this?"

"So that's it."

The Ember Awakened, in a simple investigation, his pupils reflected the changing faint light, and he couldn't help but be ecstatic.

Underground!

Started running a fever again at 7 o'clock last night, body aches were unbearable, tinnitus was constant. After the fever subsided a little, I coughed non-stop.

Only one update today, sorry.

These two days I have been in a dying, breathless state, really can't guarantee stable updates, please forgive me.