20demayo Chapter 741 Underground River
Chapter 741 Underground River
Chen Yile tore off his sleeves, lit it up, and waved the flames around.
Along with the smell of burning, he felt a groove under his feet, and there was a rusty door latch hidden under the peeling wall.
The moment he pressed his lower back against the wooden door, the rotten door hinges made a teeth-grinding squeak.
Inside the door was a spiral corridor. The stone steps were covered with a dense layer of spider eggs, which shimmered like pearls in the firelight.
Chen Yile stumbled down and suddenly kicked a half-broken wooden ladder.
He swallowed the scream that was about to burst out of his throat, and suddenly found that he was holding an irregular object in his palm, which was the copper piece that had just been chopped off by the knife.
The sound of running water gushed out from the darkness. As I turned the last corner, I saw the words "Don't let them find the light" etched crookedly in blood on the wall.
Chen Yile subconsciously clenched it, but felt the ancient star-shaped marks on it.
At the same time, the sound of arthropods knocking came one after another from overhead.
The moment he jumped into the underground river, the lighter finally went out completely.
Dense blue fluorescent spots appeared on the dark water surface, like stars in the sky reflected on the riverbed.
Just as he was holding his breath and sinking down, he suddenly felt the unique cool touch of spider silk on the back of his neck.
Chen Yile's fingertips touched some slippery moss, and the undercurrent wrapped him up and drifted in the darkness for an unknown amount of time until his knees hit a protruding rock.
As he groped his way ashore, he found that the copper sheet was glowing faintly green in the darkness.
There was a ball of cotton wool on the top of the copper piece. When he looked closely, the cotton wool suddenly trembled and turned out to be the empty shells shed by thousands of spiders.
"Tick."
A familiar sound of dripping water came from above his head. Chen Yile raised the copper sheet, and the green light shone on the giant cocoon hanging upside down on the ceiling of the cave.
The outline of a human figure could be vaguely seen under the translucent cocoon membrane. The most terrifying thing was that the thing's chest was still rising and falling slightly.
The moment the rustling sound approached from behind, Chen Yile rushed to the nearest fork in the road.
A damp, cold wind blew towards him, and he stumbled into a circular stone chamber. The copper sheet suddenly became scorching hot, and a green light illuminated the densely packed grooves on the wall.
On the stone platform in the center of the stone chamber stood a dusty bronze lamp. Chen Yile trembled as he lit the lighter, and the flame rising from the wick glowed an eerie blue.
The inscriptions began to ooze blood in the blue light, gathering into a thin stream that meandered towards the stone platform.
When Chen Yile turned around to escape, the copper piece suddenly stuck to the lamp holder.
The moment the wick burst into sparks, he saw himself being stretched out and cast on the wall by his shadow. On the back of the shadow's neck, there was a palm-sized spider lying.
Chen Yile's back hit the wet rock wall hard. He stared at the wall and saw the spider-shaped shadow slowly crawling along the blood line.
The flame of the bronze lamp suddenly exploded, illuminating the entire stone chamber in an eerie bluish-white color.
"Click."
The copper sheet adsorbed on the lamp holder automatically flips over, revealing the dense star-shaped carvings on the back.
Chen Yile suddenly noticed that the bloody "July 15th" was gradually turning into "July 14th" as the spider's shadow moved.
The stone platform began to shake, and as the accumulated dust fell, he saw a thin crack on the platform surface.
A fishy-smelling liquid suddenly dripped onto the back of his neck. The moment Chen Yile looked up, the light went out and the sound of tearing cloth was heard in the darkness.
Something cold brushed against his earlobe. He rushed to the location of the copper piece based on his memory, and his fingertips touched the sunken star pattern at the bottom of the lamp base.
When he pressed the copper sheet into the groove, the engraved wall suddenly split to the sides, and a cold wind wrapped in fine sand blew in his face. Chen Yile rolled and crawled into the newly appeared corridor.
He heard the sound of limbs knocking against each other behind him. He touched the protruding stone edges on the wall. Those edges were arranged in the same star pattern as the back of the copper plate.
As he turned the corner, Chen Yile stumbled into the puddles. The moment his lighter lit up, he saw dense red dots reflected on the water's surface.
There were countless cocoons hanging from the ceiling of the cave, each containing a distorted human figure.
The cocoon closest to him suddenly split open, revealing half of a human face covered with spider web patterns.
The face on the water suddenly opened its eyes, and Chen Yile's flashlight fell into the water with a snap. Countless tiny insect eggs floated in the blue fluorescence.
He used his hands and feet to move backwards, but his lower back hit something cold and hard.
It is a stone altar that is half submerged in water.
There was a dark red liquid in the tilted incense burner on the table. Chen Yile touched the bottom of the burner and found that it was engraved with the same star rays as the copper piece.
The crawling sound of arthropods behind him was getting closer and closer. He gritted his teeth and pressed the copper piece into the groove of the incense burner.
The whole cave was suddenly filled with the sound of bells and chimes.
Ice crystals instantly formed on the water surface, and the hanging cocoons burst open one after another.
Chen Yile huddled under the altar with his head in his hands, and the cold, wet spider silk mixed with mucus splattered all over the stone wall.
When he opened his eyes again, he found that the firefly eggs under the water had condensed into a glowing path.
There was a faint light flickering at the end of the passage.
Chen Yile ran wildly through the knee-deep icy water, stirring up tiny pieces of ice with every step.
After turning three corners, he crashed into a hemispherical cave.
The ceiling of the cave is inlaid with seven whitish animal bones, arranged in a star pattern on a copper plate, facing the stone platform below.
A dried corpse hung above the table. Its hands were folded, holding the same copper piece as Chen Yile's.
When his gaze moved to the face of the corpse, the blood in his body suddenly froze.
The face of the corpse was 70% similar to his own.
Suddenly, there was a crisp sound of spider silk breaking outside the cave. When Chen Yile rushed onto the stone platform to reach the copper piece, the corpse's clothes suddenly turned to ashes, revealing the dark spider-web-like cracks on the sternum.
As soon as his hand touched the second copper piece, the entire corpse collapsed.
The moment the two copper pieces collided, Chen Yile felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck, and something cold slid down his spine into his collar.
When he slapped with his backhand, he touched a tangled ball of spider silk. The seven animal bones began to vibrate synchronously, and the falling bone powder condensed into a vague human shape in the air.
"The fifteenth of July..."
A faint sigh echoed in the cave. Chen Yile retreated to the edge of the crevice holding two hot copper pieces and found a sheepskin booklet stuck in the crevice.
Turning the brittle page, the last line of scribbled writing made his pupils bulge: "When the two stars converge, those who feed them will be sacrificed."
The ground suddenly shook violently. When Chen Yile rushed to the only exit, the copper piece in his arms suddenly burst out with strong light.
Finally, he caught a glimpse of the human figure raising its hand and pointing it at him, and the sounds of pursuit had turned into a continuous "ticking" sound.
The ice crystals on the water's surface were melting visibly. Chen Yile ran furiously through the glowing egg tunnel, stirring up strange blue ripples with every step.
The sound of dripping water behind him became more and more rapid. He didn't dare to look back, for fear of seeing things crawling out of the cocoons.
The crevice was only wide enough for passing sideways. When Chen Yile's shoulder brushed against the rock wall, he suddenly felt dense carvings.
Looking closely at the copper plate in the green light, there were hundreds of "escape" characters, and the freshest one was stained with dark red blood.