Inside The Black Mist-Chapter 146 - Death Trap

As they walked, Kun Lan occasionally stopped to gently stroke the rock walls with his hand. The tender gesture was almost unrecognizable compared to his usual demeanor.

In some places, this arrogant brat, who was actually about the same age as Tianyang, even stuck out his tongue to lightly lick the rocks.

After a while, Cang Du couldn’t help but say, “I didn’t expect you to like licking rocks.”

Kun Lan scoffed, “You don’t know anything, Long Mao. Do you even know how caves are formed?”

Cang Du huffed, “Unfortunately, I didn’t take geology.”

“Not understanding is one thing.” Kun Lan patted the rock wall. “Caves, or caverns, are usually formed by the long-term erosion of underground water in limestone areas. Different parts of the limestone layer contain varying amounts of lime, and the degree of erosion is different, resulting in diverse dissolution caves.”

“But have you noticed that since we entered the cave passage, the height and width of the passage have been almost consistent? What does that indicate?”

Tianyang stopped. “You mean to say this is an artificial cave?”

Kun Lan snapped his fingers. “Although I don’t like you, white hair, you’re correct. This is an artificial cave.”

Cang Du scoffed. “I thought you’d come up with a more brilliant conclusion, but this is it? So what if it’s an artificial cave? The residents of the Inverse Universe even like to run trains underground; don’t you think they’d dig a whole artificial cave under the city?”

Kun Lan placed his hands behind his head. “Only a fool would dig a cave underground; if something goes wrong, the whole city could collapse. Moreover, these rock walls are smooth and clean, clearly dug not long ago. As for who did it, I don’t need to say, right?”

Tianyang frowned. “So you’re saying the cave was dug by the dark creatures. But I’ve seen open halls below, as well as irregular cave corridors; those don’t look man-made.”

Kun Lan shrugged. “Stubborn idiot. I didn’t say the entire cave system is man-made. Can’t the dark creatures connect them? Don’t say I didn’t warn you; you’d better be careful. Since the dark creatures can dig here, they can also set traps.”

Tianyang was unconvinced. “When we came up from underground, we didn’t encounter any traps.”

Kun Lan slightly grinned, revealing a tiger tooth. “Don’t be naive, white hair. Just because you didn’t encounter any doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Two expeditions have already been made; do you think the dark creatures wouldn’t set up some arrangements?”

Cang Du crossed his arms. “Are you suggesting those things would also have contingency measures?”

Kun Lan looked at him and retorted, “Are the dark creatures stupid? Oh, you probably only deal with things of level one or two danger. Those low-tier creatures are indeed quite dumb; that’s not your fault.”

“What are you trying to say?!”

“What I’m saying is clear, but you really are hopeless, Long Mao.”

Tianyang rubbed his forehead; these two were at it again.

“Shh!” Ji Yu suddenly signaled from the front and then lay down on the ground, pressing her ear against the cold rock surface of the cave. “There’s a sound coming towards us…”

She suddenly looked toward a left passage!

Cang Du immediately raised his rifle, using the illumination attachment to cast a beam of light into the dark, deep side passage.

At this moment, even Tianyang began to hear strange noises. As the sound reached his ears, an image of an object rolling down the passage formed in his mind.

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After a moment, a dark, round shadow rolled down from the slightly slanted passage, and as the light shone on it, a blurry face appeared in the beam.

What was that?

This was the same question on everyone’s mind at that moment! Kun Lan suddenly dashed into the side passage, two curved blades already drawn, pointing forward. The blue-haired, black-eyed youth shouted arrogantly, “Let me handle this!”

The star essence erupted, and the two blades crossed.

A massive X-shaped blade of light struck the object rolling in from the side passage!

The thing scattered; it turned out to be a group of Wraiths and Mad Dogs! They were wrapped in some kind of force, forming a ball as they rolled in from somewhere in the side passage.

Though Kun Lan had cut through them, in reality, the blue-haired youth had only taken out a few Wraiths and Mad Dogs. More monsters surged past him like a black torrent, crashing into the main passage.

In an instant, Tianyang’s vision was filled with these twisted, evil figures, and his ears were filled with the frenzied, hoarse roars of the monsters.

The young man reacted quickly; almost as the monsters charged into the main passage, silver light flashed around him.

He grabbed the nearest, Ji Yu, and made a long-distance retreat, creating distance between them and the surging dark creatures.

Ji Yu, as a Hunter tier, had limited utility in such a narrow space.

If he didn’t bring her out, the dense enemy crowd could easily overwhelm her.

After letting go of her, Tianyang drew his Crimson Moon Warblade, its edge glowing a bright crimson. He lunged forward again, and with a flash of the blade, a Mad Dog was sliced in half.

Next, Tianyang didn’t want to waste effort; the Crimson Moon targeted the dark creatures’ will cages. Where the blade passed, those dark creatures either had their cages shattered or their heads split open.

In the midst of it all, Tianyang glanced ahead.

Cang Du and Kun Lan were also fighting fiercely against the enemies.

Compared to that, Kun Lan’s dual blades had a significant advantage in this environment. The blue-haired youth spun the blades back against his arms, rotating like a top.

Wherever this human top passed, dark creatures fell in droves.

