A strange encounter in the cavern

"Watch out!"

"Watch your step!"

"Yang Yu, keep up!"

"Turn the lights up. Damn it, this underground cave is pitch-black. Not a ray of sunlight gets in... How far down are we? Two or three hundred meters by now?"

"This path is a nightmare!"

Inside the cave, where the darkness was too thick to see a hand in front of their faces, four beams of light swept back and forth.

The beams illuminated the jagged rocks within the cave. The grotesque formations took all manner of shapes, creating eerie, terrifying scenes that belonged in a horror movie and making the already oppressive atmosphere even more unnerving.

Every so often, Yang Yu and the others spotted razor-sharp stalactites hanging from the undersides of rocks.

And the footing was horribly slippery!

Below them lay sheer drops of unknown depth, while razor-sharp stalagmites bristled all around.

Even their four beams of light could reach only a short distance before the endless darkness swallowed them whole!

Poor visibility and danger on every side left everyone increasingly miserable and irritable... Even their voices grew steadily rougher and more short-tempered.

Normally, these people were respectable, at least on the surface.

After all, they had respectable jobs.

All four of them, including Yang Yu, belonged to a fairly well-known archaeological expedition team.

And this time, their leader was none other than the renowned Professor Li!

Professor Li was a true authority in archaeology. Ordinary people could scarcely get a chance to meet him, and even seasoned fieldworkers like Yang Yu and his two companions rarely had the opportunity to work with him.

When they learned they would be accompanying Professor Li, Yang Yu and the others had been thrilled for days.

He was their idol!

Yet now... All three were swearing and losing their tempers in front of him. That alone showed how the oppressive atmosphere inside the cavern had stretched everyone's nerves to the breaking point.

If they did not reach the bottom soon, something was bound to go wrong!

In silence.

The four of them struggled to climb farther down.

At least another fifteen minutes passed, and by then they had lost even the desire to speak or curse. The tension was unbearable! Apart from the patter of water dripping onto rock, there were only their footsteps and... the restless sweep of their lights.

Tap!

Suddenly, an unusually clear, distinct footfall rang out!

It was plainly not the sound of a foot landing on uneven rock, but of someone stepping onto firm, level ground!

"I've reached the bottom!"

"The ground is so flat. My God! This place... What the hell is that?" Someone shouted, and the lowest beam of light swept wildly in every direction, piercing the darkness like a thick laser!

The one shouting was Yang Yu!

"Yang Yu, what's wrong?! Have you reached the bottom?"

"What did you find? Tell us!"

"Don't panic! Stay calm!"

"Tell us clearly! Hurry!"

His cry sent ripples through the group!

The other three began calling out anxiously in response to Yang Yu's shout.

Even Professor Li, who had remained silent all this time, could not help speaking!

Meanwhile, Professor Li and the other two hurried down... Yang Yu had gone some distance ahead to scout the route, while the three of them followed behind.

Climbing quickly, they soon reached Yang Yu's position.

The moment they landed and swept their headlamps around, they all froze...

Yang Yu stood a short distance away, staring openmouthed at an enormous shadow!

It was an ancient book!

Made from an unknown material and bound in black, it was an enormous ancient book... at least the size of a small house!

This place was an ancient ruin, abandoned for who knew how long!

Ten minutes later.

Professor Li stood spellbound before a stone wall, his headlamp illuminating its murals row by row!

The dark cavern floor was utterly quiet.

Everyone had fallen silent of their own accord. The sight before them had left them completely stunned!

Especially the vast scenes of warfare on the stone wall, some abstract and others realistic... Those images, which seemed to depict ancient myths, brought the same thought into all four of their minds!

We'd hit the jackpot!

There really was something to discover inside this natural cavern!

And... from what they could see so far, this discovery was anything but ordinary!

Yang Yu turned his head and glanced into the shadows nearby.

There, the strange object shaped like an ancient book, yet as large as a house, still rested quietly on several supporting stones.

"Professor Li, the writing around these murals is so strange. Can you tell what period it's from?" asked a young woman wearing glasses, a little over twenty-five.

Her name was Bai Xiaohe, and she was the only woman among the four. Her appearance was quite ordinary, and a thin elastic cord secured her glasses firmly to her head.

With all the climbing they had to do, it kept her glasses from falling off.

"Very strange."

"It resembles hieroglyphs somewhat, but it certainly isn't." Professor Li frowned, though his eyes shone remarkably brightly in the darkness. As he spoke, he approached the wall covered in murals.

Scrape, scrape.

Without a word, Professor Li reached out and felt the rock wall. He scraped off a little stone dust and tasted it, then carefully examined the texture of the surrounding rock.

"I can't identify this writing."

"But... these murals may well be more than a hundred thousand years old... This discovery will rewrite history as we know it!"

"A hundred thousand years?!" Yang Yu and the other two immediately stared wide-eyed in disbelief.

Though rough and unrestrained, the murals clearly displayed a certain degree of artistic skill.

That enormous ancient book should not have existed in such a distant age, either...

A hundred thousand years ago.

That was an ancient age when humanity was still primitive...

