Chapter 559: The Terrors of Darkniss (1/2)

Chapter 559: The Terrors of Darkniss

Translator: EndlessFantasy TranslationEditor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After travelling in the Red Wasteland for some time, the trio finally reached the entrance to Darkniss. When Ye Chong saw the entrance, he was stunned.

In the middle of the endless stretch of wasteland was a flat, black colored circle. It was 15 meters across, and suspended about 20 centimeters above the ground. It was like a gateway to another world.

Ye Chong was familiar with the black circle. He had seen it more than once. There was one in the underground tunnel, one on Yi Ju, and one in the Research Consortium's base on Spectre. The size of the black circles varied, but they were all black, perfectly circular, and suspended in the air. The similarities were there.

Xuan Ning and Sha Ya noticed Ye Chong's muted surprise. They had never seen that expression on him.

Xuan Ning was curious. He asked, ”What is it? Have you been here before?”

Ye Chong quickly recovered himself and shook his head. ”No.”

”Let's go inside,” Sha Ya interrupted them. ”I always felt unsafe at the entrance. Let's go inside now.”

”Alright.” Ye Chong nodded. He moved the Spider closer to the black circle, ready to step through it. People with strong parapsychic sense had better instincts than normal people.

Xuan Ning smiled. ”I once had that feeling too, but now I sense something new. The entrance feels unstable, but it's actually quite the opposite. A Level 8 shooter can sense its instability, but once you reach Level 9, you can sense that there is a very stable structure underneath the instability.”

Xuan Ning had just finished speaking when a ripple appeared on the black circle.

”What was that?” Sha Ya gasped. She had never seen the entrance ripple like that.

Ye Chong looked at Xuan Ning. Was this really stable?

Xuan Ning look perturbed. ”Something's not right. It became unstable suddenly, like it was stimulated by something.” He closed his eyes and reached out with his parapsychic sense to the entrance. He had the strongest parapsychic sense of the three, and could detect the most minute details.

”Huh?” Xuan Ning opened his eyes wide and turned to Ye Chong with a weird expression. He said, ”We should step back.”

The Spider retreated about 10 meters away. The effect was immediately apparent. Once the Spider began retreating, the ripples at the entrance reduced until it eventually became flat again.

Ye Chong and Sha Ya could not understand what was happening.

Xuan Ning turned his attention to the ring on Ye Chong's finger. He hesitated before speaking again, ”Your ring is a little odd. It was the cause of the instability at the entrance.”

Ring? Sha Ya looked at the inconspicuous ring on Ye Chong's finger. It did not look particularly interesting to her.

”Celest's dimension keystone?” Ye Chong thought to himself in surprise. How was the ring responsible for this?

Ye Chong suddenly remembered the time when he was in the Research Consortium's laboratory on Spectre. The spatial window in the corner of the lab had transformed abruptly and sent him to Dual Forest. Could that be related to his ring too?

Xuan Ning saw the confusion on Ye Chong's and Sha Ya's faces. He explained, ”I don't know what happened either, but I can sense that the ring was causing the entrance to become unstable. The structure of the entrance seems to be affected by it. Once we back off, the entrance returned to normal. It looks like distance is key here. Hmm, the entrance feels normal now. The structure of the entrance is stable.”

Ye Chong lifted his right hand pointed at the ring on it with his left hand. ”This one?”

Xuan Ning nodded. ”That's the one.” He saw the inquiring look on Ye Chong and shrugged. ”Don't ask me why because I don't know either.” Ye Chong's ring looked ordinary. He could not understand what was happening as well.

Sha Ya watched Xuan Ning admiringly. This was the difference between Level 8 and Level 9. Xuan Ning could sense the structure of the entrance with his parapsychic sense, and even feel it transforming. What a powerful skill! Sha Ya never imagined that parapsychic sense could do this. Level 9 was almost a legend. People could only imagine what a Level 9 shooter was capable of. She just witnessed the true strength of a Level 9 shooter, and it was much more powerful than anyone could have imagined!

