The Starflame Forum created a huge uproar.
Overnight, everyone started discussing the new movie “The Secret of the Dark Beach” on the High Difficulty Zone.
First of all, it was a brand new, never-before-seen horror movie, and that alone was enough to attract viewers. Secondly, there were two popular figures involved in this movie.
Dong Yao, the captain of the Flying Scythe team, had been working hard to improve himself since his last C-rank rating and the battle of Waterloo, and the Flying Scythe fans were eagerly waiting to see how he was going to get back in the game.
Zhuo Yu, who had become popular in the forums, actually entered the new movie, making many people sigh at the kid’s luck. However, when this kind of luck met a real powerhouse, everyone laughed out loud, wanting to see how this crippled white boy would be crushed.
Although Dong Yao wasn’t the type of person who liked to create program effects and intentionally crush the weak, everyone looked forward to seeing the contrast so that Zhuo Yu’s fans would clear their heads a bit.
[Zhuo Yu will meet Dong Yao; it’s really interesting.]
[What an interesting movie; what a delight to see.]
[Mr. Dong, charge!]
[I’m already laughing at the thought of Mr. Dong meeting the weak and useless white boy.]
[Zhuo Yu isn’t as weak as you say!]
[Come on, this is a difficult new movie; Zhuo Yu won’t survive; he can’t even walk; he’s in a cave waiting to die.]
[Can’t you face fans get it through your heads?]
[TN: face fans — fans that only care about how handsome their star is.]
[Forget it, Dong Yao is not the type of character that likes to compare; Mr. Dong just wants to pass the level seriously; go somewhere else if you want to argue.]
[Don’t argue; watch the movie properly.]
Inside the screen, Zhuo Yu watched Liu Jingyun bandage the injured man, and only then did his heart relax.
[Current mission: Follow the team into the interior of the pyramid.]
The system came online and announced Zhuo Yu’s first mission since he entered the movie; however, this mission sounded simple, but it was quite difficult to do.
Zhuo Yu looked around and found that they were on a mudflat; a dozen meters away was a quiet, deep pool. Although it was dark here, there were some mosses and vegetation on the rock wall that emitted shimmering light, so that people could vaguely see the black shadow of the pyramid in the pool with the help of the light.
The mudflats were covered with the remains of tents and fragments of instruments that had been washed in with the current, and there were also a number of backpacks and shoes scattered about, whose owners were feared to have drowned.
“How can we get out of here? It’s all water!” Some people broke down and shouted, “The cave entrance has been blocked by a landslide; even if it’s not blocked, we can’t dive hundreds of meters and swim to the bottom!”
Luo Musheng pushed up his glasses and calmly said, “You’d better pray that the cave entrance is blocked; otherwise, with the amount of water stored here, the nearby villages will be directly flooded, and we won’t be the only ones to die then.”
The man was silenced and reluctantly hammered the wall with his fist again.
Li Chuanning’s eyebrows also furrowed: “The situation is very bad now. I discussed with the village head to prohibit the villagers from coming to the neighborhood, so there is a high probability… that we will be discovered very late, and we will not be able to get rescued for the time being.”
Zhuo Yu remembered those instruments and tents that were blown away by the storm; it would make it look as if they had cleared the site. Even if someone was really uneasy and came to the foot of Mount Ming to look for them, they would only see the bare grass that had nothing left; all the traces of them were swallowed up by the wind and the flood.
Who would have thought that someone could actually be trapped in a hollowed-out mountain?
“Don’t say demoralizing words; we can escape by ourselves.”
Old Qin pulled out a portable flashlight from his pocket and shone it towards the end of the pool. A huge building was illuminated by the light, revealing the tip of the iceberg. Zhuo Yu immediately reached the searchlight over and shone it towards there as well.
Instantly, the massive pyramid revealed its true colors.
Smooth black bricks were neatly stacked, and the top was clean enough to not attach a trace of water, grass, or moss. Each of these bricks was the same size, and there was almost no difference. This was something that even the Egyptian pyramids couldn’t do.
The building was squarely half submerged by the water, revealing only the upper half of the tower, which the crowd on the mudflats saw as the upper half of a diamond-shaped triangle.
Wait ……
Zhuo Yu immediately looked over towards the scholars, and sure enough, these scholars also realized what the problem was.
“This is simply unbelievable. I remember the information saying that this is a diamond-shaped octahedral building formed by the docking of two pyramid bases. Now we only see the upper half of the regular triangle, indicating that we are in the middle of the mid-mountain waist of Mount Ming. And there is an empty space between the outer shell of the mountain and the pyramid that must have stored a large amount of water.”
