Chapter 110: The Depths

It felt as if stuffed into the belly of a sunfish, with viscous, oil-like information enveloping the senses, interlinking with one another, seeping into eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, expressing an incomprehensible and eerie state.

William felt himself falling and instinctively grabbed Kraft's arm. But this did nothing to maintain balance; his position remained unchanged. Although the rocks beneath his feet shook even more violently, there were no signs of collapse.

The changes unfolding now were like an experience within a dream, where one flails limbs in the hazy sleep of falling, only to jolt awake in bed while trying to adjust one's position.

Yet this nightmare showed no sign of ending anytime soon; he remained in a semi-awake state, prolonging this unreal experience.

He could see Kraft's lips opening and closing constantly, shouting something, but his clogged hearing was already filled, filtering out no human speech. The scenery was like viewing through ripples underwater; light stretched, mouth shapes distorted, making it impossible to discern a single word or phrase.

However, the sensation of falling was truly distinct. After his vision plunged into darkness, William reflexively pressed downward, accompanied by a scream as if falling off a cliff.

"Aaaah..."

"... Ah!"

The passage of time was hard to judge. His palm hit the ground without a massive jolt breaking bones, not even pain; he had simply touched a stone surface.

If it were purely that, the falling distance might have been shorter than a stumble, yet William still experienced an counterintuitive sense of vast distance.

A voice repeated incessantly in his ear.

Opening his eyes, Kraft's face under the firelight was so bright it dazzled. They were still in the same spot; it felt as though only a short while had passed, yet it seemed they had lingered in darkness for too long, causing tears to secrete under the bright light to lubricate dry eyeballs.

Fortunately, his vision returned to normal. He made out that mouth shape, matched it with sound after a moment of thought, and found the corresponding meaning: "William, wake up!"

"Personally, I'd be happy to let you sleep a bit longer, since what you did isn't something a well-rested, clear-headed captain would do. But some things might not share that sentiment."

"What, what things?" William looked around nervously, only then realizing everything had calmed down. Except for fine cracks on the ground, the changes had halted just before destruction arrived.

Seeing him awake, Kraft released his shaking shoulder, stood up, and brushed dust from his trousers. "It might be that long-faced fellow we just saw, or perhaps something even worse. In any case, we are not alone here."

"Here?"

"Hard to explain." Kraft was glad William could read between the lines, proving the captain hadn't been muddled by the dimensional shift, though explaining the complex relationship was another matter. "In short, we are not where we were."

"You can understand it as a reflection in water, similar to the object, changing with the object's movement, yet not entirely the same."

"We are in the reflection?" Unsurprisingly, William struggled to understand; without corresponding senses, he couldn't grasp the process directly. It was like describing sound to a deaf-mute, requiring indirect understanding through touching the vibrating throat.

You just need to get the gist, Kraft wanted to say, but seeing William didn't quite understand, and he himself wasn't entirely clear either. Mental senses only helped him "know that it is so"; to "know why it is so" required unknown amounts of time and energy, perhaps even more.

Sighing now would only damage the dwindling morale, so he chose to sidestep the heavy issue, saying, "Stay close to me; I've never tried finding people here before."

Unfortunately, William's focus didn't sync with his.

"Hetero... Wizard!" Considering "heretic" was a derogatory term, he corrected himself in time, switching to a folk title.

To be honest, it wasn't much better; in the scattered anecdotes collected by his grandfather, the term "Wizard" often appeared alongside "poison" and "evil magic."

If there were a family portrait of archetypes, one could stand in the center seat, or at least grab the second place, with the sinister profile half-revealed under a hood trailing behind the leader being exactly this identity.

A neutral term should be "spellcaster"—deconstructing the meaning to a user of some supernatural power. Most of the time, just from the wording in a text, one could judge whether the writer sat on a church wooden chair or was quite suited for an Inquisition iron chair.

But the tone suggested William wasn't too averse to wizards, even a bit excited, momentarily overriding his awareness of being in danger. "Like the kind that can walk into a mirror?"

【Honestly, I've been reading and chasing updates on Ye Guo Yue Du recently. Switch sources, multiple narration voices available.. yeguoyuedu works on both Android and iOS.】

"No, certainly not... never mind, if you say so, then so be it." This was a widely circulated legend: wizards could walk into mirrors, extending a gaunt finger from another world to unexpectedly grab a victim washing their face before a mirror at midnight. "If that helps you understand the current situation."

Unlike the just-awakened William, he needed to remain vigilant of the surroundings and couldn't spend too much time thinking about unnecessary things.

There was no stopwatch here; he could only estimate time by counting his own heartbeats. Over eight hundred had passed now, but since he was in a state of tense exertion upon arrival, some must be subtracted when comparing with a calm heartbeat.

Roughly, at least ten minutes had passed. Staying in place any longer wouldn't be a good idea. Based on past experience, people in the deep layers were always the ones sought out; it was hard not to suspect those things possessed unknown tracking abilities.

Unfortunately, waiting for William to wake up had dragged on too long. "Take this."

Kraft handed the torch to William and silently drew his sword. At least when they came, he had ample experience.

You must notice that extremely subtle change, like the first drop of rain on a stainless steel roof on a rainy night, serving as a precursor, followed by dense tapping sounds.

From the soft sound of fine stitches nailing on buttons to hard tips striking rock blocks, the sounds crisscrossed, rising and falling from far to near, gradually becoming dense and chaotic.

Dull ears couldn't distinguish their approach, still lost in the illusion of temporary safety under the warm fire. The noise of rising and grinding against gravel would erase the chance of early detection. "Then why didn't you use this... magic earlier?"

William was still asking, completely unaware.

As an observer, Kraft roughly knew how they had fallen victim before: waking up dazed after being impacted at close range, colliding unprepared with things wearing faces, and being lured deeper by some mechanism resembling the Bai Guang of a wormer.

"Quiet, listen carefully." He took a deep breath to ensure he was fully alert, assumed a stance, and waited for that thing to appear.

Given William's reaction speed, he wouldn't notice anything until the first face surfaced; the hair-raising sound of continuous jointed limbs hitting the ground no longer resembled a crab's leisurely walk over reefs, but a centipede using its uncountable pairs of legs.

Kraft examined that face but found no familiar sense within it; it was none of the crew members.

It was rougher than the crew's image, bearing the marks left by years of companionship with rocky yellow earth.

Then came a second, then a third face; they were bubbles on the dark curtain, rising up in a nauseating manner. When the fourth appeared, even Kraft's expression changed.

The darkness boiled; sharp or thorned structures vaguely probed the circle of light, invisible changes occurring within, as wide, flat faces surfaced one after another, bearing the distinct local features, twisted yet unmistakable.

"Now you know why I don't like coming to this side?"