Cang Du’s Springwater Longsword, on the other hand, was too long to execute more powerful slashing moves under these conditions. He could only use a single-handed technique, either stabbing or thrusting, to break the dark creatures' cages.

As a result, his efficiency was far inferior to Kun Lan’s.

After slaying another Mad Dog, Tianyang saw a few star essence arrows fly closely past him, pinning a Mad Dog and three Wraiths in place ahead.

The boy glanced back to see Ji Yu already drawing her longbow, using her archery skills to cover the three of them.

At that moment, screams and roars echoed from the passage behind them, indicating that they were not the only four being attacked.

Tianyang guessed correctly; such attacks were occurring in many passages. Those spherical masses made up of numerous Wraiths or Mad Dogs rolled through the complex cave network.

Once they collided with humans, the binding force of the dark creatures would vanish, instantly deploying a large number of troops onto the battlefield.

Faced with this tactic of swarming, the Ascenders fared better, while the ordinary soldiers in the squad suffered greatly.

They didn’t even have a chance to fire their weapons before being overwhelmed by the surging dark creatures, who then tore them apart in a frenzy!

“Die! Die, die, die!”

The cave was filled with Kun Lan’s frenzied shouts. The blue-haired youth was splattered with dark creature blood, but he didn’t care at all, his expression filled with excitement as he killed wildly.

By the time he stopped, there were no dark creatures left around Kun Lan, and the dark creatures who fell under his blades met gruesome ends.

Some Wraiths were cut in half but didn’t die immediately, still struggling to crawl out from the pile of bodies, stretching out their arms to grab Kun Lan’s feet.

Kun Lan spun his curved blades and leaped at those monsters, piercing through their cages.

When he pierced the last dark creature’s cage, which was barely hanging on to life, Kun Lan suddenly sensed something and looked intently ahead into the cave.

But deep within the cave was dark, and it seemed like there was nothing there. Kun Lan took out a handgun and fired a flare in that direction.

The depths of the cave instantly lit up, revealing a dark purple sphere floating toward him.

The sphere was surrounded by a layer of shimmering light, which looked somewhat viscous, almost like a rolling blob of slime. Points of orange light constantly flickered to life in the center of the sphere, gathering toward a single point before disappearing.

As the sphere approached, Kun Lan felt an invisible gravitational force pulling him toward it.

His pupils dilated slightly as he pressed down on the end of the curved blade, then swung it, sending the long blade streaking toward the purple sphere with a flash of star essence silver light.

The surface of the purple sphere instantly became covered in orange-yellow cracks, energy gushing from the fissures and transforming into a mass of dark purple fire clouds!

***Boom!***

A violent explosion erupted in the passage, and the shockwave blasted toward Kun Lan, nearly suffocating him.

He pressed down on the grip again; the long blade that had been shot out flew back, as it was connected to the grip by a special steel wire.

Under the action of the finely tuned mechanisms embedded in the grip, the long blade was retracted and reconnected, reforming the curved blade.

Kun Lan looked at the blade, noticing some melting marks on the composite material, with patches of purple stains still lingering on the surface.

At that moment, through the dissipating dust ahead, four or five more strange glowing spheres with their own gravitational pull floated in.

Kun Lan didn’t dare to act rashly and retreated to the main passage, helping Cang Du slash down a Mad Dog, shouting, “Be careful, the sorcerer is coming!”

The three members of the Raven Squad changed color upon hearing this, especially Tianyang; he had encountered such dark creatures several times.

But each time he encountered them, the sorcerer’s form was slightly different, and their abilities were vastly different as well.

The only thing that was the same was that these dark creatures possessed wide-area destructive capabilities. Colliding with them in a cave like this was simply the worst scenario!

“Quick, let’s go back to the captain!” Ji Yu decisively ordered, firing a few arrows that pinned several dark creatures around Tianyang and Cang Du before retreating.

Her judgment was spot on; facing a sorcerer in such an extremely unfavorable environment, only the two captains, Han Shu and Ning Yi, could handle it.

After all, the synergy between the fortress and battle god tiers wasn’t a simple one plus one.

However, just as Ji Yu retreated, the ground behind her suddenly exploded, a large expanse of purple fire clouds gushing up and instantly creating a massive hole in the passage.

But that was not all; due to the explosion, the ground began to collapse in succession. Beneath this passage lay an unfathomable deep chasm!

Ji Yu’s face turned pale as she sprinted forward, shouting, “Run! Quickly, there’s no way back, and this place is going to collapse!”

Tianyang glanced back and saw that the passage was indeed collapsing at a rapid speed. Beneath the cracked ground was a pitch-black abyss; he didn’t want to fall down there again, so he grabbed Ji Yu and ran.

Kun Lan took the lead, clearing the way ahead. Tianyang and Ji Yu ran in the middle, with Cang Du bringing up the rear.

The explosion sounded again from behind; it turned out to be the purple spheres that had drifted out from the side passage, crashing against the surrounding rock walls. The erupting purple fire clouds accelerated the collapse of the passage.

While running, Tianyang looked back and saw a massive cloud of thick smoke, swirling with countless debris, exuding a sense of destruction, surging toward them like a tidal wave!