"Um, is this a naturally formed cave?"
The leader pointed to the far right of him.
Everyone looked in the direction he pointed, and saw a dark mark on the rock wall about tens of meters away on the right. It was difficult to see what it was because it was blocked by a large number of trees, branches and leaves.
At first glance, it looks like a shadow formed by the depression in the rock wall.
"Let's go take a look."
After a few seconds of silence, the leader lightly kicked the horse's belly and led dozens of people towards that area.
Because the distance was not far, only a few dozen meters, everyone quickly reached their destination along the rock wall of the mountain.
Then, they saw the true form of the "shadow"...
"what?!"
Almost everyone widened their eyes in surprise.
On the bare, gray rock wall, there was a cave that was more than one meter tall and three or four meters wide!
If it was just a cave, there would be nothing surprising about it. Perhaps it was just a naturally formed cave.
However, the depth of this cave is extremely deep, extending straight into the depths of the mountain to the end of the sight. It is now noon, the sunlight is bright and hot, but it is completely unable to illuminate the bottom of the cave.
Everyone only saw the roughly semicircular inner wall of the cave stretching straight into the distance, and finally condensed into a small black dot.
And, most importantly...
"This cave wall was obviously dug by humans!"
The craftsman who was accompanying the team took one look and blurted out the answer.
In fact, he didn't need to say it. Even if other people didn't move at all, they could see at a glance that this cave... or "tunnel" was definitely not a masterpiece of nature!
Because there were obvious chisel marks on the wall of the cave. These chisel marks were extremely neat and orderly, layer upon layer, like fish scales. They were definitely man-made products!
"The traces are very recent, they must have been excavated just in the past few days... Someone got there before us!?"
As soon as these words were spoken, the team leader's face instantly turned as cold as ice.
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Chapter 447 Shield and Hole
The next chapter will be updated at 8 o'clock.
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"Rumble, rumble, rumble..."
The continuous muffled sound was transmitted within the mountain composed of rocks and soil.
It is low, powerful and heavy, like a turning millstone or distant thunder.
In the pitch-black "tunnel", Qi Ji, wearing a gray-black cloak, gently raised one hand, spread out his five fingers naturally, and pointed his palm forward, with mixed multi-colored lights flickering.
In front of her, strands of translucent crystal threads intertwined and entangled with each other, emitting a faint, colorful fluorescence.
Together, they outline a three-dimensional, circular, multi-layered, conical "shield structure", which constantly changes its position and details in an extremely complex way and posture, and the gaps are filled with mysterious runes that flow and disappear rapidly.
And the rock that had been unworn for eternity also changed with the changes of those seemingly illusory crystal threads... It was like a piece of meat dropped into a blender, being crushed and shattered by a mysterious invisible force, turning into pieces of gravel of varying sizes.
Amid the sharp sound of brittle objects being crushed, a tunnel with uniform inner diameter and smooth inner walls slowly but steadily extends.
"That group of people should be here soon... Oh, they're just around the corner, so they'll probably find the entrance to the 'tunnel'... Well, if they find it, then they find it. What's there to be afraid of?"
Qi Ji followed the changing "Rune Shield Array" at that moment and walked slowly at a normal walking speed, withdrawing his attention from the investigation of the team entering the mountain.
The long and deep tunnel was pitch black, and one could hardly see one's hand in front of one's face. The only light sources were the rune array in front of her and the faint glow between her palms. However, her steps were not hesitant or cautious at all. Instead, they were very bold, as if she was walking on flat ground.
This was due to Qi Ji's own high skills and courage, who was not afraid of any unknown difficulties and obstacles, and also to the fact that the "shield formation" in front of him did not simply crush the mountain.
Instead, after breaking the rock, it automatically sorts the fragments by size and shape and transfers them from the edge to the inner wall of the tunnel.
Then use high-precision high temperature and high pressure operations... and lay them firmly on it, making them fit perfectly and indestructible!
This not only fills the interior of the cave wall with a smooth, orderly, and stacked "fish scale structure", but also uses an interlocking dome structure to reinforce and support the tunnel to prevent it from collapsing after drilling only a few meters.