Ye Chong considered their situation for a moment and pointed at the entrance. He asked, ”What is its structure like?” He was also curious about Xuan Ning's ability to sense the structure of the spatial window. His parapsychic sense was strong!

Xuan Ning shook his head in chagrin. ”I can't say for sure. It's strange and mysterious! I don't know how to express it.”

Ye Chong tried again with a more straightforward question. ”How can we safely pass through the entrance?” He did not want to spend too much time on this problem. The fact that Celest's dimension keystone could disrupt the spatial window was already a very important piece of information for him.

Xuan Ning looked at Ye Chong. He could see that the man would not leave the ring behind. He considered the problem for awhile. ”If we could approach the entrance fast, it should not be a problem.”

”I see,” Ye Chong nodded. His fingers tapped on the control console, and the Spider lunged towards the entrance without warning.

Xuan Ning was thrown backwards. He hit the back of his head on his seat and screamed like a madman. Xuan Ning roared, ”Can't you at least warn us?”

Sha Ya threw a pitiful look at Xuan Ning, the admiration she felt for him fading fast. She marveled at how a Level 9 shooter was helpless against the unpredictable man, Ye Chong.

Once the Spider was close to the entrance, ripples began to form on the flat surface again. Ye Chong ignored the ripples and focused on piloting the Spider. The Spider charged head on towards the black circle and went right through it.

The surroundings turned dark. The image on the holographic screen was completely different now.

It was very, very dark. Only a faint light allowed them to see their surroundings. The sky was dark. There were stars and moons in the sky. Nevertheless, darkness was not the only thing that defined this place. There was also a bright, hot red in sight - lava.

Hot lava flowed like rough waters, splashing violently as they went along deep trenches. The fiery waves could reach up to 8 meters tall. Despite being in the Spider, they could still feel the heat emanating from the lava.

There was a main branch of lava river that was about 30 meters wide. It branched out into thinner flows going downstream, like roots of a tree.

Ye Chong had never seen anything so magnificent. He was distracted for a moment.

”Leave the entrance now!” Xuan Ning shouted panickedly. ”Quick! It's becoming unstable!”

Ye Chong quickly focused himself and pulled the Spider away from the black entrance.

The ripples on the entrance subsided once more and became flat again. Ye Chong watched the spatial window, suspended in midair, and felt fascinated by it. This place was completely different from the Red Wasteland outside, but just by stepping through the ”door”, they had arrived in a whole new world. The whole process was even more mysterious than warp jumps.

Unfortunately, Ye Chong knew very little about spatial science. He did not understand the working principles behind them.

Xuan Ning was still not over his shock. ”Good thing we left quickly, or we would be in deep trouble.”

Of the three of them, Xuan Ning was probably the only one who truly understood the severity of their situation just now.

Sha Ya said to Ye Chong, ”We are now in Darkniss. We call that huge river the Lava River. Usually, we will travel along the Lava River. The River will sometimes change its course, but the general direction is the same. This way, we will not lose our way.”

Darkniss - this was Darkniss!

Once they were in Darkniss, both Xuan Ning and Sha Ya turned serious. Their hands never left the firearms control lever. This made Ye Chong even more wary.

The Spider walked along the Lava River. Everything they saw was tinged red due to the light coming from the lava.

It was just a short while before Ye Chong found a few pieces of high quality metal ores along the way. Darkniss was truly the place to find gravestones. The bright red lava would also have familiar circular patterns that were actually metals in liquid form.

Soon, Ye Chong understood why Xuan Ning and Sha Ya were nervous. They encountered a pack of 80 black striped gray dragons. It was rare to see such a huge pack. These dragons usually move in packs of 20 to 30.

Ye Chong saw his first black striped gray dragon.

The animals were beaked and had sharp claws. Their bodies were gray with black stripes, and reached up to three meters long. Their wingspan, however, was close to 10 meters long. They flew fast and were aggressive in nature.

