At this time, Tian Jihong had no choice but to trust his intuition and explore along the widest main road. In an environment where he couldn't see his fingers, the wide road at least meant that he could avoid a few mistakes. Fortunately, after half an hour of trekking, Tianjihong could no longer feel the existence of the violent fire spiritual energy in the air, and he also took this opportunity to recover the spiritual power in his body.
Moreover, the road seemed to be too barren. Apart from encountering a few fire toads that fled together at the beginning, the only thing that bothered Tianjihong later on was a small number of cave bats. Since these bats were born in caves without spiritual energy nourishment, they are no different from the same kind seen in the ordinary world, and they do not pose the slightest threat to themselves. Apart from this, Tianjihong found no other signs of biological activity along the road, which saved him a lot of unnecessary trouble in exploring the path in the dark.
In this way, Tianjihong marched in the darkness for about half an hour, and finally arrived at the end of the main road of the passage. According to his inference, he and his party had traveled at least several miles from the magma lake to here; the direction of the path under his feet was probably spreading towards the depths of the mountains, and he was probably already in the core area of Dongyun Mountain. Inside. Recalling Master's previous instructions, this place has been regarded as a forbidden area that Master has told us not to approach.
However, these are still things that he needs to worry about in the future. No matter where he is now, the most important thing for Tianjihong now is to find an exit from this underground world first. At the end of the passage, Tianjihong discovered after some exploration that the thick stone wall still stood in front of him, and there was still no sign of sunlight around him.
Unwilling to do so, he still refused to give up, so with the help of the dagger in his hand, Tianjihong waved his fists vigorously in an attempt to carve an exit between the rocks in front of him. Unfortunately, after working hard for nearly ten minutes, not only was there no new road dug out as Tian Jihong imagined, but the rock wall under his feet began to become harder and harder. Under the constant collision with the stone wall, scars appeared between Tianjihong's finger bones, and he might not be able to hold on for too long.
Looking at the scarred palms, Tianjihong had no choice but to stop. In just ten minutes, he had only advanced one or two meters. Now that he is unable to determine the specific location, he has no idea where is the best path to the outside world; the increase in the density of the surrounding stone walls can only mean that the angle of Tianjihong's excavation must be deviated, and he is very likely to They are doing useless work toward the deeper parts of the mountain. If he continues to act like this without thinking, he may not be able to escape from this dark underground until the dagger is broken.
Seeing that this was not an option, Tianjihong resolutely decided to give up the current path and turned around directly to head towards the side roads he had just discovered behind him. In this difficult moment, he knew that the most important thing for him was to keep his head clear, and he must not be dazzled by a temporary failure and lose his mind. After thinking about it carefully, Tianjihong realized that he had not found any signs of any living beings in this passage along the way. This meant that there must be a long distance between this place and the outside area, so if he chose to give up now, maybe It's a wise decision.
This time, with his previous experience, Tianjihong was more cautious when he turned back to explore the fork in the road behind him. Once you reach the end of the passage and find no way out, and there are no traces of animal activity in the cave, you will no longer waste time and make a decisive U-turn. After hitting the wall twice in succession, Tianjihong finally discovered something unusual on the third path leading to the lower right.
He did not give priority to this path at first. Firstly, it was because its direction was opposite to what he expected and seemed to extend deeper into the ground. Secondly, he could clearly sense it at the fork of the passage. Compared with other passages, the road under my feet is obviously more rugged. Not only are there many broken stone obstacles along the road, but the surrounding cliffs are also more ferocious. If you are not careful while walking, you will be scratched by the sharp stone walls.
But what he didn't expect was that after Tianjihong, who had little hope for this road, walked along the road for less than a hundred meters, a thick fishy smell filled the air from deeper in the passage. He immediately realized that there must have been large beasts in this area, and the smell was probably the body odor and feces left by the beasts that had lived here for a long time.
Although he was somewhat wary of the unknown beast ahead, this was indeed great news for Tianjihong at the moment. In such a barren cave, even snakes and rats would have difficulty finding resources to survive, let alone large beasts with such a strong aura. This means that the owner of this place must have a way to leave the cave to find food. There is a high possibility of an underground exit ahead of this road.
