Hao Xuan got dressed and went downstairs. Everyone was already in the courtyard in their uniforms standing in a perfect formation.
"Damn it, I wanted to eat first," he muttered under his breath after seeing them. Even after eating till he was about to explode just the night before, he was already so hungry that it was hurting a little.
"Is this because of the physique? Well, it has 'devouring' in the name so I guess this should be expected huh?" he said with a sigh. The old lady had already given him the ultimatum to leave as soon as possible so delaying his stay wasn't a good idea at this point.
"Greetings Captain!" 112 was standing next to Kuo waiting for Hao Xuan to come down.
"Hello, could you please pass this to the princess?" he smiled and handed him the Kimono which he washed and folded before coming out.
"Of course sir," 112 stored it and then led them outside. "Is there anywhere specific I can drop you?" he asked while patting the giant centipede.
"Is there somewhere around here with a lot of beasts?" Hao Xuan asked after a moment of contemplation.
"Haha, of course, sir. Dozens of places all around us. I'll take you to one closer to the entrance of the Quarry." Everyone got up on the centipede and it entered one of the hundreds of other tunnels in the gorge and disappeared in an instant.
About 40 minutes later they came out from the side of a cliff. Apparently, there was a waterfall nearby as well. The splashing water was so loud that it could be heard it from quite a distance away.
"This is a famous watering hole. Beasts from all around come here," he said while pointing towards the right side of the cliff. The Mad Saints got down and the centipede slowly turned to go back the way it came from when 112 gave them a warning with a serious look.
"Please don't go swimming in the water. No one knows how deep it is and there are some extremely powerful creatures down there. Two spirit realm cultivators of our clan disappeared down there a few years ago." Kuo and company were slightly taken aback by that. Spirit realm cultivators were considered to be overlords under normal circumstances and it wasn't easy to kill one.
"Got it, thank you. Tell the princess we'll be in touch," Kuo nodded in response and waved as he once again disappeared into the dark tunnel.
"Still as creepy as ever. I feel like there's something in the darkness," Mason said with quivering shoulders.
"There is," Hao Xuan mumbled, turned around and started walking towards the waterfall.
"E-Eh? Captain, did you say something?" Aria asked from behind. The newbies were always following Hao Xuan around like lost kittens. He told them to knock it off but Kuo said it was either them or Him and Maddy, so he chose them.
"No, let's go," he waved from the front and the rest followed after.
It had been a very long time since he last saw the sun and the outside world in general. Every single place in this world seemed like a piece of paradise when compared to Earth. There was greenery as far as the eye could see. Massive trees towering over everything.
Engrossed in the moment, he slowly walked at his own pace while the rest followed without making a sound. It took a bit more than 10 minutes for them to reach the waterfall. It was absolutely massive and went down for more than a 100 meters.
It wasn't a normal waterfall but looked man-made. Two large rivers were coming from north-east and east and were being emptied into an extremely large hole in the ground.
As Hao Xuan looked down, the end wasn't visible because of a layer of dense mist a few dozen meters down the hole and from their perspective, it just looked like a giant mouth swallowing millions of gallons of water every second.
"Woah, that looks deep," Luke said as he peered down into the abyss while holding onto a nearby tree.
"I'll give you 500 points if you jump down," Mason said from the back. He was afraid of heights so even going near the edge was impossible for him.
"I'll give you 5,000 if you do," Luke grinned back.
"Hmph. That's easy to say when you won't have to pay in the end. Ain't no way anyone's surviving whatever the hell is down there," he said with quivering legs.
While they were bantering around, a voice interjected. "I'll go," Hao Xuan said while looking down. Zhurong who was usually asleep was wide awake at this point and was also looking down with an intrigued look.
"Eh? Captain, please don't joke around like that," Luke said with a laugh.
"I'm serious, I'll go. "
"….."
"….."
"Wha- Captain, NO! You just got back, we can't lose you again!" Mason shouted dramatically like a middle-aged woman.
"Just stay here, I want to check something out, I'll be back soon. When I tug the rope twice, pull me up," he didn't wait for them to reply and jumped straight down with a rope tied around his waist. They didn't even realize when he had taken it out let alone tied it around one of the trees behind them.
"Ahhhhh! Lieutenant! Captain jumped down! He jumped down!" Mason started screaming at the top of his lungs.
***
A few minutes ago, while Mason and Luke were talking, Zhurong was also communicating with Hao Xuan telepathically.
"Master, there's something good down there!"
"Something good?" Hao Xuan frowned.
"Yes, I can feel it, young, very young! And they're alone, its the perfect time!" Zhurong said in his usual childish voice.
"Young? What is it? A treasure?"
"No, something even better! Divine blood!" he said ecstatically.
"Divine Blood? What're you talking about? Explain properly."
"No time, we have to go now! Explain later!"
Hao Xuan gave it some thought and jumped down after making the preparations. Zhurong was the one that got him Bai before and he was obviously very special so he trusted him completely.
