“Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle…”
Inside the glacier, Fang Qiu heard water flowing as soon as he came to a halt.
Because it was so deep underground, it was pitch dark all around. Even as a potent guru, Fang Qiu’s eyes needed time to adapt to the utter darkness.
Outside was a world of ice and snow. The sunlight and the reflection from the icy land provided sufficient illumination.
He had gotten used to the bright light, so it was hard to see everything clearly in this underground abyss in the first place.
Luckily…
A guru could use night vision.
After adjusting to the surroundings, Fang Qiu turned to look around.
The bottom of this icy cliff appeared the same as other cliff bases!
It was just that the space between the cliff walls was limited.
It was as long and narrow as a ravine.
Fang Qiu stepped onto a mass of rugged stony land; next to it was a one-meter-wide underground river. There was a half-meter-high slope on both river sides. At first glance, Fang Qiu could tell that the water level must have ebbed and the water in this underground river had once reached Fang Qiu’s feet.
“According to Li Ji, the last location is right here.”
His eyes scanned the area and Fang Qiu felt this place was a little similar to the first cave he reached from the lake in the ruin, but it was not the same.
“When I was inside, the water flowed from outside to inside.
“So I can get there simply by sailing downward with the current.”
Fang Qiu came up with a plan.
He immediately activated his internal Qi and surrounded himself with it; this would isolate him from the water.
Then he jumped into the water and drifted down with the flow.
The current in the underground river was swift. Without exerting too much effort, Fang Qiu was whisked along the wide underground river which was like an underwater tunnel.
A few seconds later, Fang Qiu poked his head out of the water after moving more than ten meters along with the water flow.
He passed through that passage.
What emerged before Fang Qiu was the incomparably spacious cave he had discovered previously!
This scene was pretty familiar…
Fang Qiu stirred and leaped out of the water, tingling with excitement.
He had been here before.
The miraculous scene in the ancient ruin was real indeed!
Fang Qiu carefully observed his surroundings, feeling thrilled, then dived into the underground river again, ready to flow along with the current to find the sealed cave!
He jumped into the river.
Almost immediately, Fang Qiu perceived an energy fluctuation.
It was under the water, seemingly coming toward him.
“Hmm?”
The appearance of this energy fluctuation made Fang Qiu frown.
He could feel that the energy fluctuation was not weak with at least eighth- or ninth-class strength!
“Could it be that the others have also discovered this place?”
Fang Qiu frowned inwardly.
“Pa, pa, pa…”
Just then, he heard a very subtle sound. It was slight, but Fang Qiu’s face grew grave.
“It should be soundproof in the water. How could I hear the sound under the water?
“If I can hear the sound in the water…
“The thing that made the noise, how big will it be?”
Shocked, Fang Qiu looked toward where the sound was coming from.
A big, dark thing abruptly came into his view.
It looked like a crocodile!
Seeing this thing, Fang Qiu felt slightly relieved because it wasn’t a human.
“But…
“How could there be a crocodile in the underground river?
“And why wasn’t it here when I was here the first time?”
With wonder and fear, Fang Qiu took a closer look.
To his great surprise, this black mammoth beast was not a crocodile.
Instead, it was a rare and precious protected animal: Tyrant Salamander!
Tyrant Salamander, also known as Koolasuchus, a giant salamander, was an ancient species of salamander that resembled a lizard. Because of its super-size, Fang Qiu mistook it for a crocodile from a distance!
Fang Qiu had learned about it in high school and college.
Tyrant Salamander is a kind of amphibian. It can’t live without water but is able to survive on shore for a short period of time.
The first time he was here, this huge Tyrant Salamander should have been inside the water-eroded cave, so he did not see it.
Upon closer inspection, this mammoth Tyrant Salamander had no scales, so Fang Qiu couldn’t tell whether its body was soft or hard.
Tyrant Salamander was going against the current.
Under normal circumstances, Tyrant Salamander was usually about 3.5 to 4.5 meters long.
But this Tyrant Salamander had reached an astonishing length of 7 to 8 meters. It had a monstrous bulk. Its four limbs, which should have been very tiny compared with its body, were also particularly huge.
“Swish.”
As Fang Qiu was observing it, this Tyrant Salamander seemed very dissatisfied with Fang Qiu, which it regarded as an unexpected intruder. It suddenly swung its tail violently toward Fang Qiu, who was shooting down the swift stream.
Even against the rapid water flow, the Tyrant Salamander’s tail went against the current with surprisingly little difficulty and lashed toward Fang Qiu’s head with enormous power.
“Good boy, I haven’t yet touched you, but you started the fight first.”
Fang Qiu groaned inwardly, then stretched out his hands. When its tail nearly reached him, he suddenly spread all his fingers out.
It was amazing that he managed to grab the tail of this Tyrant Salamander!
Inside his body, his internal Qi began surging.
