[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies":3,"chapter-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-301":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Notes on Kraft Anomalous Studies",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2283779,4467,"Chapter 301: Lake","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-301",301,"\u003Cp>“Faster.” Wading instinctively lowered his voice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But it was useless—the clanging and clattering could not be masked; if anything were nearby, human or ghost, it would already have been drawn here.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The silence across from them could only mean everything had long ended—they were too late.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After a wait that felt like an entire year, a passage wide enough for a person to crawl through was cleared from the rubble; Wading crawled in first, Kraft following behind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The ceiling was less than four finger-widths from his back; his chest and abdomen pressed against sharp-edged stones, requiring him to brace his arms slightly to lift his body while tilting his head to avoid scraping his chin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just two meters ahead, Wading’s breathing grew heavy; the flattened space gave the illusion of imminent suffocation, so he instinctively took deep breaths to ease the suffocating pressure.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But expanding his chest further compressed the limited space; during deep inhalations, even slightly narrower spots became impassable, the rock edges striking his ribcage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The only light came from the unstable glow of the torch behind them, its shadows flickering through obstacles, like crawling between jaws full of grinding teeth, with a bottomless throat ahead.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Relax, control your breathing—you can make it through.” Kraft easily guessed the situation as the man ahead’s breathing grew ragged and halted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The claustrophobia triggered by environment and psychological stress—he felt the same, but had long grown accustomed to it; compared to the extreme confinement of severed spiritual senses, this was like walking down a corridor, hardly stirring any emotion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Pause, calm down, breathe in through your nose… yes, just like that, hold it.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wading was no fool; after the reminder, he quickly steadied his breathing and whispered his thanks before sliding his sword, which kept catching on his waist, ahead of him and continuing to crawl forward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The only things they could carry were their personal weapons; fortunately, ample supplies awaited them on the other side.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A distance of barely five steps took nearly ten minutes to crawl through. Kraft doubted they’d have any chance of crawling back if something truly awaited them on the other side.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But that thing had truly left—until they crawled out of the crevice and carefully stepped into the murky puddles, no further warning sounds arose.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only upon entering this side’s moisture could one truly grasp how thick it was—not merely dampness, but the vastness one feels near a massive body of water.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The nearly solidified mist obstructed illumination, shrouding everything beyond the light’s reach.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They gathered torches from scattered crates, dipped them in oil, and lit them; the full scene blazed into view.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A thick, reddish-brown trail wound through the passage, its calligraphic strokes fading into the stone chamber entrance on the left.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Overall, it was cleaner than expected—no large pools of blood, no obvious signs of struggle; the supply personnel had simply been erased without much resistance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like the flexible, slender proboscis of a body of water existing only in imagination, unseen until now, it had reached into their supposed sanctuary and swept the place clean.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The two exchanged glances; Kraft read Wading’s unspoken question:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Keep going?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He nodded, avoiding the suspicious slime, and entered the stone chamber that had once served as a temporary camp.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The standing water inside was worse, forming a rippling shallow pool that soaked empty coffins and scattered debris, erasing nearly all traces.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The water came from a fissure leading to the sewer; it could no longer be called a fissure. The earthquake had severely damaged the stone wall beside the sewer, expanding the crack into a large enough hole for normal passage, allowing water to pour in.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The evacuation had been rushed—half-opened food, a few logs of wood, discarded boots floated everywhere; they’d only had time to frantically prioritize moving other items.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This directly caused them to overlook the approaching danger; their preparations were useless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Do you think we can still find them?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The likelihood is very low.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft used a more polite phrasing. In truth, disappearance might as well mean death—it wasn’t like an animal had carried them off, leaving tracks to follow and rescue.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>More pessimistically, even finding their bodies was unlikely; most of them had probably become part of something else.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the relatively small amount of blood seemed to leave Brother Wading with a sliver of hope.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They passed through the hole created by the earthquake, stepping through the current into the sewer. The arched ceiling remained surprisingly stable, preserved with an almost miraculous integrity—as if designed for this very purpose.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Still, visible misalignments in the bricks and stones revealed that this ancient engineering was nearing its end.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The two continued downward, waiting for the roar of the great well to drown out all other sounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But that roaring fall never came; instead, a more vast, distant sound replaced it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Emerging from the tunnel into what should have been the great hall, the tiered, stepped structure and hexagonal abyss had vanished; all that remained was a steep, rubble-strewn slope descending sharply into an unseen depth below.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beneath this grand structure, most of the space was hollow—now reopened to the outside world after destruction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The thick mist originated here, rising from below and carried by unseen currents.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft picked up a fragment of stone at his feet and dropped it downward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It bounced and clattered in the darkness beyond sight, emitting sharp or crisp impacts, ending with a distant, muffled splash—throughout, not a single echo returned.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The scale could not be estimated at all; it was far larger than this hall, beyond the distance sound could travel and return.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beyond the sparse, small waterfalls, another sound could be heard—lighter, but far more rhythmic: the broad surface of water being steadily pushed and shattered against rocks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The water battered the irregular ruins forming its shore, surging into uneven gaps and competing with trapped air for space, producing a hollow, mournful wail like a primitive bone flute.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps it was only tension and imagination—but through the thick fog, faint, shifting patches of pale light flickered for seconds, accompanied by the splash of a large fish leaping, then vanished swiftly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The two halted here; beyond lay a completely unknown realm, no longer safe to enter recklessly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Previously, Kraft had always wondered how such a massive drainage volume around Dunling could avoid flowing into rivers and instead vanish underground—what kind of reservoir could hold it without overflowing?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now he knew.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Should we prepare something before coming back?” Wading asked, sensing the professor’s contemplation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Can you bring a boat down?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Why? What is it?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“A lake. An underground lake.” Standing at the entrance formed by the collapse, the waters, unseen for millennia, revealed a corner of themselves—long buried beneath the city, amniotic fluid nurturing something that grew ever stronger.\u003C\u002Fp>",1129,"2026-06-20T02:15:56.940Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","958189a017abd93b5e9c8933940ca3e3f93abef8329cf16776204dd165b4187c","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-302","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-300",406,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fnotes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-cover.jpg"]