75: Under the Black Water

Cold was the only sensation.

The ink-black pool water instantly swallowed Lin Feng and Wang Dalong. A piercing chill seeped through every inch of their skin into their marrow, nearly causing their hearts to stop. Wang Dalong choked on a mouthful of water immediately, his limbs flailing wildly in the darkness. His survival instinct made him want to scream, but that only resulted in more water pouring down his throat.

A hand gripped his wrist like an iron clamp.

It was Lin Feng.

In the darkness, Lin Feng kept his eyes open, yet he could see nothing but an endless, suffocating void. He did not panic. His other hand tightly gripped his self-made "air bag," but he didn't use it immediately. He could feel a powerful undercurrent surging from the bottom of the deep pool, pulling them downward like an invisible, giant hand.

Don't resist!

Only one thought occupied Lin Feng's mind. This undercurrent was the "Sacred Pool Waterway" marked on the mural! He gave Wang Dalong a hard tug, signaling him to relax his body and go with the flow.

How could Wang Dalong understand any of this? He only felt as if he were falling into a bottomless abyss. Fear nearly made him lose his mind, and he struggled with both hands and feet. Unable to communicate, Lin Feng could only use brute force to restrain him, allowing the current's power to drag them both into the deeper darkness.

The feeling of suffocation grew stronger as the air in their lungs was rapidly consumed; it felt as if a massive boulder were pressing against their chests. Wang Dalong's struggles became increasingly weak.

Now!

Lin Feng pressed the waterproof bag to Wang Dalong's mouth and squeezed hard. A burst of precious air rushed out and was instinctively inhaled by Wang Dalong. He coughed violently, and a sliver of clarity returned to his mind. He finally understood, clutching the life-saving bag tightly, not daring to waste another drop.

The current's speed grew faster and faster. It was as if they had been stuffed into a giant pipe; their bodies tumbled and collided within the narrow waterway. Lin Feng did his best to protect his head while pulling Wang Dalong in front of him, using his own back to absorb most of the impacts.

He didn't know how much time had passed—perhaps a minute, perhaps ten. In this claustrophobic underwater world, time lost all meaning. Just as Wang Dalong felt he was about to be shaken apart, a faint, blue-green halo suddenly appeared in the pitch-black waterway ahead.

The halo grew larger and brighter.

The next second, a massive force ejected them from the waterway's exit!

"Splash!"

They burst through the water's surface, greedily breathing in the cold, damp air. Violent coughing echoed throughout the cavernous underground space.

"Cough, cough, cough... We... we survived?" Wang Dalong spat out several mouthfuls of water and slumped onto the shallows, his voice as raspy as a broken gong. "I... I thought I was a goner..."

Lin Feng wasn't doing much better. He was soaked to the bone, and every breath stung the bruises on his back from the collisions. He didn't speak; instead, he immediately looked up to observe their surroundings.

When he saw it, even he was stunned.

They were in an unimaginably vast underground cavern. The ceiling was so high it was out of sight; all they could see were countless massive, glowing blue Crystal Clusters growing from the rock walls. Like stars in the night sky, they emitted a soft, mysterious light that illuminated the entire underground world as bright as day.

A wide Underground River rushed out from a massive cave behind them, flowing toward the distant darkness. They were currently on the bank of this river.

The riverbank was not a natural formation but was paved with rough boulders, forming a crude path that wound along the shore and disappeared at the edge of their vision.

"Oh my god..." Wang Dalong also saw the scene clearly. His mouth hung wide open, the fear in his eyes replaced by massive shock. "Where... where is this? The center of the Earth? Are those glowing things... Krypton Gold?"

His chatterbox nature immediately returned after their narrow escape, though his voice still carried an uncontrollable tremble.

Lin Feng ignored his commentary. He stood up, walked to the bank, and touched the paving stones. The joints between the stones were covered in moss, and the edges were roughly polished, showing clear signs of manual excavation.

He walked a few steps along the path and saw a severely weathered relief on a relatively flat section of the rock wall.

The relief depicted several hunched figures using crude stone tools to bit by bit excavate the rock wall. The art style was completely different from the grand and exquisite style of the Sun God Temple; it appeared primitive and clumsy.

"Brother Feng... look, is this drawing... digging a road?" Wang Dalong leaned in as well.

Lin Feng nodded, his expression growing increasingly solemn. He finally understood.

The Sun God Temple was the work of the "Ancestors," but this place was a project of their descendants. It was the maya descendants who had forgotten interstellar navigation technology and suffered a regression in civilization, yet still remembered the ancestral teachings. They had spent the blood and sweat of countless generations using the most primitive methods to carve out a road to El Dorado within this underground world.

But these glowing stones... Lin Feng's gaze fell upon the massive Crystal Clusters on the ceiling. They were certainly not products of nature. Their angles were too perfect, and the frequency of their light was too stable. They looked more like... some kind of Energy Crystals, power facilities left behind by the "Ancestors."

Just then, at the exit of the waterway they had come from, the water's surface began to churn violently.

"Not good!" Lin Feng's heart tightened. "They've followed us down!"

Wang Dalong shuddered, his heart leaping back into his throat just after he had relaxed.

"Let's go!" Lin Feng pulled him up. Without staying a moment longer, they sprinted along the stone path toward the depths of the cave, not knowing where it led.

The sound of splashing behind them grew louder, and they could faintly hear commands laced with fury transmitted through specialized communication devices.

The pursuers had arrived.