I immediately threw myself to the ground as the explosion sounded behind me. Metal fragments and shockwaves slammed against the bronze cave walls, the roar and shockwave piercing through my body simultaneously. In that moment, I couldn’t tell if it was the sound wave or the shock; it passed directly through the bones of my entire body. My mind went blank, and I could hear nothing, only feeling my internal organs being shaken to the point of distortion.

“Damn it!” I cursed the fat guy in my heart. “Doesn’t he know what situation we’re in? Can we really use grenades here?”

As the vibrations slightly subsided, I gritted my teeth and got back up. Just as I was half-squatting, I saw the fat guy bite off another pull ring and throw the grenade.

Damn it! I fell back to the ground again, and in an instant, there was another explosion. All my senses hadn’t even recovered before I was hit by another blast. This time, I seemed to hear a sound wave that exceeded the limit. I knew it was an illusion because the sound wave had injured my eardrum, distorting everything.

If another one comes, I’m definitely done for, I thought. Just as I mustered all my strength to stand up, I saw the fat guy this time holding a grenade in both hands, ready to throw it.

In the previous attempts, he had only crouched down to avoid the blasts, so he was injured in many places. I shouted, “Stop!” and rushed over to grab him, trying to push him down to the ground. But the fat guy was strong and sturdy; with just a bump, he staggered but managed to stay upright. At the same time, Zhang Haixing, who had been in the darkness, jumped out, leaping high and driving her knee into the fat guy’s neck. The three of us tumbled to the ground.

The two grenades that had been thrown exploded one after the other. Since I was tangled up with the fat guy, it was too late for me to lie flat on the ground. Looking up, I witnessed an astonishing scene.

At the moment of the explosion, the firelight illuminated a large area. Although the grenades weren’t very powerful, the shockwaves in the enclosed space shook the blood from the crevices in the cave walls and floor, forming a cloud of blood mist in the air.

In that instant, I saw a huge silhouette emerge from the blood mist. Because the time was short, the silhouette was static; its shape resembled a spider standing with its arms raised. I realized this was because my blood had avoided the moving objects in the air, creating such a sight, and I understood why the fat guy kept throwing grenades.

Moreover, given the current situation, the grenades had completely failed to have any effect. The fat guy wanted to throw more, but after the last grenade exploded, everything around us was pitch black. I helped the fat guy up and shouted, “It’s useless! Let’s run!”

My eardrums were completely damaged, and my voice sounded very strange to me, while I couldn’t hear a word the fat guy was shouting at me.

Ignoring everything else, I pushed the fat guy and we ran, trying to gauge the general direction of the cave entrance. We stumbled and fell, not caring whether Zhang Haixing was following us. We ran to the end of one side of the cave and then felt along the cave wall in one direction.

It wasn’t until we felt our way out of the cave that the fat guy lit a cold flame fire. As he illuminated the surroundings, we indeed found our way out. The fat guy said to me, “Do you have anything else that can provide light? This is the last cold flame fire I’ve got, hidden in my pants.”

I pulled out a lighter and lit it. “I only have this.”

The胖子 looked around and said, “Having something is better than nothing, but remember to treat the flashlight like it’s your lifeline from now on. Quickly find something to make a torch, or else this little bit of light will be the holy light we see before we die.”

We backed away from the cave entrance, retreating about seventeen or eighteen meters while braving the cold flames. I stared intently at the entrance, while the胖子 continuously collected those black, mud-like substances from the rocks.

“Can this stuff burn?” I asked.

“It looks like oil, so it should be able to,” the胖子 replied. After gathering a pile, he used his lighter to ignite it, and sure enough, it caught fire and burned fiercely.

The胖子 threw the burning black paste around and continued to collect more, lighting them as he went. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was looking for a stick to use as a torch handle; otherwise, holding those things in his hands would quickly burn him.

I kept my eyes fixed on the cave entrance. I didn’t know if that monster had followed us out; in any case, I couldn’t see anything. If we got knocked away here, we might fall and die instantly. Wouldn’t the wisest action be to run away immediately?

But just as that thought crossed my mind, the cold flame in my hand went out. I realized the胖子 was right; without light here, even if there were no monsters, we would surely die.

The moment the cold flame extinguished could have meant our doom, but the胖子’s fireballs seemed to ignite the surrounding mud, making the space in front of us brighter.

I felt puzzled. If this was just a lucky discovery by the胖子, then his luck was unreasonably good; it seemed as if he knew these things could burn.

As I was lost in thought, the胖子 suddenly exclaimed and shouted at me, “Hide! Quickly, hide!”

I glanced in the direction he was looking and saw that the entrance was illuminated by flames, and a massive creature was crawling out of the cave.

Strangely, we couldn’t see the part of it that was inside the cave, but the part that emerged into the light instantly revealed its colors and shape, as if a monster had shed its invisibility cloak.

