Shadows crawling in the dark
"When did it disappear...?"
"Where did Hua Si Miao go?"
"Why did I suddenly lose my focus?"
A myriad of questions popped up in Jiang Jingyuan's mind. She suddenly seemed to remember something and looked down. The spiritual rope emitting aqua-blue fluorescence was still quietly wrapped around her left wrist.
It seems that the problem is with this stone road... Jiang Jingyuan was certain in his heart and did not doubt Hua Simiao.
Because if it was really Hua Simiao's doing, then she was a little too anxious. Either he would have attacked me in the cave, or wait until I was deeper into the illusion before attacking - this would have been the most reasonable.
The girl in white walked down the stairs without stopping or even looking back. She could only keep walking down.
At the same time, she looked forward to encountering something - even if it was dangerous.
Crisis is also an opportunity. As long as there is change, there will be ways to break the deadlock.
The most troublesome thing is that she keeps walking without any end and doesn't encounter anything else. This situation gives rise to too many speculations and ideas. If she can't break through the stone wall directly and is unwilling to teleport away directly, then she might really be trapped here for a while.
In the dim light, the sound of crisp footsteps echoed in the empty, narrow stone path, sometimes far away, sometimes close. Jiang Jingyuan seemed to hear the footsteps of a second person -
He followed closely behind her a few steps away.
“Da da da…”
"Da, da, da..."
When Jiang Jingyuan stopped, he stopped too. When Jiang Jingyuan walked, he walked too.
It was a very creepy feeling, as if there was a grinning little ghost clinging to her back.
A great panic descended—
Jiang Jingyuan felt cold all over.
Her feet seemed to be lost, keeping the same rhythm as she walked down the stone steps.
She didn't feel like she was being controlled, as if all this was just the body's subconscious behavior. She couldn't resist, or rather, she didn't know who to resist.
Her mind was blank. Panic, terror... all the emotions she had felt disappeared, as if she were enveloped in a hazy fog. After a long, long time, she managed to muster a single thought:
"Stairs, there's no end?"
She couldn't see the end...
but--
Just when she thought she would never see the end, she saw a faint blue light in front of the steps below in the distance, like a quiet ancient lighthouse waiting for someone to come for a long time in the dark night.
It was a completely different light from the lantern in her hand, she could tell.
"call……"
As she saw the blue light, the fog that had enveloped her dissipated. She felt like a drowning person finally breathing air, her tightly held breath finally released, and her soul sighed melodiously.
In the darkness of the narrow stone path, the only white light struggled forward like a lost firefly.
It was a young girl in white, carrying a lantern emitting white light as she hurried down the stairs. Her eyes paid no attention to her feet, but were fixed on the blue light in the distance, as persistent as if chasing after a last ray of salvation and hope...
Go forward, go forward, go forward, go forward quickly——
She didn't dare to hesitate and stepped into the blue light decisively——
The moment I was enveloped by the blue light, loneliness and fear disappeared.
She felt warmth for the first time in a long time in this world of ice and snow...
Jiang Jingyuan opened her eyes, and a light blue almost white pierced straight into her eyes!
“Snap—”
The lantern in his hand fell to the ground. Jiang Jingyuan subconsciously closed his eyes and put his hands on his eyes. Blood mixed with tears poured out from the corners of his tightly closed eyes, staining the white gauze covering his eyes red.
The white gauze was stained with two dark red blood stains at an extremely fast speed, and then gradually faded and became lighter at a speed visible to the naked eye. The gauze, having absorbed the blood, revealed a brighter white than before, so bright that it seemed to emit faint white light.
Jiang Jingyuan's fingers were only lightly placed on the white gauze, but they were stained scarlet the moment the blood gushed out.
In the cold environment, the blood on her ten fingers quickly solidified and turned into clumps of red powder stuck to her fingertips.
Generally speaking, white light is more glaring than blue light, but...
