What appeared before, behind, left, right, above, and below Meng Chao was an endless black city.
Massive clusters of ruined buildings, like grave mounds hundreds of meters tall, stretched not only across the east-west and north-south planes but also floated through the boundless space thousands of meters above and below, forming a Three-Dimensional Maze that seemed to have no gravity.
Scattered among them were geometric structures that had endured the erosion of hundreds of millions of years yet still stood tall, like crumbling tombstones.
This black "City Graveyard" stretched in every direction until, at the very edge of his vision, it was swallowed by black mist that seemed alive, constantly rolling and writhing.
Meng Chao lowered his head and looked at his hands.
He could still feel, through the nerve endings in his fingertips, the pressure the rock walls had fed back to them when he had braced the sides of the fissure's exit and struggled with all his strength to force his way out.
But now, the fissure, the rock walls, the boulders, even the crust separating him from Dragon City, had all vanished.
It was as though he had been "teleported" straight from beneath Dragon City into a completely sealed Another Dimension.
A rope had originally been tied around his waist, its other end fastened around Lü Siya's.
But now, the rope hung suspended in midair. Its end farthest from Meng Chao seemed to pierce an invisible pond like a fishing line.
Meng Chao lifted the rope and stepped forward to examine it. He found that the cross-section was remarkably neat, every strand of synthetic fiber within it trembling faintly.
It was as though it had not broken at all, but remained connected to Meng Chao and Lü Siya, rising and falling, swaying gently with their heartbeats and