Chapter 120

“Kraft!” William’s heart eased—he saw Kraft trapped in a meat grinder, lingering for an instant among shadow-forged blades, barely escaping before being torn apart.

Sharp, barbed darkness boiled; human faces rose and sank; vibrations drew near from afar, pebbles trembling and hopping on the ground.

“Retreat!” Though the voice was muffled, William understood the word amid the horn’s blare—the first half of the plan was complete; the massive digger was hurtling toward them, crushing through the rock passage.

Now they must put distance between themselves and that face-limbed abomination, buying time and space for the layer shift.

The danger had not passed; it advanced at a dreadful speed, like darkness itself surging upward, chaotic limbs striking rocks, trampling over torches and snuffing them out.

William hurled the long stone with all his strength, lightened his load, and turned to flee.

The ground heaved worse than a deck atop a wave; he fled solely on years of hardened balance. Perhaps that single sword strike had truly been effective—they quickly put distance between them, and when they looked back, the last visible segment of limbs had been flung beyond the ring of light.

The familiar ritual repeated: a hand pressed on his shoulder; he closed his eyes skillfully, waiting for the falling sensation.

But this time was different—his feet lost contact with the ground without warning, and the fall accelerated violently. The sudden shift made his heart skip; if before had been a prepared dive from a deck, this was like being kicked hard from behind off a seaside cliff, weighted stones tied to him, plummeting straight down.

From the outset, the fall felt unnatural; he realized belatedly that the driver’s state seemed off.

Panic made his eyes snap open—instinct drove him to see his surroundings—but what flooded in was even more incomprehensible: the landscape fractured and twisted, nested caverns, eerily similar yet unmistakably different, merged together, light and utter darkness blending.

Torches flickered, stretched thin, and vanished; the illuminated zones remained suspended in air; the pursuing limbs pierced the ring of light, only to thrust uselessly into the next patch of darkness.

The threat was both within arm’s reach and impossibly distant; the moment his mind grasped this, his vision was yanked into total darkness, plunging into another layer’s cavern.

In the final instant before departure, through a lens-distorted view, he glimpsed the cluster of extra limbs abandon pursuit, reshaping itself to cling to the wall, becoming as thin as true shadow.

A quake that shook the mountain reached close at hand; the shadow, bearing human faces, clung to a colossal elongated body; sparks flew, revealing a fleeting glimpse of thick armored plates; between the shadow-coated segmented scales, countless pale faces crowded together, twisted or grinning wickedly.

They rode the digger, sensed human presence, and sprouted fine limbs, turning toward them as if to break free from their host and join the chase.

Layer transition stripped them of their target, yet this hellish vision revealing the rock paintings’ truth still plunged the mind into chaos and terror, making them forget the weightlessness of falling.

…

…

Kup found the captain’s among a pile of packages. It was easy to identify—few would willingly carry thirty percent extra weight just for a few bottles.

Inside was a bottle Kraft had said could clean wounds; rules didn’t matter now.

“Sss!” He picked the one with the strongest smell, poured a bit on the wound—it hurt more than the injury itself, muscles twitching like a live fish on a chopping block.

He had no idea how much that spilled amount could fetch among captains; otherwise, the pain wouldn’t have been confined to the wound.

“Yin Feng, wipe some on Peter’s wound.” Maybe it’ll shock him awake.

He unwound the cotton rolls Kraft had prepared in advance, bandaged the wound, felt somewhat better—perhaps just psychological comfort from boiled cotton. This material looked expensive; he selected a small piece, pressed it firmly against Peter’s wound, secured it with the original hemp wrapping.

He sat by the bed awhile, then realized he couldn’t rest peacefully beside the “trophy,” so he grabbed Peter’s feet and dragged him outside.

Probably from blood loss—he felt his steps light, even imagined the ground subtly rising and trembling.

Kup shook his head, but the illusion didn’t fade—it intensified, growing from faint whispers to unmistakable, even directional tremors. He looked up in dread, toward the rolling hills under the night.

Faint, cold moonlight struggled through thin clouds, spilling over rocks and soil, outlining indistinct, dark silhouettes.

Among these solid shapes, a vibration rose from deep within, drawing nearer to the surface.

“No way…” It came from the direction of the mine shaft—over ten minutes’ walk to the mountain’s base; yet the tremor, weakened by distance, still shook his feet.

Voices erupted from all sides; the village awoke to the shaking—unstable objects shattered, earthen walls trembled, roof dust rained down. Children cried, screams of nightmares made real, unanswered calls, and a few wild shouts mixing terror with joy.

Clouds drifted past; the barren, jagged yellow slope, painted in cold light, resembled piles of bones—the remains of countless lives swallowed directly or indirectly by the mine, nurturing hidden evils.

On the mountainside, where the cave deemed impossible to dig by human hands lay, “bones” were flung outward—each tiny white-yellow fragment was rock buried deep in the mountain, erupting with thunderous, sky-shattering roars.

The sonic wave crashed through valleys and hollows, drowning all other noise, leaving only pure, immense power to proclaim its arrival.

From afar, beneath cold, distant moonlight, those who had fled outdoors still saw the colossal thing amid the howling dust.

It resembled a serpent, its head raised like a valve-clawed maw, armored in segmented, rocky scales, crushing and spewing rock from within the mountain, obliterating the front slope’s terrain, turning the pitiful path below into a broken dotted line.

Like a flying fish leaping from water, a living ridge of mountain spanned the chasm midair, plunging into the opposite slope, returning to the earth where it moved unimpeded.

【Messenger】

Kup understood the term’s meaning—those who treated rock strata as nothing could easily explain why heretics believed it could pierce the barrier between the living world and the realm of the dead, bringing the departed back to the living.

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“Get out of the way!” He shouted to the dazed onlookers, sprinting toward the door as a dark blotch, accompanied by a shrill whistle, fell from the sky—the lingering hail of falling rocks.