The giant eye approached rapidly, and the situation was chaotic. The entire bronze tree shook violently, making it hard for me to see how it was climbing. All I knew was that at this speed, we would be facing an encounter in less than ten minutes.

Old Yang looked so pale he could have turned green, continuously blaming me: “What on earth is going on in your head?”

I shouted in protest, “I swear to heaven, this is the first time I’ve seen this thing! If I’m lying, let lightning strike me!”

Seeing my resoluteness, he hesitated for a moment, “No way, who are you really?”

At this point, there was no time to estimate anything. I told him to stop wasting time and think of a way out; it was uncomfortable being stared at like that.

He said, “Don’t worry too much; it’s just one eye. How could it possibly crush us with its eyelids? When it comes up, I’ll just kick it blind.”

Before he finished speaking, a gigantic tentacle, like that of an octopus, suddenly whipped up and struck Amber. We swung around like acrobats in the air, crashing against the bronze wall. Amber shattered into pieces, and the corpse inside was torn apart, scattering down like flowers in the wind along with the fragments of Amber.

We both clung tightly to the bronze chains at the last moment, narrowly avoiding disaster, but we were left dizzy from the spin. I shouted at Old Yang, “This joke has gone too far! Can’t you transform? Quickly turn into a big cannon and blow this thing away!”

Old Yang cursed, “What the hell are you talking about! Is it that easy? Run!”

Without another word, we began to climb up the bronze chains. After just a few steps, my hands slipped, and I started to lose strength. I remembered the slippery plant on the tree roots and felt a surge of fear—was I really going to die here?

At that moment, Old Yang raised his hand, and I suddenly felt the slippery sensation disappear. He climbed up like a monkey and pulled me up, but I almost lost my grip. I complained, “If you have that ability, why not just turn into a ladder?”

He cursed back, “For heaven’s sake, stop complaining!”

We gritted our teeth and crawled into the coffin chamber. The mist above had already dissipated, and I wanted to take this opportunity to look at the other reliefs. Old Yang told me not to look anymore, saying, “What time is it? Come on, let’s climb up the coffin wall!” Suddenly, that tentacle shot up from the coffin pit like lightning, flipping the massive stone lid of the coffin into the air. The force was incredibly overwhelming, shattering even the iron-like tree roots. The entire bronze tree shook violently, filled with roots, decaying bark, and dust. Large pieces of roots and short branches broke apart and flew out like bullets, crashing onto the walkway and collapsing a large area.

We were both clinging to a slippery root, and this sudden force threw us out of the coffin chamber, landing on the sacrificial altar.

The tentacle burst out from the bronze tree and refused to go back in, writhing wildly and striking the nearby bronze statues, deforming them. Old Yang and I ducked down awkwardly, avoiding a few blows. Old Yang pointed at the path and urged me to get down, saying we’d be dead if we stayed up there. I remembered Boss Wang, who I had knocked out for Old Yang, and thought that although he was a jerk, he wasn’t irredeemable and shouldn’t be left to fend for himself. I quickly turned to look for him, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. Could it be that he was dragged down by those exploding tree roots?

The surrounding roots had already been uprooted, leaving only the ones that extended beneath the sacrificial altar. Old Yang saw me looking around and kicked me, telling me to look up. I glanced up and saw a massive stone slab, knocked into the air, crashing down. We hurriedly tried to escape. Old Yang rolled and grabbed his backpack hanging from a broken branch, and we both leaped onto the climbing rope that was used as a rope bridge.

As soon as we grabbed the rope, the stone slab crashed down onto the sacrificial altar, shattering it with a deafening sound. The rope we were holding trembled like a piano string, almost unable to bear the weight.

Looking back, I saw that the tree root we had hooked with the ice axe had been torn away along with the banyan roots wrapped around the coffin. Now there was only a pitiful bit left, straining under our weight, and the ice axe was starting to slip out, as if it wouldn’t hold for much longer.

I sensed that things were getting worse and urged Old Yang to climb faster, saying otherwise we would meet the same fate as Old Tai! Old Yang, upon hearing this, slapped me hard, leaving my ear ringing.

I cursed, “Damn it, are you addicted to hitting people?”

Old Yang shouted, “Is it okay not to hit you? Keep your head straight, don’t think about anything random—”

I yelled back, “What am I thinking about?”

Before I could finish, there was a loud bang. We turned to see the entire coffin chamber suddenly bulging out, cracking open in several places, and a massive black snake poked its head out. The tentacle was the snake’s tail, but this one-eyed giant snake had tiny scales, making it look more like a gigantic worm.

