Chapter Thirteen: Bursting Out of the Ground

  Most of the hair was black, with some yellow or red tints. Soaked in the murky, thick blood water, it looked no different from that black aquatic grass. The owners of this hair were probably dead at the bottom of this bloody pool, but for some reason, their hair continued to grow in such a strange way. Even when Xiao Xuan carefully swam over them, the hair seemed to smell the fishy smell and stretched out towards him like a cat, as if trying to bind him. However, Xiao Xuan, who was prepared, easily avoided it. With no time to study the problem of regrowing hair, he finally arrived at the bottom of the altar after swimming through this "grass".

  The altar is not large, and can even be said to be very simple and rough. Otherwise, it would not have been covered by the blood pool with a depth of only five meters. The murals carved on the steps of the altar are also blurred due to being soaked in the bloody water for too long, and basically nothing can be seen unless Xiao Xuan has the skill to slowly scrape off the blood stains from the murals with a scraper knife, which is quite unrealistic.

  Xiao Xuan's hands kept grasping the edge of the altar steps, and soon he swam up to the front of a stone monument in the center of the altar platform. The monument had no patterns or designs on it, looking very simple and unadorned. However, below the monument was hollowed out, forming a platform for placing objects. Currently, a stone emitting a faint dark green glow was placed inside.

  "This... is the offering to the man-eating demon?" Xiao Xuan muttered to himself, but his hand reached out without hesitation. The stone felt strange in his hand, unlike ordinary stones which were hard and cold. On the contrary, it was smooth and even had a hint of softness.

  The next moment, Xiao Xuan put the strange stone into his spatial ring. Then he began to float up and saw Su Moran's legs not far above him. His hand grabbed Su Moran's ankle.

  Not long ago, Ruo Nu also grabbed Su Mo Ran's ankle like this, and the result was being shot dead by Su Mo Ran. This time, however, Su Mo Ran actively dove down, relying on pure probing to find Xiao Xuan's position, using his own strength to support Xiao Xuan and float him up to the surface of the blood, and then he himself also re-floated out of the water.

  "Thanks." Xiao Xuan panted heavily, having been stifled for too long below, his lungs feeling a bit of tearing pain.

  "It's nothing." Su Mu Ran's mouth corners slightly curved upwards.

  "Hehe, I've taken a liking to you."

  Su Mo Ran naturally knew that Xiao Xuan's liking was not the kind of ordinary affection between men and women, but rather a recognition of her as an adventure partner in the task world. This liking seemed to have only one benefit, which was that she wouldn't have to worry about being sacrificed by Xiao Xuan like Zhao Jian. Of course, who knows if the man in front of her, whom she had just pulled out from under the bloody surface, would hesitate even a little bit in his heart?

  At this time, the surface of the blood pool suddenly began to tremble, and ripples started to spread out in circles.

  "What's going on?" Su Mu Ran furrowed his brow and asked.

  "In general, in movies, when the final treasure is taken away, shouldn't the place where the treasure was stored immediately start collapsing? This plot of Zhushen is really a bit too cliché."

  Xiao Xuan's tone was tinged with a hint of mockery, but his face was also very solemn, because they still hadn't found an exit. If the underground rock layer were to collapse now, their outcome would be extremely dire.

  "Hurry up and swim to the shore with Sarah, I know a place that looks like an exit, let's go try it out." Xiao Xuan shouted to Su Mo Ran.

  Su Mo Ran nodded and followed Xiang Xuan as they struggled to swim towards the edge of the blood pool. The two quickly returned to the shore, where Sarah rushed to Xiang Xuan's side and tightly grabbed his arm. At this time, the entire underground rock layer began to peel off, with stones continuously falling from the top.

  "We don't have much time, let's go!" Xiao Xuan directly grabbed Sarah's hand and ran towards the exit of the tunnel. Su Mu Ran took out his gun again and followed closely behind, because due to the existence of the Blood Pool, this section of the tunnel had become a forbidden area for ordinary man-eating monsters. However, once they exited the tunnel, they would definitely encounter attacks from the man-eating monsters, so necessary precautions still needed to be taken.

  It was not a calm escape, for as soon as the three of them rushed out of this passageway and re-entered that more spacious area, food people flew over from all sides, but fortunately, due to the collapse of the underground rock layer, the food people were also in a state of fear, so their attack was also very chaotic and lawless, completely relying on a kind of instinct towards flesh and blood creatures.