From the center of his palms, his internal Qi gushed out, counteracting the terrible force of its tail. Then, he attempted to swim over this Tyrant Salamander’s head by moving along with the raging torrent.
But when he was above the Tyrant Salamander’s head, it instantly raised its head and opened its bloody mouth to bite Fang Qiu’s head.
Fang Qiu’s eyebrows shot up and he quickly turned sideways, and hid aside. Then he immediately sped up and rushed over.
As Fang Qiu charged down on it, the formidable giant tried to bite him a second time, abruptly swiveled its head and swished its tail, trying to send Fang Qiu, who was about to seize its tail, directly into its mouth.
“Wild beast.”
Fang Qiu had seen an article.
During the ancient era dominated by the dinosaurs, Tyrant Salamander was one of the top predators on the earth!
At that time, Tyrant Salamander’s living habits were much like today’s crocodiles, which fed on fish!
Nowadays, salamanders were no longer as powerful as they had been during ancient times.
However, the Tyrant Salamander before him was no ordinary salamander!
It was able to grow into a formidable giant and achieve a strength above eighth-class, which was even very close to the ninth-class. How could any ordinary salamander compare with it?
Fang Qiu was well aware of this.
Thus, when the Tyrant Salamander swung his tail to attack, Fang Qiu suddenly exerted a great force to pull its tail, making it impossible for it to throw him over.
With its mouth wide open, the Tyrant Salamander could only watch helplessly when Fang Qiu dragged its tail backward.
It took a lot of effort to go against the current.
But now, hauled by Fang Qiu like this, plus the immense impact of the current, it couldn’t help but slip a few meters back.
The backsliding instantly drove this salamander crazy.
However, Fang Qiu didn’t slacken in the least. Instead, he unleashed an even more tremendous force and pulled this Tyrant Salamander down the river.
Being dragged by Fang Qiu, the fierce colossus flew into a tantrum. Instead of trying to swim upstream, it turned its head, baring its teeth in an attempt to tear Fang Qiu into pieces.
In a split second, Fang Qiu had a bright idea.
He grabbed the giant animal’s tail, quickly climbed up and delivered a punch onto its head. Then, he simply sat on its back, smashing his fist at its large head repeatedly.
After a few powerful punches, the Tyrant Salamander no longer moved.
Fang Qiu found to his surprise that it was dead!
Startled, Fang Qiu couldn’t help shaking his head and smiling wryly.
He had wanted to spare its life, but he didn’t expect it to die from just a few punches.
He thought the Tyrant Salamander must have lived for too long a time. This place full of the Qi of Heaven and Earth had no Heaven and Earth Treasure. And even worse, there was not even a fish in the underground river. It was lucky this colossal monster managed to live until now by merely absorbing the Qi of Heaven and Earth.
Even if Fang Qiu didn’t accidentally beat it to death, it wouldn’t live for long if it couldn’t find anything to eat.
The current washed Fang Qiu down to the bottom of the lake together with the dead Tyrant Salamander.
He didn’t go straight into the channel sealed by the magic formation while passing through the intersection. Instead, driven by intense curiosity, he planned to go up to the lake’s surface to have a look first.
He had entered the ancient ruin. With its disappearance, he was intensely curious to know if the relic was real and if the view above was the same as before.
He swam out of the big hole at the bottom of the lake, dragging along the enormous, bulky corpse of the Tyrant Salamander. Then he cast it nearby and immediately swam up to the water surface.
The moment his head popped out of the water, Fang Qiu became speechless because of astonishment,
Wasn’t this the place where he entered the ancient relic?
He looked back.
The two ox-horn mountains were hundreds of meters behind him.
The two high mountains’ tails connected; where he stood was their junction, which formed the top of a mountain towering into the clouds.
This mountain was higher than the two ox-horn mountains but much lower than the one with a massive crack at the foot.
Fang Qiu was standing somewhere higher than the two ox-horn mountains.
Standing between the two ox-horn mountains, these Wulin people could see this higher one, which was connected to the two beside them!
However, none could imagine that on the top of this mountain existed such a fantastic place which was precisely the same as the lake on top of Kunlun Mountain that they had seen on TV. The lake here was just a little smaller.
Fang Qiu was in the lake on the top of the snow mountain.
There were only glaciers around.
There was no snow there, and all the water in the lake didn’t turn into ice. Instead, it remained smooth and tranquil like a mirror.
Except for the rugged mountain surface, there was nothing around.
The Gobi Desert and the oasis were nowhere to be found.
Then, he spotted a somewhat concealed path on the craggy mountain surface.
“Clatter!”
Fang Qiu wriggled himself out of the water and rushed to the lakeside.
Then he hurried over to the track.
“Since this lake is real, the pavilion next to the lake shouldn’t be just an illusion, right?”
Fang Qiu murmured to himself.
