Hao Xuan was a little out of it for a good couple of minutes after listening to everything Baracus had to say. It wasn't easy to digest something of this magnitude.
The rational part of him was telling him to turn back around and run until this entire planet was but a bad memory, but the adventurer inside him wanted to explore just a bit more, to find out a little more, to quench the thirst for knowledge.
It was said the curiosity killed the cat, that saying would be an apt description of most cultivators as well, for far too many had died because of it. But fortunately for Hao Xuan, he was much more self-aware than others and knew his shortcomings, many as they were.
"Just a little bit more. Otherwise, I won't be able to sleep ever again. Just till the control room then," he mumbled to himself.
"Good. Go to the middle of the door," Baracus replied merrily.
Baracus and Hao Xuan didn't see eye to eye in most situations but the one thing that brought them together was the unknown.
Following Baracus's instruction Hao Xuan went to the center of the door where he tapped some random places in a specific order and a portion of the door gave way.
Hao Xuan walked through and came out on the other side. It as a gigantic hallway made of gold and bronze. It would have been a sight to behold when it was first created but now it was covered with dirt and some sort of fleshy growths that covered most of the interior. Its majesty covered the passage of time.
Right now it looked more like the stomach of giant beast than anything else. The ceiling was about 200 meters high and 150 meters wide.
A musky smell like that of old socks and fungus wafted into Hao Xuan's nostrils, making him scowl and cover his mouth.
With light steps, Hao Xuan walked through the corridor that seemed to go on and on without end. A good half an hour in, he suddenly stopped upon remembering something.
"Wait, what the hell happened to that trader?? I was following him, where did that bastard go?"
Hao Xuan's memory had been a bit iffy ever since his spirit center became unstable and that part only seemed to be getting worse. He completely forgot the reason he came down here in the first place.
But he didn't have to think long before Baracus spoke up.
"He didn't come through here. We were the first people that reached that specific door in a long long time."
"What do you mean this specific door? There are more?" Hao Xuan grimaced.
"There are three of those doors in total. Ours hasn't been opened before in the last few thousand years," Baracus explained once again.
Hao Xuan's eyes became sharp, "So someone else could already be in here?"
"Most definitely."
"That's just…perfect.." Hao Xuan complained in a low voice and quickened his pace.
Corridor soon opened into a circular room that seemed to be a hub where half a dozen more corridors ended.
"Where to now?" Hao Xuan asked Baracus, his only guide.
"The third one on the right," Baracus pointed Hao Xuan towards a slope that went straight down. Hao Xuan obliged, almost jumping straight on this platform that seemed to be made for actual giants.
But the deeper in he went, the worse he felt. Because those fleshy growths that decorated a few parts of the corridors above had become commonplace now. They covered the walls like paint, not leaving a single uncovered.
And not only their frequency but also their thickness and density was increasing proportionally.
Hao Xuan stopped in front of a massive hall that was could barely be recognized now. The only thing in here now were these black and brown pustules dropping in from the ceiling and the walls.
"Oi oi, are you sure we're in the right place? I can feel a strange energy in this place. Even air is becoming thick with these…what are they?"
He realized there were things floating in the air that could be seen with the naked eye, or at least with his vision.
They looked like pollen you'd see in a flower field. Hao Xuan covered his mouth instantly and called out a face mask from his storage space and put it in.
Baracus chose to finally speak up as well.
"Yes, we're going the right way and you don't have to worry about pollutants in the air. As soon as they enter your body, they are crushed to nothingness. Your immune system is like a hungry beast, it leaves nothing alive."
"Yeah, I'm still gonna keep this mask on," Hao Xuan commented. "Look at this place though, does it look normal to you?" he gestured towards the fleshy sacks.
Baracus almost scoffed, "Of course it isn't normal but you have to go through this place if you want to reach the central control room. This is the fastest route."
"But is it the safest?"
"I have no way of knowing what's safe or not unless we go there first, als-"
Baracus had just started explaining when he froze.
"Movement, my sensors picked up something moving.. Straight ahead."
