"Not pagans." Hao Ren could almost guess what caused the destruction by just looking at the state of damage. "Must have been the rock monsters."
"Rock monsters?" Big Beardy was baffled. "What's that?"
Becky came up to them. She remembered since the Orb of the Holy Synod went missing months ago, the four ascetics must have no idea what had happened to their hometown. She said, "It all happened during your disappearance. About two months ago, we came face-to-face with some rocky monsters when we scaled Dragonspine Ridge..."
Becky briefly described the rock monsters, and the state of chaos in the Kingdom of Holetta after the Orb of the Holy Synod went missing. There was more animation on Big Beardy's face now. He frowned and inadvertently rested his hand on the sack hanging around his waist. "Monsters appeared in Dragonspine Ridge and they tried to go to the sacred lake? Could it be related to the disappearance of the Orb of the Holy Synod?"
Hao Ren dropped the piece of wood he had earlier picked up on the ground. He looked up at Big Beardy and said, "I've the same thinking too in beginning that the Orb of the Holy Synod was used to suppress something in the town. When the Orb left The Plane of Dreams, the monsters in Dragonspine Ridge were resurrected. But now things don't add up..."
The MDT chimed in quietly. "Because that thing is just a data vault."
They began to worried about the situation in Leyton. Leyton sat between Dragonspine Ridge and the blood lake; considering that the outpost was already destroyed days ago, it was too late to go to Leyton now because it might have met the same fate. So Hao Ren had decided to stay here a little while longer to see if he could scour the area for clues which might be useful someday.
Lily's natural instinct was instantly triggered, when she heard that she began to lower her head on the ground and sniffed around. Hao Ren knew Lily was the best in this business, he let her. After a while of digging and sniffing around at nearby buildings, she lay on the ground, listening and sniffing hard before she finally locked on to a spot. Wielding her claws and digging, she soon found herself almost buried in the hole. Vivian looked on and said scornfully, "We're asking you to find clues, not bury bone..."
"Shut up, man, I'm looking for clues." Lily said from within the hole while her tail was sticking out, wagging. "Haven't you found the blood but no bodies? Judging from the scene of the destruction, I don't think the guards could make it out—even the wall was crushed. They were defeated outright."
Hao Ren thought Lily was just messing around, little did he expect the maiden could be so observant. He started to take a second look at the scene, and agree with her. "That's right... where are the bodies? And by the way, what are you looking for?"
Lily replied without looking up. "I've heard something down here." Her voice had come from even deeper.
The husky was no slouch at digging hole. Hao Ren could see the maiden was digging at a speed discernable to the neck eyes. He stood there looking, broken stones were being thrown out and began to pile up to his knees. He looked down and wondered. "...this high ground is a rock?"
But Vivian had another thought on her mind—kind of evil. "What say if I summoned a storm and bury her in there?"
Hao Ren said, "Can't you two just truce it?"
While they were talking, suddenly Lily let out a scream in the hole.
And the sound of falling rocks and stuff was heard from below. They looked down but Lily had disappeared in the black hole she had dug. Hao Ren poked her head inside, nervous. "Lily, what's happening?"
Light suddenly shone from below the hole. Lily called up. "It's a cave down here! It's a tunnel!"
Everyone hurried to the hole, marvelled at the digging skill of Lily before they turned their sights on Becky, almost unanimously. Nangong Wuyue pointed down at the hole, asked, "A cellar under the outpost?"
Becky shrugged. "How could I know? I'm just a mercenary, not a soldier here. But thinking harder, there're not supposed to have any bunker or tunnel down here. It's just a small outpost, the shore was unstable. Who would want to dig a tunnel down here?"
Becky stomped on the ground and said, "And let not forget that beneath the outpost is a piece of rock."
Hao Ren couldn't help but thought of his last tunnelling experience. He could still vividly recall the horrified moment of being attacked by the knight wraiths in the crypts beneath the ruins in England. He was done with tunnels. Vivian shared his fear as her mouth twitched. "Why all conspiratory stories must have something to do with tunnel, eh?"
Meanwhile, Lily was calling out from below. "Hello! Do you guys wanna come down or not? I will go up if you don't. And don't block the hole please!"
Screw it! Hao Ren thought. "Wait a second! Here I come!"
They went down to the cave through the hole without any difficulty, after all they all weren't normal human beings. Lily had made a fire inside, they weren't making blind jump from the hole. When every was down in the cave, Han Ren only realised what the fire was all about: Lily was summoning her double fire and ice claws, flame on her claw was enough to provide illumination and it was pretty bright. Even Vivian couldn't help but was all praise. "Flamejoy's pretty handy, eh..."
Lily gnarred at her. "I'll bite you if you ever mention that name again!"
Big Beardy took a gander around. Then muttered as he used his hand to scrape the slippery wall. "It's bored using magic."
Hao Ren started to notice the surroundings, which Lily had discovered, was unusual: there was no supporting structure in the tunnel, the whole space was like a one-piece work, no gaps or holes or whatsoever on the wall, as if it was carved out from a single piece of rock. If this was on Earth he would have suspected that it was the work of a small tunnel boring machine. But here, if what Big Beardy said was true, the work of magic?
Becky was considered a half-sorcerer. She touched the wall as if in deep thought. She then said, "To make a tunnel as large as this, the person must be at least a master of magic. What's more, the tunnel itself was given a long-term cure which required a higher level of ability. A tunnel like this in a small outpost seems like an overkill."
"I smell blood." Vivian's brows knitted together. She was sensitive to blood. Her olfactory ability was just as good as Lily's. "But the weird thing is, there's no body here. Where the blood stench comes from?"
It was a dark and creepy tunnel, with both ends extended out far from where they stood right now. Hao Ren used his mind's eyes to see. He could feel a breeze coming from one direction, so he pointed at that direction and said, "Let's go in that direction, see where it leads to."
No one objected. Lily raised her Flamejoy..OK, don't mention the name. Let's just say she was holding up a fire and walking in front. Everyone followed the husky staggering along the tunnel, their nerves tense. Originally Hao Ren thought what had happened was simply an incident of monster attack, but the tunnel which was carved by magic and filled with stench of fresh flood pointed at the involvement of human. He felt something was definitely wrong, and his sixth sense told him that all this had got something to do with the blood lake.
If it concerned the blood lake, then it also concerned the goddess. The legend of the destuction of the world was like a heavy rock on Hao Ren's mind. He had got the gut feeling that the peculiar relationship between The Plane of Dreams and the Surface World wasn't that simple. He couldn't just let himself not to keep thinking, especially when thing had something to do with both.
They kept going for quite a long while and hadn't met anything unusual. The gradiant slowly slanted upwards and the tunnel came to a stop at the exit on the surface which was blocked by rocks. Fresh air could be felt rushing through the gaps between rocks. The rocks were not match for Lily digging fire power, they soon came out in the open again where the sky was filled with twinkling stars.
Hao Ren looked back. He could see the outpost. He figured he had probably travelled a great distance underground.
"That is it?" Lily looked a little disappointed. "I thought we could find the consipracy."
"What do you want?" Vivian shot Lily a sideways look. "Isn't it great everyone is safe?"
Lily puffed her cheek. "That's boring. At least if there were some little monsters, the whole exploration would be more exhilarating."
Before Lily's voice trailed off, Hao Ren suddenly heard loud, earth-shattering steps coming from the Gnarled Grove.
Vivian slapped on Lily's head. "Speaking of the devil!"