Her eyes felt itchy and painful, and Jiang Jingyuan couldn't help but blink hard. The blood flowing from her eyes kept dyeing the white gauze red and kept being swallowed by the white gauze, but her eyes could never be fully opened.
Her eyes blinked open a crack, and all she could see was large patches of scarlet, and she could not see anything else.
This is a more serious situation than on Daytime Mountain!
She subconsciously lowered her head, but the blue light still penetrated the white gauze and eyelids and pierced her bloodshot eyeballs, leaving her nowhere to hide.
Jiang Jingyuan paused, resisting the itch in his eyes, forced himself to put down his hands, bent down as if to divert his attention, and groped for the lantern on the cold ground with his hands.
Just as her right fingers touched the edge of an object, her tightly closed eyes suddenly went dark.
The blue light suddenly disappeared.
Without the stimulation of strong light, the itchiness and pain in Jiang Jingyuan's eyes finally eased a lot.
She let out a light breath, and only then realized that her back was already covered in sweat and felt cold.
Her eyes slowly opened in the darkness, and in her vision there were large patches of bright red flashing on the pitch-black canvas.
Jiang Jingyuan immediately spread part of his consciousness around him, and probed part into the silver bracelet with the safety lock, heading straight for the bottles of pills...
Just as his spiritual sense was about to reach the small white porcelain bottle, Jiang Jingyuan lowered his eyes and saw a very long black shadow darting through the dark space that was not touched by the large patches of flower-shaped bloodstains.
Location... on the ground not far from where she was standing at this moment!
"!!!" Jiang Jingyuan's heart was in his throat, blood flowed out of his eyes again due to the ups and downs of emotions, and the fishy smell lingered at the tip of his nose.
Almost at the same time, her spiritual consciousness seemed to transform into a physical sword and stabbed towards the black shadow!
"Bang--!!!"
The spiritual consciousness was as powerful as a flood, but it did not touch any living creature nearby. Instead, it rushed forward and crashed into a wall dozens of steps away!
As soon as the invisible spiritual consciousness touched the wall, it was like a heavy iron hammer hitting a solid wall. Instead of passing through the wall, it was bounced back fiercely!
The shock caused Jiang Jingyuan's head to throb with pain, and he staggered back involuntarily.
“Snap!”
A sound like the button of some mechanism being pressed, or the sound of sparks jumping outward from a burning flame, suddenly rang out. It was close to the ear and yet seemed far away in the sky, and a dazzling blue light lit up.
Jiang Jingyuan's stumbling steps back were startled by the sudden movement. He paused as something cold, smooth, and sticky brushed against his left ankle...
It felt as if a cold hand was rapidly climbing up his back, and Jiang Jingyuan was like a cat with its neck pinched, unable to move.
Her ears were silent, with only her heartbeat as the only sound. The imagined attack took a long time to come, causing her to wonder if the disgusting and sticky feeling just now was just an illusion.
Seeing no unusual movement around him, Jiang Jingyuan took the opportunity to quickly take out the pill and swallow it. The pill transformed into cool water and slid down his throat. Jiang Jingyuan's eyes felt like they were covered with a cool potion, and the stinging and itching faded away at an extremely fast speed.
He mobilized the energy in the jade bracelet and injected it into the white gauze covering his eyes. White light flowed on the gauze. Jiang Jingyuan tentatively opened his eyes a crack, and then opened them fully after confirming that it was feasible.
The images seen by spiritual consciousness are still very limited, and in many cases they are difficult to replace with the naked eye.
Jiang Jingyuan stood up and looked around.
It looked like a square ice cellar made entirely of ice. The six walls—top, bottom, left, right, front, and back—were each made from a single, thick, yet transparent block of ice. Behind the six ice walls, there seemed to be three more layers of six thick, transparent ice walls, each magnified in equal proportion. Layer upon layer, the surface behind them became increasingly uncertain...
People's vision passes through the ice surface unimpeded, but the spatial image seen by the eyes is distorted by layers of ice, like a strange abstract painting that will make you feel nauseous and dizzy if you look at it for a long time.
