A soldier discovered the footprints while moving an overturned shield.
He squatted down and checked for a while, touched the dryness of the soil at the edge of the footprints with his fingertips, then stood up and reported to his superiors step by step.
After the captain arrived at the scene, he confirmed the type and direction of the footprints. After receiving the report, Douglas also walked over and squatted down to check it out.
He compared the depth and spacing of the footprints with his hands, stood up, turned around and walked towards where Redd was.
He walked up to Redd without any extra greetings. He just explained the location, direction and number of the footprints he found, and then stepped sideways to give way to the group of footprints, allowing Redd to judge whether it was worth taking a look in person.
Redd After listening to his report, he did not hesitate for too long.
He turned his head and glanced in the direction indicated by Douglas. After confirming the general direction, he asked him to lead the way, and then followed his pace.
He took a few steps, stopped again, turned his head and shouted in the direction of King Ghidorah. His voice was not loud and could still be heard clearly in the night wind. "Come with me."
King Ghidorah was eating on the pile of food it had chosen. When it heard the cry of Redd, three heads were lifted up from the pile of corpses at the same time.
There was still a piece of meat that had not been completely rolled in from the corner of the mouth of the middle one, glistening with grease in the firelight.
Its three pairs of eyes turned in the direction of Redd at the same time, showing an obvious reluctance in their eyes. That reluctance was not revealed through any identifiable expression.
It is more about the short pause and slightly slower than expected response after the rhythm of its slow and pleasant chewing is interrupted.
Redd stared at it for a moment, and then added, "We'll eat when we come back. I'll have people pile up the rest first. It won't take a while."
King Ghidorah's three heads were retracted at the same time. It stood there for a moment, as if weighing, and then walked slowly in the direction of Redd.
It did not fly, but folded its forelimbs and wings, and followed behind in a crawling manner.
Its body is still huge when crawling, but the sound when traveling is much smaller than when flying, and it will not produce additional echoes or vibrations in the open night.
Douglas walked at the front, holding a thick-handled torch coated with kerosene. The edge of the flame was slightly tilted in the night wind, illuminating the ground within a few steps in front into a warm yellow area.
Redd followed him, keeping about two steps apart. His boots stepped on the ground illuminated by torches, and he stepped firmly on each step before taking the next step.
King Ghidorah followed them, keeping a distance from the two of them, and continued to move at the edge of the torch's illumination range. Its crawling rhythm was neither fast nor slow, keeping in sync with the walking speed of the two in front.
They walked for some time in the direction of a large number of footprints.
As they gradually moved away from the camp, the black mist became thicker again. It was dissipated by the heat of the torch and then closed again from the sides, forming a dark barrier that continued to stir outside the scope of the flames.
The footprints on the ground appear intermittently, sometimes disappearing in the gravel section, and then reappearing on the soft soil dozens of steps away, but the overall direction always maintains an extension to the southeast.
As the distance traveled increased, the direction began to gradually deviate from the original straight line, deflecting slightly to the southeast and extending towards an area closer to the mountain peak.
Redd As we walked, we began to mentally estimate the distance back to the camp and evaluate whether we needed to turn back in advance.
Just when he was considering whether to stop, a dark horizontal the Rift appeared on the edge of the area illuminated by torches in front of him. The width of that the Rift far exceeded ordinary ground cracks or corrosion grooves.
Its edges are uneven, but the overall outline shows a regular, almost circular arc, like a large vertical channel that was smashed open from above by a hard object.
Douglas walked to the edge of the the Rift and stretched the torch forward. The flame illuminated a small section of the structure inside the Rift. It was a rough stone staircase that had been stepped on repeatedly, spiraling and extending downward along the rock wall, disappearing into deeper darkness.
Redd walked forward, stood at the edge of the Rift, and looked down for a moment. The circular mine tunnel descended step by step along the shaft wall. Every once in a while, there would be a mine entrance extending to the side. Some of them had been sealed by collapsed earth and rocks, and some were still open.
Among them are some huge ore cavities. Only their outermost outlines can be seen at the edge of the torch light, and deeper structures cannot be seen.
Through the dark red light deep in the mine, he could barely make out the outline of the mine tunnels and the way they connected to the central cavity.
Those mine tunnels are like a network that has been repeatedly dismantled and reorganized, distributed at different depth levels, covering an underground space that is far larger than what is visible on the surface with a loose but interrelated structure.
The depth of the mine is far greater than Redd's initial visual estimate.
When standing on the edge and looking down, what you can see at first glance are just a few layers of the outline of the circular mine tunnel that shrink downwards, but as the line of sight extends and adapts, the layers of those outlines continue to extend.
The light of the flames cannot shine deeper, being swallowed up by the shadow of the mine itself and the smell of sulfur rising from the bottom. It can only rely on the dark red light brought by the underlying magma activity to outline part of the direction of the mine tunnel.
Those hollowed-out mines revealed entrance sections of varying depths under the illumination of torches, and the edges were covered with gouges and cracks left by mining.
Some of the cave entrances have been mostly blocked by collapsed rubble, revealing passages that can only allow one person to pass sideways, while others are completely open, like an arc-shaped mouth opening toward the depths of darkness.
Redd stood at the edge of the mine, without leaning too close. His eyes moved slowly along the circular mine tunnel, starting from the entrance to the top floor and counting several floors down, and then stopped at a collapsed position.
There is something, deep in those open mines, beyond the reach of torchlight.
While the light from the underlying magma illuminates the surface of the mine tunnels in dark red, the interiors of those mine tunnels remain dark without any light intrusion, as if they are isolated from the light range by a layer of air of varying thicknesses.
Redd's eyes moved slowly between the open entrances to the mines, and he roughly counted the number of openings that could be seen.
He couldn't see the direction of those mines, didn't know where they would lead, or where the latest footprints trampled by the orcs during their retreat would stop or turn.
Some of those mines seemed to have been abandoned for a long time. The stone steps at the entrance were mostly covered with broken soil and fine stones, and the surface of the stone walls at the edges was covered with a layer of dark sediment.