Chapter 368 (2/2)

“No worries, no worries, her trials are always sudden…”

“Nonsense! She’s not putting your ability to resist tetanus to the test!”

After ensuring that everyone was safe that Hao Ren had the time to survey his surroundings and look for the shore. He turned his head about and realised that he was in a massive, awe-inspiring giant cavern!

From the looks of things the cavern was almost a full circle, he couldn’t tell the exact diameter but the scale of it was massive. The cavern walls were encrusted some shiny objects, not sure whether they were minerals or glowing algae, but thankfully because of that, the whole pace was not pitch black. With Hao Ren’s enhanced vision, he could move about the place unhindered by the darkness. He noticed the cavern walls in the distance had may tunnel-like holes on them and figured that they will probably lead them quite rather way, perhaps all the way to the Gnarled Grove.

The center of the cavern was a concaved shape and water had pooled into a mini-lake. The reddish water is proof that the water was from the blood lake. Hao Ren looked up towards the top of the cave and found a structure almost too neatly placed together, almost as if man-made. The reverse-dome was at the very top of the cavern and the middle part had cracked open, the lake waters gushed down like a waterfall from there and the gushing sound echoed throughout the cavern.

There was were the group had fell into.

Hao Ren saw that Ophra and Gelton had already made for shore and he quickly swimmed over. Before he got far he felt a tug on his back and a group of bats carried him all the way to shore. Vivian then reformed beside him as she put him down. “You’re the captain, you need to keep your heroic poise here. I never thought you’re such a poor swimmer without Wuyue’s help.”

Hao Ren had no words to retort. At the same time, Lily had struggled as she paddled to shore. Pouting at Vivian, she complained, “You’re bias! Why you didn’t help me!”

Vivian smirked. “Your dog paddling is rather… stylish?”

Hao Ren ignored the bickering duo and looked back towards the pool, the water from the top of the dome was still gushing into it. From a glance the pool may not look big, but it was indeed massive. If the crack on the top of the dome did not expand any further, Hao Ren was confident that the place would not be flooded any time soon. Hao Ren realised that with the tunnel system on the walls that this underground world is much much bigger than he first thought. Even if the whole lake were to be drained the place may not even be half-filled.

As everyone had their own ways to ward off the water – even Becky had got a outer space life-support shield generator from Hao Ren – So no one had to dry their clothes after getting ashore. After getting their bearings they started exploring the place. Big Beardy and the res of the ascetics were rather excited, this cavern was like a divine remnant to him, and clearly fit the bill of the ‘Sacred Cavern’ that they knew of. And that reaffirmed their belief that Hao Ren and his motley crew were indeed the chosen of the Goddess.

Hao Ren muttered to himself, even he was awestruck by the scale of this underground cavern and had believe that the first pope who had found this place deserves some respect for that. He softly said to Vivian, “Can it be true that we are really the chosen ones that we had access to such an amazing place?”

Vivian looked upwards towards the rock patterns on the dome, and her expression suddenly changed. “I’m afraid not… Seems like we screwed things up rather royally…”

“Eh?”

Vivian pointed towards the shining lines on the dome. “That’s some sort of magical circuit, while I’ve never seen one like this.. I think it’s just to detect the chosen of the Goddess… it has the features of a long-range reconnaissance spell…”

Hao Ren had no idea what Vivian was on about, “And then?”

Vivian pointed towards the hole on the dome. “The magic circuit was not activated because it detected the chosen, but… it was destroyed when the ship exploded. I’m afraid the true chosens have yet to even arrive!”

“…”

It seems true that you just cannot take those man-made legends at face value, whatever thing they had about ‘the chosen one’ to open a sacred treasure is clearly nonsense. In the face of ‘fate’ any big KABOOM of sufficient strength can solve anything. The entrance towards the Sacred Cavern was not opened due to the arrival of the chosen ones. It was because it was blown apart.

Hao Ren wiped off the cold sweat on his head. “Lets not tell Big Beardy about this yet…”