Chapter 105: Gray-White (Thanks to

William never expected to return here so quickly for a second time.

Perhaps after enduring months of torment, fortune finally turned. Not long after parting ways, he encountered a local villager who claimed to be willing to guide him downward.

Driven by a desire not to delay due to Kraft's attitude, by the anxiety of standing before the treasury unable to find an entrance, and perhaps other reasons he couldn't immediately recall, his feet seemed to move of their own accord. Like a habit, he once again traversed the rocky mountainside, lit a torch at the mine entrance, and plunged straight inside.

By the time he realized he had been too hasty, he was already standing once more at the end of the mining area, with the slightly hunched old man walking ahead.

With the torchlight in his hand flickering, William stopped here, subtly pondering whether his actions were unreasonable, but found no answer. The sailors behind him all stopped as well, waiting for the captain's orders.

Hearing the footsteps cease, the old man turned his gaunt neck, where bone spurs protruded, twisting his upper body to align the small, clear spot remaining in his clouded, sunken, withered eye sockets with them. His rib-cage, distinct and barrel-shaped, stretched his loose clothing, revealing a deep hollow identical to that of other elderly men in the locality; the loose skin on his neck sagged, inexplicably reminding William of a tattered sail caught on a broken mast by strong winds.

Judging by his age and physical condition, the old man should have been unable to work long ago and thus unfamiliar with this newly used mine shaft. Yet an astonishing strength supported his seemingly frail body as he climbed the mountain path that even young sailors struggled to ascend without pause, each step precise in the cave where light and shadow interwove.

"What's wrong? Reluctant to part with two silver coins?" His voice was somewhat sharp, like the sharp edge of a pickaxe scraping across the surface of mineral crystals; the grating tone seemed mocking, or perhaps it was merely the throat eroded by dust amidst labored breathing.

This feeling made William very uncomfortable; the guide's age made him doubt the man had ever worked here, yet he hadn't stumbled over a single uneven patch of ground the entire way up, which for an old man with yellowed eyes could only be the result of experience.

"Have you really mined here? I heard this mine shaft has only been used for a few years."

"No," the hunched old man split his mouth open; the toothless cavity appeared hollow. Just as William and the others felt deceived, he added the second half of the sentence, "Because I didn't come for those stones, but I guarantee I know it better than anyone, including what lies deeper below."

His wrinkled hand raised the torch; the half-extinguished burning material loosened and fell, sparks wandering across the floating black carbon ash. "Come on, I know where you want to go, to places those people won't take you."

The poorly made torch dimmed, but the old man showed no intention of replacing it. Passing the deepest mark humans had left here—a small groove for holding a torch—he proceeded into the deeper, more primitive section, as if paying no attention at all to those behind him.

The group exchanged glances and followed before he could get too far.

Footsteps echoed in the deep-red mine passage; the slope grew steeper as they descended, leading into the mountain's interior, reaching a point where one had to watch their footing carefully to avoid losing balance. Yet the old man moved across this terrain as if on flat ground, his speed never slowing.

While William and the sailors struggled to keep up with his pace, they had little energy to notice that the red color, instead of deepening with the descent, was fading. When they lit a second torch, they suddenly realized the time spent descending had long exceeded the journey from the mountain foot to the cave entrance; they had left the strata where red iron ore was distributed and were walking through a passage with a cooling tone.

Not only the red, but that ubiquitous, annoying dust-yellow that had accompanied them for days was also fading. Gray, pallid, dry rock pressed in from the cave walls, pushing aside the dominant color that ruled the gullies and low hills.

The old man set down the crude torch; the flame on it extinguished completely, the tangled burning material scattered away, leaving only a bare stick.

He had never prepared a second one from the start; even after it went out, he continued walking straight ahead. William followed closely, wanting to light the way for him, only to realize it was entirely unnecessary.

The hunched figure stood outside the circle of light, half his body probing into the darkness, yet his steps were steadier than those of the torch-lit group. Every step landed firmly, as if the mine passage here had stairs laid out specifically for him, descending step by step, maintaining a distance just visible enough to see but always on the verge of being lost; one slow step and he would vanish from sight.

Perhaps because his clothes were somewhat thin, as the gray-white began to seep into the cave walls, William felt a damp chill. It wasn't moisture, but this coldness was like ice water, unable to be blocked by clothing, soaking the fabric as if turning the cloth into an accomplice of low temperature, drawing heat away from his body strand by strand.

A journey equivalent to the length of a single torch had taken them away from the southern hills, arriving at...

They could not say where. Even though the Bingshan had reached countless ports, large and small, between the kingdom's center and the ice plains, William, with all his experience, had never seen such a cave. It belonged uniquely to this place, to the underground of the southern hills covered by thick dust and yellow rock, to an alien layer of gray-white rock more barren than barrenness itself.

It first appeared in the pattern of mold, like checking the food reserves in the cargo hold and touching a cabinet door that hadn't been locked properly last time, where hard biscuits and salted meat had grown needle-point white spots. An inexperienced, careless sailor would simply close the cabinet, but a seasoned crewman knew that when you discover the first cluster, it means the depths beneath the surface are entirely different.

Descending, that gray-white spread, squeezing out the yellow rock beneath their feet, on both sides, and overhead, striving for more area. Unlike iron ore merging into and staining the mountain body, this was like oil and water separating into layers, with clear boundaries.

A sense of déjà vu surged; William traced the strangest, most alien part of his not-so-distant memories. Just last night, they had endured a very similar scene—walking a long, dark road, standing before the alien-colored rock at the yellow-white boundary. But he had little time to stop and think; the old man showed no intention of pausing to rest. William could hear his chest heaving like a bellows, breathing deeply.

Their pace was driven faster and faster. Walking over the ground where yellow and white alternated, this transition was exceptionally short; it felt as if it was left behind in a mere moment, completely entering the gray-white rock layer.

William pinched his nose, feeling himself shrink, following a burrow through stinking, decaying flesh, searching for intact tissue in the lower layers, only to sink into an endless white rot. There was nothing desirable here—just a texture blending dryness and decay, strangely resembling sun-exposed, dusty gray-white bones left undisturbed for days, with vague, long, segmented creatures burrowing within, carving out hollow passages for entry.

He was lost in thought; amidst the urgent following, William didn't understand how he had such rich associations. It originated from memory: the differently colored rocks at the end of the mountain path, possessing a certain symbolism, so clear under specific circumstances, guiding thought in that direction. Within the gray-white portion lay long, segmented, snake-and-worm-like coils, connecting the two poles of dust-yellow and gray-white.

"Old Gori! You are Old Gori!" William shouted toward the front.

At the edge of the halo, an old, gaunt face turned darkly toward them, opening a toothless jaw. The firelight illuminated his mouth and the bottomless cave behind him; the bloodless mucous membrane was as gray-white as the rock walls. A horn-like echo rose from his throat, or from deeper within the cave, some white, hollow place, conducted and amplified by the rock walls and a cold current of unknown origin, approaching and magnifying until it made standing unstable, shaking loose gravel and rock dust, extinguishing the torches.

That vibration was winding and long, coming from some massive, elongated body displacing the rock layers.