Chapter 369: Karst Cave
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Hao Ren was not sure whether they were the bane of the Plane of Dreams. The people there had been living there safely for tens of thousands of years, but after Hao Ren and his team visited this place, troubles kept happening there. And now, this sacred cavern might be scrapped.
Of course, the cavern might not be ruined, but that magic door that could identify The Chosen Ones was ruined. People could easily find it out at a glance that the magic circle on the top of the cavern was not opened in a correct way… It was blown up.
Vivian and Lily looked up at the hole at the top of the cavern. Lily was a well-read prolific writer. At this moment, her head was full of the plots of stories: the ancient cavern left by the immortal, the one who ascended to heaven and became immortal left behind an inhibition and a millennial prophecy, waiting for thousands of years for the right person to open the cavern and take over the legacy. There was nothing wrong for the immortal to think so, but suddenly, there came a bunch of aliens with a big bomb blew the cave off…
"You see, two things that are incompatible are better not to mix together." Lily, as a senior writer, patted Hao Ren on the shoulder, acting like an elder and said, "How many fairy tales would be destroyed if aliens were falling in the Middle Ages…"
She sounded serious, but it was better to keep her tail from wagging when she said it.
"How can you say I made them fall! It should be caused by the little green men. The magic circle was shattered when the ship crashed. But the stone of the top of the cavern is strong enough to hold it for so long. The destructive power of our construction is not as strong as that when the ship crashed."
They were gathered and whispered in a circle, afraid that others would hear their conversation. But in the end, Vivian still looked at big beardy and the other three ascetics and said, "I think... We can’t keep it for too long. They are not fools. A few more glances will find out that the seal of the cavern was destroyed by brute force."
"Never mind that. We’ll talk about it later. Only their words count anyway."
By this time Big Beardy and the other three of them had already noticed the shattered magic circle and rocks on the top of the cavern. The four respectable devout believers did not think much of it. They put their hands on the chest and whispered the name of the Goddess. The young nun also muttered to the others, "So that’s the way the cave was opened. Probably only The Chosen Ones can blow up the right spot…"
Hao Ren and others really could not understand the way the devout believers think. Otherwise, he should have known that they were a bunch of ascetics who based everything on Bible even when they saw aliens falling from the sky. Whatever the Goddess said could not go wrong. Even if there was a problem in the world, it had nothing to do with the Goddess, but you comprehend the Bible in a wrong way!
At this time, Gelton, the oldest person in the team, had also stopped panting. The old man investigated the neighborhood. Then his sight rested beside the pool. There were some broken slates and fragments of unknown material, apparently not something in the cave. The old man immediately exulted and said, "This should be part of the church!"
Hao Ren looked up at the big hole in the top of the cavern. The hole was huge, but it was obviously not huge enough to engulf the whole island. So the rumor that the island in the middle of the lake and the church were swallowed up by the whirlpool was, in fact, a superficial exaggeration. This should be the case: when the whirlpool produced waves, plus the rock stratum at the bottom of the lake collapsed, causing the island’s foundation to collapse, and eventually, the whole island and the church sank into the water. The structure of the church was obviously more fragile than the natural island, so it fell off the island when it was torn by the whirlpool, and then was sucked into the cave beneath the lake.
He let the data terminal scan the area with radar and found that his reasoning was basically correct.
Now the massive amount of lake water was still pouring down from the hole on the top of the cave. The size of the waterspout was unusually large. If any ordinary people saw this scene, it would probably make them shudder. In fact, Becky was having a twisted stomach now. She was the only ‘normal’ person on the scene.
As the water kept pouring down, there was something flowing down along the water, including broken boulders, sand and lake creatures, and some man-made objects that flickered. Only a handful of these things had been washed to the edge of the pool, and most of them should have sunk to the bottom.
The Divine Sacrophagus probably would not rise to the surface of the water.
"Probably only the church fell into the cave." Hao Ren walked to Gelton and Ophra, acting like a scholar, saying something that everyone already knew. "I reckoned that all the man-made facilities on the island were not able to withstand the big whirlpool, so the Divine Sacrophagus should have fallen in. We should be looking at the bottom."
"We have to find a way to fix the hole," Ophra said, looking at the hideous hole on the top of the cavern. "What if it continues to expand... The consequences are disastrous. I’m afraid the entire cavern will collapse and we won’t survive then."
"How to fix it?" Hao Ren looked at that hole perplexedly and said, "throw some stones from above to plug the hole? That might make the hole bigger."
Ophra looked at Hao Ren with a weird expression and said, "…the way you think don’t seem like a common mage. Shouldn’t you be thinking about using some sort of magic to plug the hole? "
Hao Ren immediately got extremely embarrassed and explained,"... I study space magic most of the time, not familiar with another kind of magic. And honestly, the hole is so big, do you think an ordinary mage can fix it?"
"If there is plenty of time and manpower, it is not difficult to plug it in a few days. Or let Prince Hoffman do it, he should have the ability to fix it," Ophra shook her head and continued, "but it was too late. And the second point is particularly unrealistic."
"The cavern probably won’t collapse in a short time," the Big Beardy suddenly said but did not explain the real reason. "The Goddess will protect us."
"As long as we find the Divine Sacrophagus before the cave collapses," Gelton said, holding the gold cane of bishop and walking to the pool. "With my power, as long as we find the Divine Sacrophagus, I will be able to send the Divine Sacrophagus back to the ground in time even if the cave collapses."
Then, he walked to the pool. The water retreated to both sides and a path appeared in front of him. This kind of silent phenomenon was different from the conventional water magic. Probably it was the ‘divine magic’. Ophra also followed him and said, "Let me help you, I’m good at searching."
At this time, the Big Beardy coughed. Hao Ren immediately got it and said, "We’re not good in swimming, so we just go to the cave nearby to see the situation. We try our best to find any emergency access so we have a route of retreat, in case this cave collapses."
Big Beardy agreed and said, "We go with these mercenaries. We are on the sacred grounds, and maybe we can find something related to the sacred heritage."
Big Beardy was actually quite good at making up a lie.
"That’s great. We really should find a route of retreat first," Ophra said without suspecting, but she nodded to the old werewolf and said, "Elson, you go with them. You guys can help each other. After you guys found the tunnel, don’t go too deep. Just come back to join us."
In the end, Gelton and Ophra were left in the cavern to search for the Divine Sacrophagus, and the rest of them went to explore the nearby caves.
Hao Ren knew that Big Beardy was ready to lead his team to the heart of the sacred cave, but he would not want to allow the old werewolf to come along. According to the oracle of 3000 years ago, only the pope, the chosen ascetics, and The Chosen Ones, these three kinds of people could go to the core of the cave. Other people were not allowed to know this, let alone explore the cave. Hao Ren wondered how Big Beardy going to get rid of the old werewolf.
This underground world was unusually large. There were seven or eight caves around the large cavern. No one knew where those caves lead to. Hao Ren and his teammates pretended to have a discussion. Finally, Big Beardy glanced at the old werewolf and Gelton and Ophra in the distance, and then said solemnly before the fork, "Let me pray to the Goddess to see which way to go."
While he was speaking, he bowed his head and whispered a few spells, and then pulled out a small stick and threw it. "Well, this way."
Hao Ren, "…"
He knew that the direction Big Beardy pointed out with the stick was certainly the correct way, but could this uncle please make up a more reliable way?!