He couldn’t say any more, because at the moment, they were not floating in the water at all but were washed up on the mudflat.
Was this a joke? Inside the hollowed out half of the mountainside, there was actually land.
According to common sense, the crowd was washed into the cave at the foot of the mountain by the water, and now they were located halfway up the mountain, which could also be explained as them being carried with the current. However, no one could explain the fact that they were stepping on the ground.
A pitch-black pool of water was less than ten meters away from them, like a large mirror reflecting the mysterious and ancient pyramid.
“Cough…” the man’s choking sound attracted Zhuo Yu’s attention, and he realized that it was the man who had saved his life who had woken up.
“Brother Ran! You’ve finally woken up! You really scared us to death!” A few people with talismans patted his back hard, as if they had found their backbone. “If you died, we wouldn’t know what to do.”
Even the leader, Wang Dazhi, showed him extraordinary concern: “It’s good that Xiao Ran is fine; I really didn’t expect you to save someone.”
The man didn’t pay attention to these companions; his face was expressionless, and neither did he even show any fluctuations in his eyes after the disaster. He just calmly scanned his surroundings and saw that Zhuo Yu was safe and sound. Only then did he visibly relax his tense shoulders.
Afterward, he left his companions behind and walked straight towards Zhuo Yu.
“Injured?”
Zhuo Yu didn’t expect this person to take the initiative to talk to him; he shook his head and said, “I’m fine, thanks to you. May I ask how to address you?”
“Long Ran.”
Zhuo Yu smiled. “Code name?”
Liu Jingyun could finally find a chance to get close to her captain; she immediately followed, “That’s his real name. It’s the first time I’ve seen him save someone he doesn’t know; it’s so rare.”
She extended her hand at Zhuo Yu, “Just call me Yun.”
Zhuo Yu shook hands with the pretentious Liu Jingyun and considered it an official rendezvous.
[Union Channel]
[Liu Jingyun: Captain, look, after the system released the mission, the union dialog actually unlocked.]
Zhuo Yu: [That’s normal, the copy has officially started. What is that man’s origin?]
[Liu Jingyun: This man was picked up by Wang Dazhi seven years ago. It is said that he does not have any memory; he only remembers his name, but he is good at whatever he does. Much stronger than me, but he’s very cold as a person; he has never said more than half a word to us.]
[Liu Jingyun: Could it be that he went to guard the Bronze Gate as well?]
[Zhuo Yu:?]
[Liu Jingyun]: Ahem, it’s okay; why is he so concerned about you? Captain, this is a golden thigh; it must be hugged!
[TN: golden thigh — protector/backer]
Zhuo Yu thought to himself, Hug what golden thigh? It was the golden thigh that took the initiative to come and hug him.
A coarse voice interrupted the private chat between the two.
“We don’t have as much knowledge as all of you, so it’s not easy to judge the current situation. May I ask if you have a way to be able to escape?” Wang Dazhi, the leader of the martial arts group, finally spoke to the others.
He was about forty to fifty years old, with a strong muscular body and an unpleasant aura lingering between his eyebrows. He looked like a seasoned veteran, out of place with the knowledgeable aura of scholars.
Old Qin touched his head and said bitterly, ”This matter is a bit beyond human imagination, and it feels like everything here can’t be explained by common sense. If my memory isn’t wrong, the only exit should be the hole made by the shield machine, but that one isn’t realistic at all.”
“I’ve dived, and to be honest, ten meters of water pressure is already too much for a person to bear, let alone a hundred meters.” Luo Musheng groped towards the rock wall with the help of his flashlight’s. “It’s a pity that the one who knows cuneiform isn’t here, or else he could have looked at what’s written on it.”
“Luo Musheng.” Zhuo Yu suddenly spoke out; he pointed towards the edge of the mudflat. “Just now, the searchlight was five meters away from the water’s edge, right?”
The crowd followed the sound and realized that the water had already blotted the base of the searchlight and that the tide had actually started to rise at an alarming rate in this short period of time.
“Everyone! Hurry up and pack up!” Li Chuanning rubbed up, “The water is flooding upwards!”
Everyone was so scared and hurriedly gathered their things on the shore and held their flashlights in their mouths, but the water was flooding up really fast, and in no time at all, it had gone over the mudflats, and their ankles were soaking into the water.
Right now this situation simply couldn’t be worse; Zhuo Yu couldn’t stand up; he was likely to be the first to drown.
“Grab my hand.” Long Ran once again offered Zhuo Yu a helping hand, literally leaving the martial artists dumbfounded. Who in the world was this folklorist?
