Below the stone slab is a balance trap, where the weight of each pill on the star map has been precisely calculated. The order in which they are taken must be strictly followed; only by removing the pills in the designated sequence can we avoid triggering the mechanism. Otherwise, the balance will be immediately disrupted, causing the mechanism to tip and trigger a chain reaction, resulting in the surrounding jade figures falling and the blood corpses transforming.

This place can be considered the most important sacred site of the Queen Mother clan. If it were to be invaded, it would be akin to exposing the most core secrets of the royal family, which is why such terrifying mechanisms have been set up here, designed for mutual destruction.

Our current situation can be described as extremely desperate. The entrance we came through is now sealed, and everyone is trapped in this area at the bottom of the cave.

My uncle’s companions are paralyzed with fear. Not just us, even the Fatty and the Silent Oil Bottle have lost all color. This kind of situation might be something my grandfather has never encountered; his notes do not mention how to manage and operate if faced with a thousand corpses transforming simultaneously. Damn, I wonder if there’s an EMBA for this kind of work.

Suddenly, amidst the crowd of corpses, a series of “kekekekeke” sounds erupted. Soon, this sound was coming from everywhere. I also noticed the dry skin on these corpses was continuously peeling off, as if they were really about to rise.

The mop-headed figure looked at us and shouted, “What the hell are you all looking at? Don’t you want to think of a way out? What should we do?”

The Fatty cursed and picked up a gun from the ground, saying, “What should we do? We can see who can live a little longer.”

“Shut up! I don’t want to die! Think of something quickly, or I’ll shoot you!” The person aimed the gun at him.

The Fatty checked the bullets: “You can try surrendering, but it might not work. It’s so deep here that even God might have a hard time coming down.”

After saying that, he moved toward the blood corpses, raised his gun, and shot at the nearest few corpses, causing them to stagger. The dry skin was blown off, revealing the bluish-purple flesh beneath. The bullets only managed to create a small hole.

I could tell the Fatty had come to terms with it; although still scared, he had accepted the possibility of death. He fired three shots in quick succession, and the others finally reacted, immediately helping out. The first to act would have a chance to survive even for a minute.

While reloading, the Fatty came over to me, took out a flare, and said, “Keep the illumination steady, don’t shoot upwards; aim for their faces. We need to learn from the Five Heroes of Wolf Tooth Mountain!”

“Upwards?” I looked up at the ceiling and suddenly had an idea, recalling a story my grandfather wrote about in his notes. What did he say?

My grandfather’s first reaction was that these blood corpses couldn’t climb trees! If they couldn’t climb trees, they certainly couldn’t climb walls, and rock climbing was out of the question. Realizing this, I immediately said to them, “We need to find a way to get up there! To the suspended furnace! Since they managed to build the furnace so high and there are no stairs around, there must be another way to get up.”

Everyone suddenly felt a glimmer of hope and immediately sprang into action. The Fatty shouted for everyone to stay calm; those with guns should defend and buy time, while those without should search for something.

I immediately rushed to a nearby bronze vessel, which was about the height of a person, and once I climbed up, I could see clearly. However, upon closer inspection, I realized something was off. If there had been any way to get up, we would have seen it earlier. I also knew that the general design philosophy of ancient people was to keep the person stationary while the object moved. This suspended furnace was not built up there; it was likely hoisted up, meaning any operations would still need to be conducted from below. Therefore, it would be impossible for us to climb up, as we wouldn’t have the strength to lift it back up after it came down.

Standing on this bronze vessel, I realized we didn’t necessarily need to climb so high; as long as we could get to a place where those blood corpses couldn’t reach, this bronze vessel would suffice. With this thought in mind, I immediately shouted, and a few people quickly responded, scrambling up onto the bronze vessel where I stood.

Soon, everyone had climbed up. On the steps, more blood corpses began to rise. I noticed something was wrong; these blood corpses were very robust, and this height wasn’t enough. But there were no taller bronze vessels available. Shooting from a height could only temporarily hold back a few of the blood corpses. The mining lamp illuminated several monstrous faces that were already very close to us, and the areas not lit by the lamp were even more unimaginable.

Just as despair was setting in, the fat guy shouted, “Guys, it’s time to fight for our lives!” He pulled out a few detonators and shouted, “I’m going to rush in, throwing explosives all the way to blast a bloody path. You guys cover me from the sides, and we’ll charge forward.”

I shouted, “Where did you get that stuff?”

“I told you last time, I won’t go down without explosives again,” the fat guy yelled. “This is my private stash!”

I realized that although this plan was tantamount to suicide, it still offered a glimmer of hope. I roared, “Let’s do it!”