After such treatment, the "road conditions" in this tunnel are even better than those in big cities' carriage roads, and comparable to the well-maintained highways on modern Earth.
Not to mention Qi Ji, even an ordinary person can walk straight in here with his eyes closed without worrying about any bumps.
This "shield" is a skill that Qi Ji constructed temporarily. The spell itself does not require much technical content, and it does not impose a heavy spiritual burden on the caster. A magician with solid basic skills can most likely cast it successfully.
The difficulty lies in the understanding and control of the geological structure and stress distribution of rock strata and mountains, as well as the advance calculation and control accuracy when laying supporting structures.
If you are not careful, it may cause a collapse, and then billions of tons of rocks and sand will be pressed down. Faced with such a natural force that can cause the sky to collapse and the earth to collapse...
I'm afraid that even those who are strong enough in the third realm can't escape unscathed!
"It's been more than an hour... At my walking speed, I've drilled about five or six kilometers, right?"
Qi Ji calculated the time in his mind.
Yes, her plan to cross the Mountains of End was very simple and crude, that is, "crossing" in the literal sense!
Directly break through this ancient mountain range that runs from north to south, stretches for tens of thousands of kilometers, is inaccessible, and has unknown thickness!
This is very reckless. Telling it to other people will certainly cause ridicule and mockery of this person for being ignorant of the immensity of heaven and earth and wanting to do something unbelievable.
However, considering Qi Ji's ability, this is not a difficult task at all.
"This End Mountain Range is said to be so mysterious, impassable, created by ancient gods, and the home of ancient dragons. But in the end, it's just ordinary rocks inside..."
She was a little bored. If it was just an ordinary rock, no matter how thick it was... there would be no fun in challenging it. It would just take more time to break through it.
The "Mountain End Adventure" she had originally envisioned... was not a "dark walking simulator", which would be too boring.
"Well, I hope there will be some twists and turns in the process... Hey, who cares?"
She suddenly realized something and stopped.
In order to maintain the mystery and anticipation of the adventure, she deliberately suppressed her own perception, retaining only the minimum sensory acuity required to explore the geological conditions, in order to prevent her vision from being too broad and eliminating all the unknown fog.
But just now, she found that even with her current perception, she could clearly detect...
Behind the rock layer in front, there is a cavity. The size of the cavity is kept secret for now, but it is definitely not small.
"Natural hole? Or something else?"
With questions and curiosity bubbling up in her mind, she quickened her pace.
In his perception and calculation, the "hole" was not far away from him, only a few dozen meters at most.
"Boom! -"
The intensity and frequency of the rock shattering gradually increased with her footsteps, and soon, a loud noise like a wall collapsing came from the front:
"Wow!"
Qi Ji only felt a violent vibration in front of him, and then the rock wall of the mountain that seemed to be forever blocking the way ahead and could never be penetrated, fell backwards with a bang, stirring up large amounts of dust with the sound of rocks falling to the ground.
"finally reached."
After removing the "Rune Shield Formation", she waved her arms, and used her wide and thick cloak to create wind and waves to blow away the flying dust, restoring her vision to clarity.
She walked over the rubble scattered on the ground and entered the "hole".
"here it is……"
What came into view was a darkness that was almost pitch black, but it was not truly pitch black. The light source that came from nowhere only barely illuminated the surrounding environment.
With ordinary human vision, one can only see that the ground beneath one's feet is flat but rough, a bit like the desert in the western United States. It feels as solid as rock when one steps on it, but in fact it is compacted sand.
Through the faint lighting of unknown origin, one can see that the color of the sand and soil is a very deep dark red, like dried blood.
Coupled with the eerie atmosphere of complete silence and death, where even the sound of the wind is almost non-existent, it makes people's hair stand on end, giving people the illusion of stepping into the abyss of the underworld.
"……Um?"
Qi Ji looked around, trying to find where the light source was. He was touched in a trance. He blinked, slowly raised his head and looked upwards.
She saw a full red moon, hanging in the sky in silence and loneliness.
