Wondrous Realm

Before Wu Tie fell into the water, he had already passed out.

Fear, fright, and two successive shocks—his frail body simply could not endure them.

A wave over a meter high swept him into the water. Chi You's Fang hanging from his chest was still vibrating urgently, letting out a buzzing hum.

The currents all around were swift, the churning water like giant pythons. After only a few twists and rolls, they dragged Wu Tie toward the bottom.

Wu Tie instinctively drew a breath. Before water could invade his seven orifices, the dark currents around him suddenly retreated, revealing a cramped space just large enough to enclose him.

Amid hissing sounds, threads of air were forcibly extracted from the water and swiftly filled that tiny space.

Wu Tie took a breath. His body convulsed violently, his eyeballs rolled rapidly beneath his eyelids, and his mouth opened and closed as he let out several muddled murmurs. His hands flailed wildly as well.

The current dragged Wu Tie down toward the riverbed.

Beneath this vast body of water, hundreds of water vents of all sizes were madly spewing out or swallowing water from the deep rock walls. Countless currents crashed violently into one another here, forming the great waves and whirlpools on the surface, as well as terrifying undercurrents below.

Wrapped in that tiny airless space, Wu Tie tumbled wildly through the water.

He kept sinking until, at last, the strongest undercurrent pushed his body toward a dark opening over a hundred meters wide.

An invisible vortex spun rapidly at the mouth of the dark opening, devouring everything that passed by. Wu Tie's body spun several times before entering the hole with the current, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

On the surface, a huge boulder several meters across was thrown down.

A bald, burly man clad in heavy armor descended from the spot where Wu Tie had fallen. One of his feet was tied to the boulder, and a beast-hide air bladder supplied him with air.

The boulder dragged the man's body down toward the riverbed.

The man widened his eyes and peered around with all his might. There was not the slightest light underwater; it was pitch-black, and he could see nothing.

The man sank nearly three hundred meters. The immense water pressure left him unable to breathe, and the undercurrents battered his body until his face twisted out of shape.

At last, terror drove him to cut the rope around his foot. He yanked fiercely on the long rope at his waist and rose toward the surface as fast as he could. After plunging down at speed and rising back up at speed, his alveoli burst, and blood continuously poured from his mouth and nostrils.

Strange cracking sounds came from the depths below.

A massive shadow suddenly smashed through countless undercurrents and flashed past through the rushing water.

The man's body below the neck vanished. His head was struck by the surging water stirred up by the shadow and shot toward the surface, bursting seven or eight meters into the air with a splash before crashing heavily onto the water.

A vast sheet of blood dyed the water red. One wave rolled over, and both the blood and the head disappeared.

The middle-aged man stood on the bank with a gloomy face, gritting his teeth as he stared at the spot where the man's head had surfaced.

After a while, he turned around and blankly looked toward the place where Wu Jin had disappeared.

A tall young woman walked up behind him and asked quietly.

The middle-aged man turned around, his gaze sweeping over the woman's brow.

A dim white snake phantom, about an inch long, was coiled on her brow. It was rapidly fading away, and if the middle-aged man had not been so sharp-eyed, he might have overlooked that faint trace entirely.

"This is..." The middle-aged man suddenly wiped his own brow. As his fingertips brushed his skin, he sensed a strange aura emanating from it.

"Bloodline Vengeance..." The middle-aged man's face turned ugly beyond measure.

"Abandon all baggage and supplies. Flee this region at top speed." The middle-aged man roared furiously, "Quick... remember, I said flee!"

Black. Black all around, boundless black.

Wu Tie woke several times. The rushing water battered his body, and he spun through it like a windmill before quickly passing out again.

In the end, even he did not know whether he was dead or alive.

The water washed him onward, carrying him through hidden waterways between layers of rock, through underground waters of varying sizes...

This was a marvelous underground realm.

A circular basin nearly a thousand li across was filled with strange vegetation of every color, and countless bizarre creatures lived and multiplied within it.

Beyond the circular basin lay a vast gravel desert, black and dim, hiding who knew what within its depths.

Countless gemstones were embedded densely across the rocky dome several li overhead. Gems of all sizes constantly radiated bright light, illuminating this enormous space quite well.

On one side of the basin, a terrifying fissure split open in the rock wall. Boiling magma dozens of li wide surged from the crack, carrying deep thunderous roars as it slid into a bottomless abyss at the edge of the basin.