But the fall was higher than he thought. At around the 60-meter mark, there was a layer of fog and mist and nothing below it was visible. Hao Xuan maneuvered his body to stay near the edge in case of an emergency.
As soon as he passed the fog layer, his eyes constricted. The opening at the top was nothing compared to the bottom. The fog layer was like a second opening and the area below it expanded by more than five times. There was an absolutely massive underground river raging below him. Just it's width alone was more than a dozen kilometers. He couldn't even see the sides of it.
"Oh fuck!" Hao Xuan's heart stopped for second looking at the muddy water. Dozens of gigantic beasts could be seen swimming around in there. There was something that looked like an alligator but just its head alone was more than 50 meters long. There was an eel/frog look-alike that had faint electrical sparks all over its body. There were a few tentacles and flippers visible as well that were bigger than the alligator's entire head.
If he fell down there, it was the end. No constitution or physique would save him.
"To the left, that cave!" Zhurong shouted, waking Hao Xuan from his stupor. He turned around and saw a massive cave behind the waterfall.
"Damn it," he clenched his teeth and used his momentum to swing to the side and used the pressure of the falling water to push himself into the cave, barely making it inside.
"Thank fucking god I had enough rope," he mumbled while sweating bullets. This was suicidal. If he was even a little careless then it was certain death.
He picked Zhurong up from the back of his neck, "You little twerp, you tryna get me killed?" he asked through gritted teeth.
Zhurong looked at him with the cutest face he could muster and innocently said, "Master, its all for you. Look, over there. Take those and let's go before she comes back."
Hao Xuan followed Zhurong's line of sight and once again, his heart skipped a beat. There were two absolutely massive broken eggshells. Each of them was more than Four meters in height.
"O-Oi, are you fucking kidding me? Whatever is in those eggs seems to be big enough to swallow me in one bite, not to mention whatever gave birth to them!" he suddenly moved to the side and hid behind a nearby rock.
"No no, they were born less than a week ago so its fine. Also once you see them you will understand. But you have to hurry, their mother should be back any minute and she is two realms higher than what you would call the profound realm."
Hao Xuan chocked on his spit, "Tw-TWO REALMS HIGHER?! WHAT?! NO! The hell is wrong with you?! We're going back!" he turned around without a second thought and started climbing back.
"Master, Trust me! They are perfect for you! And I have a way to make sure she won't be able to follow us!" Zhurong pleaded once again, hoping to change his mind.
"I don't even know the names of the realms higher than the Profound realm, and you want me to kidnap the babies of a beast at such a level? No thank you! I don't want to die yet." he grumbled and tugged on the rope.
"Over there! There they are!" Zhurong jumped off his shoulder and ran behind the eggshells before Hao Xuan could react.
"YOU, What the fuck are you doing?!!" Hao Xuan almost jumped out of his skin. He quickly untied the rope and ran after him and found him standing above a small pile of vines.
"Master take them quickly and let's go!" he ran up to Hao Xuan and said eagerly. After a couple of seconds of hesitation, Hao Xuan finally made up his mind and slowly moved closer to where Zhurong was pointing at.
"Is this it? You were talking about them?" he said pointing at the vines.
"Yes!" Zhurong nodded his head eagerly.
It was a pair of sleeping snakes. A pair of black and white baby snakes that had flickering flame's on the top of their heads. The white one had a blue flame and the black one had a red flame. They were coiled around each other like jumbled ropes and if not for the colors, no one would be able to tell where one started and the other ended.
Each of them was a little bigger than 4-5 inches.
"MASTER! She's coming!" Zhurong shouted from the entrance of the cave.
"What?! God damn it, fine, this better work!" he didn't delay any longer and picked up the snakes and ran back to the entrance.
"Did you do whatever it was to throw her off our trail??" he asked nervously.
"Oh, I forgot, tee hee."
"Tee hee? What the hell has Mason been teaching you?" he scowled at the thought.
Zhurong ran back to where the snakes were, lifted up one leg, and started peeing.
"DUUUUDE! WHAT.ARE.YOU.DOING!?!" Hao Xuan felt like ripping his own hair out. Never would he trust this little brat again.
"This will do," he looked at his 'work' like it was a piece of art and came back to Hao Xuan and climbed up to his shoulder.
"Let's go!" he said with a satisfied expression.
"Just you wait till we get out of here brat," Hao Xuan's blood pressure was through the roof. One after another, the events of the last few minutes left him speechless and would traumatize anyone.
He tugged on the rope again and it started getting pulled back up. Within 20 seconds he was already near the fog layer, as he looked down one last time, he saw something that would give him nightmares for a long time.
The entire 10+ kilometer river parted as an enormous scaled body moved through the water.
His legs literally went limp and if there was ground underneath, he would have already fallen to his knees.
"I-Is that her? Th-their mother?" he asked with a parched throat. All of a sudden it felt like the moisture from his body disappeared.
Zhurong looked down and nodded like it was completely normal, "Yes, but that's only her tail."
"…what have I done……" he mumbled as a single tear fell down his face.
