Volume I: The Spiral Carvings Chapter 28: Wasteland of Bones II: The Subterranean Space

Page 1 of 3

After sliding downward for two hours, he finally reached the bottom. A subterranean chamber of moderate size appeared beneath him.

He braced both feet against the edge of the earthen passage, bent at the waist, and leaned his head into the chamber, widening his eyes as he carefully surveyed the area.

It was a chamber of yellow earth. Not a single stone could be seen in its walls.

What made him frown deeply was that the chamber resembled… a septic tank.

It was filled with the feces of insects and animals. After years of accumulation, the mass had risen at least four or five meters high.

The surface had already hardened into clumps. Granular, lumpy, and elongated droppings were piled everywhere, while countless insects crawled through the gaps between them—centipedes, scorpions, and the like.

The stench was unbearable. It made Chen Fan’s eyes redden and stream with tears until he could barely keep them open.

A rushing sound suddenly rang out. He had slid too quickly, and many of the rocks and clods of earth had been unable to keep up with him.

Now they finally caught up, raining down upon his back and head.

A great deal of dust splashed into his eyes as well, blurring his vision.

He raised a finger and rubbed his eyes vigorously, then lowered his head and continued observing the chamber.

On the right side of the yellow-earth chamber was a massive earthen passage, roughly two meters high and three meters wide.

Apart from the countless insects crawling across its floor, he also saw two rows of holes.

He was intimately familiar with those holes. He knew that they had been made either by centipedes or by arthropods such as millipedes.

Judging from the holes alone, he could tell that the creatures responsible had to be at least… over two meters long.

Chen Fan lifted his head and exhaled a breath of stale air before releasing his hands and feet.

With a splash, he was swallowed by the septic tank.

Foul, viscous feces enveloped his entire body.

The filth seeped into every opening, forcing its way into his nostrils and ears. Because he had been careless, he even swallowed a mouthful.

He surfaced and began swimming forward while retching violently.

Yellow vomit floated atop the black, viscous waste. The sight was brutally shocking.

Looking closely, he saw countless insect and animal carcasses within the sludge—centipedes, scorpions, rats, and more.

But the most revolting sight of all was the layer upon layer of white maggots.

There were simply too many of them. They occupied nearly half the septic tank.

Calling it a septic tank was inaccurate. It was more like… an ocean of maggots.

Chen Fan had accidentally swallowed a mouthful of the viscous waste. At the very least, tens of thousands of white maggots had gone down his throat.

As Chen Fan plunged into the “water,” the maggots became active. They grew frenzied, writhing violently.

They crawled along his clothes and trousers, climbed over his body, attached themselves to his skin, and began gnawing at him.

They moved far too quickly. In the blink of an eye, they had completely covered his body.

There were so many of them that they piled up layer after layer around him, leaving not the slightest gap.

Chen Fan’s appearance could no longer be seen. Not even a speck of skin the size of a sesame seed was visible, nor a single strand of hair. All that could be seen was a “white maggot man,” writhing madly as he swam rapidly toward the earthen passage nearby.

Anyone suffering from trypophobia would probably have died of fright on the spot at such a sight. It had already surpassed the limits of their ability to endure.

But Chen Fan was different. He looked nearly deranged. Amid such extreme agony, he began to laugh.

His laughter was low and chilling, enough to make one’s flesh crawl.

In circumstances like these, the environment itself was terrifying, and the maggots were terrifying. But now, he was even more frightening than either of them, because he had already… gone mad.

After enduring an immense torment, Chen Fan finally reached the shore.

Like a man consumed by raging flames, he rolled frantically across the earthen passage.

Large masses of maggots slid from his body. In an instant, the yellow-earth floor became a floor of writhing white maggots.

As the maggots writhed, they secreted countless threads of mucus. Under his night vision, those threads glowed green.

He stripped off his clothes and trousers, then ran more than a dozen meters away.

Turning back, he looked at the densely packed maggots on the ground, then at the “ocean of maggots.” He should have felt disgusted. He should have felt afraid.

Yet his face remained expressionless, because his heart was dozens of times harder than tool steel.

He could not be defeated.

Let the storm come more fiercely.

Yet his arms were trembling uncontrollably. That showed he was, in fact, afraid. He was not invulnerable, nor was his resolve truly as hard as iron.

But he tensed his arms, refusing to allow any sign of weakness to show.

He lowered his head and looked at his body. At least several hundred maggots were still writhing across it. They were only the size of grains of rice, with gray-black heads and white bodies. As they crawled, they secreted yellow excrement.