The magma provided precious warmth to this basin.

Both the vegetation and the strange creatures relied entirely on the heat brought by this river of magma to gain enough vitality to live.

Directly opposite that river of magma, across the entire basin, another fissure dozens of li wide had split open in the rock wall. Rushing water poured from it amid tremendous roars.

The waterfall scoured the basin and formed a vast river through its center.

Large and small tributaries branched out from the main river, spreading toward every side of the basin and providing precious water to the life within it.

Near the river of magma, a waterfall several li wide came tumbling down, fearlessly plunging toward the scorching magma in the abyss.

The magma vaporized the waterfall. Dense water vapor rose several li high and spread outward along the smooth dome. The thick mist and pervasive moisture nourished this land into lush fertility, and plump moss and vibrant vines grew everywhere across the rock walls and stalagmites.

Wu Tie was blasted out of the river waterfall.

Chi You's Fang hanging from his chest gradually stopped vibrating, as though it had exhausted all its strength.

The tiny airless space vanished. Wu Tie soaked in the water and was carried by the gradually calming current to the bank.

The remaining white skeleton of a dead Gray Rock Lizard leaned crookedly against the shore. Wu Tie's small body snagged on its jagged bones and was fixed in place.

Wu Tie was sunk in the deepest unconsciousness. Without outside interference, he might have remained unconscious like this until he died.

Everything around him was silent.

A venomous Black Widow spider the size of a human head slowly crawled toward the riverbank.

Several sickly green eye-organs glanced from side to side atop the ugly head of the black poisonous creature.

The creature's fangs occasionally clashed against each other, with flickering sparks faintly visible upon them. Its sharp claws scraped across the stones beneath it, producing shrill grinding sounds.

Step by step, it crawled toward Wu Tie.

Closer. Closer still.

Wu Tie was injured, and faintly bloodied fluid seeped from his body.

The poisonous creature smelled the sweet fragrance of blood and abruptly accelerated, racing madly toward Wu Tie.

Ten meters, one meter, half a meter...

On a small hill several thousand meters away, at a spot overlooking this stretch of river, a sharp and strange sound wave beyond human hearing suddenly burst from a moss-covered mound of earth.

The poisonous creature's bloated abdomen suddenly exploded. Then the eye-organs on its head burst one after another, spraying venom and pus-filled blood seven or eight meters away.

In the instant before it died, the creature let out a shrill squeaking cry.

Wu Tie abruptly woke. Strength appearing from nowhere, he gritted his teeth and sprang to his feet, instinctively looking toward where the creature was.

When Master Hui taught him, he had also imparted some rudimentary knowledge of poisons.

Wu Jin, Wu Yin, and Wu Tong, the three brothers, had once caught live venomous spiders. Under Wu Zhan's instructions, they had put Wu Tie through basic survival training.

These hateful poisonous creatures could appear in any corner of the stone fortress. Everyone had to remain vigilant and be on guard against them at all times.

Having received the proper lessons, Wu Tie was jolted awake the instant the Black Widow cried out.

His mind was utterly empty.

Countless black shadows seemed to whirl before his eyes. Great swathes of blood-red light rolled and churned, while innumerable overlapping white faces drifted back and forth.

His body was stiff, cold, and utterly without strength.

Life itself seemed to be rapidly withdrawing from this body.

Wu Tie even thought that he was already dead. He opened his mouth wide and struggled to breathe, yet could not feel any breath at all.

The poisonous creature lay at his feet, less than half a meter away. Its head and bloated abdomen had been blown apart, but several legs as thick as thumbs and over a foot long remained intact.

Wu Tie suddenly closed his mouth and swallowed with difficulty.

His mind was completely blank. Only the instinct to survive controlled this body.

He dropped heavily to the ground, and that movement nearly exhausted his last trace of strength. With difficulty, he grabbed a spider leg, opened his mouth, bit down on a strip of white flesh exposed from the broken leg, and tore it off.

He could not describe the taste, nor could he taste anything at all.

One spider leg, two spider legs...

He did not know how many legs he ate. Once a trace of warmth appeared in his belly, Wu Tie suddenly collapsed onto the ground and fell asleep on the moss by the river.

After barely half a quarter-hour, a Black Mang Venom Snake as thick as Wu Tie's arm and over two meters long slithered treacherously toward him, its entire body pitch-black.

The venomous snake cautiously approached Wu Tie. Ten meters, five meters, half a meter...

