Where Immortals Once Walked

Headman Hu himself should have gone down into the mine several times, so how could he not know his map was wrong?

Did he give us the wrong one on purpose?

Just what is he playing at?

Willow murmured, “I heard that reporting the mine trouble to Panlong City wasn’t Headman Hu’s idea at all. It was two merchants who spread the word first, and he had no choice but to file a report afterward. He’s said to be unhappy about them acting on their own.”

A squadmate behind them suddenly spoke up, “Big Sister Willow’s right, this place smells bad. A bit fishy.”

Someone else added, “And it’s kind of hot.”

With no light from outside, the deeper you went into a mountain tunnel like this, the colder it should get. Some caves had cool air blowing year-round. The locals even sometimes used them as summer refuges, and after a while, you would need to put on a coat.

But here, the farther they walked, the warmer it got. The air felt heavy and close. Beads of sweat formed on the tip of Willow’s nose, and the big men around her were starting to wipe their foreheads, too.

Could there be heat coming from the ground below?

Impossible. Digging a mine into a volcano would be begging everyone to die together. Panlong City would never have started operations without a proper survey.

He Lingchuan suddenly raised his glowgrass, pressing close to the tunnel wall. “When did the rock face start looking like this?”

Everyone looked. The originally dark stone had somehow faded to a chalky grey, and it was now wrapped in countless fibrous tendrils that looked disturbingly like blood vessels.

When they pressed a hand against the wall, it was no longer cold stone. Instead, it was very warm, and it was even a little springy.

Doorboard said abruptly, “We haven’t seen any support frames for a long time.”

Mine safety was always an issue; once a tunnel was dug out, miners would install wooden beams and frames at intervals to shore it up. On the way in, they had seen supports every so often and thought nothing of it, but in this last stretch, there had not been a single one.

“We’ve been walking for more than a quarter of an hour,” someone in the back said. “No end in sight, just this same tunnel on and on. Are we trapped in some kind of ghost wall?”

“With origin energy protecting us, spells and illusions shouldn’t be able to do much,” Doorboard said, voice low. “Let’s see how it goes a bit further. But this is strange, if it’s a maze, why aren’t there any cross passages at all?”

He Lingchuan said nothing.

Whatever was wrong with this mine, it definitely had to do with the ferry-crossing ghostspawn. The two he had hunted in Panlong City had been nasty enough, but none of them had pulled anything like this.

Could their origin energy really not break some kind of illusion array?

Dong Rui’s words came back to him. The later a ghostspawn is born, the stronger it is, and the more of one’s wits it takes to deal with it.

Ahead, the tunnel sloped upward. They climbed the incline and found themselves looking at a natural fissure, an opening only a meter high, like a flat, tight-lipped mouth.

To pass through, they would have to go on their hands and knees and crawl.

Willow, the slimmest of them, spoke softly, “I’ll go first.”

She planted her hands, pushed off, and whisked through the fissure in a blur, agile as a fish in water. If there were an ambush right at the mouth, the enemy might not catch that timing.

She glanced around on the other side, then held her glowgrass high. “All clear. Come on.”

Only then did the others crawl through one by one.

He Lingchuan deliberately stayed at the back.

By the time it was his turn, darkness had swallowed the tunnel behind him. There was no one else behind him, only darkness.

With all four limbs on the ground, this posture made it impossible to draw a weapon. That was why everyone was scrambling to get through as fast as they could.

He had just gotten down when something clamped tight around his calf and yanked hard.

When ghosts grabbed your leg, most people’s first instinct would be to claw forward for their lives.

Not He Lingchuan. His left hand shoved hard against the ground, and he pushed himself backward, moving like a sled on ice!

Whatever had grabbed him had been pulling with considerable force; with his own sudden burst of speed on top of that, the effect was doubled. It was like a fisherman hauling back on his rod with all his strength, only for the fish to launch itself straight out of the sea, and slam right into the fisherman’s face.

Anyone would be stunned.

The thing that had his leg had not expected its prey to be quite so slippery. It was surprised, but it did not forget to rake out with its claws.

It was not big, only about a meter tall, perfectly suited to this cramped passage. Its claws, though, were nearly a third of a meter long and sharp enough to bite ten centimeters into stone. Carving open a human body would be child’s play.

If the prey did not turn around, it would go for the spine. If the prey did turn around, even better—it would open up their belly for a nice, clean evisceration.

But it had forgotten one important detail: short creature, short reach.

He Lingchuan was a full two meters tall. Either of his legs was longer than the creature’s whole body.

With that added burst of speed, his heel drove straight into its gut.

The creature’s claws never even brushed his calf. It let out a shrill squeal as the kick sent it flying over two meters, smashing right into the tunnel wall.

He Lingchuan hit the ground, rolled, and came up with his saber already in hand. A dim arc of cold light flashed in the dark.

This strike was ferocious and utterly silent.

The thing clearly recognized the danger. It twisted and tried to flee, quick and nimble as a rat with a cat at its heels.

But it still felt a sudden chill and pain in one of its knees.

Everything below the joint was gone.

It shrieked, the sound like a wailing infant. The high, piercing cry bounced and multiplied off the tunnel walls until it made He Lingchuan’s eardrums ache.

However, it did not slow his second strike.

The first cut had been fierce, but the second was force and intent perfectly aligned.

There was no point leaving this thing alive. He was going for a kill.

But just as his saber came down, the creature abruptly threw itself backward and vanished.

He Lingchuan’s saber bit into solid rock instead, driving a meter deep with a dull crunch.

