I Won't Die Here

"Quickly, quickly, send the earth elemental units to the front!"

"Someone needs to help! The soil can't be transported out!"

"Don't just stand there like an idiot, you surnamed Luo, use your spatial abilities!"

"What are you yelling about, you stinky bear? Can't you see I'm helping? If you shout any louder, you'll shake that patch of radioactive lava down and we'll all be buried here as funerary offerings!"

Luo Guixing was sharp-tongued, but his hands never stopped moving.

Silver ripples of space bloomed at his fingertips, silently swallowing the huge rock block that Yang Nianxia had just cut off and transferring it to an abandoned shaft dozens of meters away.

Yang Nianxia was scolded, but unusually, he didn't talk back. He just shook the dust off the pipe corridor, looking particularly disheveled with the dust all over him.

"Stop arguing."

Wu Zhangkong walked at the front, his cool and aloof demeanor instantly lowering the temperature in the sweltering air. "How much further?"

"One hundred and twenty meters, three degrees to the left."

The Good Corpse closed its eyes and sensed for a moment, then said, "The pipe corridor ahead is deformed from the pressure. I suggest..."

Before the words were finished, a sickening metallic groan suddenly came from above.

The supporting column on the left side of the utility tunnel suddenly cracked, and a scorching blast of air carrying debris crashed down upon them.

Yang Nianxia reacted quickly, lunging forward and blocking the gap.

The pebbles hit his head with a series of muffled thuds, and his face visibly paled.

Luo Guixing formed hand seals, and spatial ripples spread out again. He constructed a spatial barrier around the collapsed support pillar, forcibly stabilizing the precarious structure.

"I told you not to shout randomly."

He was unusually serious, and fine beads of sweat were already forming on his forehead. "My spatial power can't hold for much longer. Elder Cai, can this pillar be repaired?"

Cai Yue'er placed her palm on the support pillar riddled with cracks, and her Soul Power slowly seeped into it.

After a moment, she said in a deep voice, "I'll maintain the structure. Xiao Luo, slowly withdraw your spatial barrier. Don't rush. Chang Kong, take the others and go first."

The Good Corpse glanced back at the support pillar that had been forcibly extended, its face, bathed in Moonlight, revealing no expression, but its steps quickened.

Yun Jingheng, leaning against the cold cabin wall, suddenly chuckled softly.

He sensed it, sensed the Good Corpse approaching, sensed Yang Nianxia's clumsy attempt to plug the crack just before the supporting pillar collapsed, sensed Luo Guixing's stubbornness as he argued and struggled desperately.

He tilted his head back, resting the back of his head against the cabin wall, and closed his eyes.

Oxygen residual quantity: 41 hours.

That's enough.

He muttered to himself in the darkness, "It's time for me to move around a bit."

Are you sure? Your health is very poor.

"Yes, it's terrible, but Zi JI, they're almost here, I have to get moving."

Yun Jingheng braced himself against the cabin wall and slowly straightened up.

The wound on his left shoulder reopened during the movement, and the blood seeped out and dripped down his arm, onto his sleeve, which was already soaked with sweat.

He glanced down, expressionless, tore a strip of cloth from the hem of his shirt, bit one end with his teeth, wrapped it three times around his shoulder and armpit with one hand, and tied a tight knot.

The pain made his vision go white, and cold sweat poured down his forehead.

But he didn't stop.

He opened his right hand, and moonlight shone in his palm.

It wasn't the overwhelming silvery glow of Full Moon, nor the cool Moonlight that illuminated the entire lake that night at the Sea God Fate.

But in this pitch-black shelter, in this deathly silence where tens of meters of radioactive lava lay overhead, this longsword formed from Moonlight was the only source of light.

Yun Jingheng took a deep breath, gripped the hilt of his sword tightly with his right hand, and thrust the sword into the cabin wall in the direction of the Good Corpse.

The Moonlight pierced through the steel plate, emitting a piercing hiss.

He didn't stop; he drew his sword and stabbed again.

Pull it out again, then stab it again.

Each swing of the sword aggravated the wound on his left shoulder, and the blood seeping through the strip of cloth grew larger and larger, like a flower silently blooming on dark fabric.

His lips were pressed into a very thin line, his teeth were clenched so tightly that the muscles in his cheeks were trembling slightly.

"I promised them."

He muttered to himself, his voice mostly drowned out by the noise of metal cutting, but he continued anyway.

Another sword strike.

"I won't die here."

He finally managed to pierce a hole in the bulkhead.