The snake opened its mouth, and drops of deadly venom seeped from its four savage fangs.

The fangs neared Wu Tie, just about to bite down...

Several thousand meters away, a fist-sized piece of the small mound atop the hill suddenly burst apart, and that fist-sized clod of earth instantly vaporized.

A streak of red light flashed, and the snake's head vanished completely.

The snake's body thrashed violently.

The red light flashed again, cutting the venomous snake into more than thirty pieces.

Every section of its body could only writhe on the ground. None could threaten Wu Tie any longer, nor could they leap away from his side.

There was no blood on the writhing snake sections. Their wounds were smooth, without a trace of bleeding.

After an unknown length of time, Wu Tie woke up.

He opened his eyes and saw the plump snake sections beside him. Instinctively, he grabbed a piece of snake meat and bit down fiercely.

He ate half the snake clean, then darkness swept over his vision and he collapsed unconscious again.

Blood flowed from the snake section Wu Tie had bitten open.

Before long, several venomous spiders, two or three poisonous snakes, and a Gray Rock Lizard crawled over.

These creatures, all capable of killing Wu Tie with ease, inexplicably fell dead and were inexplicably slain.

In particular, the scent released after the Gray Rock Lizard died marked this stretch of riverbank as the territory of a terrifying predator.

For a long time afterward, not another insect came near Wu Tie.

Wu Tie woke and gnawed at the food around him.

He passed out and continued sleeping.

After sleeping for an unknown time, he woke and ate again.

The water along this stretch of river had just rushed out from underground waterways and was bitterly cold, making the temperature near the riverbank much lower than elsewhere. Thus, aside from a very few ferocious mutant creatures, no other insects or crawling things moved about nearby.

Because of the cold temperature, the dead venomous creatures and Gray Rock Lizard did not rot too quickly.

After Wu Tie had gnawed away nearly half of the Gray Rock Lizard's tail, he finally stood up.

After washing himself by the river, Wu Tie looked blankly around him.

There was no familiar Void Sun on the dome overhead. The light from those luminous gems was no dimmer than the Void Sun's.

Behind him was a river dozens of li wide. Its waters flowed gently, though now and then thin ripples could be seen streaking swiftly beneath the surface.

Wu Tie had never seen such a sight, but he instinctively felt uneasy.

He took several steps back, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the river.

Turning around, Wu Tie looked into the distance.

Strange-looking vegetation was everywhere.

Wu Tie had never seen vegetation like this before.

Some resembled crops Wu Tie knew well, such as Earth Rice Mushrooms, white mushrooms, and great meat mushrooms, but they were much larger.

Other plants stood two or three meters tall, with countless branches. Wu Tie had never seen anything similar.

However, this strange branched vegetation was sparse, scattered haphazardly here and there.

His body swayed. Though he had recovered a little strength, his mind was still empty. Wu Tie's bewildered eyes gazed into the distance, and he moved his feet, about to pick a direction at random and wander off.

An intensely dazzling glint flashed in the distance.

Wu Tie saw that flash and stood dazed for a moment. Thinking of nothing at all, he trudged heavily toward it.

The ground was extremely slick and covered in thick moss. Wu Tie fell after every two steps, fell after every two steps, and it took him a long time to barely cross the short distance of several thousand meters.

He was filthy from head to toe, and his arms and legs had gone numb from all the falls.

Shivering all over, Wu Tie looked at the small hill over a hundred meters tall before him. Gritting his teeth, he began climbing up its slope.

As he climbed, Wu Tie suddenly tripped over a small mound of earth and pitched forward onto the ground. The little mound shook, and a round object rolled out from inside it.

"Cough, you kicked Grandpa's head!" Wu Tie lay on the ground, gasping, when an extremely stiff voice sounded beside his ear.

"Cough, can you understand Grandpa?" The voice was right beside him, practically shouting into Wu Tie's ear. "You brat have quite a bit of perseverance... If you had decided not to keep walking halfway here, Grandpa would have left you alone."

"These past few days, Grandpa has poured out his heart and soul to save your little life, taking better care of you than I would my own grandson... Of course, Grandpa has no grandson, but that does not matter... You are all Grandpa's grandsons!"

Wu Tie gasped as he struggled to raise his head and glance toward the source of the voice.

His body suddenly convulsed. Darkness flooded his vision, and he fainted again.

This time, he had been scared unconscious.