Chapter 58 – The skeletons in the cave
Chapter 58 – The skeletons in the cave
Translated by Sunyancai
Sponsored by Nathanael
Perhaps it was because of the existence of the king stone worm, but up to now, the only creature Shao Xuan encountered was the insect which dragged him away earlier. All the rest of the other creatures and worms seemed to have disappeared.
Probably all those eyeless spiders and other worms hid in their dens since the king stone worm woke up and took a walk around.
As for the insect which was just beheaded by Shao Xuan, perhaps it was just too anxious to take revenge.
If that was true, perhaps Shao Xuan should go back to the three-forked crossing and choose a new path?
Never mind. Shao Xuan shook his head, and continued to follow the intuition. It was very strange and weird in this mountain.
Shao Xuan grabbed the antenna that he had chopped off and coiled it around one of his arms. Except for the hook with serrations on the top, the other parts of the antenna were quite soft, and Shao Xuan felt no pain when he coiled it around his arm.
Now, Shao Xuan had no idea which part of the mountain he was in, because he was very clear that he absolutely had no sense of direction inside, as he spent more and more time in the tunnels. It was quite peculiar, he had quite a strong sense of direction, but it didn’t work in here.
In fact, Shao Xuan loved to play maze games in his former life, and he could memorize every place he had been to. When the others were having a headache about the messed-up directions, Shao Xuan could always find the right one correctly. Even now, if he needed to get back to the tribe along the hunting route, he wouldn’t have the slightest hesitation, however, in this mountain, he was confused.
There were many tunnels and creatures in the mountain. Aside from the king stone worm, there were also many other kinds of creatures, the eyeless spiders and the insect killed by Shao Xuan were only two of the many kinds.
In theory, there should be traces of many different creatures living together. Unfortunately, none of those traces could be found. There were no scratches, no remains, no cobwebs, no pieces of shells, nothing, as if nothing ever existed. Just like when hunting groups created some marks to show the right route, it would be totally erased by the time someone came in again.
If the totem’s power really could guide those who lost their way to the right direction and path, how could their ancestors then have been lost in the mountain?
Shao Xuan kept walking forward following this feeling. When there was a crossing or a fork, he would carefully sense the surroundings with this special ability to choose which way to go. Shao Xuan only hoped that his intuition doesn’t go wrong or lie to him, else he would be doomed. Just as the ancestors in Lang Ga’s stories, he won’t be able to come back once he lost his way in here.
Compared with the intuition brought by the flame, Shao Xuan had a stronger feeling when he used his special ability.
He felt that he was moving down, and probably, he had left the mountain side long ago and he almost reached the foot of the mountain. However, his intuition told him to keep walking.
Later on, he saw some small worms which were the same size as an adult’s fist. In his vision, they were just balls of pale grey, and the vague rough outlines were the only thing that Shao Xuan could see with his special ability.
When the worms approached Shao Xuan, he would use the antenna to whip them away. In fact, those little worms seemed to be quite afraid of the smell of that antenna. When Shao Xuan whipped them with the antenna, they tended to run away promptly, quite frightened.
Shao Xuan speculated that perhaps those little worms were the food that the insect usually ate, which should be a reasonable explanation for their panicked behavior.
Along with the antenna whip, the tooth sword also held the essence of the insect.
Fist-sized worms were crawling all over the wall, and Shao Xuan could even hear the faint but numerous sounds as they wriggled on the wall.
But wherever Shao Xuan went, those worms would keep away from him.
If he had not killed that insect and chopped down its antenna, wouldn’t it have been troublesome for him now? Even though the worms were not big in size, in large quantities, they could be pretty difficult to deal with.
At first, Shao Xuan only cut off that antenna for revenge, however, unexpectedly, it was quite useful in this situation.
The unique feeling was gradually getting intenser. If we say that earlier, his feeling was like a little breeze, now it could be considered as a gust of strong wind, indicating the right direction.
It shouldn’t be the way out, but both the totemic power and that special ability told him to go along the same way.
Why was that exactly?
Some kind of a treasure?
Even with a clear indication, Shao Xuan didn’t proceed faster, but kept to the same pace, while being alert of the surroundings.
