Chapter 889: The Mausoleum Is Open!
Translator: flycrane01 Editor: Millman97
When the two parties passed by each other, Li Yao indeed discovered stripes that looked like runes on the body of the two enormous beasts. They were not wounds that were torn apart after they were born but scales and speckles grown congenitally.
Although they were just illusions, the two overwhelming beats were still suffocating enough, making Li Yao realize why the Blade of Chaos and Elder Nether Spring were trying to excavate the legacy of Chaos without caring about the cost.
The sky-hunting warship continued rushing deep inside the Star Swallowing Sea.
Because of the different speed of dropping in different areas, surging torrents were everywhere.
They were surrounded by dozens of waterfalls and falling to the bottom of the waterfalls at one moment, and running inside a deep valley whose ‘crags’ were all lake water made of heavy metals the next. Illuminated by the sunlight, the water reflected colorful patterns as if countless dragons and snakes were fighting. The soul-stirring picture made everybody feel as if they were on a journey to doom.
At first, Li Yao did not know what the sky-hunting warship was looking for exactly while it was circling inside the Star Swallowing Sea. It was not until after more than three hours of rushing that he finally discovered a shallow scratch on a mountain on his right side.
The scratch was not naturally-made but apparently caused by a certain prehistorical beast. After tens of thousands of years, it had not been worn down yet.
The sky-hunting warship stayed for a long time near the scratch and did not march forward again until the biochemical eyes had captured every detail of the scratch.
Li Yao thought quickly and immediately understood what the Blade of Chaos was doing.
If the Mausoleum of Chaos was really somewhere deep inside the Star Swallowing Sea, and countless enormous beasts had been produced inside the mausoleum, then it was inevitable that some of them would have hit the mountains under the lake and left traces after they were released.
After the traces were discovered, with thorough analysis, it was possible to track the route of their movement and eventually locate the coordinates where they were released.
The coordinates would be the entrance to the Mausoleum of Chaos.
Very soon, night fell. The swirls deep inside the Star Swallowing Sea were all uttering bubbling noises, and the water level that was dropping fast began to rise again. The mountains below the lake were consumed one after another until they were entirely drowned by the black water.
Although the sky-hunting warship could travel in ordinary seawater, it would not take long before its shell was corroded, crushed, and shattered if it moved in the Star Swallowing Sea.
Besides, the penetration of light was extremely bad inside the Star Swallowing Sea. The sky-hunting warship was no better than a blind fish after it dived in. The few probe biochemical beasts were far from enough to clearly see the entire bottom of the lake.
Therefore, they had to retreat for now and rest for a night in the middle of the raging tides and lightning of the Star Swallowing Sea.
Following that, they lurked at night and worked during the day for three days, continuing their research deep inside the Star Swallowing Ocean, only to find nothing. Not only did they fail to find any traces left by the prehistoric beasts, they did not even have a second chance to see the electromagnetic illusions of the beasts, as if the mirages were merely everybody’s imagination.
But Yuchi Ba was as cold, tough, and unwavering as a slab of iron. He commanded his team patiently to search among the mountains below the lake.
On the fourth day, the illuminance of God Chaos finally fell upon the exploration team.
Although Li Yao did not know the details, he could clearly feel that the sky-hunting warship was flying in a more patterned route. It seemed to be hovering around a certain location at the bottom of the lake.
Looking ahead, he could see that the lake water, which had plunged to the lowest point, was revealing hundreds of crooked wrinkles that looked like the hunched backs of dragons.
Maybe it was his imagination, but Li Yao suddenly felt that the ridges of the mountains seemed to be condensing into a howling face whose mouth was so wide open that it was being split apart.
Hu!
The sky-hunting warship dashed to one of the ridges that seemed unattractive but in fact had hundreds of traces caused by enormous beasts.
The left side of the ridge was even as smooth as a mirror because of the rubbing of the scales. If one were to observe it from the sky from an appropriate angle, it would seem like a glittering gem that had been embedded into the Star Swallowing Sea.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
Two small boats were launched from the lower part of the abdomen of the sky-hunting warship and dashed toward the ridge. Before they landed, dozens of shadows lunged out of the boats and rushed to the top on the ridge.
Li Yao was suddenly alarmed. He knew that they were the real core members of the Blade of Chaos, and they perhaps knew dozens of times more information regarding the Mausoleum of Chaos than Li Yao did.
The elites of the Blade of Chaos were all riding armor beasts with multiple limbs that seemed to have combined the advantages of dozens of types of huge insects.
Their claws, teeth, and limbs pierced deeply into the solid rock stratums, allowing them to move on the vertical cliff, which was as smooth as a mirror, agilely as if they were moving on the ground.
Li Yao noticed that they would bash several straight metal rods into the rocks every time they moved forward a certain distance. Following which, they connected the devices with synthesized nerves and eventually joined them with a cluster of enormous biochemical brain.