The man directly carried Zhuo Yu on his back; the warm and melting sensation made Zhuo Yu almost recall Asha’s appearance.
Liu Jingyun and her group of people had strong hands-on abilities. They immediately used the waterproof cloth and tent support that were carried in by the water flow to build a simple raft. Other scholars were also busy running around, but some of them with hands-on abilities also followed suit.
They put all the necessary supplies on top, not even mineral water bottles were spared, and then they boarded the raft. At this time, the water surface had completely submerged the mudflat, and there was no foothold.
“What to do? This water is still rising; if it rises to the top, we will drown!”
Li Chuanning waved his hand, “Everyone into the pyramid, move fast!”
Because there were no oars, everyone could only use the trash at hand to row the boat; some people even submerged their arm in the water and used it to row.
No one saw that in the middle of this deep, hundred-meter-deep pool, there was a huge and incredibly long dark shadow skimming below.
“Ahhhh!!!” A girl suddenly screamed.
“There’s something in the water; I touched something! Slippery, like scales!”
The boy next to her calmly responded, “You’re too nervous, aren’t you? There’s no way an ecosystem could form here, and if there’s an animal, what does it eat?”
The boy calmed her down. “I’ll paddle; you should rest a bit more, seeing as you’re not in good spirits.”
He dipped his arm into the water and began to row.
Suddenly, a slippery touch passed over his fingertips, something hard and densely lined up, like… like scales!
Not waiting for the boy to yell and take back his hand, waves surged behind him. A thick tail from a water tank suddenly broke out of the water and slammed onto the raft, shattering the iron support and plunging five or six people into the water.
The speed of this thing’s attack was too fast, and before many people could see what was happening, they were splashed all over by the water.
“There’s a snake! There’s a snake in the water!!!”
Not waiting for the people who fell into the water to finish shouting, the snake’s tail slapped towards them again, the girl who made the sound was directly cut into two halves, and the water of the pool was instantly dyed scarlet.
Zhuo Yu saw that a pair of greenish bowl-sized vertical pupils surfaced.
It was a giant python of astonishing size; the head alone was as big as their raft, the snake’s mouth was slightly open, the intimidating barb-like teeth inside flashed with a cold light, and the snake’s letter was spat out, bringing out the stench of decay.
The python swallowed the entangled boy, whose bones were already broken, right in front of them.
Everyone was scared out of their minds and rowed as hard as they could, and by now they were already very close to the pyramid, only a few dozen meters away. However, the giant snake would not let go of the food in front of it.
It sank into the water again, quietly lurking.
Zhuo Yu heard a “clang” sound, but it was Long Ran who broke an iron bar with his bare hands, and he turned the sharp side outward, blocking Zhuo Yu’s body.
The raft’s direction seemed to have changed…
In an instant, the waves beside Zhuo Yu splashed, the giant snake repeated the same trick, stretched its tail to break out of the water, striking at Zhuo Yu and the others. In this lightning moment, Long Ran tensed his arm as well as its precise posture, stabbed the iron brazier into the snake’s tail, and then forcefully secured it to the raft. Liu Jingyun also didn’t show any weakness; she touched the straight knife on her leg and flew to slice into the gap of the scales. With force, the two of them worked together to directly cut open a deep bone wound on the snake’s tail.
The giant snake felt the pain and let out a hissing wail; however, this scream reached Zhuo Yu’s brain; it actually seemed like a person talking.
“It hurts! It hurts ！！！！”
Zhuo Yu looked at the giant snake in amazement; the snake was solidly enraged, slamming headfirst towards the raft.
A few people couldn’t react in time; the violent shaking of their feet directly threw them into the pool. The giant snake got its way and immediately swam towards them. There was no way to borrow strength in the water; Liu Jingyun and Long Ran lost their grip on their weapons, and at this moment, they were truly out of ammunition and their lives were on the line.
However, a dense white mist appeared out of nowhere, suddenly hovering mid-air; everyone was stunned.
They choked and coughed repeatedly. As the smoke cleared, the monstrous giant snake turned its belly and writhed in pain, making its final struggle for life. It looked like it was about to die.
“What’s going on? How did it get hurt?” Liu Jingyun shouted as she swam hard towards the raft, going up and pulling Zhuo Yu up as well.
Zhuo Yu, who had put away his skills, still had a hint of golden light in his eyes. He closed his eyes and silently said, “I think I saw a big bat.”
The snake’s head did look like it had been scratched and smashed by some giant animal; even the eyeballs had burst open, and the skull was shattered beyond recognition.
