Chapter 2718: Hallucination

This wasn’t a normal conversation between people, nor should it appear in such an environment as the underground ruins. Xu Huo turned back to look at Pu Yu and the others who were still digging. On their equipment, the final results of the live detection consistently showed only the five of them.

"Your equipment must be malfunctioning," Zhuo Mingfeng shouted from afar. "It’s been ringing continuously. This sector is different from others, especially underground, where many devices don’t work."

Uncle Qiao, who was holding the instrument, remained silent. After adjusting the device for a while, it seemed to return to normal, and new data began popping up on the screen.

"All set."

Xu Huo turned his gaze away and shifted towards Granny Qiao, who suddenly walked to the edge of the cliff. "What are you looking at?"

Granny Qiao paused slightly, "There’s movement below the cliff."

Yan Jiayu immediately leaned forward, "Is it a snake?"

As soon as the words fell, a rustling sound rose from below the cliff. Xu Huo frowned and immediately reminded, "Back up!"

No sooner had he spoken than a giant tail suddenly swung out from below the cliff, sweeping Yan Jiayu and another aside!

With Granny Qiao and Yan Jiayu’s skills, dealing with such mutant animals shouldn’t be an issue, but unexpectedly after being swept away, Yan Jiayu suddenly lost control and started falling downward!

Granny Qiao reached out but failed to pull her back. In a split second, Xu Huo locked the space near the cliff to catch her. However, at that same moment, the Giant Python lifted its head from below the cliff, bizarrely biting through the spatial barrier and swallowing Yan Jiayu whole!

A countless number of spatial bodies began forming both above and below the cliff. Worrying about injuring Yan Jiayu, he didn’t use the space cutting line but intended to control the Giant Python. His movements were swift, yet the Giant Python seemed unhindered and sank into the depths of the cliff...

Watching the massive shadow slither past, Xu Huo was just about to chase after it, but upon reaching the cliff edge, he abruptly paused. Before he could make further moves, a massive force suddenly assaulted from behind, pushing him out forcefully. Granny Qiao, who had returned to the top of the cliff, expressionless, used a prop to seal off the entire underground cliff’s space, then layered on a gravity device, forcing him to plunge downward!

Xu Huo kept sinking in the darkness, as if the underground cliff had no end. Despite his multiple probes, he could not reach the bottom, and the newly appeared giant snake was nowhere to be found. Neither did the cliff sides have any cave gaps for hiding.

He seemed to have fallen into an endless abyss.

Without using spatial power to catch himself, Xu Huo rotated the spatial ray, unlocked the superdimensional space power on his fingers, and casually stretched out his hand. Within just two seconds, where he couldn’t feel any solid ground, the superdimensional space power pierced through a large hole, and he plummeted to the ground—this ground was merely a few meters from his previous height.

Realizing what happened, he wasn’t in a rush to find a way out but stretched his arms, feeling around. He then activated the communicator, and as the light illuminated, he found himself in some rocky passage, above the familiar arched stone top he had seen a thousand times, on the right was the giant cavern melted through by the superdimensional space power, linking multiple channels together because of its existence.

Sensations spread along these channels outwardly, and Xu Huo stood for a while before following one of the channels forward.

The plants on the rock walls grew increasingly bright, like they were fused with more colorful powder. A peculiar smell wafted through the cracked helmet into his nostrils, the overly intense scent making him uncontrollably nauseous. Eventually, he couldn’t help but rip off the helmet and vomited extensively.

The communicator pressed on the ground beside him emitted weak light that blurred his vision slightly, but he quickly adapted. Upon looking again, massive black blood clots with gathered fungi appeared before him.

After purging the toxic blood, his mind cleared significantly. Upon raising the light again, he found the glowing plants on the stone wall surprisingly transformed into diagonally crossed colorful minerals, and he had unwittingly kept seated and leaning against Stone, with many wounds appearing on his body at some undefined point.

The mycelium from King Fungus protruded from these wounds and the gaps in the Metal Protective Suit, expanding significantly and covering a range of several meters behind him.

Breath filled entirely with a foul stench, Xu Huo endured the scent, not tearing off the mycelium but instead letting it continue absorbing strength from the surrounding minerals.

This sector could grow such a proliferation of mutant plants and maintain such high spiritual energy, seemingly inseparable from the underground minerals; King Fungus could only grow at such a speed when attached to the Nüwa Stone.

Thanks to the King Fungus’ rampant growth, the toxins in his body should be mostly purged, his mind returned to normal. Although he hadn’t spotted Yan Jiayu and Pu Yu’s traces, presumably they weren’t far from him. In fact, they hadn’t discovered any underground ruins; they had been circling in the underground passages all along.

They must have unknowingly fallen into a trap when descending the Sky Pit, so they ignored the instrument’s malfunction. Detecting such high spiritual energy even on the surface, the conditions underground can’t be better; the air state in the passages defies logic.

Yet, what Xu Huo found unbelievable was that he didn’t notice he was affected at all... no, he did notice it, but under the dual influence of toxins and mental interference, he deliberately ignored the surroundings.

The boundless passages and those underground ruins, along with the people in those ruins, were all fantasies of the five of them. Each time he found something strange, his brain subconsciously compensated afterward, like after encountering the Outer Zone players and then noticing the albino local residents, realizing how poor their vision was only after seeing the photos...

With the air loaded with toxins, they’ve been inside for at least two days, sustaining bizarre injuries, and accumulating hallucinatory experiences from interference, he needs to locate Yan Jiayu quickly.

After confirming his condition improved, Xu Huo tore off the mycelium from his body and stood up, releasing his Spiritual World to fend off external spiritual energy. Feeling his Spiritual World compressed instantly to a hundred-meter range, he furrowed his brows and followed the marks left earlier, retracing his steps.

However, not long after walking, he sensed something was amiss because his Spiritual World was too quiet, the other three personalities hadn’t appeared; he searched the entire library building but couldn’t locate their traces...

Xu Huo halted, the assorted colored minerals in the passage continued emitting faint light, the varying intensities of light sources pulling shadows shallowly and deeply behind him.