"Don't get too close!"
Hao Xuan and Jin Wang were both taken by surprise. Hao Xuan had told Jin Wang everything he saw and heard after waking up so he was up to speed on the whole situation.
Jin Wang took a step back, "Beasts? Living here? How is that possible? Isn't it protected by you guys or that fog above the river? Not to mention this liquid was once other people…how could beasts live inside it?" he asked with a somewhat disgusted expression.
Buse shook her head, "We just keep an eye on it. We neither have the people nor the resources to protect the entire length of the river. Not to mention…"
"What? Just tell us, we need to know everything we can at this point," Hao Xuan inquired in her own language.
She looked at the river with sad and troubled eyes and let out a deep sigh.
"This place, this mountain or whatever the hell it is, it's built on something dark. That's why Ra chose it for us."
Hao Xuan and Jin Wang both frowned and spoke up in unison, "Define 'dark'".
"We don't know. But when moving through the tunnels did you pass by some dark holes in random corners? They go straight down and you cannot see what's inside them."
Hao Xuan squinted his eyes trying to remember but nothing came to mind, it was the same for Jin Wang. As he was to tell her that Baracus's voice came out of nowhere startling Buse.
"Yes. We passed by several hundred of them."
"Several hundred?" now it was Hao Xuan's turn to be confused. There is no way he and Jin Wang both would have missed that many of them and not remembered a single one.
Buse's eyes widened in shock as she pointed at Hao Xuan's watch, "You can see them?!"
"Not 'see' per say but I know when one is nearby. Why are they important?" Baracus asked in his slightly mechanic voice.
"They….are pathways that connect our world and the one underneath. Under normal circumstances, living beings cannot see them or rather they don't 'want' to see them. Great grandmother once said that whatever is down there is so abhorrently evil and horrifying that living beings like us unconsciously cut it out. The reason you can see them, whatever you are, is probably because you're not really a living bei-"
Hao Xuan quickly cut in mid-sentence, "Woah Woah Woah, hold up. What do you mean 'pathway to another world'? Are those holes connected to the abyss or something?"
Because if that was the case then the entire situation called for a very different approach. He had seen first hand the type of monstrosities that came out of an Abyss gate and he did not want to be here if one had opened right under his feet.
"No. Lord Orion made sure that the gate that Ra controls cannot be opened. The seal should still be in place for a few thousand years more," she clarified quickly.
"Um, excuse me, dear sister," Jin Wang tapped Buse on the shoulder unnaturally politely, "What do you mean "Ra's gate"? How many gates exactly are there?"
Buse shrugged, "I am not sure but there should be several thousand gates. Each one is overseen and controlled by an entity at the same level as Ra or even more powerful."
"….."
Hao Xuan looked at Jin Wang with a blank expression.
"So what exactly is down there then?"
"Nobody knows. But we who have been living here for so long stay away from them as much as possible. Occasionally we can hear noises coming from down there. Sometimes they sound like children crying and asking for help. They try their best to lure people in there and several did fell for their traps but they were never heard from again."
"And the beasts and creatures that are in the river also came up from those holes but they stay at the bottom and don't really bother us unless we go looking. Great grandmother has ordered us from stay away from it as much as possible."
*Bubble*
A few bubbles came up at the edge and a muffled growl echoed in the closed chamber. Hao Xuan went closer to the edge and saw a couple of yellows staring back at him through the fast-moving purple river.
"O-Oi, you see that?" he called over Jin Wang who came over cautiously and extended his neck to peek over.
"See what?" he whispered.
"The goddamn eyes what el-" Hao Xuan pointed at them but when he looked again they were gone.
"…"
He silently stared at it for a good few seconds before looking away.
He dragged Buse away and finalized their plan.
Right now they had concluded that staying here wasn't an option. Buse was leading them towards the last place where all the essence was stored. Hao Xuan was going to get a lot of it for himself and some to give to one of the powerful cultivators that were going to come and help them.
He had even decided on giving it to the Wu clan and have Wu Jin act as the intermediator.
The only problem was that the storage area was guarded 24/7 and they would have to fight their way through, at which point others would find out about them.