His scalp itched unbearably. He reached up with both hands and scratched. Countless maggots came cascading down like a waterfall.

His gaze was cold. He plunged his broad hands into the earth, scooped up a large handful of yellow soil, and buried the top of his head in it.

He rubbed vigorously with both hands. Once the sticky earth had been distributed evenly across every strand of hair, the maggots were trapped within it and could no longer move.

He then drew his long saber and, with the practiced skill of a barber, shaved away his hair.

Once he was bald, there were finally no maggots left on his scalp.

Not a single one.

Page 1 of 3

Page 2 of 3

After cleaning himself up for a while and confirming that his body was finally free of maggots, he took out a piece of rotten cloth and wrapped it around his waist. Looking like a primitive cave-dweller, he followed the earthen passage and slowly continued forward.

Suddenly, he felt nauseated. His stomach churned violently. He reached out with his left hand to brace himself against the wall, then lowered his head and opened his mouth.

As he began to vomit, a huge mass of maggots poured out.

Some had already been corroded by stomach acid into white granules, while others were still alive, writhing back and forth in the vomit.

After vomiting for a while, he waited until his spirits recovered before continuing forward.

An hour later, when he was only twenty meters from a junction, a hissing sound suddenly came from around the bend ahead.

Chen Fan’s brows rose sharply. He pulled his long saber from his pack.

The hissing grew louder. Then a black venomous scorpion, two meters long, appeared in his field of vision.

Chen Fan took several steps back and tightened his grip on the saber as he carefully studied the enormous scorpion.

Its two pincers were larger than his head, resembling two gaping mouths filled with sharp protrusions.

Its tail arched high overhead, the pointed stinger pressed close to the top of the passage.

Clearly, the black scorpion had entered an attack stance.

“Come on!” Chen Fan beckoned to it.

It grew enraged and charged toward him.

Crack!

Its sharp stinger stopped half a meter from Chen Fan.

The long saber had cleaved straight through its shell, pierced its head, and run through its body.

Chen Fan’s thick hand clutched the hilt tightly. As though that were not enough, he twisted the hilt left and right, wrenching a massive hole through the creature’s body.

With a wet burst, Chen Fan pulled out the saber, and a great quantity of viscous fluid sprayed from the scorpion’s body.

It let out a shriek and collapsed to the ground in unwilling defeat.

Chen Fan stepped over its body and looked to both sides of the junction, judging which passage seemed relatively safer.

After resting briefly where he stood, he made his decision and continued forward through the passage on the right.

He walked while observing his surroundings.

“What kind of animal carved out these passages?”

He did not believe that giant scorpions possessed such an ability. Carrying this question in his heart, he continued slowly onward.

Twenty minutes later, he stopped.

The hissing sound had begun again, dense and overlapping, one wave following another.

Perhaps it was still produced by scorpions, but judging by the sound, there was certainly more than one this time.

Chen Fan glanced behind him. For a moment, he felt like retreating and wanted very much to turn back.

But he did not want to be disgusted by those maggots again. Moreover, he suspected that the toad monster was still waiting near the exit. Even if he escaped, it would pursue him, leaving him nowhere to run.

After weighing his options repeatedly, he hardened his heart and continued forward.

His steps grew slower and slower as the hissing became louder and more piercing. In the end, it seemed that the entire world consisted only of that sound. He could no longer hear his own breathing or heartbeat.

A trace of tension appeared in his eyes. After hesitating for a moment, he continued onward.

The passage ahead was no longer straight. A bend had appeared.

He walked toward it.

Before he reached the corner, he saw two enormous pincers slowly extending into view.

Clearly, another giant scorpion was approaching.

Cold light flashed in his eyes. Gripping the long saber, he hurried forward several steps and stopped at the bend.

A sharp crack rang out. The moment the giant scorpion emerged, the long saber pierced through its head.

After twisting its head to pieces, Chen Fan seized its iron-hard pincers and threw the body behind him.

He took a deep breath, then stood at the corner and cautiously leaned his head out to look into the depths.

Then he saw an enormous, domed subterranean chamber, at least the size of a soccer field.

And within that vast space lived an uncountable number of… arthropods.

There were not only giant scorpions, but also giant millipedes, giant centipedes, and giant cockroaches. Every one of them was at least two meters long.

There were simply too many of them. They packed every inch of the chamber floor. They were so crowded that even moving their bodies was difficult.

The sight was horrifying enough to make one’s scalp crawl.

Chen Fan exhaled slowly and took two steps backward.

Then he suddenly stopped, his heart clenching.