Chapter 448 Hollow! ?
The moment the blood-red full moon came into view, Qi Ji was stunned for a moment.
She remembered that she started digging the tunnel at around ten in the morning, and only an hour had passed.
According to the time, it's not even night outside yet...how come it's dark? And why is the moon red?
But she reacted the next second: she did not penetrate the Mountains of End, but was still inside the mountain!
The blood moon hung high in the sky, no one knew how far away it was. The background was absolutely black without a trace of light, no stars, and no clouds.
Qi Ji realized something and expanded his perception slightly, extending it up, down, left and right.
Wherever we passed, there was barren and flat desert. It was not the red sand that appears to the naked eye, but ordinary yellow sand.
However, the only light here is the crimson full moon in the sky. The light it emits is extremely pure, a deep dark red, which makes everything in the field of vision appear bloody.
Behind her was a vertical rock wall that rose straight up to an unimaginable height and plunged into the thick darkness.
Qi Ji extended his perception field to several thousand meters, but was unable to touch the top of the rock wall, let alone detect the strange blood-red full moon.
But at least one thing is certain...the space she is in now is definitely not the outside world!
"This mountain... is hollow inside?"
Qi Ji was shocked on the spot.
What surprised her was not that the inside of the mountain was hollow, but that there was no spiritual fluctuation revealed in this hole!
The rock walls, mountains, and ground are all very common natural materials, and so far she has not found any supporting structures inside the cavity.
Such a huge hollow structure, if it has no support, with the inner wall and base materials made of conventional materials... it is absolutely impossible to exist stably and will definitely collapse on the spot.
But it didn't... Based on the natural wear and tear on the inside of the rock wall, Qi Ji initially deduced that this structure has existed for at least fifty years, and it has not collapsed in such a long period of time.
Logically speaking, such a strange and unusual phenomenon must be maintained silently by some extraordinary power, but she could not sense any spiritual fluctuations.
What does this mean…?
Her eyes were fixed on the crimson moon hanging at the highest point in the "sky".
"The first authority, the ordinary world, the domain is the 'moon', ruling 'nature', 'harmony', 'balance'..."
The following information suddenly flashed through my mind:
"The divine beings who currently hold this authority are suspected to be the 'First Creator', 'God of Night and Tranquility' Loll, and the 'Out of Control Angel' of the Gray Forest..."
Restraining the urge to completely let go of his senses and find out what was going on, Qi Ji quickly walked towards the depths of the "Scarlet Sand Plain" in front of him.
The rock wall behind her was not flat, but had a basically uniform curvature. If the curvature remained the same, then this "hole" should be roughly a circle with a diameter of 400 to 600 meters.
She wanted to confirm whether this inference was correct.
"……really."
After walking aimlessly in a straight line for a few minutes, another vertical rock wall suddenly emerged from the darkness ahead and stood before my eyes.
This mysterious space located inside the End Mountains... is indeed a roughly cylindrical space with an inner diameter of four to five hundred meters, and its height cannot be determined for the time being.
“Hey, this is… a staircase?”
Qi Ji discovered that the curved rock wall in front of him was not straight up and down, but was carved into steps with uniform height and width. They rose in a spiral along the inside of the rock wall and disappeared into the deep darkness.
On the outside of the "stairs", simple handrails and railings are made of wood. By analyzing the wood of the handrails, we can know that their raw materials are all from trees in the forest at the foot of the mountain.
"interesting……"
The stairs are right in front of you, why not take them?
Qi Ji didn't think twice and stepped directly onto the steps that were integrated into the rock wall. He left the ground made of yellow sand step by step and rose to a higher place.
"There are obvious signs of wear and tear on the surface of the steps. It can be seen that they have been trampled and rubbed intensively over a period of time... Have many people ever walked back and forth on them carrying heavy objects?"
As she walked, she observed her surroundings and made judgments in her mind.
"Although the wooden handrails are also worn, there is no sign of decay at all... It's strange, there are bacteria that can corrode dry wood on them, why haven't they reproduced at all after decades? They are still active..."
