Chapter 1 The Beginning

The eerie tunnel in the lakeside outpost still reeked faintly of blood. Vivian and Lily advanced cautiously through it.

They hadn't yet made contact with the bearded quartet, so they didn't know that the four ascetics had already informed Gelton and Aufra of the tunnel's situation. But they could guess that such crucial information would inevitably be reported to the person in charge of the parish. So when the two of them first arrived at the outpost, they carefully surveyed the surroundings, worried that church investigators had already arrived and set up camp. Fortunately, it seemed Gelton had postponed the tunnel investigation by a day—Vivian and Lily saw no outsiders when they arrived, and the tunnel showed no signs of anyone having been there since.

When the group had first arrived, they were unaware of the major events that had occurred in the Beinz region over the past two months. Furthermore, they were in a hurry to return the Holy Church Orb and confirm the situation in Leyton Town, so they hadn't done much exploration of the tunnel. When Lily had dug the vertical shaft, there were actually two paths to take. One was the exit Hao Ren and the others had used to return to the surface from the lakeside outpost, and the other extended deep underground: now, Lily and Vivian were walking through this slightly downward-sloping tunnel.

"It feels like we're going deeper and deeper... and the air is getting stale," Lily, as a melee fighter, was naturally walking in front, sniffing the air. The atmosphere here made her uncomfortable. "I'm getting a little creeped out..."

Vivian followed behind Lily, occasionally sending out a few small bats to scout ahead. Hearing this, she casually replied, "You're always furry anyway."

"That's true..." Lily actually thought about it seriously. "But only my tail and ears are furry now. Your rhetoric isn't accurate."

Vivian: "...I'm really asking for it, discussing this with you."

The straight tunnel stretched downward for an unknown distance. They'd been walking for at least an hour. The two inhuman girls weren't afraid of this kind of environment, but they were bored, so they had to chat to dispel the dull atmosphere. But the end of the tunnel was still nowhere in sight, as if this downward-sloping cave would extend all the way to hell. The air was quite murky here, and the oxygen level had long dropped below the survival limit for ordinary people, but Vivian and Lily could still handle it easily. As Vivian walked, she couldn't help but stroke the stone wall beside her. Although she knew this was a special wall formed by magical influence, she was still amazed by its smooth, solid nature. The magical heritage on Earth had been fragmented, and she couldn't even remember if any of her "old friends" on Earth could perform this feat.

The round inner wall of the tunnel also made Lily start to fantasize: "I feel like we're walking through the digestive tract of a giant beast..."

Vivian patted Lily's tail. "Can't you think of something better? Gross."

"What do you think this tunnel is for?" Lily didn't mind. She just raised Fire Joy to illuminate the path ahead. "It goes so deep... If it was made by humans, there's no lighting or ventilation. It's completely useless."

"I've been wondering about that too. If this was built for people to walk through, there should at least be a ventilation hole," Vivian frowned. She had originally thought she would find traces of humans ahead, but the further she went, the more she felt like she was moving away from "human presence." She looked up at the claw blade Lily was using as a torch and couldn't help but feel a little curious. "What's the principle behind Fire Joy? The oxygen is so thin here, but it can still burn. And I remember it doesn't go out in water..."

Lily suddenly drew her treasure blade and pointed at Vivian with Frostmourne: "I told you not to mention that name again! Otherwise, I'll freeze you with Frostmourne!"

Vivian curled her lips. "Think about copyright issues. You should rename that thing Frost Disappointment..."

Lily was immediately furious, but before she could explode, Vivian suddenly narrowed her eyes. Then, using the light of Fire Joy, she scraped at the stone wall beside her, scraping off some dark brown flakes. "What is this stuff?"

"Isn't it stone chips?" Lily's hatred usually only lasted three seconds. At this moment, her attention was instantly diverted. She held up the torch and moved closer. "Uh, it doesn't look like stone... It smells a bit like rotten tree roots."

