Meng Chao did not dare imagine what would have happened if he had not awakened in time.
Would he have ended up like those pitiful predecessors at the Ancient Ruins Research Institute, disregarding the limits of his own flesh and blood as he desperately burrowed deep into twisted, deformed cracks in the rock, only to become a monster formed from shattered flesh and bones crazily fusing back together, vanishing forever into the depths of darkness?
Wait—he had awakened. What about the others?
Meng Chao's heart clenched. He hurriedly scanned his surroundings, only to suck in another sharp breath.
He realized that everyone in the search-and-rescue team, himself included, had already left their original positions.
Just moments ago, they had been roughly seventy or eighty meters below the underground fissure.
Yet during the few seconds or minutes he had spent trapped in the illusion, they had descended to over a hundred meters below ground.
The surrounding rock walls had become increasingly warped and fragmented.
The darkness overhead had grown denser and denser, as though it had condensed into a solid even a Train Cannon could not blast apart, determined to seal them here.
More cracks had appeared along the rock walls on both sides of the abyss, and above and below nearly every crack clung a member of the search-and-rescue team.
Like Meng Chao moments ago, everyone had deep, vacant eyes and dazed expressions. Their limbs, even parts of their torsos, had already been forced at all costs into cracks that were clearly far too narrow and twisted.
Many of their Nano Combat Suits had been torn apart by sharp rock edges, exposing ghastly wounds split across their flesh.
Blood trickled down in winding streams, silently spilling into the abyss.
Yet they seemed unable to feel the slightest pain. Their faces