A thick object was pressed against his back, moving back and forth.

Was it the corpse of the giant scorpion?

He quickly turned his head and looked behind him.

There stood a giant millipede.

The thick antenna pressed against his back belonged to the millipede.

His gaze passed over it and reached farther into the distance. He was startled once again, because the entire passage was packed with arthropods—giant centipedes and giant millipedes alike.

Page 2 of 3

Page 3 of 3

“Where did they come from?”

He retreated repeatedly, then suddenly remembered that there had been two earthen passages at the junction. Clearly, these giant arthropods had crawled through the other passage.

Had they been drawn by the corpse of the giant scorpion?

But this was no time to investigate the matter. He had already reached a moment of life or death. The slightest carelessness would cost him his life.

A hissing sound rang out. The giant millipede launched its attack on Chen Fan. Its mouth was not especially large, but it was equally terrifying.

Cold light flashed in Chen Fan’s eyes. With a twist of his wrist, he thrust the long saber directly into its mouth.

With a wet burst, the saber pierced through its body, its tip emerging from its back.

After pulling out the saber, he watched as the creature collapsed to the ground and thrashed violently.

A trace of hesitation flashed through his eyes.

Should he go forward or turn back?

It seemed not to matter anymore. Both directions were dangerous.

Rumble!

A tremor came from the vast chamber behind him. Looking up, he saw hundreds of thousands of giant creatures charging rapidly toward him.

Chen Fan had intruded upon their territory.

They were furious.

It was an army of arthropods, like a black-and-red sea surging toward him in endless waves.

What else could he do in such a situation?

He moved several steps forward, gripped the yellow-earth wall with both hands, and rapidly climbed toward the center of the domed ceiling.

The hissing continued. Tens of thousands of red-headed centipedes climbed onto the walls and rapidly closed in on him.

From the other three directions, tens of thousands of mutated millipedes also climbed the walls.

Chen Fan had reached the center of the dome. With a cold snort, he drove the five fingers of his right hand deep into the earth, leaving his entire body hanging in midair.

He twisted his right wrist, looked around at the ceiling and walls, then lowered his head to gaze at the vast floor below.

He had been completely surrounded by the army of arthropods.

There was no path to the heavens, nor any entrance into the earth.

There were simply too many of them. Layer upon layer, they occupied every inch of usable space. Not even a grain of yellow earth could be seen. They had filled everything so tightly that not even air could pass through.

His gaze remained calm. He drew a deep breath, then retrieved a moderately sized safe from his system storage.

It was a super-safe forged from tool steel.

Chen Fan climbed inside the safe, then released his grip with his right hand.

Bang!

The safe, weighing nearly nine hundred pounds, plummeted from the ceiling. Amid the thunderous impact, more than a dozen giant creatures were crushed beneath it.

Their bodies burst open. Viscous fluid sprayed from them, and their corpses emitted sizzling sounds.

The giant centipedes and millipedes clinging to the ceiling were too impatient to climb down. Instead, they released their grip with their legs.

And so, black-and-red rain began to fall throughout the vast subterranean chamber.

At that moment, the entire chamber was finally occupied by them. Even the air seemed superfluous. The creatures were packed so tightly that their bodies had forced the air away.

The giant arthropod army on the ground began moving as well. They formed a black-and-red wave more than ten meters high, rolling rapidly toward Chen Fan.

They surrounded him completely, sealing off every escape route. There were at least dozens of layers of them.

The ground around him finally became exposed.

Their hard bodies slammed against the safe again and again, trying to break it open.

Chen Fan immediately brought out the fist-sized Fire Origin Stone.

Rumble!

A massive crater roughly forty meters across was blasted into the ground. A terrifying wave of scorching heat transformed into a crimson mushroom cloud that expanded from small to enormous, completely filling the subterranean chamber within a single second.

It was as though they had been transported instantly to the core of the sun. The brilliance was overwhelming, the glare so intense that no one could keep their eyes open.

When the roar finally ended, the bright subterranean chamber was once more filled with ink-black darkness.

The flesh and shells of the giant arthropods covered the ground in a thick layer at least three or four meters deep.

The walls and ceiling were plastered with thick layers of mangled flesh. Countless shells and pincers had been driven into the earth.

Chen Fan began to cough and stepped out of the safe, already transformed into a bloody figure.

The skin on his back had been cooked through, exposing yellow fat, and a considerable portion of his skull had been fractured by the shock.

Fortunately, thick shock-absorbing material had lined the interior of the safe. Otherwise, he would have been shaken to death long ago.

Page 3 of 3