She was now in the center of this ice cellar that was emitting a biting cold.
This ice cellar was very long. How had she managed to cross most of the ice cellar space with one foot from the passage and stand directly in the center of the ice cellar? The few steps she took back just now could not have crossed half the ice cellar... Jiang Jingyuan watched everything, and a question unconsciously arose in his heart.
She turned around and scanned the area. As expected, she found no door or passage in the square ice cellar. The six ice walls on the nearest layer seemed to be a whole, fitting together perfectly without any bumps or unevenness.
Jiang Jingyuan sighed softly in his heart.
She just said that she hated scenes like secret rooms, loops, and endless corridors the most.
The ice cellar was filled with an empty silence. Her breathing, heartbeat, and inner voice seemed to be infinitely amplified, each one assaulting her tense nerves. She unconsciously stopped thinking...
After a moment, Jiang Jingyuan suddenly shuddered all over and came back to his senses.
Only then did she remember to move closer to the ice wall and carefully search the ice wall in front, behind, left and right inch by inch.
"clatter--"
“Da da…da…”
“Da…da, da…”
The rhythmic sound of "da da da" footsteps lingered in her ears. The girl in white came to the front of the ice wall, carefully examining the ice surface, but it seemed that she could not remember any details in her mind.
Her eyes, as dark as the abyss, no longer blinked frequently. She just stared at the dazzling ice surface without focus, letting the big tears slide down her face and hang on her chin.
call--
The dazzling blue light suddenly disappeared in an instant, and darkness enveloped the entire ice cellar.
Jiang Jingyuan suddenly came back to his senses.
Why did she seem to be particularly easily distracted here... She subconsciously shifted her gaze to the ice wall next to her that was so close that it was almost touching her cheek.
The white veil over her eyes automatically adjusted its brightness, and she vaguely saw a face very close to her in the darkness. It was too close - the face was so close that it was almost touching her cheek!
As her gaze turned, the two eyeballs on the face in the darkness also turned to her, and the pupils glowed faintly with a faint green light as they moved.
“!!!”
Oh shit!
Jiang Jingyuan was startled.
There was no expression on her face in time. She just subconsciously stepped back, picked up the long sword that appeared out of thin air, and slashed at the face!
"clang--"
Unexpectedly, the sword did not cut into any flesh, and from the sound it seemed to have hit the ice instead.
The loud, crisp sound of metal colliding with ice echoed, echoing melodiously and eerily in the empty ice cellar...
“Snap!”
The fluorescent blue light that kept reflecting on the ice surface lit up almost at the same moment.
Jiang Jingyuan's sword was still chopping at the ice wall, and he instinctively closed his eyes before he could retract it. Tears immediately rolled down his cheeks.
She was too close to the ice just now, and suddenly a strong light came on. The white veil on her eyes had no time to adjust to the brightness of the light shining into her eyes.
Although there was no blood, her eyes were burning and itchy again. Jiang Jingyuan blinked hard, but couldn't open them, only tears streaming down her face.
"The person I saw just now should be the same as the woman in the cave..."
"So it seems the woman in the cave did indeed crawl out from here. This ice cellar is connected to the cave above."
Jiang Jingyuan still closed his eyes and thought to himself.
She released her spiritual sense almost as soon as she closed her eyes, alerting her surroundings, but still found nothing unusual.
"How is this possible?" Jiang Jingyuan wondered in confusion, "There was clearly something there, how could it disappear so quickly?!"
"It only takes two seconds for the divine sense to cover this ice cellar, and three seconds after the damage. Could it be that those things can disappear within the two or three seconds after the blue light turns on?"
“This speed…”
Jiang Jingyuan had a bad feeling in his heart.
If those things could really move so quickly, then she would probably have to fight a long, one-sided defensive battle.
call--
Darkness fell again.
"Huh?" Jiang Jingyuan's thoughts were interrupted, and he was stunned for a moment, "It's dark already?"
