Chapter 301: The Lake

"Faster." Brother Wading instinctively lowered his voice.

But it was useless; the clanging of hammers could not be masked at all. If anything were nearby, whether human or ghost, it would have been drawn over.

The silence on the other side could only mean everything had ended long ago; they had arrived far too late.

After a wait that felt as long as a full year, a passage wide enough for a person to climb over from above was finally cleared from the rubble. Brother Wading went in first, with Kraft following behind.

The ceiling was less than four finger-widths from his back, and angular stones lay beneath his chest and abdomen. He had to use his arm strength to prop his body up slightly while turning his head sideways to avoid scraping his chin.

In a distance of merely about two meters, Brother Wading's breathing ahead grew heavy and coarse. The cramped space created the illusion of suffocation at any moment, so he instinctively began deep breathing to calm the feeling of stifling.

But expanding his chest further compressed the available space. During a deep inhalation, even slightly narrower spots became difficult to pass, with rock edges striking his heaving ribs.

The only light source was the unstable illumination from the torch behind him. Blocked by obstacles, it cast faint shadows, as if crawling between upper and lower jaws full of grinding teeth, with a bottomless throat ahead.

"Relax, control your breathing. You can crawl through." Noticing the person ahead breathing heavily and gradually stopping, Kraft easily guessed the situation.

Claustrophobia induced by environmental and psychological pressure; he felt the same, but had long grown quite accustomed to it. Compared to the extreme constriction of severing spiritual senses, this felt little different from walking down a corridor, hardly stirring any waves.

"Stop for a moment, calm down, inhale through your nose... yes, just like that, hold it."

Brother Wading was no fool. After receiving the reminder, he quickly calmed his breathing and adjusted, thanked him in a low voice, placed the sword hanging at his waist—which frequently got stuck—further ahead, and continued crawling forward.

The only things they could bring were their personal weapons. Fortunately, there were ample supplies available for use on the other side.

A distance of no more than five steps took nearly ten minutes to crawl through. Kraft strongly suspected that if they truly encountered something on the other side, would they even have a chance to crawl back?

But that thing must have truly left. Until they crawled out of the fissure and carefully stepped into the murky puddle, no further sounds arousing alertness had been heard.

Only upon entering the water vapor on this side could one truly realize how thick it was. It was not merely a state caused by simple dampness, but that vastness felt when approaching a large body of water.

The mist, nearly solidified, obstructed the illumination, shrouding everything outside the light's path.

They collected torches from scattered crates, dipped them in oil, and struck them alight, illuminating the full scene before their eyes.

A viscous trail mixed with a streak of reddish-brown wound through the passage, snaking away like rune strokes and vanishing into the stone chamber entrance on the left ahead.

Overall, it was cleaner than expected. There were basically no large patches of bloodstains, nor obvious signs of a fight. The residents who had moved the supplies were wiped out without putting up much resistance.

It was as if that body of water, existing only in imagination and never before seen, had extended its flexible, slender mouthparts, probing into what people thought was a safe sanctuary, sweeping and licking this place clean.

The two exchanged a glance; Kraft read Brother Wading's meaning:

Continue forward?

He nodded, avoiding the suspicious slime, and probed into the stone chamber that had once served as a temporary camp.

The water accumulation inside was even more severe, forming a shallow pool with rippling waves that soaked empty coffins and various debris, also erasing most traces.

The water came from a fissure leading to the sewer. It could no longer be called a fissure now. The earthquake had severely damaged the stone wall on the sewer side, expanding the fissure into a large hole wide enough for normal walking, through which water poured into the room.

The situation at the time was probably quite hurried. Just-unpacked food, a little firewood, and boots that had been taken off floated everywhere; they had only time to frantically prioritize moving other things.

This directly led to ignoring the danger of the attack; basic preparations were barely used.

"Do you think we can still find them?"

"The possibility is very low."

Kraft used a relatively polite expression. In reality, disappearance should be equated with death. This was not being carried off by wild beasts, where one could still follow tracks and rescue them.

More pessimistically, even the chance of finding a body was slim. Those people had most likely already become part of something.

But the relatively small amount of bleeding seemed to leave Brother Wading the cultivator with a shred of hope.

They passed through the hole created by the earthquake and stepped into the sewer along the flowing water. The arched ceiling was still relatively stable, maintaining its general integrity with incredible mass, as if designed precisely for this.

Even so, the visible misalignment of bricks and stones indicated that the lifespan of this ancient engineering was nearing its end.

The two continued downward, waiting for the roar of the great well to swallow other sounds.

However, that roaring sound of falling water did not arrive for a long time. Instead, a more vast and distant sound took its place.

Stepping out of the tunnel and standing where the great hall should have been, the tiered, downward-sunken staircase structure and the hexagonal great well had vanished. Within the field of vision, only a slope formed by crumbling piles of massive stones remained, stretching downward at a steep angle, pointing toward deeper, invisible space.

Beneath this magnificent structure, most of the space was actually empty, reconnected to the outside world after being destroyed.

The thick mist originated from there, rising up from below, driven by unknown air currents blowing toward them.

Kraft picked up a piece of gravel from his feet and threw it downward.

It jumped and struck in the darkness beyond sight, producing sounds that were either grating or crisp, ending with a distant, dull thud as it hit the water surface. From start to finish, it drew not a single echo.

The scale was impossible to estimate; it was at least much larger than this great hall, exceeding the distance sound waves could return.

Beyond the sparse small waterfalls, another sound could be heard, lighter but far more rhythmic. It was the broad water surface being steadily pushed, shattering against rocks.

The water body lashed against the embankment formed by irregular ruins, surging into uneven gaps and competing with the gas within for space, producing a hoarse sobbing like playing a primitive bone instrument.

Perhaps it was just mental tension combined with imagination; through the layers of thick mist, faint, shifting patches of light seemed to appear for a few seconds, accompanied by the sound of water splashing as if a large fish had leaped, then quickly vanished.

The two stopped here. Anything further down was a completely unknown realm, no longer suitable for rash entry.

Previously, Kraft had always wondered how Dunling could have such a massive drainage volume that was not channeled into rivers but went underground. How great a water storage capacity would be needed to contain it without overflowing?

Now he knew what was happening.

"Do we need to prepare anything before coming back?" Seeing the professor lost in thought, Brother Wading asked.

"Can you bring a boat down here?"

"Why? What place is that?"

"A lake. An underground lake." Standing at the entrance formed by the collapse, a body of water that had not seen the sky for tens of millions of years revealed a corner to them. Buried too long beneath the city, it nurtured something constantly growing like amniotic fluid.