  At this time, Su Mu Ran's pistol began to fire continuously, killing several man-eating demons in a row. However, the number of surrounding man-eating demons was too large, and it was really too difficult for Su Mu Ran alone. Su Mu Ran was also surprised to find that Xiao Xuan did not take out his gun.

  Xiao Xuan didn't intend to use his handgun, for he discovered that 'fire' seemed to have a more intimidating effect on these cannibal demons than firearms. So Xiao Xuan opened his palms and fireballs began to condense from the center of his hands, shooting out one after another, hitting all around him. The cannibal demons who were originally trying to pounce over were startled and dodged away. The pressure around Xiao Xuan and his companions suddenly decreased a lot, and the three took advantage of this opportunity to break through the encirclement of the cannibal demons.

  "Go to where Beth crashed, there's a cave there, it might be an exit!"

  "Why didn't you say so earlier?" Su Mu Ran muttered to herself in her heart, but she wouldn't say something like that out loud at this time.

  Behind him, the man-eating demons kept chasing and attacking, Xiao Xuan constantly releasing small fireballs to scare them off. As Xiao Xuan was only a novice magician with a weak physique, he had only learned a few simple spells from the beginner's manual, so these small fireballs were really just for show and didn't have much power. However, when they previously fought against the mutated man-eating demons, setting their fur on fire at a critical moment had an unexpected effect, and now using this to intimidate these subterranean man-eating demons who had never seen fire in their lives was also very effective.

  The three quickly returned to the pit above where Beth had died, with Beth's body still placed beside it.

  Xiao Xuan shouted at Su Mo Ran: "Quickly, just find a protruding stone block and tie the rope to it, you go down first!"

  As he finished speaking, Xiao Xuan took out his gun again and started shooting at the man-eating demons that were chasing them in this narrow crevice. Su Mo noticed that Xiao Xuan's face was still deathly pale, apparently using that magical ability had also taken a great toll on him, and he was almost unable to hold on.

  At this thought, Su Mu Ran hastened the speed in his hands and quickly tied the rope to a sharp rock. He pushed Sara and said: "You go down first, hurry up!"

  Sarah naturally understood the crisis of the current situation and didn't say much, directly grasping the rope with both hands and starting to climb down. When Sarah fell to a certain distance, Su Mo also started to grab the rope and climb down.

  On this side, Xiao Xuan held on for a while longer, seeing that Su Muran and Sarah had already descended into the pit. First, he kicked Beth's corpse forward with one foot, since the man-eating demons had an extremely strong craving for flesh and blood, so Beth's newly deceased corpse could obviously delay them for a while. Then, Xiao Xuan himself also grabbed the rope with one hand and swung down like a swing, very quickly, but as a result, his palm had already rubbed against the rope and left a bloody mark. No choice, at this time, he could only hold on tight.

  The pit below was all stagnant water, and Sara and Sumu were standing in the stagnant water watching Xiao Xuan come down. There was no way out, except for Xiao Xuan, none of them knew where that so-called cave was.

  Xiao Xuan used his spiritual power to detect it, and found that the inside of the cave he had discovered earlier indeed had a larger space. However, the range of his spiritual power exploration seemed to be less than 15 meters, so Xiao Xuan was not sure whether this cave led to the outside or not. But now the shock in the underground rock layer was getting more and more intense, some places had already collapsed, and staying here any longer would really make it possible to be buried alive.

  "Here, hold your breath and crawl in from here!" Xiao Xuan first pushed Sara with a push, no way, no matter what, Sara couldn't die, otherwise even if she herself survived, the main god would still erase her.

  Sarah was still hesitant, but seeing Xiao Xuan's persistence, she could only take a deep breath and squat down, entering the so-called dissolution cave from the water bottom. Next, Su Mo Ran followed closely behind, and finally, it was Xiao Xuan who crawled in last.

  When the body enters the cave, it basically doesn't need to exert any more effort to move, and the rapid water flow directly impacts the body, letting you drift with the current. Xiao Xuan holds his breath, quietly waiting, life or death depending on fate, at this moment, he is actually the most relaxed.

  Suddenly, Xiao Xuan seemed to see the light, his body flowed with water from a waterfall mouth... Indeed, this underground dark current cave really led to the outside!

  ……

  "Chinese squad completes main quest —— [Protecting Sara from leaving the underground], all members return to the main god space immediately!"