Yang Yu and the others were too stunned to speak, and a deathly silence settled over the cavern.

Rumble!!

Suddenly, a tremendous crash rang out. The cavern shook violently, and small stones came raining down from the ceiling!

"What's happening?"

"An earthquake?" Yang Yu shouted.

Snapped out of their stupor, everyone cried out and hurried toward the nearby mural-covered wall for shelter.

"Cover your heads! Watch out for falling rocks!"

As they scrambled for shelter, some kept shouting warnings to the others.

The cavern erupted into chaos!

Boom!

Boom, boom!

Amid the violent shaking, huge rocks fell intermittently from the ceiling, striking the ground hard enough to make it tremble. Yang Yu and his three companions were like a tiny boat on a raging sea, liable to capsize at any moment and perish with it!

The earth shook and the mountain trembled!

Yang Yu looked up, his headlamp cutting dozens of meters through the darkness like a thick laser beam!

As the beam swept around, it briefly illuminated a broad stretch of the ceiling above him.

Small, sharp stones kept falling through the light!

Suddenly, Yang Yu's pupils contracted, and he shouted, "Get out of the way!"

Whoosh!

Even as he shouted, Yang Yu hurled himself to the left along the wall. He threw himself so hard that he tumbled through the air and rolled repeatedly across the ground, shredding large patches of his clothes. Loose stones tore into his chest and abdomen, leaving them drenched in blood!

Despite his severe injuries, Yang Yu paid them no attention. The instant he recovered his bearings, he turned toward the place where Professor Li and the others had taken shelter.

Rumble...

A dark shape flashed past and struck the ground with a deafening crash, shaking the entire cavern as though it were about to collapse!

Yang Yu's heart sank.

That dark shape was a boulder!

It had broken loose from the ceiling—a massive boulder more than ten meters tall!

And it had landed precisely where their group had just been sheltering...

If Yang Yu had not happened to look up and dodge at the last possible moment, then... At the thought, goosebumps rose across his back, and cold sweat poured down.

"Professor Li!"

"Bai Xiaohe!"

"Li Qiang!"

"Are you there? Answer me if you can hear me!" Ignoring his pain, Yang Yu immediately shouted toward the boulder.

The echoes of its impact still reverberated through the cavern, gradually fading... Beyond that, there was only silence.

Apart from the occasional tremor beneath his feet and the faint patter of small stones falling, only the echoes of Yang Yu's calls remained... There was no response from Professor Li, Bai Xiaohe, or Li Qiang.

"Damn it!" Yang Yu closed his eyes and clenched his fists.

It seemed Professor Li and the others had little chance of surviving.

"I have to get out of this damn place." Yang Yu pressed one hand against his burning chest, trying to staunch the blood that kept welling out, and braced the other against the ground to push himself up. But he had barely risen halfway when a faint crack came from his right leg, followed by excruciating pain!

Thud!

With a dull impact in the dark cavern, Yang Yu fell and rolled across the ground.

"Ah! My leg!" Yang Yu cried in agony, his voice echoing through the cavern.

His right leg was broken!

By sheer chance, the fall carried him directly beneath an enormous shadow.

He was beneath the ancient book as large as a house!

Pain!

It pierced him to the bone!

Yang Yu moaned softly. His momentum had carried most of his body into the gap between the stone supports holding up the ancient book...

Gush...

With his right leg broken and extensive abrasions covering his body, Yang Yu was grievously injured.

Bright red blood poured freely from wounds large and small all over his body. As he lost more and more blood, his vision began to blur.

"Am I, Yang Yu, really going to die in a place like this?"

"I can't accept this..." Lying on his back, Yang Yu stared through slightly blurred vision at the enormous ancient book above him. He felt his life slipping away rapidly. His strength was almost completely spent, and as blood flowed as though through an opened floodgate, his consciousness began to fade.

He was even hallucinating...

For instance... He could see a hazy, pearly white glow suddenly flare across the enormous ancient book!

As the light swept outward, an invisible force scooped up the blood flowing across the ground like a great hand.

Then... Like a ravenous beast, the ancient book began greedily drinking Yang Yu's blood.

"Is this... a hallucination?" Yang Yu's vision grew still hazier.

"Wait!"

"No!" A shudder ran through Yang Yu, and he snapped fully awake as though cold water had been poured over him from head to toe. When he looked again at the ancient book above him, those seemingly illusory phenomena were still there—and growing more intense!

Rumble...

A terrifying tearing sound rang out!

As Yang Yu watched in stunned disbelief, the enormous ancient book moved without any wind, forced open by an invisible power.

Rustle, rustle, rustle!

As its pages fluttered, streaks of golden light tore through space!

In the blink of an eye, an enormous black hole appeared, its opening shaped like a baby's parted lips!

The next moment, the black hole descended like the gaping maw of a primordial beast, swallowing the house-sized ancient book, Yang Yu... and all the stone supports around them!

Whoosh...

A fierce wind swept through the cavern!

Moments later, everything subsided.

The light vanished from the cavern, leaving it in darkness once more.

And the enormous ancient book and Yang Yu... had disappeared without a trace!