183: Chapter 183 Boiling Waterfall and Ruins

A boiling waterfall lay ahead.

The hot mist swirled backward, forcing one to keep their eyes shut.

The ice spring gum formed a thin, cyan-green film on their skin.

A chill crept across their flesh, forcibly insulating them from the 2,000-degree heat outside.

But this cooling film was thinning rapidly.

Every time a heatwave hit, the film surface would emit a faint peeling sound.

Zhao Mengmeng scraped the last of the gum residue from her palms and smeared it tightly into the gaps of her damaged leg armor.

"How long can it last?"

Lin Ye used his horizontal saber to scrape the remaining gum from his palms and applied it to the sides of his boots.

"I don't know."

"But it's longer than standing here waiting for death."

The two stood before the crimson chasm.

A fifty-meter-wide waterfall crashed down heavily.

High-pressure white foam churned at the impact point.

Splashing droplets of red resin hit the black rock, sizzling and corroding the ground into a honeycomb of black pits.

The heavy giant door on the opposite bank was tightly shrouded by white mist.

There was no bridge.

There were no grapple points.

The Dark Weaver was completely totaled, and the Wind-Chasing Claw was half-jammed.

Lin Ye lowered his center of gravity, one knee touching the ground.

His Left Eye opened and closed rapidly.

The red light inside the thermal waterfall was dim; there was no passable green line.

He shifted his gaze downward.

The moment the water crashed into the chasm, the horizontal hot wind at the bottom would push it aside for half a breath.

Half a breath later, the next wave of boiling spring water would crash down heavily.

The waterfall was forcibly diverted by cracks in the rock wall above, splitting into seven streams.

Between the streams, there were extremely brief windows for footing.

Lin Ye closed his eyes, a sharp stabbing pain shooting from his left temple.

"Seven streams, with gaps in between."

Zhao Mengmeng stared at the continuous, scalding curtain of water.

"This is a path too?"

"If you blink too slowly, you'll be cooked through."

Lin Ye pulled out the last of the Wind Bat wing membranes.

With a slash of his horizontal saber, he cut two narrow strips and tied them tightly to the outer sides of their forearms.

He refastened the Wind Bat ear bones onto their wrist pulse points.

The hot wind in front of the waterfall was extremely irregular.

Only the ear bones of this exotic beast could capture the slight changes in the water flow gaps before their flesh was cooked.

Then, he handed over two pieces of cut red-scaled snake belly scales.

"Tie them to the front of your soles."

The snake scales were heat-resistant and could withstand the first wave of boiling spring water upon landing.

Zhao Mengmeng quickly stepped firmly onto the snake scales and tightened the straps.

Lin Ye checked his backpack.

The dragon bone nail, dormant valley seed, frost-patterned stone box fragments, and crystal cores were all tightly wrapped in a layer of ice spring gum.

There wasn't enough gum.

Lin Ye had only applied a very thin layer to his own chest armor.

Zhao Mengmeng saw this, scraped a piece of gum from her own wrist, and pressed it firmly onto the damaged armor on Lin Ye's shoulder.

"Don't talk nonsense."

"I don't want to have to collect your corpse after we get out."

Lin Ye didn't dodge.

In front of the thermal waterfall, the red water curtain expanded rapidly.

The crack above spewed out a greater volume of water, hitting the surface and sending up a circle of pale steam.

The Great Xia Live Stream chat was suppressed to the extreme.

[If you touch this waterfall, your skin and bones will be gone!]

[Equipment is all wrecked, and they still have to cross a fifty-meter thermal waterfall?]

[The things in Brother Eye's bag are the lifeblood of our Great Xia, they must be protected at all costs!]

Lin Ye didn't wait any longer.

He raised his right hand and pressed down three fingers in succession.

The hot wind surged up from the bottom of the chasm.

The first stream of waterfall water was forcibly pushed aside, creating a half-foot gap.

"Go!"

Lin Ye turned sideways and charged into the water curtain.

Zhao Mengmeng followed closely behind, her leg guards almost brushing against the bottom edge of his backpack.

Scalding water vapor enveloped them.

The ice spring gum let out a dense crackling sound.

The first stream crashed down on Lin Ye's left.

Crimson water splashed onto the wing membrane on his forearm, causing it to instantly char and curl.

Lin Ye didn't stop, his toes firmly pinning onto the first green-lit black rock.

The snake scales on his soles were scorched, emitting a pungent burnt smell.

Zhao Mengmeng was half a beat slow in landing.

The outside of her right leg was grazed by the splashing hot spring, the gum film dissolved instantly, and white smoke rose from her beast-hide leg guards.

She bit down until she tasted blood in her molars, not making a sound.

The second stream of water, affected by subterranean pressure, shifted early.

The ear bone piece on her wrist vibrated at a high frequency.

Lin Ye forcibly cut off his right-stepping motion, twisted his waist and abdomen in mid-air, and stomped hard onto an empty brick on the left.

