Chapter 257 - Divine Sense
*Gulp*
Hao Xuan's throat dried up a little just from listening to Monk's explanation.
Demonic beasts were at the level equivalent to the Origin and Spirit realm.
After that were the Ether beasts, and after that were apparently Desolate beasts that had power levels higher than even Profound realm cultivators.
These realms were still so far away from Hao Xuan's reach that he couldn't imagine how strong those beasts were.
"Should we go back then...?" he mumbled with uncertainty.
"I think that would be a wise choice," Ensis chimed in, in agreement with Hao Xuan.
Monk looked at moved a few steps forward to get a better view of the mountain.
"I think you should go in first."
Ensis frowned upon hearing Monk's suggestion, his expression turning colder by the second. Hao Xuan noticed the change and patted his shoulder silently, calming him down.
He looked at Monk with a curious gaze, "Why?"
"This place is home to some of the most vicious creatures on this side of the continent. With our strength, we wouldn't survive long if ventured too deep, but thankfully this is just the periphery of the graveyard," he turned around to meet Hao Xuan's eyes.
"These beasts constantly fight with one another for supremacy, often killing each other in the process. The chances of there being a corpse of an Ether beast in there are pretty high. You can sneak in and take a few things. Wherever these beasts live, treasures of the earth start appearing due to the high density of energy around them. Who knows, you might find something good down there," he said pointing at the pit that went straight into the ground at an angle of 60 degrees.
Ensis quickly walked up to Hao Xuan and whispered into his ear, "Master, its extremely dangerous here. We don't know what's down there, and it could lead to certain death. Let us return."
Hao Xuan rubbed his chin in deep thought, weighing the pros and cons of each option and decided on the most obvious one.
"We'll go in. Just for a bit. If there's anything strange we will turn back right there and then. Don't worry," he assured the Sword God that was unusually worried for some reason.
Perhaps it was a sixth sense or just his imagination, but that pit gave off a feeling of absolute dread to him.
Having decided on the matter, they all jumped up on Bai and slowly made their way towards the giant pit.
Hao Xuan decided to keep Monk out as well since he was originally in the Spirit Realm and even though he was injured right now, his years of experience was still worth a lot.
The closer the got the bigger the pit became. They were looking at it from an angle before so couldn't see its actual size, but it was more than 500 meters in diameter up front. (pics in authors notes)
Whatever beast made it must have been stupendously huge.
Bai who was pretty big on his own seemed like an ant standing in front of the pit's entrance. With some hesitation, he jumped in, sticking closely to the cracks in the walls.
And like that the party slowly descended deeper and deeper into the dark pit whose base wasn't anywhere in sight.
At the start, the surrounding area was made up of ice harder than diamonds as Bai's sharp claws didn't even leave a single mark on them, but it slowly changed to a brown earthy material a couple of kilometers in.
The trio dared not even breathe out loud and held their breaths while looking around with squinted eyes, not missing a single detail.
20 minutes later the pit opened up into the side of a giant cavern, finally revealing the bottom.
The cavern was several dozen kilometers wide with a white grass covering the entire floor like a carpet. There were blue crystalline rocks the size of small cars littered across the floor. Under and around each crystal were many different kinds of herbs and small animals roaming around.
There was no one source of light here and everything gave off a luminescent glow, including the creatures and the grass.
"It's there," Bai spoke to Hao Xuan again, gesturing towards a crater in the middle.
Hao Xuan followed his line of sight and saw a gigantic cracked rock taking up more than 300 meters of space. The ground underneath it was caved in like someone had smashed it with a hammer.
"Do you detect any life signs?" he asked the part in a low voice.
Ensis shook his head, "Nothing other than those small critters," pointing at the numerous small beasts running around the floor.
"Alright, let's go down," Hao Xuan patted Bai's fur.
Bai leaped and silently landed behind a crystalline rock. The trio got off from his back and carefully landed on the cavern floor.
The white grass acted like cushions under their feet, making them feel like they were walking on clouds.
Hao Xuan recalled Bai because just his presence alone had created a small commotion among the local wildlife. He then looked at Monk and Ensis.
"Spread out, look for anything worth taking. If you find any other beasts, call me before engaging."
"Yes."
"Ahan."
They replied in unison and went in separate directions. Ensis went left while Monk went right, leaving Hao Xuan the middle area.
He slowly made his way towards the giant cracked rock in the middle of the cavern. Unlike the outside, the temperature here wasn't very low.
The hundreds of small beasts seemed harmless as they didn't even react to Hao Xuan passing by. While some of them came up to him and watched on with curious gazes from some distance.
A small rabbit-like creature with webbed arms hopped towards him while being chased by something that looked like a mix between a white fox and a cat.
Hao Xuan stopped in his tracks to watch their chase, which came to an abrupt end. The fox creature caught up to rabbit pretty quickly, but the result was not what he expected.
When the fox was less than a foot away from it, the rabbit spun around and let loose a kick that sent the fox creature flying away.
The rabbit then continued on like nothing had even happened.
*Grumble*
The entire cavern suddenly shook as several pieces of crystalline rocks fell from the ceiling. Hao Xuan jumped left and right to avoid the falling debris.
He looked up and finally saw thousands of extremely sharp icicles dangling off the ceiling with one huge hole in the middle.
That hole seemed to be the main entrance to this area but it was about a kilometer straight up into the air.
Ignoring the razer sharp icicles above, Hao Xuan didn't waste any more time and sprinted towards the cracked rock. He reached it within a couple of minutes but was left stupefied.
He was expecting there to be something UNDER the rock but when he went around, the complete picture came into view.
The 'cracked rock' was the back of a humungous beast. More than half of its body was smashed into the ground, creating a small lake of a greyish liquid.
And the cracks weren't actually cracks but burn marks.
The creature's head looked like it was carved from a rock. There was a single long horn the size of about 80 meters on its forehead, which in itself was absolutely massive. (Link in author note)
Every scale of this creature was made up of a hard, brown material.
On the other side was a lone wing that was more than 200 meters long.
'So that's how it came and went…' Hao Xuan thought inwardly. This beast that was probably over a kilometer in size was able to fly. It had wings!
Even though the beast was completely dead, it still gave off a heavy pressure when Hao Xuan got close to it. Waves of thick Qi impacted his body, making his heart beast faster.
He suddenly felt parched and the bubbling grey liquid oozing from the creature in front looked like an alluring elixir.
His body reacted to the liquid's presence and started to itch. He just wanted to jump into it and it would go away.
He moved closer step by step until the distance between him and the liquid was less than 2 meters. But then he remembered something...
'Wait, what…what the f*ck killed it…?!'
As the thought popped into Hao Xuan's head, he suddenly got a feeling that someone was watching him.
He took a few steps back and distanced himself from the rock beast while looking around, but the feeling didn't go away.
It was a surreal moment. No matter how he moved the feeling only got stronger and stronger.
"Oi, you guys feel that??" he contacted the other two for confirmation.
Ensis's panicked came through the watch, "It's Divine Sense master! Distance yourself from that creature. The thing that killed it is coming! RUN!"
****
Authors Notes:
Pit: https://urlzs.com/4BMeu
https://urlzs.com/2t1eW
Cavern: https://urlzs.com/kNCP8
https://urlzs.com/3VSN7
Beast link: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/monsterhunter/images/2/20/MH4-Gravios_Render_001.png/revision/latest?cb=20140121034041
Short version: https://urlzs.com/WUzJ6