Once the one-eyed giant snake emerged, its enormous eye immediately turned towards us. Old Yang sensed the danger, suddenly pulled out a long-handled hunting knife from my waist, and swung it hard, cutting the climbing rope. We swung through the air like Tarzan and crashed onto the side of the path. This time, I had learned from experience and rolled on the ground to cushion the impact.

After Old Yang landed, he drew a short rifle from his backpack and shot at the giant snake’s eye. The bullet created a large hole, and the giant snake curled up in pain, its tail sweeping across, knocking down the entire row of the path above us.

Old Yang dodged the falling wooden debris, stood up, and kept shooting at the snake while pulling me down. I knew that this gun could hold five bullets, but in Old Yang’s hands, the bullets flew out like water, with no need for reloading.

Unfortunately, the caliber of the gun was still too small. The snake had learned its lesson after taking a bullet; it coiled up and protected its eyes with its body, causing all the bullets to hit its tail instead. Its scales were like iron armor, rendering our shots useless.

As soon as I saw that the gun was ineffective against it, I urged Lao Yang to run quickly. We ran all the way to the edge of the platform. Just as I was about to climb up the cliff, Lao Yang grabbed me and said, “What are you climbing for at a time like this?” Saying this, he pulled me and jumped down. We fell directly from the edge to the next layer of the platform, and suddenly heard a crack from the wooden boards below; they couldn’t withstand such a collision and immediately shattered into dozens of pieces. We fell through the boards and crashed through another layer, landing on the platform below.

This time, the fall was quite severe. When I got up, my mouth and nose were covered in blood. Lao Yang pulled me up and said, “I think I may have underestimated the situation. Are you okay?” I felt dizzy and couldn’t even tell him how I was, as the black giant snake had already descended like lightning down the bronze tree. Lao Yang said, “We can’t fight it, and we can’t escape either. Let’s find a cave below to hide in.”

I looked down and saw that there was no more platform below; only the small caves we had rested in earlier remained, densely packed with many of them. The snake was huge, so if we randomly found one to hide in, we should be able to avoid it for a while and think of a strategy.

At that moment, pulled by Lao Yang, we climbed down and entered the nearest cave, which was less than a meter in diameter. Just as we hadn’t even crawled to the bottom, suddenly the giant snake’s eyes appeared at the entrance, looking at us before it lunged forward, trying to squeeze in.

Lao Yang fired several shots, trying to force it back, but the bullets hit the snake’s head, only knocking off a few scales with no effect at all. The black snake’s massive head was as big as a liberation truck. After several attempts to enter and failing, it suddenly slammed its head against the cave entrance. Rocks flew everywhere, and we quickly retreated to avoid being crushed by the falling debris.

Seeing us retreat deeper into the cave, the black snake became furious and slammed into the entrance again. The entire cave shook, and we could hear the sound of cracking rocks echoing above us. The basalt here was already very unstable due to excessive excavation of the underground river channels. With such a collision, the delicate balance of the rocks was disrupted, causing a chain reaction in the cracks, and a fissure suddenly appeared above our heads.

Lao Yang saw that it was bad and pulled me to retreat to the back of the cave. I was still in shock and had only crawled a few steps inside when I heard a series of booming sounds. Suddenly, dust filled the air, and debris flew everywhere; I didn’t know what had collapsed.

Out of instinct, I curled up to protect my head as stones rained down from above, hitting me on my body and back multiple times. In the chaos, Lao Yang grabbed me and dragged me to his side, and at the same time, there was a huge crash as a stone the size of a writing desk collapsed, completely sealing the entrance of the cave.

Now, not only could the black snake not come in, but we also couldn’t see anything. However, it didn’t seem to give up and continued to slam against the cave entrance over a dozen times, causing more stones to collapse and cracks to appear on the surrounding rock walls.

Lao Yang said, “This isn’t going to work. This guy won’t stop until it kills us. If it keeps slamming, the mountain is going to collapse.” I turned to look and saw that we had retreated to the very back of the cave, with no way to retreat further. If it collapsed in a little more, even the greatest celestial being couldn’t save us.

At this point, we had reached a dead end. Even if we had explosives, we couldn’t use them in such a small space. As I watched the cracks around us slowly spreading, I felt an overwhelming sense of urgency.

Just then, a crack suddenly split open, and a section of the rock wall collapsed under the pressure. We pressed ourselves against the side, barely managing to avoid being crushed, but after the wall fell, we discovered a cave behind it.

I was overjoyed, thinking that heaven had not forsaken me. It must have been the collapse of the rocks between two caves that created a stone path in the middle. I quickly turned to call out to Lao Yang, eager to crawl inside.

However, Lao Yang suddenly blocked my way, saying, “We can’t go in!”