Everyone broke out in a cold sweat.
Was there actually a more terrifying monster than this snake?
Zhuo Yu waited for the effect of the skill to completely subside before he opened his eyes, and his golden pupils disappeared.
Just now, in the nick of time, he remembered the chalk dust in his belt pouch, so while everyone was looking at the snake, he sprinkled the dust into the air and activated his skill “Dragon’s Wings.”.
Zhuo Yu’s wings were different from those of birds, more like batwings, but stronger and more powerful than the slender and fragile batwings, it was like the ones on mythical dragons, with sharp and incomparable claws at the joints of the wings, and the membrane of the wings was like a cloak without wind. If he wasn’t afraid of exposing his skills, Zhuo Yu could use the claws instead of legs to walk!
Compared to the bipedal flying dragons that evolved their forelimbs into wings in western stories, Zhuo Yu’s wings were more like those of a quadrupedal bipedal flying dragon from a more ancient and pure bloodline.
With a single claw, he exploded the snake’s head.
In the end, the snake had only grown a bit bigger; it hadn’t exceeded human imagination; as long as there was a gu-n, it could still be killed.
Zhuo Yu felt it was a pity; if there weren’t so many people watching, he would have dissected this giant snake to see if its body structure was the same as an ordinary python.
Luo Musheng picked up a piece of plastic board as an oar and was the first to row to the steps of the trapezoidal pyramid, he reached out to pull up the several people who had fallen into the water, and scanned Zhuo Yu several times in succession before narrowing his eyes and saying, “I also saw the big bat, let’s go, we can’t stay on this pool!”
Zhuo Yu’s eyes narrowed slightly, thinking whether this guy saw something.
But it didn’t matter.
[Beast Heart hand skill, “Take Trust” is activated.]
[Actor Luo Musheng, has been hit.]
“……” Zhuo Yu hissed in his heart, not realizing that his skill could directly prompt the actor. This guy was pretending quite well, now apart from himself and Liu Jingyun, and Gu Wei who had crashed and died, and Luo Musheng who was exposed, there were only two actors left hiding in the shadows.
It seemed he had to use the skill more often.
Luo Musheng suddenly turned around after he was hit by the skill, he seemed to look at Zhuo Yu with some lamentation, and a grateful gaze flashed up in those sagging dog eyes. Then he took the initiative to pull up Zhuo Yu’s hand, wanting to carry him.
Zhuo Yu: ?
Luo Musheng quietly whispered in his ear: “I know you’re an actor, you just used your skill to k-ill the snake, right?”
The effect of “gaining trust” was too strong, Zhuo Yu thought to himself, if he didn’t use the cards, Luo Musheng might have pretended until the end of the movie.
“How do you know that?”
“As an exchange of trust, let me tell you too,” Luo Musheng shook his watch and said,” Just flip the pointer and I can see the scene that previously occurred. I saw you scatter the chalk powder.”
“Aren’t you afraid that I’ll turn against you?” Zhuo Yu said suspiciously.
“Since you can expose your skill in order to save someone in a crisis, you’re definitely not a traitor, so why can’t we join forces rather than being enemies?” Luo Musheng had a reasoned argument.
“…… You’re right.” Zhuo Yu revealed his standard business smile.
The way the two were talking closely was seen by Long Ran, who quickly stepped forward, his narrow eyes filled with coldness, “Let me do it, you’re too skinny.”
Luo Musheng reacted for half a day before remembering that this person was saying that he was like a hemp pole and couldn’t carry Zhuo Yu.
It seemed like it was indeed true.
But why was it so unpleasant to hear? What was wrong with being thin? He was about to strengthen his relationship with the good seedling he was interested in, but it ended up being ruined. It was really annoying.
Luo Musheng hated guys who disrupted his plans the most.
“Yo, haven’t you also just recovered from a serious illness? Can you do it?”
[Guild channel.]
[Liu Jingyun: What a Zhuo Daji.]
[TN: Daji (c. 11th century BC), mythical fox spirit and concubine of the last Shang Dynasty Emperor Zhou Xin.]
[Zhuo Yu: Actually, you don’t have to send this to me.]
[Liu Jingyun: Hehehe, I have to witness this battle. A man can’t say another man can’t do it… Long Ran, fight!]
Zhuo Yu looked helplessly at Liu Jingyun, who was eagerly watching to the point where her eyes were glowing, and then sighed long and hard, “Long Ran, I’m troubling you.”
The corners of Long Ran’s mouth curved up in a slight arc that could barely be captured if one didn’t look closely, he squatted down and carried him on his back, walking towards the steps with a steady pace.
