Chapter 718: Hollowtongue Mountains (1/2)

“So this is the place?” Zac asked as he dragged his axe out of the head of the corpse.

They were currently at a depth of over three thousand meters, gazing at a submerged mountain range. It reminded Zac a bit of Earth back home, in the sense that it looked like this particular mountain had been dropped in the middle of nowhere through randomization. The seabed he stood on was made from the same golden-green sand as the rest of the Twilight Ocean, but the mountain in front of them was wrought from some completely different material.

It was neither the white or golden often synonymous with life, and neither did it have the murky hues of death. It was rather a deep blue, and Zac didn’t feel like the area leaned toward either life or death. Yet it was undeniable that the energy in the area was the strongest they had encountered so far, like there was a Nexus Vein hiding beneath the mountain in front of them.

This could be both a good and a bad thing. Good in the sense that it probably meant there were a lot of valuable things growing in this place, a chance to pocket some valuables. Bad in the sense that the mountain was huge, and missing it was pretty hard. They had already spotted three parties in short order, one of which had tried to take them out only to find themselves outmatched.

It wasn’t really thanks to Catheya or Qirai, though they had fought valiantly. It was he who had singlehandedly taken out more than half of the other group in a furious offense. Even in these conditions, he was completely fine, though he started to suspect that his cheat-like advantage had a best-before date.

His death-attuned ocean was fast filling up with the truths hidden in the Twilight Energy. In three months or so it’d reach saturation, perhaps even sooner if he kept going further toward the heart of the Twilight Ocean.

There was still the life-attuned half of his mind that had barely gained any improvements so far, but it was obvious that he would reach a limit long before the trial was over unless he stayed a Draugr the whole time. But for now, the situation gave him a huge advantage against the other competitors in the Mystic Realm.

Elites who would normally put up a tough fight got steamrolled as they could barely exhibit half of their strength.

“What’s the matter with you?” Catheya sighed as she looked down at the corpses strewn around Zac, though Qirai looked a lot more appreciative.

The titan nodded with respect toward Zac as she handed her mistress the corpse of the cultivator she took out. Her demeanor in general had taken a complete turn since he and Catheya had returned from the underworld. Catheya had briefly gone over the events, though they had obviously been severely modified to protect his hidden identity.

Still, the fact that Zac had not only saved Qirai’s master a few times, but also singlehandedly taken out a powerful squad in an adverse situation, was all she needed to open up. They hadn’t spoken much on the way here considering Zac had been busy with his studies and Qirai with steering the vessel and keeping a lookout for enemies, but she had often came by offering some liquor during their free time.

“Almost two months I’ve spent teaching you the basics of internment and necromancy. What’s the first rule?” Catheya continued as she stowed away Qirai’s and her own corpse.

“Don’t destroy the heads,” Zac said with a roll of his eyes. “There were seven of them, and they were pretty strong. Not much of a choice. If you always worry more about their bodies than taking enemies out as quickly and cleanly as possible, you’ll sooner or later get yourself killed.”

“Well, I guess you’re right in a sense. And to answer your question; yes, this should be the place,” Catheya nodded as she turned toward the sapphire-hued peaks. “This is the Hollowtongue Mountains, and the pearls are supposed to be hidden in a valley here.”

“Hollowtongue? Pretty weird name,” Zac muttered. “And how hidden can the valley be in the middle of an ocean? Can’t we just swim up to the surface and look around?”

“First of all, that’d make us a target for others staying within this mountain range. Secondly, this whole mountain is a natural formation. You can’t enter it from above, you need to go through one of the formation eyes,” Catheya explained.

“What happens if you try to cheat?” Zac asked curiously as he tried to find any clues of the formation she was talking about.

“If you’re lucky, you’ll just get trapped or thrown out. If unlucky, you’ll be led to a death zone,” Qirai said as she scratched her stomach lazily. “It’s the same with a lot of places like this. Unless you have the means to see through the natural formation or the power to force your way through, you better avoid messing around.”

“Passing through by skill is absolutely impossible considering your talent for arrays,” Catheya added with a wink. “Also, natural formations contain the power of nature itself, they are much harder to break open than a manufactured array.”

“So your map was essentially just to lead us to a well-known mountain range?” Zac asked with a raised brow. “I’ve even read about this place in my public information packet.”

“Well, first of all, the pearls appear at different spots, if they appear at all during a trial. Knowing they could be found in these mountains is a huge advantage. There are hundreds of places like this out there, along with endless stretches of nothingness,” Catheya said. “Secondly, I will be able to find the general direction we need to move in. For now, let's go inside. Our battle might have drawn some attention.”

Zac took out his information packet to brush up as they swam toward one of the valleys that apparently acted as an entrance to the mountain range, but there wasn’t really much to go by. Nala’s package didn’t contain anything about this place, but another missive had a short excerpt.

The Hollowtongue Mountains were named after a specific beast that lived in large numbers in the caverns and trenches below the surface. They had tongues with stingers that contained extremely condensed Twilight Energy, which was essentially a poison to humans and the undead alike. It also mentioned that the whole place was a huge confusion array just like Catheya said, and that it was almost useless to simply trust your eyes.

Furthermore, the mountain range was subtly rearranged between each trial, so preparing maps beforehand was futile. Everything was up to chance unless you had some means to traverse the mountain range, which it thankfully looked like Catheya had.

“The deal still holds. We’ll harvest pearls for a week before we leave. Remember, the pearls start losing efficacy after a month, and it will take a while to absorb each. You’ll probably want to find a secluded spot as quickly as possible,” Catheya said as she took out an astrolabe that looked a lot like the one she used to find her way in the tunnels a few months back.

“What about me?” Zac asked as he looked up at astrolabe. “You have that thing, but how will I get out of here afterward if it's a big confusion array? What if I’m stuck in here for three full years? I have other things on my plate.”

“We had a few simple spare compasses,” Catheya slowly said with an odd expression. “But it turns out we sort of lost them when Varo was attacked.”

“The compasses aren’t very rare though,” Qirai quickly said when she saw Zac eye Catheya’s astrolabe. “We’ll probably stumble into some people on the way, and we can pick up a compass from them. In fact, these people we fought might have one.”

“Even without, it’s not too difficult to leave,” Catheya added with a smile. “You just need to stay in the valleys rather than mountain tops and travel toward what looks like the exit. You’ll run into a few dead ends, but you’ll be out within a week or two.”

“That’s fine then,” Zac nodded as he started scanning the Cosmos Sacks of the fallen ambushers.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything like that in the four sacks he rummaged through. He did however gain over 80 Twilight Fruits in one go. It really started to become clear that killing was the most efficient method of harvesting these things. He had only gotten his hands on 30 or so through his own efforts while gaining more than ten times that number through kills.

In fact, the early and middle reaches were probably starting to get cleaned out by this point. If you wanted to harvest more the normal way, you’d have to enter the inner reaches where fewer cultivators roamed.

He was out of luck in his haul, but Catheya fared better, perhaps since she had targeted the leader. She threw over a wooden compass toward Zac with a smile. “Here you go. Now you don’t need to look at me with such scary eyes. This thing is not as nice as mine, but it is easy to use. If you reach a crossing, the markers will point along the energy flow. If you want to leave, go in the opposite direction.”

“Great,” Zac smiled as he fiddled with the compass a bit before he stowed it away.