Cold Pool

The level-four Azure-Scaled Water Python did not emerge from the water immediately.

It lay coiled at the bottom of the pool, its scales blending almost perfectly with the blue-black rocks. Only when it turned its head did two points of eerie green light move across the water's surface.

Helian Yuan stood at the end of the slope. Behind him was the old tunnel, where rocks continued to fall; ahead, there was no path around the pool.

Three rusted rings were fixed to the stone wall beside the pool. Two were empty, while the third was still attached to a length of chain that disappeared into the water. The chain tightened gently with the python's breathing, proving that the old chain around its tail had not become tangled there by chance, but was still connected to some fixed point at the bottom of the pool.

The level-four Azure-Scaled Water Python could leave its fixed range, but it could not swim all the way out of the cold pool. It was a hunter guarding the exit, and might also have been a numbered demonic beast left behind.

Helian Yuan did not try to cut the chain and free it. An unbound level-four demonic beast would only make things more dangerous; it would not feel grateful just because he cut through an iron chain.

He tested the current first. He snapped off a thin stick and tossed it into the pool. Instead of drifting toward the hut, the piece of wood slowly circled toward the cave on the right. There was an underwater current near the hut that flowed back toward him; swimming straight across without thinking would push him in front of the python.

Helian Yuan searched the rock wall for protrusions he could use as footholds, planning to enter the water only for the final few steps. He secured his short spear with a wrist cord, tucked the record wrapped in oilcloth against the lining above his head, then cut off a small strip of hemp cloth and wrapped it around his left foot. If the foot without a boot were cut open by a sharp rock in the water, it would kill him more slowly than the python's fangs.

Even after he had finished all his preparations, the python remained where it was, watching him. Its patience made it seem less like a creature that had come across prey by chance and more like one familiar with every escape route here.

Half the roof of a wooden hut protruded from the water on the left side of the pool, its doorway submerged halfway up. If the eastern exit on the map existed, it was probably behind the hut.

He did not light a torch.

First, he took a lump of bear fat from his pack and smeared it over the outside of his last torch, then poured lamp oil into an empty medicine bottle. The torch would provide light and heat; the oil bottle would create a second target if needed.

Helian Yuan threw an iron nail toward the right side of the pool.

The nail entered the water.

The Azure-Scaled Water Python's gaze immediately turned toward it, but its body did not move. It did not chase a scentless, inanimate object.

He cut off another small piece of dried Split-Toothed Beast meat-his reserve food for the journey-wrapped it around a second iron nail, and threw it.

The pool erupted.

The level-four Azure-Scaled Water Python burst out of the water, its head wider than Helian Yuan's chest. It seized the meat in one bite and swallowed it along with the nail. Half its body rose above the surface, old wounds showing between its scales, and a length of rusty iron chain was wrapped around its tail.

The wear marks on the links were the same as those on the old chain in Blackwater Ravine.

The python, too, had once been bound by the numbered facility.

Helian Yuan had no time to look any longer. He entered the water along the rock wall on the left. By the time it reached his waist, the cold had already numbed his legs and feet. As the python turned its head back, he lit the torch and threw the oil bottle to the right.

The oil bottle shattered as it hit the water.

The oil floating on the surface caught light from the torch, briefly spreading a sheet of flame across the water. The Azure-Scaled Water Python instinctively avoided the firelight and swept its tail through the pool, pushing Helian Yuan bodily toward the hut.

He caught a broken beam on the roof, nearly dislocating his shoulder, but used the hold to flip himself into the half-submerged hut.

A water-level gauge was still fixed beside the iron table, its highest mark worn bright. Helian Yuan glanced at the current water level. It was less than half a palm's breadth below that line. The designers of the old grounds had clearly anticipated flooding inside the mountain, and had known when the hut would cease to serve its purpose.

He scratched the current water level beside the gauge with his fingernail. If he had to return this way, he could judge how much time remained from the rate at which the water rose; if the level suddenly fell, it would mean a passage elsewhere had been opened.

There was no exit in the hut, only an iron table fixed to the wall and a sealed iron box. Water kept drawing outward beneath the table, indicating that a drainage channel lay behind the wall.