So Tian Jihong immediately put a lot of energy into it, gradually slowed down his pace, and began to tiptoe and press his feet against the wall to advance deeper. In the dark, without soul consciousness, it is difficult for him to rely on vision to sense the approaching danger in advance, so other senses such as smell and hearing become even more important. In order not to be affected by the sound of his own footsteps, Tianjihong deliberately avoided all the gravel in the gaps and jumped directly between the broken stones with his flexible body. In this way, even if he cannot hide his figure under the perception of the spiritual beast, at least he will not interfere with his hearing and can predict the enemy ahead.
After continuing to move forward for more than a hundred meters, the direction of the passage still did not change. On the contrary, it tilted downward at an increasing angle. Uncertain of the direction, Tianjihong even thought that he had descended below the horizon at the foot of the mountain. However, the smell emitted by the ferocious beast was indeed getting stronger and stronger at this moment. Tianjihong could already find the remaining hair and paw prints between the stone walls and the road beside him. Due to the lack of light, Tianjihong could only roughly distinguish from the outline of the footprints. The beasts that lived here should be similar to brown bears, but it was unknown what their true strength was.
But soon Tianjihong noticed something was wrong again. Within a few minutes, in addition to the pungent body odor that filled the air, there seemed to be a faint smell of blood. This immediately made Tianjihong nervous. The appearance of bloodstains must mean that there had been killings here. Whether it was caused by ferocious beasts in the dark or some other existence, it meant that he was not too far away from the other party at this time. Fighting could break out at any time.
To be on the safe side, Tian Jihong decided to stop for a moment and look for traces of the previous battle nearby. As expected, he found some blood-stained fur in a corner a few meters in front of him to the left. In the darkness, Tian Jihong couldn't distinguish the color of the blood stains, but judging from the smell, it must have been left by wild animals, but it was unclear whether it was left by the cave owner himself or by other outsiders. However, there seemed to be no traces of damage from the battle here. Only the bloodstains just discovered in the crevices under the feet extended further away.
So Tianjihong followed the bloodstains between the rocks and explored all the way. Even though he could not see the end of the cave in front of him, he could vaguely feel the flow of breath around him gradually accelerating in the passage. This was true. He was very close to the entrance of the cave not far away. Tianjihong quickly suppressed the tension and excitement in his heart. Approaching the entrance of the cave naturally means that the battle is approaching. Now is the most critical moment for whether he can escape. Since he has come this far, he must not let it happen because of Nothing could go wrong at this moment.
However, to his surprise, two minutes later, the passage made a sharp turn to the left. Tianjihong, who had been traveling along the blood trail, bumped into the stone wall in front of him. The passage in front of him seemed to be another dead end. After some exploration, Tian Jihong determined that the bloodstains under his feet ended here, but it looked like the place where a fierce battle broke out. Except for a large amount of blood splattered between the stone walls at the end, there are stones everywhere that have been damaged by brute force. Even the stone walls on the ceiling seem to have signs of collapse, but the only one that has not appeared is Tianjihong. Beware of the cave owners along the way.
Without too much analysis of the scene, it can be guessed that the owner of the cave must have been attacked by foreign intruders and had a fierce close combat, which led to the current mess. But this was not enough to explain the many doubts in Tianjihong's mind. After seeing the scene at the end of the passage, Tianjihong not only did not feel frustrated that he could not find the exit, but was keenly aware of many strange places.
First of all, he was very sure that there must be a cave entrance for spirit beasts to enter and exit here, but it was covered up for some unknown reason. He probably hadn't discovered it yet because it was too dark. But what puzzled him the most was that there were no corpses or skeletons here except for traces of battle; if two ferocious beasts were fighting, even if the owner of the cave died here, Tianjihong would not only He did not see the remaining skeleton, nor did he see any traces left after the body was dragged. This was really puzzling to him.
Therefore, after Tianjihong made sure that there were no other lurking entities around that posed a threat to him, he took the time to start looking for clues at the end of the cave. In addition to looking for the cave exit, he was also curious about what happened here. And after a while, he found the answer in a broken stone that remained after the battle. In the mud under the stone, Tian Jihong found a vague human footprint after some identification.