“Rustle…”
Jiang Jingyuan's senses and ears picked up on the subtle movements, and he thought to himself, "It seems like they took much longer to come here than to leave..."
"They might not be in the same ice layer as me. They had to travel a long distance to get here so I could find them. If they leave, they only need to leave this layer of ice to avoid being noticed by me."
"After all, even the ice layer further away cannot be detected by spiritual sense, and the speed of naked eyes may not be able to keep up with their movement speed..."
Jiang Jingyuan lowered his eyes subconsciously.
On the ground in front of her, a dark shadow that had almost melted into the darkness had been waiting there for an unknown time. As she lowered her eyes, it also raised its head.
Two glowing green eyes stared straight at her, and then they slowly opened their mouths, revealing their fangs that flashed a cold light...
Oh shit!
When did this appear here!!!
Jiang Jingyuan's pupils shrank and she stepped back in a hurry. Because she was too flustered, her body swayed from side to side and her feet almost tripped over each other.
What frightened her the most was that her spiritual awareness had already spread throughout the entire ice cellar where she was, but she still had no idea when and how this ghost thing had appeared right under her nose!!!
As she stepped back, her foot unexpectedly stepped on something slippery and sticky, and her already unstable body fell backwards.
Just when he was about to fall, Jiang Jingyuan almost used up all his strength to forcefully reverse his direction and fell to the side.
A huge muffled sound was heard in the ice cellar.
When she was still more than ten centimeters away from the ground, the cold air had already begun to rush up at her from the ground. When she was close to the ground, the cold air seemed to penetrate directly into the gaps between her bones.
Jiang Jingyuan fell heavily on the ice and squinted his eyes in pain.
The next moment, she pushed herself up with her hands, but when she opened her eyes, she was met with two green lantern-like eyes!
The face with the two eyeballs was facing her directly, while the body attached to it, almost crawling on the ground, was facing her sideways.
Although it is quite reasonable that this inhuman ghost thing can twist into postures that normal people cannot do, it looks scary!
It's not the kind of scary feeling where a rotten human head hits your face head-on, but the weird and twisted feeling that seems more and more wrong and more terrifying the more you look at it!
Jiang Jingyuan paused in his movement to stand up.
The humanoid monster beside her smiled, opened its mouth full of fangs and bit her head-on!
The distance was too close, and the smelly hot wind blew on her face...
“Snap!”
The blue light suddenly lit up.
Jiang Jingyuan subconsciously closed his eyes, and a white barrier appeared around him.
However, the expected attack did not come.
Jiang Jingyuan was startled and opened his eyes. There was nothing in front of him, only layers of ice and distorted vision in the distance.
"They can't move in blue light?" Jiang Jingyuan slowly stood up, his mind racing. "They clearly didn't even try to avoid the firelight in the cave..."
“Blue light is different?”
Jiang Jingyuan thought as he approached the ice wall that had been chopped by the long sword before. He stretched out his hands and gently stroked the ice wall, trying to find some uneven spots on it.
But--
No!
The spiritual consciousness could not penetrate it, and the sword and knife slashing did not leave a trace.
Force cannot solve the problem...
Although Jiang Jingyuan was not good at fighting, he couldn't help but feel depressed when he realized his current situation.
The next moment, she calmly withdrew her hand and stepped back to the center of the ice cellar. She squinted her eyes and looked around again, pondering, "How can I get out of here?"
How did those things that appeared in the darkness get through the ice?
Huh—darkness comes again.
Jiang Jingyuan suddenly felt uneasy.
She didn't know if it was her illusion, but the light seemed to fade away a little faster...
Wait, where did the blue light come from? Jiang Jingyuan was stunned.
In the darkness, Jiang Jingyuan, who was standing quietly, sensed that long, black shadows appeared around him, crawling on the ground. They appeared very quickly, as if they appeared out of thin air.
Jiang Jingyuan ignored these things and just opened his eyes wide in the dark environment.