Luo Musheng let out a “cut” sound, feeling like a dog that had been viciously kicked on the side of the road.
Wang Dazhi and Li Chuanning and the others also went up to the shore, Li Chuanning frowned, “The water is spreading over the steps, quickly go inside.”
Liu Jingyun finally put away her watching eyes, she cautiously held the knife she fished out of the water in front of her, and was the first to arrive at the pyramid’s gate.
The entrance of this building was also very impressive. It was a giant gate that was over ten meters high, with each floor covered by another. When they looked up, they couldn’t even see the top of the largest one, while the smallest one was only about the size of a finger’s belly, only allowing one insect to pass through. Moreover, from the perspective of hinges, each layer was movable.
Liu Jingyun squatted down and poked the smallest door with her finger, and the stone slab the size of her fingertips actually opened. Subsequently, she followed the human figure slab and went to push the slab of about two meters.
A cold wind gushed out from the interior of the pyramid, messing up Liu Jingyun’s hair as she used her flashlight to shine inward, and there was only a deep square tunnel inside.
Time was running out, the pool of water was about to flood the entrance.
“There’s no problem inside, go in.” Liu Jingyun stepped on the stone tiles in the tunnel, fearing that there was a mechanism, she even turned around twice, it was indeed safe.
The crowd hurriedly entered the gate, Wang Dazhi appreciatively patted Liu Jingyun’s shoulder, and then cast a dissatisfied look at Long Ran, but Long Ran gave him no reaction at all, treating Wang Dazhi as if he were air, and crossed over to him and walked forward.
Zhuo Yu was on Long Ran’s back, and only felt that this person’s warm body temperature was really comfortable, and Long Ran’s shoulders were broad and thin, yet he actually carried a person so steadily. Zhuo Yu was in a daze and put his face on the back of the man’s neck, feeling sticky and intimate, it was almost like he was touch starved.
The hand holding Zhuo Yu’s thighs tightened, Long Ran took a few deep breaths, not wanting to let anyone see Zhuo Yu’s current appearance, slowing down his pace to stay at the end of the line before continuing forward.
In a trance, Zhuo Yu was awakened by the cold wind blowing all at once.
What was he doing just now?
Now Zhuo Yu really felt that something was wrong with Long Ran. From the first sight of this man, his appearance had a fatal attraction to him, and now it had developed into a desire for skin to skin touch.
Zhuo Yu shook his head, and the system’s voice sounded at that moment.
[Location update: The Tower of Ming Mountain.]
[Ming Mountain Tower: A legendary creation of an ancient civilization, it has been quietly sleeping for 130,000 years, and only the chosen ones are qualified to enter and dedicate everything to the great being.]
[Location unlock progress: 1%]
[Congratulations on triggering the side quest: Unlocking the entire map of the Ming Mountain Tower. May I ask if you will take it?]
Zhuo Yu didn’t answer immediately, but jerked his head up to look ahead, it took time for the system text to surface in front of his eyes, even if he pretended to be oblivious, suddenly being pounced on by a system announcement would leave one stunned for a split second.
It was this time that Zhuo Yu was grasping at.
Luo Musheng, Liu Jingyun’s footsteps all paused for a moment, as well as …… Wang Dazhi and Old Qin.
Done.
The hidden actors were all exposed to Zhuo Yu’s eyes.
Did this mean that Long Ran was really just an NPC?
Zhuo Yu was thinking about it when he suddenly heard a rustling sound coming from all around him, as if countless swimming snakes were crawling by, it was like the whispers of ghosts.
“Look, the bride is here.”
“The king’s bride! The King’s bride!”
“Let’s go and greet him!”
“I want …… to eat …… so badly.”
“Eat the bride!!!”
Zhuo Yu straightened his back and looked around, however none of them heard the strange sound and the crowd continued to move forward.
Until Liu Jingyun stepped on something.
“Snakes! There are actually snakes in the tunnel!” Holding a straight blade, she slashed the animal under her feet, however a shattering sound rang out, it wasn’t a snake at all.
The bricks of the tunnel walls suddenly sank, revealing what was buried inside. Countless terracotta figurines were densely packed together, they did not resemble human beings or snakes, their limbs were entangled, like the strange shaped terracotta man that Old Qin had discovered. And none of the terracotta figures’ movements were repetitive, all of them were grotesquely and distortedly embedded in the wall.
Zhuo Yu could hear the sound that came from these very things.
With a crackle, the largest pottery figurine cracked.
Thanks for the update