Vivian pinched the black flakes and easily crushed them into pieces. "Soft, fibrous, definitely not stone. It feels a bit like bark."

At this moment, Lily's ears twitched, and she suddenly turned sensitively towards the depths of the tunnel. "Hey, Bat, can you hear any sounds coming from ahead?"

Vivian frowned and listened intently for a while. She had also heard a faint rustling sound coming from the distance, but then the sound disappeared. She casually summoned a small bat and threw it out. The bat was wrapped in lightning and disappeared into the dark depths of the tunnel in an instant. Lily seemed to sense that the atmosphere was not right, and subconsciously crossed her ice and fire blades in front of her chest in preparation for battle, while Vivian carefully observed the situation ahead through the little bat.

Half a minute later, her eyes suddenly widened, and she grabbed Lily's collar. "Run!"

Lily hadn't even reacted when she was sent flying sideways. "Hey, hey, what's going on?"

Vivian casually tossed Lily forward, forcibly changing the back team to the front team. Then, she dissolved into a large swarm of bats and followed closely behind. "Don't ask, just run!"

A dense and eerie rustling sound suddenly came from behind, mixed with the strange sound of rocks being crushed. The sound approached at an alarming speed, as if a thousand beasts were flooding over. Only then did Lily finally understand what was happening. Her tail puffed up like cotton candy, and she howled and ran forward on all fours. "What's going on!"

A portion of Vivian's little bats looked back. Since Lily had put away her claw blades when she was on all fours, the tunnel was pitch black. They could only rely on the sparks of electricity from the bat swarm to barely illuminate the road. She saw a terrifying shadow rushing out from the deep, dark end of the tunnel, rapidly approaching with a world-destroying momentum!

It was a grotesque thing like a giant tentacle. Vivian could only vaguely discern that its ends had a wrinkled and forked structure. The tentacle was so large that it completely filled the entire tunnel. As it rushed towards them, it continuously smashed the solid rock walls of the tunnel to pieces. Vivian suddenly thought of the black flakes hanging from the stone wall earlier, the round, tubular structure of the tunnel, and how the tunnel was formed!

She didn't know if she was a match for the tentacle. Perhaps the tentacle wasn't as powerful as it looked, but the wisdom she had accumulated over more than ten thousand years told her that when encountering an unknown enemy in an extremely unsuitable environment, she must not turn back to personally test the enemy's strength. Instead, she should immediately move to an open area where she could give full play to her abilities. Even if she tried to fight, it should be in a place where she could perform at her best!

Lily also glanced back and her tail fur puffed up even more when she saw the terrifying tentacle rushing towards them in the darkness. "Bat, what did you lure out!"

"I didn't lure it out! It already sensed us approaching and has been slowly crawling out!"

"Quickly think of a way to block it temporarily!" Lily glanced back again. "It feels like it's getting closer and closer!"

Vivian immediately split off a small group of bats and did her best to unleash a lightning strike without having time to gather energy.

With a deafening roar, the lightning strike exploded in the enclosed tunnel, creating a sound that threatened to shatter eardrums and instantly illuminating the dark underground world as bright as day. Lily was caught off guard and almost blinded (no mistake), but she didn't have time to argue with Vivian this time. Instead, she continued to run wildly without stopping. "Did you take it down?!"

Vivian's voice came from all directions through the bat swarm. "Keep running!"

The chase lasted a long time. Lily almost felt like the tunnel would never end, but just as she had this thought, a glimmer of light suddenly appeared ahead.

It was the place where she had dug the vertical shaft before!

Under the night sky, the ruins of the outpost on the shore of Blood Lake were shrouded in a deathly atmosphere. However, a muffled thunder-like roar suddenly came from underground, breaking the silence. Several small beasts resting here at night were startled by the strange noise and fled in panic.

A silvery-white figure and a large, dark swarm of bats emerged almost simultaneously from a cave in the camp.