Zhao Mengmeng followed extremely dangerously.

Her shoulder armor grazed the edge of the water curtain, the bronze shell instantly scorched and collapsed into a dent.

Before the third foothold, the rock wall above collapsed without warning.

A large clump of resin wrapped in boiling water smashed directly between the two.

Lin Ye drew his horizontal saber.

With the back of the blade fully charged with force, he slashed viciously at the side of the resin clump.

"Bang!"

The resin clump was knocked aside and fell into the chasm.

The recoil force made Lin Ye's boot sole slide outward by half an inch.

Half an inch away was the deadly landing spot of the fourth waterfall stream.

Zhao Mengmeng backhanded and gripped the side ring of his backpack, forcibly holding back this fatal slide.

"Hold on."

Lin Ye stepped firmly back onto the second black stone.

The fourth stream was the widest, with the shortest gap.

Lin Ye didn't charge blindly.

He pulled out a piece of red-scaled venomous snake back armor and flicked his wrist to throw it out.

As soon as the snake armor cut into the stream, it was viciously slapped to the side by the high-pressure water flow.

The water flow was obstructed, creating a momentary gap.

"Dive!"

Both of them lowered their bodies at high speed, sliding past the bottom of the water curtain against the scalding black rock.

The hot spring roared down, grazing their scalps.

Zhao Mengmeng's hair tips were scorched and curled by the high heat, and the gum film on the side of her face cracked a thin line.

The sixth stream of water was about to crash down.

Lin Ye's Left Eye had reached its limit.

The edges of his vision had gone completely black.

He couldn't use it anymore.

He decisively closed his eyes, focusing all his perception on the ear bone piece on his wrist.

The slight vibration of the bone piece, the angle of the hot wind, the temperature difference of the water mist landing on his skin.

All the death data rapidly reorganized in his brain.

Lin Ye raised his blade, pointing directly into the void to his front left.

"Three steps, jump."

Without any hesitation, the two stepped out in sync.

The second step landed.

The black stone beneath their feet cracked without warning, and a high-pressure hot spring shot straight up from the crack.

Lin Ye pointed his blade downward and stabbed violently into the crack.

The blade body wedged across the vent for half a breath.

Zhao Mengmeng stepped on the back of the blade to gain leverage and soared into the air.

The force of the boiling spring caused the bones in Lin Ye's wrist to crack loudly, but using this violent counter-force, he pulled out his horizontal saber and leaped over the cracked stone.

The sixth stream of water crashed shut heavily behind them.

Only the last three zhang remained.

The opposite bank was the door platform.

But the seventh main waterfall stream didn't fall vertically; instead, it was blown by the crosswind into an oppressive water curtain, completely sealing the entrance to the giant door.

Lin Ye forced his Left Eye open a slit.

At the bottom of the diagonally cutting red light water curtain, there was a blind spot close to the ground that was occasionally lifted by the hot wind.

"Get down!"

"Slide along the ground!"

The moment the wind rose.

Using the snake-scaled soles and the last remaining gum film, the two threw themselves flat on the ground and slid at full speed toward the black stone door platform.

The seventh boiling water curtain scraped diagonally overhead.

The crossbow on Zhao Mengmeng's back had nowhere to hide.

The wooden crossbow stock, unprotected by gum, was instantly crushed by the boiling water, and the bronze mechanism twisted and deformed.

She didn't look back.

The outer layer of Lin Ye's shoulder armor was grazed by the hot water, and the gum film completely evaporated.

The high heat seared through the inner lining and into his flesh.

He let out a muffled grunt and gripped the bronze protrusion on the side of the giant door with one hand.

Zhao Mengmeng slid over and crashed into his back.

The two rolled into the dead corner of the doorway.

"Boom!"

The scalding waterfall behind them crashed back into place, completely cutting off the path back.

The heatwave was solidly blocked outside by the heavy door frame.

Zhao Mengmeng slumped against the stone wall.

She unstrapped the broken crossbow, which was now in two pieces, and threw it aside.

Lin Ye didn't attend to the flesh burns on his shoulder.

He yanked his backpack over.

The outer shock-proof layer had carbonized.

Peeling away the charred shell, the dark gold dragon bone nail and dormant valley seed inside were intact.

He locked the backpack again and looked up at what was behind the door.

The light screen didn't pop up with the red text for the tenth floor.

What met his eyes was not a purgatory-like sea of fire, nor was it ancient wilderness.

A straight, silver-gray corridor extended into the depths.

The walls on both sides were embedded with precision alloy pipes, and pale blue cold light flowed silently within the pipe walls.

Dozens of huge, transparent cultivation pods were arranged in sequence.

Inside, they were filled with murky preservative fluid.

Metal skeletons and unknown aberrant limbs floated within them.

A light screen quietly appeared before his right eye.

[Ultra-Era Ruin Corridor]