It should be some form of space detection gear based on the genes of bats. By releasing an oriented vibration wave to the depths of the underground and absorbing the vibration wave that is fed back, the size and structure of the underground space can easily be determined.
The Star Glory Federation had similar magical equipment. Such tools were mandatory in underground prospecting jobs.
Very soon, the entire ridge of the mountain was brimming with metal rods, which made it look like a crocodile that had been stabbed with spears all over its body.
The buffer liquids inside the cabin were quickly extracted, indicating that their journey was coming to an end.
Yuchi Ba was obviously overjoyed. “We have located the Mausoleum of Chaos. All squads, gather and prepare to work!”
In the following hour, the more bizarre-shaped demons were projected to the nearby of the mountain under the lake. They were busy doing their jobs around the ridge.
The only part that Li Yao could understand was that some of the demons were planting powerful time bombs based on the terrain of the ridge.
Judging from the techniques of their installment and the size of their bombs, it was possible that they could blow up rocks almost a hundred meters thick.
“Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! We must finish the work before the lake water flows again, or everything will be in vain!” Yuchi Ba landed on the mountain and roared to issue commands.
Even by Li Yao’s standard as a super bomb expert, the detonation team was definitely well trained. It only took them slightly more than four hours for them to complete the complicated work of hole-digging and bomb-planting. At this moment, the other workers around the ridge finished their jobs, too.
All of them retreated to the sky-hunting warship again.
At this moment, it was already dusk, and the lake water was about to soar up.
In less than an hour, the mountain would be drowned again.
When the sky-hunting warship flew multiple kilometers away in a hurry, seven earsplitting explosions burst out behind Li Yao. Seven streams of mystic rays soared up into the sky and formed a complicated pattern in midair before they hit the mountain heavily like shooting stars!
After a huge boom, a colorful mushroom cloud slowly rose up, mixed with creaking noises, as if countless devils were grinning hideously and escaping from the Mausoleum of Chaos.
The sky-hunting warship managed to turn around in midair by force and aimed at the source of the mushroom cloud. All the warriors, including Li Yao, were ready for battle. Should there be anything wrong, they would be able to connect to their biochemical beasts quickly.
However, the shrieks came to an abrupt halt after three minutes. As it turned out, they were nothing but compressed air currents that had been locked for forty thousand years below the ground. The probe of soundwaves and infrared rays did not report the traces of any living creature, either.
The sky-hunting warship finally emboldened itself to go closer.
The raging mushroom gradually dispersed. Everybody could see that the upper half part of the ridge had almost been blown away entirely, giving birth to an irregular black hole. When the sky-hunting warship approached and scanned, it was determined that a vast space was hidden below the mountain and that the fractures of many parts of the space were in an absolutely precise plane, indicating the work of intelligent creatures.
“Hoooo!”
Everybody inside the cabin roared in excitement.
Then, around the mountain, translucent vesicles that both looked like swimming bladders and bubbles gradually bulged.
The vesicles swallowed each other and gradually expanded in size until it covered the entire mountain like a glass cap.
When the black lake water rose up again, it was blocked from the vesicles. Not a single drop of water was able to leak into it.
The sky-hunting warship flew to the top of the glass cap and extended a translucent soft tube from the abdomen, which connected the cabin to the glass cap like an umbilical cord.
Then, the sky-hunting warship slowly moved upwards at the same speed of the rising lake water and returned to the surface of the lake. Eventually, it was docked thirty meters above the Star Swallowing Sea.
Right now, the entrance to the Mausoleum was hundreds of meters below the Star Swallowing Sea, but it was connected to the sky-hunting warship through an ‘umbilical cord’.
“Inside the Star Swallowing Sea, the super high-intensity waterproof cover can last for three to five days. We must finish the preliminary exploration during this time!”
Yuchi Ba did not go back on his word. After making sure that there was enough fresh air inside the Mausoleum of Chaos, he was the first to enter the place through the long ‘umbilical cord’, leading a large batch of explorers.
Li Yao’s mission, on the other hand, was to stick closely to Chu Zhengqing and Chu Feiyin, two specialists in the studies of Chaos. They suffered in the weird silence for more than two hours before they were permitted to enter the Mausoleum of Chaos!
“Let’s go, Master Chu!”
With a telepathic thought, Li Yao’s brainwaves spread out, and a transparent vesicle slowly rose up around his neck and covered his entire head.
On his back, a small piece of membrane was fluctuating, filtering the air in the outside world multiple times before it was sent into the vesicle.
Although the examination had proved that the air inside the Mausoleum of Chaos was normal, it was a relic from forty thousand years ago. There was no telling whether or not a fatal virus or microorganisms still existed in the air. Therefore, it was best to stay prudent.
Li Yao, Chu Zhengqing, and Chu Feiyin were enveloped by a cluster of bright yellow buffer liquids and fell quickly along the ‘umbilical cord’. After sliding for almost twenty seconds, they landed somewhere near the entrance of the Mausoleum of Chaos.