Chapter 153 - Heavenstone [2] (1/2)

By the faint glow of the orblight, Ju Feng and Chang Chang stood at the beginning of an underground tunnel. Smooth stone walls rose to a flat ceiling high over their heads. Ju Feng could see the trapdoor through which the drydra had fallen. The talisman of the girl had caused great destruction to the hydra and the place.

The tunnel was now blocked by the bases of the thick stone walls that had nearly crushed them in the room above. The darkness was dense and stifling here, retreating sullenly before orb light of Chang Chang's orb. A rank odor like the putrid reek of decay hung in the air, so thick that it almost seemed to leave on oily residue on their skin and inside their lungs. It was a stench of evil.

With no other options evident, the two started down the corridor. The tunnel plunged straight through the darkness, without openings or side passages. The sickening odor grew more intense as they walked, but there was nothing to do but swallow their bile and press on. Soft, ropy strands dangled from the ceiling. Ju Feng guessed they were moss, for they glowed with a faint and noxious green light.

They ducked to avoid the strands and kept moving. Though he couldn't be sure, Ju Feng had the sense that the passageway was leading gradually downward. He swore inwardly. They needed to go up, but it seemed everything they did only took them farther down. It was as if Underground itself were somehow conspiring to pull them deeper.

After a time, the inky mouth of a smaller tunnel opened up to the left. The fetid stench was stronger here, pouring like black water out of the side opening. Yet it wasn't just the smell that spilled from the tunnel—there was a malice as well, distant and faint, but chilling all the same.

”I think the hydra is down there,” Chang Chang whispered softly. ”And I think it's terribly hurt and angry.” She added in a squeaky voice.

”Let's be careful.” Ju Feng said. He felt the malevolent aura of the hydra had increased greatly. He wiped his sweaty palms on his robe and kept his s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e eyes peeled. They continued down the murky passageway. The mouths of more tunnels opened to their left and right. Some were blocked by fallen rubble, and others were dry and dusty. But the same pungent reek wafted outward from several tunnels, as did the aura of evil. Without deciding aloud to do so, the two picked up their pace.

Then they saw the outer layers of the hydra on the floor.

”It's changing form.” Chang Chang whispered cautiously. ”It should be closer now.”

After they hadvtaken a few steps, the aura of malice swelled befor them. They reeled, nearly overwhelmed by the vile emanations of hatred. Something was coming at them, and it was gaining. They readied their weapons as they made their stands. As they watched, tens of bloated forms bust forward. They were spiders, but like none Chang Chang had ever seen. But Ju Feng remembered their kind. Nephilia spiders.

They were huge, each the size of a dog. Their bulging bodies, as pale and waxy as corpses, were eerily translucent, and their long gray legs trailed off into dim tendrils of gray mist. Dark saliva bubbled from their vague pincer mouths, and their multifaceted eyes shone malevolently, like flame reflected off black jewels. Whatever these spiders were, it was clear they were not truly alive like the nephilia spiders, but wraiths, in hideous spider form. Their swords met the claws of the spiders as they engaged in battle. The more they fight, the more the spiders.

”Do you have anything to stop them?” Ju Feng asked Chang Chang.

”No, not anymore.”

”We better run then.”

Gasping, they hurled themselves down the tunnel, the darkness following thickly on their heels. An eerie whispering sound echoed all around. Lungs burning, the three kept running. All at once the walls of the tunnel fell away, and they found themselves dashing across a cavernous chamber. Strange white shapes littered the floor, crunching brittlely underfoot. Dense clumps of the same strands that had filled the tunnel hung from the high ceiling like a weird inverted forest, filling the room with a ghastly green glow. They caught another wisp of fresh air, stronger now. Ju Feng saw it on the far side of the hall—a faint rectangle glowing amid the gloom. A doorway.

”Hurry!” he shouted, heedless of what might hear his voice.

The eerie whispering grew louder, filling the chamber. Thick blackness poured out of the opening behind them like a putrid flood. Legs pounding, they ran towards the doorway. As they neared the doorway, they saw that it was covered with more of the same green, glowing strands. With a cry, he hurled himself at the portal. Instantly his cry became one of pain as bitterly cold threads burned the skin on his hands and face. The silken material stretched under the force of his impact, then abruptly snapped back, throwing him roughly to the ground.

He stared up at the door in surprise, rubbing his throbbing hands. Then he leapt to his feet, drew a knife from his boot, and slashed at the chaotic weave that covered the door. The blade bounced back, jarring his wrist painfully. He had not so much as damaged one of the cords.