The Spider was large and hard to miss. The black striped gray dragons thought that this unfamiliar creature would taste delightful.

Xuan Ning reacted first. He was nervous since they first stepped into Darkniss.

A thick laser beam shot right through a black striped gray dragon, leaving a 30 centimeter wide circular hole in its wake. The dragon stopped breathing immediately. Its wings froze and it fell straight down from the sky.

Lasers began to fire. Xuan Ning's attack marked the beginning of their battle. Sha Ya reacted quickly as well. The black striped gray dragons fell one by one like loose kites, kicking up dirt as they crashed into the ground.

The sudden attacks surprised the dragons, but they were soon angered by them. The dragons screamed sharply and flapped their wings, making their way towards the Spider.

Ye Chong did not expect how fast these creatures could fly. Without a mech, he would have trouble dealing with these dragons. Since they were diving from a high altitude, the attacks from these black striped gray dragons must be very powerful. Even thin alloy boards would give way to their attack.

Fortunately, shooters were the best combatants at medium range. This battle was perfect for them. Ye Chong did not have to worry about his safety, since he had a Level 8 shooter and a Level 9 shooter with him. The black striped gray dragons were strong, but not enough to threaten these two excellent shooters.

Ye Chong even had time to enjoy watching the marksmanship of these two shooters.

They were both very good at what they do. Almost none of the shots missed. Besides, they were not using normal laser guns, but super powerful laser guns at 1.2 million Lux. Every shot was powerful enough to penetrate the bodies of the black striped gray dragons, which were relatively weaker beings in Darkniss. Even if the shot missed any vulnerabilities, it would still affect their flight speed.

Soon, both shooters gained the upper hand. The powerful firepower aimed at the dragons suppressed their movements. Their flying formation was wrecked. Dragons continued to fall from the sky. However, this pack of dragons was stubborn. They were quick and agile in the air. Since Xuan Ning and Sha Ya were still not used to the Spider's two main laser guns, they were shooting down the dragons fast enough.

There were still at least 40 dragons in the air still, but Ye Chong was not worried. He could see that Xuan Ning and Sha Ya were already getting better at using the laser guns. This was obvious from their increasing firing frequency.

The battle was in the favor of Xuan Ning and Sha Ya. As time passed, their advantage increased further.

Xuan Ning and Sha Ya were both concentrating. Their eyes were closed one-sided so that they would not be distracted by anything visual. On the contrary, Ye Chong was just an observer, enjoying the intense but uninteresting battle.

Suddenly, he caught a movement at the corner of the screen. He quickly turned his attention that particular corner on the screen.

There were only dark rocks and nothing else there. However, Ye Chong was certain that he saw something earlier.

Ye Chong maneuvered the holographic scanning system to perform a detailed search on that area. The screen was showing the opposite side of the Lava River.

”Huh, what's that?”

There was some hair jutting from behind a rock. Something was wrong! Ye Chong focused on the situation. Those hair must be from some animal! The hair was black and shiny, standing up straight like needles.

Ye Chong took a peek at the black striped gray dragons in the air and dismissed the idea of using the Hummingbirds. Of the four Hummingbirds he prepared, one was lost in the sandstorm, leaving only three with him. This was not the time to use the Hummingbirds.

Nevertheless, Ye Chong had no intention to sit just sit back and do nothing. He had many options to choose from. His hands quickly tapped on the control console. Suddenly, the Spider's tail armor slid open to the sides. A cannon array rose up slowly from inside. Animals that knew to hide from its enemy were much more dangerous - this was something Ye Chong knew very well.

Compared to the 49-barrel cannon array that Ye Chong sold to Sun Sieha, this cannon array had 81 cannon barrels, each thicker than that of the original model by a third. These 91 cannon barrels formed a nine-by-nine cannon array. The long, smooth cannon barrel were tightly arranged together.