It was Tibetan armor—I saw its nearly all-black limbs and armor made from various rocks and metal plates.

I was dumbfounded and immediately realized what it was. I had seen this in the thangka paintings at the lama temple; this was the King of Hell depicted in the painting of the King riding a corpse.

That part of the body only appeared in the firelight for a moment before retreating back into the cave, disappearing from sight.

The whole process was so fast that I thought it was an illusion. It wasn’t until the胖子 asked me, “Did you see that?” that I realized what I had seen was real.

We both stood there for four or five seconds, and then the胖子 shouted to the other side, “Did you see it?”

I thought the胖子 was talking to me and nodded immediately, but then he asked again. At that moment, a voice from behind a rock said, “I saw it.”

The胖子 came over to take the cold flame stick from my hand and began to stuff the black mud into it while asking, “What exactly was that thing?”

The voice from behind the rock replied, “I don’t know.”

Then I was astonished to see the short guy Feng emerge from behind a rock, covered in blood. I suddenly remembered his existence; everything had happened so quickly that I hadn’t noticed where he had gone. The fat guy asked him, “Aren’t you supposed to know everything? How come you didn’t know this—”

Before he could finish his sentence, a stone suddenly flew over and knocked the fat guy to the ground. In the firelight, I saw Zhang Haixing suddenly jump out from the other side. Upon seeing this, the short guy Feng immediately shrank back behind the rock. The old woman skillfully stepped on the stones and almost flipped in front of the fat guy. He was still covering his head when she clamped his neck with her legs and twisted him in mid-air.

If it were me, my head would definitely have come off with that twist. But the fat guy, realizing the situation was dire, turned his whole body in the same direction. Visually, it looked like Zhang Haixing had great strength, flipping the fat guy around in mid-air, but in reality, it was the fat guy who used his own strength to throw himself to the ground.

As a result, Zhang Haixing was also in a bad position, and like the fat guy, she was knocked to the ground. However, her movements were much quicker than his; she immediately got up and kicked the still-wriggling fat guy in the head.

The fat guy was stunned by the kick and immediately stopped moving. Seeing something was wrong, I rushed to help, leaping up with all my strength to deliver a flying kick.

As a result, I landed very steadily in front of her, my kick landing right on her instep. She was just about to deal a fatal blow to the fat guy when I stepped on her foot. In pain, she retaliated with a slap, and I saw stars as I rolled to the ground. In the chaos, I grabbed a stone, unsteadily got up, and before I could clearly see her position, my chin was kicked, sending me flying again.

When I got up again, I was already exhausted. I shouted loudly and saw that the fat guy had finally managed to escape Zhang Haixing’s attack range thanks to my intervention, running to a rock and leaning against it, gasping for breath.

Zhang Haixing looked at me, then at the fat guy, and with disdain, shot me a glare before walking towards the fat guy. I took a deep breath, wanting to rush over to help him, but the fat guy shouted at me, “Don’t come over! I’ll handle her one-on-one.”

I stumbled and hesitated for a moment, and by the time I looked back, Zhang Haixing had already reached the fat guy. She pulled out her belt, and just as I worried that the fat guy was about to be subjected to some SM treatment, Zhang Haixing suddenly shrank, falling into the crevice of the rocks below.

Not just falling, but falling all the way down—she disappeared in an instant. The fat guy immediately kicked all the small stones in front of him into that crevice, sending down twenty or thirty pieces in an instant. By the time I got there, Zhang Haixing was already buried under the stones, and it was clear she wasn’t dead; the stones were still moving.

The fat guy stepped on the stones a couple of times, and only then did the movement below stop. He cursed, “Damn, you really thought I would fight you head-on? I set six traps here just waiting for you to jump in!”

He called out to the short guy Feng behind the rocks, “Alright. Your method worked, come out!”

The short guy Feng cautiously emerged, looking a bit frightened at the pit where the person had been buried, and asked, “Did she really fall in?”

“She really fell in,” the fat guy said. “Damn, that was quick. Don’t worry.”

I asked them what was going on, and the fat guy said, “That damn woman is ruthless. Didn’t she call me out? As soon as I stepped outside, I saw she had pointed to a spot where there was a circle of fire with a glow stick stuck in it. I walked over and saw our Mr. Feng tightly bound, lying in a crevice between the stones, with iron wire piercing through his palms.

I immediately wanted to go save him, but it turned out that spot was a quagmire. The mud on top had hardened, with many small stones scattered around. As soon as I stepped on it, I broke through and rolled into the mud with the stones. No matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t get back up. Fortunately, Mr. Feng knew what to do and rolled down to cushion my fall, so I didn’t die. After I pulled him up, he told me that this woman wanted to kill us all.”