The passage plunged into darkness. The moment the three stepped inside, the stone door behind them slammed shut with a thunderous boom.
Chen Wuya halted sharply, immediately raising his left hand and pressing his palm against Bai Zhi as she stepped back. Mo Feng swiftly crouched down, pulled a short tube from his pack, and lightly pressed it to the ground. A faint blue glow spread across the ice.
"There are relief carvings," Bai Zhi murmured.
Mo Feng looked up, raising his mechanism compass before his eyes. Its needle trembled faintly, pointing toward the depths of the passage. "Something's wrong with this place. The ground's load-bearing distribution is uneven."
Before he finished speaking, the ice beneath their feet cracked sharply.
Chen Wuya reacted first. Misaligned Force surged into his legs in an instant. He seized Bai Zhi's wrist and pulled her one step to the side. At the same time, Mo Feng flung out spider silk, anchoring it into the rock wall as he leveraged himself sideways.
But they were still half a beat too slow.
The entire floor collapsed, and all three plunged into the abyss.
A freezing wind struck them head-on, leaving only a piercing howl in their ears. In midair, Chen Wuya forcibly twisted his body, shielding Bai Zhi in the middle. Misaligned Force surged backward through his meridians, forcibly slowing their descent. Mo Feng's spider silk caught on a jutting icicle, the cord stretched taut as it swung him through the air in an arc. He finally crashed onto a slope and rolled several times before coming to a stop.
Bai Zhi staggered as she landed, her arm brushing through a patch of gray-green mist. She let out a muffled groan. Black spots immediately spread along the edge of her sleeve, while dense little blisters surfaced