She approached the ice wall again and reached out her hand. When her fingers touched the hard coldness, a trace of disappointment flashed through her heart - it seemed that it was impossible for her to leave through the ice.
But how could she leave without going through the ice?
In this situation, even if I turned into smoke or a ghost, I would be trapped here forever, right?
After a pause, she thought of a question: How did she get into this ice cellar in the first place?
Also, how did the crawling woman move freely back and forth between the ice cellar and the cave?
Through the thin white gauze, Jiang Jingyuan caught a glimpse of a cold light flashing behind him.
She didn't hide - based on her last experience, if she didn't consciously change her position and was forced to flee, she would fall into the trap of those ghosts.
If the blue light had not come on in time last time, she would not have been bitten. However, she did not get up in time, and what was waiting for her were all those ghosts swarming over her - she would have been completely pinned down and beaten.
The invisible spiritual consciousness was ready. Jiang Jingyuan replaced the long sword in his hand with a long knife. He was determined to catch the thing as soon as it pounced on him, and take the blue light down to see what would happen!
The dark shadow behind him lowered his body, exerted force on his limbs, and his dark blue eyes were like two will-o'-the-wisp fires in the darkness, emitting a fierce look.
Swish——
The black shadow kicked the ground with his back foot and pounced towards the back of the girl in white!
Just as the black shadow was about to come behind him, Jiang Jingyuan turned quickly, his spiritual sense slowly tightening around it like a net, and the long sword in his hand was flowing with silver light -
"Click...click...click, click..."
The sound of some mechanism being turned on and off could be heard intermittently from the ice cellar, as if it had malfunctioned, and the blue light flickered on and off.
Jiang Jingyuan heard a soft, thin cry of some indescribable animal.
In the blink of an eye, the ice cellar shrouded in blue light was empty except for Jiang Jingyuan.
this……
Just disappeared like that?
Jiang Jingyuan was stunned.
Moreover, this time the darkness seemed to last longer than before... Jiang Jingyuan remembered the crisp sounds that seemed to indicate a malfunction, and a chill ran down his spine.
She thought it would be better for her not to be curious about what would happen in the darkness after the blue light completely disappeared.
"Blue light is very important... Blue light is very... Wait, where does the blue light come from?" Jiang Jingyuan's eyes moved, and he recalled his previous questions again.
——She has not yet found the key to breaking the deadlock, but some information is already very clear, such as the blue light. Without the illumination of the blue light, she will not be able to move forward.
"So where would the blue light be?"
"These things seem to be crawling close to the ground. They shouldn't be placed where they can reach, otherwise they will definitely be destroyed when darkness falls... Then... are they above my head?"
Thinking of this, Jiang Jingyuan immediately looked up and squinted his eyes.
On the ice layer above, one can vaguely see an unusually gorgeous lantern that is out of tune with the surroundings hanging in a corner of the upper ice layer, silently emitting a quiet blue light.
The light softly yet powerfully occupied the entire ice cellar where Jiang Jingyuan was.
Jiang Jingyuan lowered his head, closed his eyes and relaxed, but his heart was still in a knot.
There is not much time left, this blue light will not last long.
Besides, the ice wall couldn't be destroyed, and spiritual sense couldn't penetrate it, so how was she going to get the lantern?!
The blue light began to flicker again. A second before darkness fell, Jiang Jingyuan's mind once again popped up the same question as before:
"How did those things get here?"
She felt that this was the breakthrough, but she had not found any clues and could not figure it out.
call--
Before she could react, almost at the same moment darkness fell, a long crawling shadow appeared behind her!
Jiang Jingyuan dodged and turned around.
Ghosts that almost blended into the darkness appeared around her one after another, rushing towards her faster than before.
They opened their big mouths full of sharp teeth, as if they were already tired of playing and wanted to seize this opportunity to cut her into pieces of flesh and blood in one go!
Jiang Jingyuan was shocked. She didn't even see how they appeared!!!
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