Luckily, aside from those little worms, there was no other creature.
It was closer…
Shao Xuan clenched his tooth sword and was a little bit tense.
After walking in the cave for so long, Shao Xuan could always feel the breeze and slight sounds. However, the more he moved forward, the more he felt that he was heading to a dead end.
Shao Xuan continued to walk along the way, and soon enough, there were no more worms on the wall.
t was very quiet around here, and when all the sounds of the worms faded away, it was complete silence.
It was not only the silence, there wasn’t even air-flow in the surroundings.
There seemed to be light, in the front…
Shao Xuan hesitated.
Light?
Shao Xuan switched to the normal view, it was still dark. He realized that he could only see the light spot in the darkness when he used his special ability to switch to the special view.
Shao Xuan went towards that light spot, and all of a sudden, he felt kind of suffocated in his heart.
He could not tell what exactly that feeling was… It was like something ancient, desolate and with endless sadness.
The light spot grew bigger and now it seemed like a light cover, shrouding that small piece of land.
When Shao Xuan finally reached the spot and was able to see the situation inside the light cover clearly, one of his eyelids twitched suddenly.
Inside the light cover there were four skeletons, at least it was so in Shao Xuan’s view.
In the middle of the cover, there was a skeleton on its knees, and the other three were surrounding him.
The four skeletons were genuflected in the same gesture, which was also the most respectful salute in the ritual in the tribe, on their knees, with two hands crossed before the forehead, and kowtowed in the same direction.
Around those four skeletons, there were long spears and stone knifes buried underneath the ground. Those stone weapons were all in a very dark color, especially the long spear beside the man in the middle, which was almost black. Obviously they were all excellent stone tools, which can only mean that all four warriors used to be strong and powerful ones in the tribe, especially the one in the middle. He must have had quite a high position.
And the direction in which they were worshiping… Even though Shao Xuan had a confused sense of direction, he had a feeling that it was the tribe.
Shao Xuan glanced over those four skeletons and their stoneware, and then his sight focused on the skeleton in the middle.
There was a bone ornament in front of his chest. Shao Xuan did not know what kind of bone it was made from, but it had a brighter color than any of the skeletons in Shao Xuan’s special view.
Ever since he had obtained that special capability, Shao Xuan had given serious thought and done much research about the special view. In his special view, different warriors of different level had bones of different colors. For instance, junior warriors had pale gray skeletons, while intermediate warriors had white skeletons. For senior warriors, such as the Chief Ao, he had bright white skeletons. However, right now, all those four skeletons were in the color of bright white. Although they were in different shades, it was true that they were all quite advanced warriors. Among them, the one in the middle had the brightest color. But even so, these four skeletons could never be compared with the bone ornament.
But that wasn’t the most important thing he had observed.
The thing that caught Shao Xuan’s undivided attention was a ball beset in the bone ornament. It was no bone, but it lit up the surroundings like a light bulb, which created the light cover that Shao Xuan saw earlier.
Once again, he switched the view and withdrew his special ability. This time he tried to look at it with the normal view, only to find that it was still nothing but darkness, with no trace of light. However, when he used his special ability to see, he noticed that the ball was as bright as always, and the light it created enveloped the surroundings into its cover.
With a little more observation, Shao Xuan also found that unlike the other three skeletons, the skeleton in the middle was the most complete one in good condition. The others had sunk into the ground to some extent. The things that were located closer to the edge of the light cover sank deeper into the ground.
In the range of the light cover, some scattered stoneware could also be seen. They were all made out of fine stones, but some of them had already submerged under the ground with only parts of them still above to be seen.
However, outside the range of the light cover, Shao Xuan had not seen any stoneware, skeletons, or bones.
This mountain was ‘eating’ people. Not only people, it was “eating” other things as well. If the insect killed by Shao Xuan wasn’t eaten by other creatures, it’s remains probably would also be swallowed by the mountain gradually.
In fact, this mountain had “eaten” a lot, for instance, the long-lost humans, dead worms or insects, and other things in here. Aside from those caves and tunnels, nothing had been left.
However, even after hundreds of years, the warriors and stoneware in the range of that light cover could be preserved up to today, because of the lighting ball.