Chapter 00079: The Underground
# The Underground
Chapter 79
Novel: Above Destiny
Chapter 79: The Underground
"If there is still a chance... please show us more mercy."
In a moment of distraction, the words from the furnace resurfaced in memory once again.
"It seems I have been well taken care of."
Ji Jue sighed lightly, "Someone told me to show mercy to more people, but I do not know what my mercy means, nor what my sympathy is worth. Prophet, I’m just a small fry; compared to the sages, I am hardly worth mentioning. We aren’t even of the same kind, so why should you place your hopes on me?"
"I originally planned to merely give it a try, but after meeting you, I became even more certain."
The Prophet chuckled, her voice raspy, "You truly are the kind to lend mercy to beings like us."
"Thank you, Mr. Ji Jue."
She said, "You seem to really regard us, these uncontrollable tools, as human."
"Is that wrong?" Ji Jue countered.
"Perhaps not."
The one called the Prophet laughed, "I am not sure if this will lead to some misunderstanding or misinterpretation, but rest assured—"
She solemnly promised, "Before my life ends, I will do everything I can to help you seek the Matrix of non-attack, until we are truly freed from our cycles of reincarnation."
No need for contracts from the Heavenly Source, no need for guarantees from the Heart Wheel.
This was all the compensation a tool could offer.
In the center of the Rift, where the old clock tower once stood, high towers were toppled, bricks and stones piled together to form mountains.
A huge pit appeared in the square.
For days, the sound of rumbling had never ceased.
The fierce and rugged homecoming knights climbed out of the pit, laden with large baskets, looking as disheveled as workers covered in dust.
"Mr. Lou, we've already dug over fifty meters down, and still nothing! The brothers can hardly hold on any longer."
Silan, who had temporarily taken on the role of foreman, poked his head in from outside the tent and asked tentatively, "Is there a possibility... that your instrument made a mistake?"
"Impossible!"
Lou Feng shot back, glaring.
After days of hard labor, even the young master who used to avoid manual work was covered in grime, though he still kept his hair impeccably neat.
"Absolutely impossible!"
He stood in front of an observation instrument larger than himself, pointing at the complex data displayed on the screen.
"Do you see? Statistically, one-fifth of the spirit material flows through this place; there must be a crucial node here. If it’s not above, then it must be below. I won’t be stingy with your rewards, Mr. Silan; we must increase our efficiency."
"Uh..."
Silan hesitated.
He didn’t mind the employer offering more money—after all, everyone knew which was more dangerous between fighting and dusting.
He was more than willing to do some rough work; work was work.
However, as an experienced explorer of the Rift, he felt compelled to offer a suggestion to his employer: "Well, you don’t think that node might have been taken by that seasonal Ji kid, do you?"
In an instant, Lou Feng's expression darkened.
He instinctively wanted to curse, but his throat suddenly burned; cursing too much had almost left him hoarse.
In truth, he had suspected that Ji Jue had done something sneaky.
However, he had already checked the clock tower, which was merely an abandoned old workshop with nothing valuable in it.
What could he have taken? Could he really have walked out of his sight with the furnace?
Moreover, the flow of spirit material was not something one could fake; this place was definitely the critical clue.
That Ji Jue, thinking he had gained a slight advantage, was merely buying a box instead of the pearl that was held within.
The real key was firmly in his grasp.
"Continue!" he squeezed through gritted teeth, "I want to see just how deep it can go—"
Before his sentence was finished, a tremendous sound suddenly erupted from the pit.
The ground trembled.
Deep cracks appeared in the square as if an earthquake had struck.
"We’re in! We broke through!!!"
Cheers rang out from the pit, and Lou Feng quickly rushed to the scene.
Below the ground, a long distance of over seventy meters led to a seemingly bottomless abyss of darkness, an unexpectedly large void.
Throwing down a glow stick allowed him to vaguely discern enormous outlines hidden in the darkness, resembling the interior of some precision instrument.
Just a brief observation revealed that the underground space was as vast as that above ground.
Without being misled by dazzling appearances, Lou Feng forcefully broke through the workshop's isolation, opening a passageway to the operating layer.
Sustaining the entire Rift’s functions and mechanisms, the workshop modules left behind by the once-sage Mercury were all contained within!
"Ha ha, I knew it!"
Sliding down the rope, Lou Feng looked around at the massive facilities bathed in dark and light, unable to hold back his laughter: "Sure enough, we need to go even deeper! Prepare to move forward, Mr. Silan. This time, we are leading the way!"
All the hopelessness of the past days vanished, and Lou Feng radiated excitement, almost unable to restrain himself: this time, he would not believe that Ji Jue could run ahead of him!