Outside were thick layers of rock. The feeling of the Moonlight Sword cutting into the rock was different from that of steel plates. There was no longer a piercing hiss; instead, there was a dull, teeth-grinding friction sound.

Yun Jingheng gritted his teeth and dug forward with each sword strike. Every time he dug a short distance, he would use his Divine Power to probe the direction before continuing to swing his sword.

His Soul Power recovered very slowly. The air in the refuge was already thin, and the energy available for circulation in his body was pitifully little.

But the frequency with which he swung his sword remained unchanged.

If you can't stab it, chop it; if you can't chop it, dig it.

Zi JI finally couldn't help but speak, her voice very soft, as if she was afraid of disturbing him, or as if she was afraid she would regret not asking.

[Were you like this before?]

"Huh?" Yun Jingheng was taken aback for a moment, but his hands didn't stop moving.

[At the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, did you also walk forward in this way?]

He did not answer.

The Moonlight Sword advanced another three inches.

A trickle of groundwater seeped from the rock strata, flowing down the blade to the space between his thumb and forefinger; it was very cool.

"... That time was a little different."

He finally said, his voice terribly hoarse, "Someone used me as a power bank that time."

He didn't say who the "power bank" was. Zi JI didn't press him for details.

In the underground tunnel 300 meters away from him, the Good Corpse suddenly stopped.

The movement was so sudden that Wu Zhangkong, who was walking behind him, almost bumped into its back.

Wu Zhangkong frowned slightly, about to ask a question, when he saw its hands hanging at its sides begin to glow.

It slowly condensed into a long sword.

"What are you doing?"

Yang Nianxia's eyes widened, forgetting that she had just been hit on the head by rubble and was covered in bumps. "Your Soul Power isn't already—"

"He's moving."

The Good Corpse interrupted Yang Nianxia, its voice trembling with an uncontrollable intensity, whether from excitement or something else, "The main body is digging this way."

Everyone was stunned.

What did he use to dig?

Luo Guixing blurted out, then immediately saw the Moonlight Sword in the Good Corpse's hand—it was identical to his own. His pupils contracted sharply. "Wait a minute, you two wouldn't be—"

It did not answer.

It raised its right hand, which was holding a sword, with the tip pointing downwards, aiming at the rock strata beneath its feet.

Everyone could feel the Soul Power within the Good Corpse rapidly dissipating, and the body formed from Moonlight was thinning at a visible speed. The features that were originally just blurry were now almost completely integrated into the light.

The Moonlight Sword suddenly pierced down.

The moment the sword pierced the rock, everyone in the utility tunnel heard a muffled roar.

Beneath their feet, from the depths of the earth, something was struggling to break through all obstacles and rushing towards them.

The Good Corpse gripped the sword with both hands, pressing the blade down even further.

Its Soul Power was being consumed too quickly, so quickly that even Wu Zhangkong frowned, reached out and placed his hand on its shoulder, transferring his own Soul Power to it.

Then came Luo Guixing, then Yang Nianxia, then Cai Yue'er, one after another. Their Soul Power was transmitted through their touching palms, eventually converging into the Good Corpse, transforming into the ever-brighter light on the Moonlight Sword.

Meanwhile, underground, Yun Jingheng's Moonlight Sword emitted the same light.

He sensed it.

Sensing the Good Corpse's sword blade piercing down from above, and sensing that the tips of the two Moonlight Sword were separated from each other by only the last thin layer of rock in the rock strata.

With his last ounce of strength, he lifted the Moonlight Sword upwards—

The sword tips pierced the final barrier at the same point.

A burst of silver light erupted.

The resonance at that moment made the entire utility tunnel tremble.

The Good Corpse and Yun Jingheng simultaneously gripped the sword hilts, one pulling upwards and the other pulling downwards.

The two Moonlight Sword crossed in the rock strata, then suddenly tore apart.

Boom--!

The earth and rocks collapsed.

Gravel, soil, and radiation-scorched rocks rained down, smashing a dark hole at the Good Corpse's feet.

The air was thick with dust, so choking everyone that they took a step back.

Once the dust settled, a hand emerged from the edge of the cave entrance.

The Good Corpse crouched down and used it to pull him up.

He was kneeling on the ground, his face covered in ash, the strip of cloth wrapped around his left shoulder and his abdomen completely soaked in blood, his lips cracked and peeling, looking utterly wretched.

But his eyes were very bright.

He looked up at the crowd gathered at the cave entrance, and a smile slowly crept onto his lips, revealing a smile that was more like a grimace.

"I knew I wouldn't die so easily, haha... cough cough cough!"

"I think next time it would be better if the design included something I could also activate, wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah, I've really suffered this time..."