The fat guy shouted, “There are only four detonators, and it’s a long distance. Everyone must keep up; if anyone falls behind for even a second, there’s no saving them!”

Saying this, he pulled the fuse and threw the first detonator into the crowd of corpses. I crouched down as the smoking detonator landed among the dried corpses, and there was an enormous explosion. The shockwave sent several blood corpses flying. We ducked to avoid the flying debris and shattered rocks, while the bronze furnace was battered and rang with noise. When I looked up, sure enough, a gap had been blown open ahead.

The fat guy jumped down and immediately threw the second detonator, shouting, “Charge!”

We jumped down from the bronze furnace, and in that instant, another explosion erupted. Without the bronze furnace for cover, the flying debris came at us like bullets, and several of us were knocked down. But we couldn’t afford to care about the intense pain; the fat guy jumped up and threw out another detonator. Those with guns aimed around and immediately opened fire, shooting down the encroaching blood corpses.

We continued to run forward recklessly, as if we were in a war movie. Another explosion occurred, and we hit the ground for a second. Once the shockwave passed, we sprinted again, our ears ringing with a buzzing sound. I thought this must be what it felt like at the Battle of Triangle Hill.

The fat guy shouted, “It’s the last one! Charge!”

Saying this, he threw the detonator towards the stone door. This one had to blast open the stone door; otherwise, our efforts would be in vain.

We pushed forward desperately, bracing ourselves for the shockwave, but just as we were almost there, the detonator didn’t explode. The fat guy in front suddenly stopped, turned around, and yelled, “Sorry, misjudged! Stinky bomb!”

The blood corpses around us immediately closed in, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of gunpowder mixed with the unique, pungent odor of the blood corpses. We formed a circle, and I shouted, “Use your guns, shoot that detonator!”

The fat guy replied, “It’s blocked, can’t see it.”

Suddenly, the muffled oil bottle jumped up, stepping on the fat guy’s shoulder and pushing off hard to fly into the air. He pressed his knees down, catching the head of a blood corpse, twisting it off with a strong yank, and then kicked the headless corpse into the pile. The headless blood corpse fell among the bodies, revealing the detonator behind it.

The fat guy moved quickly, firing a shot that instantly caused the detonator to explode. We were very close to it at that moment, and the impact hit us hard, sending everyone flying.

I felt dizzy and nauseous, crawled up, and vomited, gritting my teeth to keep myself from passing out. When I stood up and looked around, I saw that the stone door had not broken; instead, it had a large hole blown out of it. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the stone door was actually made of bronze.

It’s over, I thought as I got up and looked at the blood corpses surrounding me, feeling utterly defeated. Before I could steady myself, a thunderous sound like a bell ringing at dusk suddenly erupted from behind, shaking the entire cave and knocking us all to the ground, causing the ancient corpses around us to topple over. Turning back, I saw that the massive suspended furnace we had just seen had finally fallen due to the vibrations from the explosion; the iron chains that held it had snapped, and it crashed down into the bottom of the cave. The immense weight smashed a large hole into the cave floor, embedding the furnace deep inside, as if there were still space at the bottom of the cave.

The buzzing sound from the furnace made my head spin, and the surrounding corpses closed in on us, with several of us unable to stand. The muffled oil bottle shouted, “Fall back! I’ll draw them away.”

Since the way was still cluttered with blood corpses that hadn’t fully gathered, we had to retreat. The muffled oil bottle yelled to the fat guy, “Knife!”

The fat guy fired while tossing a dagger, which the muffled oil bottle caught mid-air. He immediately cut open his palm and faced the blood corpses. They seemed to be drawn to him, all turning towards him. He left us and started moving upwards. For some reason, those blood corpses immediately followed him.

Seizing this moment, we quickly retreated to the bottom. I shouted, “What about you?”

The muffled oil bottle ignored me, and the fat guy pulled me back. By the time we reached the bottom, the muffled oil bottle had already disappeared into the crowd of blood corpses, not even a shadow visible. The mop said, “Damn, what a loyal guy!”

I snatched his gun and cursed, “Loyalty my ass!” I wanted to rush back, thinking there was no way I could let him sacrifice himself. The fat guy held me back and shouted towards that direction, “Little brother, we’ve made it!”

Suddenly, we saw the Mysterious Oil Bottle emerge from the sea of blood corpses, like a deity, stepping up the almost vertical rock wall to one side. Then, with a leap, he broke free from the encirclement and rolled to a spot where the blood corpses were sparse, quickly jumping low to the ground and swiftly weaving through the blood corpses until he retreated to the side of the Dan Furnace.

