There was no road ahead! They had climbed all the way up here, but there was no longer any path that continued upward like before, because from this point on, the route went straight up.
Timaria looked up. This was a vertical shaft! Boulders were stacked one atop another inside this vertical passage. Whenever the ones below were used up, the boulders above would fall directly down to replenish them. They were lined up all the way to the top—who knew how many boulders there were in total.
There were gaps in the upward passage, but climbing it would surely be even harder than scaling that sloped incline packed with rolling boulders earlier.
After climbing for roughly fifteen minutes, the three of them finally reached the top of the boulders. Timaria was now standing on the uppermost one. When Li had first told her to step onto it, she had turned pale with fright, thinking he was trying to kill her. But once she stepped on it, she realized that while the boulders looked extremely dangerous, the slots held them firmly in place. Unless the boulders below had been used up, those above generally would not roll down.
Just as Li was preparing to lift Azshara onto the uppermost boulder, he suddenly felt the entire passage tremble. His expression changed. "Damn it, that thing caught up."
It would not be terrifying if it merely caught up—but they could not forget that all the mechanisms here had been prepared for that thing. If it charged through here, it would definitely trigger the traps. When that happened, it would not be the only one in trouble. Everyone here would probably suffer along with it.
Listening to the unceasing sound of boulders grinding below, Li felt rather frustrated. Was that thing really brain-dead?