Helian Yuan took out the iron key he had found in the duty room.

He inserted the key into the iron box, and it opened on the first try.

Inside the box were a transfer slip made of oiled paper, an iron tag bearing a gray mark, and half a roll of a narrow map labeled "eastern passage." The first line of the transfer slip read: Number seven, transfer to the fourth hunting ground at Sunken Bone Slope. The status field contained only two characters: awaiting return.

The characters following "return" had been blurred by water stains.

Helian Yuan stuffed the items inside his clothes, then smashed off one leg of the iron table with his short spear. The stone bricks behind the leg were already loose, with water seeping outward under pressure.

The level-four Azure-Scaled Water Python struck the hut wall.

Wooden boards splintered, and the python's head pushed through the doorway. The cramped hut restricted the angle at which it could open its jaws, but it also trapped Helian Yuan against the wall.

Before it struck again, he wrapped the old iron chain from the bear's den around the broken table leg and looped the other end around the rusty chain on the python's tail.

The two old chains came together.

The Azure-Scaled Water Python lashed its tail, dragging the entire section of loose stone bricks away for him. The water behind the wall immediately rushed faster, revealing a drain opening just large enough for a person to crawl through.

Before entering the channel, he wedged his short spear crosswise against the sides of the hole in the brickwork, let his body turn with the current, and then retrieved the weapon. If he forced his way in headfirst and the way ahead was blocked, the current would pin him down and keep him from retreating. Going in feetfirst meant he could not see the exit, but at least his hands could still grip the edge.

He felt out the first drop with his toes before slowly lowering himself. A piece of broken wood scraped his calf underwater, and a thin chain wound around his ankle. Helian Yuan did not kick out. Instead, he followed the current to loosen one loop, then picked it away with his hunting knife. Every old implement in the cold pool could become a new restraint in the final few steps.

Helian Yuan retrieved his chain and crawled into the channel.

The python bit down on the boards behind his feet, its teeth grazing the cloth around his left leg. Helian Yuan lit the remaining torch and shoved it back into the narrow entrance.

The flames could not hurt a level-four demonic beast, but they made it pause briefly in the damp darkness.

Helian Yuan seized the chance to crawl forward.

The drainage channel grew narrower and narrower, while the water level kept rising. An old iron chain lay across the passage along the way. He had no time to remove it and could only squeeze over it. His pack caught on the chain, and the transfer slip nearly slid out from inside his clothes.

Behind him came the tremendous sound of an iron chain being dragged.

The Azure-Scaled Water Python had not entered the narrow channel, but had bitten down on the old chain outside the hut that was connected to it. The entire passage shook.

By the time Helian Yuan reached the exit, the water was up to his chin. He grabbed a crack in the rock and squeezed outward, finally tumbling from the other side of the mountain into a stream on the surface.

Helian Yuan immediately rolled sideways away from the drain rather than lying on his back. If more broken wood or chains were washed out of the channel, the spot directly in front of the exit would still be the most dangerous. Only after crawling behind a tall rock did he undo the oilcloth at his chest and check that the pages had not come loose while he was squeezing through.

The wound on his left leg had turned pale from soaking in the cold water. It was not bleeding for the moment, but sensation was beginning to fade. He tapped his toes lightly with the back of his hunting knife, and only dared to stand again after confirming that every one of them could still bend.

Cold air rushed into his lungs.

He looked back. The drain opening was only half a person's height, too small for the python's head to pass through. But the old iron chain attached to its tail was being slowly dragged into the darkness, and the notches on its links matched the border of the gray-marked iron tag precisely.

Helian Yuan did not follow the chain.

He had saved the transfer slip, the gray-marked iron tag, and the map of the eastern passage, but he had also used up his last torch and most of his lamp oil.

The sound of a collapse still came from downstream.

The exit was not the end. The water in Blackwater Ravine was rising, and the drainage channel would soon be sealed off as well.

Helian Yuan tied the soaked map to his chest and climbed upstream along the bank.

He had to reach the surface before the entire old grounds swallowed the exit.