The several assistants of my Third Uncle were dumbfounded. After the Mysterious Oil Bottle flipped over, he said to us, “These blood corpses haven’t seen blood yet, and their joints are still stiff. They are not like the ones in the Lu Wang Palace that were soaked in blood; otherwise, none of us would be able to escape. Don’t just stand there; look for a way to run.”

Only then did we react, and we immediately noticed that the Dan Furnace was deeply embedded in a hollow below, surrounded by cracks leading underground; indeed, there was still space down there. The entrance must have been blocked by that stone slab, which we hadn’t noticed.

At that moment, there was no choice. We crawled onto the Dan Furnace, gripping the patterns on its surface as we descended.

Below was a cramped space only half a person’s height, where we couldn’t even lift our heads while squatting, and the ground was covered in rubble. After we got down, we immediately started picking up stones to block the gaps. We didn’t relax until we had sealed every visible crack, collapsing onto the ground, my ears barely able to hear anything, only feeling the world spinning around me.

Wen Jin immediately tore off a piece of his clothing to stop the bleeding. The Fatty used a flashlight to observe the surroundings and discovered that it was a very small stone chamber, also artificially carved, only about six or seven square meters in size. With the Dan Furnace inside, it felt even more cramped, making it impossible to stretch out our limbs.

“What now? Are those things going to scatter?” one of the assistants asked.

“Generally, sunlight can knock them down, but there’s no hope of that here. We need to think of another way out,” the Fatty said, shining the flashlight around. Suddenly, we all saw something carved into the rock on one side. It looked like the kind of writing used by the Mysterious Oil Bottle, but it didn’t seem to be a mark; it was a sentence.

Everyone gathered around. The Fatty exclaimed with joy, “Hey, look at this! Doesn’t it mean there’s still a way down?”

The Mysterious Oil Bottle crouched down to take a look, and his expression changed. When we asked him what it meant, he shook his head, but from his expression, it was clear he understood.

However, the carved markings were on a rock wall, and the Fatty felt around but couldn’t find any flaws. The Mysterious Oil Bottle came over, ran his unusually long fingers along the patterns on the rock wall, picked up a stone, and began to smash it. After a couple of strikes, suddenly the stone crumbled like powder, and with a shove, he created a hole that could barely accommodate one person, forcing one to crawl through.

“How could there be a thief’s tunnel here?” the Fatty exclaimed in surprise.

“This isn’t a thief’s tunnel; it’s a pipe designed for mechanisms. The traps above us operate from within here,” the Mysterious Oil Bottle said, already sticking his head inside.

We exchanged glances and followed suit. After crawling in for less than ten meters, it suddenly turned vertically downward. Inside, we couldn’t turn around and had no choice but to crawl headfirst. After crawling for a while, feeling dizzy from the blood rushing to my head, I suddenly heard the sound of water.

There was water, which meant it was connected to the channel. Immediately, we accelerated and soon reached the end, only to find a stone blocking our path. The Muffled Oil Bottle hit the stone several times with force, pushing it out of the way. The stone rolled down, and we heard the sound of water below.

We leaned out and discovered that outside was a wide waterway, with a gentle flow and not very deep; it looked to be about waist-high. The water was clear, and we could see the stone slabs at the bottom of the channel.

The Muffled Oil Bottle led the way, and one by one, we descended into the water. As soon as we entered, we noticed a commotion beneath the water, with countless small, shell-less, flesh-colored worms scattering away, startling a few of us to the point where we almost fired our guns.

I was also taken aback to see that the waterway was filled with these transparent little worms, which were usually lying at the bottom and nearly invisible. They seemed to have no aggressive tendencies, as they fled in all directions when we moved.

After everyone got into the waterway, we shone our lights along both sides and saw that upstream there was an iron gate, piled high with branches and debris washed down from above. Downstream was pitch black, and we had no idea where it led.

We approached the iron gate and shook it for a while, but it wouldn’t budge; it was very sturdy.

“What place is this?” asked one of my uncle’s companions.

“This water channel is so deep, and the flow is so strong; it might be the main channel leading to the reservoir at the very bottom,” Wen Jin said. Just as he finished speaking, someone suddenly shouted. We turned to look and saw, surprisingly, a statue of a bird with a human face standing in the middle of the downstream waterway, over two meters tall, appearing very abruptly here.

As we walked closer, we noticed the statue was almost identical to the one I had seen in the rainforest. Just as I was about to examine it closely, the Muffled Oil Bottle gasped, suddenly circled around the statue, and walked downstream. We exchanged glances and immediately followed him.