Willow and Skinny, hearing the noise, scrambled back to him, leaving Doorboard and the others to hold the passage ahead.

“Did it show itself?”

“Yeah. I took a leg.” He Lingchuan lifted his glowgrass close to the wall. “It escaped through here.”

“Here?” There was not even a crack on the rock surface.

If there was one at all, it was the fresh gash He Lingchuan had just carved out.

“It slipped into the wall like it was diving into water.” He hooked the tip of his blade under a severed tendril hanging there. From the broken end, dark red fluid began to ooze.

All three caught the thick, metallic reek.

Willow stared. “The rock wall bleeds?”

Skinny pointed at the severed tendril. “These are like blood vessels.”

They were silent for a long few heartbeats, then all spoke at once.

“This is real blood, not an illusion!”

“This is definitely not a mine tunnel!”

“Let’s go back!”

It was Skinny who had said, “Let’s go back.” He Lingchuan shot it down immediately. “Whatever this is, it was built to trap us. Chances are that there’s no way back even if we try. We’ll just wear ourselves out. The only way out is still ahead.”

Whether it was this bizarre maze or some ghost wall out in the wilderness, turning back was always the worst choice.

Most of the danger lurked behind you. The enemy was just waiting for you to retreat.

He asked Willow, “Is it human blood?”

Willow sniffed carefully, even dipped a fingertip in and touched it to her tongue. She smacked her lips for a while before finally saying, “It’s similar, but not quite.”

“How’s it different?”

“The iron tang’s too strong. Blood already tastes of iron, but this tastes of it even more.”

“Let’s move.” He Lingchuan gestured at the fissure. “Same order, I’ll bring up the rear.”

This time, they all got through the gap without incident.

“At least we can be sure now that whatever’s here is a ferry-crossing ghostspawn.” Even in that brief clash, He Lingchuan had seen the thing’s general shape. He had fought its siblings before; he knew those creatures had only three fingers on each hand.

“Broken Blade, aren’t you putting yourself at too much risk? What if that thing had clawed your heart out from behind?” Skinny grumbled. “If you died, I’d have to reluctantly step up as squad captain, you know.”

“You don’t want to be one?” He Lingchuan gave him a sideways glance.

“Uh...” Wouldn’t saying no out loud make me sound a bit too unambitious?

He Lingchuan pulled a broken shovel head from behind his back and waved it under his nose. “Didn’t I tell you all to bring these?”

The single-story houses outside the mine might not have much else, but they had more than enough tools. Having crossed swords with ferry-crossing ghostspawn more than once, He Lingchuan knew they loved to go for vital points. So before they entered, he had told everyone to grab a shovel head. If nothing happened, they could toss it. If something did, it made a decent chest plate.

Willow had looked down on the idea. She was already wearing a small heart-protecting plate[1] that she had traded her own merits for—solid, high-quality gear.

He Lingchuan had quietly decided that once this was over, he was going to hit up the Bureau of Bright Prospects and exchange for a set of high-defense armor himself.

Doorboard could not help but blurt out, “So where are we, exactly?”

“This isn’t an illusion. It should be a den or nest that the ferry-crossing ghostspawn made for themselves. They’re most at home here, can fight best here, and can come and go as they please,” He Lingchuan said. “They can slip in and out of the walls as they like. When my saber hit just now, I could feel the whole wall flinch, like it was in pain.”

He had barely finished speaking when everyone’s expressions turned strange.

Skinny yelped, “You don’t all have the same thought as me, do you?”

Willow snapped, “These are newborns. What nest would they know best, if not—”

Their mother’s womb!

Which meant...

Doorboard’s grip on his axe tightened. He turned and strode forward. “Let’s hurry up and chop down those little creatures. This place is really making me feel uneasy.”

A squadmate behind them ventured, “If this whole place is something the ferry-crossing ghostspawn... shaped into their mother’s body, and we start hacking it up, won’t they show themselves?”

“Good idea!” Doorboard nodded. He swung his axe into the wall four or five times in quick succession.

Willow watched his movements, clearly wanting to say something but holding it back.

Blood gushed from the stone, and he felt exactly what He Lingchuan had described. The rock seemed to writhe and shrink, as if in pain.

Then the entire passage started to shake, as if it was about to cave in.

“Enough. Move!” Willow shoved Doorboard ahead. “Unless you want to get buried down here!”

The tunnel began to constrict and roll, worse than any collapse. Stand in the wrong spot, and you could be crushed flat.

They ran all-out. Several times, the walls narrowed in around them. The tall and broad-shouldered Doorboard was almost caught and squeezed, and it took He Lingchuan and the others dragging with all their strength to haul him free.

Otherwise, he really would have ended up as crushed meat.

Willow shot him a furious glare. “Great idea, huh?” Maybe next time he’d think before he followed every suggestion he heard.

Doorboard knew he was in the wrong. He rubbed his nose and kept his mouth shut.

The ghostspawn, if it was still around, did not take advantage of the chaos to jump them. Either it was scared of the saber strike just now, or it had other plans.

At the very least, the tunnel ahead finally opened out. He Lingchuan had barely reached the “exit” when the ground vanished under his feet, and he went down.

Luckily, he had been expecting something like this. He braced his core and legs, forcing himself to stop his forward pitch.

He extended his glowgrass toward the space below, and the light spilled out into a vast hollow.

Within the reach of its glow, there was no sign of a far wall at all.

1. This is a round-shaped plate on one’s chest. Feel free to search up 护心镜 for images. ☜