Boom!
A huge sound came again from the distance.
Vaguely and ambiguously, it seemed another building had collapsed to ashes.
The collapse and breakdown spread silently from the surface as if an old machine on the brink of being scrapped slowly approached its demise.
In the same underground space, within the shadowy, deep sewers, a barely noticeable refuge lay in ruin.
At this moment, it was chaos.
As roars, growls, and shouts faded into the dead silence, only intermittent sobs remained.
"Stop, outsider, please!" An ugly figure crawled on the ground like a worm, desperately bowing, "There’s nothing left here; we have nothing now."
No one replied.
Only lifeless shells, resembling zombies, continued to scour the makeshift camp desperately, decapitating head after head from corpses, delivering them to the dominator.
In mid-air, a flickering crimson figure held half a shattered skull.
Invisible hands pinched its nose, rummaging through the remnants of the memories within the corpses, slowly coming to a realization.
"So that’s it, deeper underground? I understand now..."
He casually discarded the head in his hand, lowered his gaze, and glanced at the few puppets before him, who lacked even the ability to resist, suddenly smiling:
"Truly worthy of the sages, even a bunch of tools can be molded into semblances of living beings. While they may be unfit as food, they are just right as materials—"
As he spoke, he randomly pointed a finger.
Screams erupted from the ground.
The bowing figure twitched violently, its body spasming, swelling and deforming—under the invisible manipulation and deliberate exaggeration, its consciousness rapidly split and went mad, completely descending into chaos, until ultimately, even its form shattered into pieces.
Only countless fragments and slimes splashed about.
And amidst the corpses, a crimson figure slowly rose, drifting around, its hollow eyes opening, thirsting for someone to devour.
With continuous bursts, shadowy semi-transparent figures emerged from the corpses.
They transformed into the shepherd’s flock.
"Let’s go."
With a grin, he beckoned, pulling on an unseen leash, leading the immense herd into deeper darkness.
"Where exactly is this going?"
On the other end of the Rift, a figure that had been wandering in the ruins for three or four days sighed in despair.
A gray-haired woman lugging a huge backpack, like a weary tourist, looked at the complicated paths before her, unsure where to begin.
"Shouldn't there be a road ahead?"
She stared at the map in her hands, comparing it back and forth with the fork in the road before her, but no matter how she looked at it, it didn’t seem to match at all; it was clearly not the same place.
After careful thought and serious consideration for half an hour, she had to admit she was lost.
Moreover, it seemed that she had been completely in the wrong place since entering the Rift!
"What a useless map!"
She slammed the map onto the ground in anger, shouting, "It doesn’t mark a single southeast or northwest; it just tells me to run around and have a look—what a waste of time! You scoundrel, surely you're not trying to trick me into making an offering?!"
From the dust, the tattered map seemed to come alive, suddenly flying up, stretching into a long strip, and unceremoniously slapping her on the forehead.
With a loud crack.
Just as she was about to angrily tear the thing apart, the map unfolded once again and, in front of her eyes, flipped upside down, drew a circle, and marked an arrow pointing straight ahead.
"Don't talk bad about me if you can't read the map!"
Then she understood… the map seemed to be structured vertically rather than flat?
The gray-haired woman froze for a moment, her expression twitching, and then snatched the map back, "You wasted so much of my time; you should have said so earlier!"
"Sorry, I didn’t expect you to be this bad at it."
"Shut up!" she erupted with anger, "What era are we in, and yet you’re using hand-drawn maps?! Not a single navigation or voice function; tell me you can't even use a smartphone!"
The map fell silent, as if it had struck a nerve.
"Hmph, I’m leaving."
The old, triumphant woman triumphantly placed her hands on her hips and walked off.
"You went the wrong way, east."
"Shut up; I’m scouting! Do you understand scouting?!"
Her expression stiffened slightly, she looked around, hesitating for a long time: "Let me ask you a question, where is east?"
"……"
Thus, the map fell silent.
Only a bleak autumn wind blew through, rattling the overburdened map, which made one last suggestion: "Since we’re here to offer sacrifices to Mercury… how about you just burn me instead?"
At that moment, on the other side of the town, a massive earthquake shook the ground, collapsing ruins that jolted a team of rested Chosen Ones awake from their dreams.
Cracks spread from the quakes across the ground.
The deep and changing light emerged from within.
"Old Four, Old Four!"
The first to notice turned back, calling out to his companions, "Do you see what this is?"
"I see."
The embers of the Chosen Ones, during a simple probe, reflected the shifting glow, and could no longer contain their joy.
It was underground!
(End of Chapter)