Flood
At long last, they had found a cave. Smoke from the bonfire filled the air, making it a little choking, but that was still better than getting drenched in the torrential rain outside. Even in the tropics, being soaked by warm rain for too long could still drain the body of heat and bring on illness.
The mild weather, with its endless drizzle, had turned foul without warning. The sky was frighteningly dark. Though it was noon in Brasilia, it looked as black as nine at night, without a glimmer of light. Heavy clouds hung low overhead, and the jungle was so dark that they could not see their hands in front of their faces. Days of rain had saturated the ground until it was like a swamp. They could not tell how deep it was when they stepped in; sometimes the mud swallowed their calves, and it could even take them up to the knees. Who knew whether there was solid ground underneath? The terrain was all the more dangerous for it.
Even Li Bai's sword energy could only clear away the vegetation blocking their path on the surface. It was completely useless against the traps beneath the loose soil.
Seeing that the sky was growing more and more ominous, Shi Boxue quickly led the team four li back, ducking into a cave in a rocky rise they had spotted along the way to shelter from the approaching change in weather.
The torrential rain in a tropical rainforest was not the most frightening thing. The real danger was the flash flooding that came when rainwater accumulated in a short time with nowhere to drain. It would overflow the overburdened creeks and streams and run rampant through the dense forest, leaving people nowhere to hide.
Group Leader Shi had