Chapter 1 Hao Ren Knew It

Hao Ren knew that Lily, no matter what she did, was bound to be unpredictable. There was no point in trying to guess her words and actions with common sense and habit: when you thought she was a werewolf, she would bark at you; when you thought she was brave and unparalleled, she would cower at you; when you thought she could only act foolish, she would compose poetry for you; and when you thought she was going to be artistic… she would blind you with her dog eyes.

But to be honest, Lily was still less surprising than the Data Terminal. After all, that thing had even died on you in the virtual realm of Zolm...

Hao Ren pressed down on Lily’s head and walked forward first, reminding the people behind him as he went, “Be careful to avoid the lava and rock steam vents. The sunlight has just passed this place, and there should still be a lot of heat accumulated beneath the surface. Getting hit by that stuff is no different from falling into a steel furnace.”

He was mainly reminding Lily and Vivian. As for Yitzhak and his daughter… they were creatures who could bathe in lava, so there was nothing to worry about, right?

Vivian watched the golden light flowing on the horizon gradually descend, and patted her cheeks: “I don’t like sunlight… especially on this planet.”

“Bat, you are definitely the most unprecedented vampire ever!” Lily bounced around Vivian, “Normal vampires are half-dead after being exposed to the sun, but you are standing here with the whole planet falling into the sun. You can brag about this for a year when we get back, right?”

Vivian didn’t have the strength to banter with Lily. She waved her hand weakly, “I just want to get back before the sun rises again.”

Hao Ren took out a spare data device. A holographic image of a large area centered on the Petrified Tortoise platform hovered on the palm-sized, tablet-like silver-white crystal panel. This was a temporary navigation map drawn by the Petrified Tortoise using radar. The content on the image was unsettling: the radar showed that the ground under everyone’s feet had not truly solidified. It was a layer of light rock with a high melting point, like scum, only a few meters thick, with semi-molten crust underneath and dozens of lava rivers flowing beneath them. This structure had no stability to speak of; it relied on a fragile balance to maintain its current state, but was constantly experiencing collapses and eruptions, both large and small.

“The fissure is ahead,” Hao Ren pointed to a black “hill” hundreds of meters ahead, “The radar shows that there is a regular-shaped, well-like cavity underneath it. Being able to maintain stability in this situation suggests it's not a natural formation.”

“The ground is soft,” Lily swayed her tail to maintain her balance, “I think there should be a lava lake underneath…”

Following the guidance of the navigation map, the small exploration team cautiously moved forward in this scorched land of death. The surrounding scenery was like hell, even more terrifying and harsh than hell. After the sunlight faded, the back of the planet did not completely fall into darkness, because the not-yet-completely-cooled crust was covered with cracks emitting a dark red light. Accompanied by the lava rivers flowing on the dark, cracked earth, new fissures were constantly opening on the ground. Torrents of rock steam erupted from these fissures like spectacular and sudden fountains, some of these steam columns reaching tens of kilometers into the air.

These huge and always suddenly appearing steam columns made even the usually clumsy Lily cautious. She stayed close to Hao Ren, grabbed the latter’s clothes, and declared her loyalty with a righteous face: “Landlord, I will protect you!”

Hao Ren might have actually believed her if she hadn’t tucked her tail between her legs when she said that.

“Watch out for sudden cracks in the ground,” Yitzhak reminded in a rough voice, “I’ll walk in front.”

Although this planet falling into the sun was indeed several times worse than the average demonic realm, Yitzhak, as a high-level demon, had more resistance here than the others. He strode past Hao Ren and walked to the front of the team. Elizabeth immediately followed her father’s figure, bouncing and skipping. The father and daughter discussed as they walked: “Dad, do you think our old home’s Red Mountain area is like this?” “Not quite, it’s much cooler over there…”

At this time, Elizabeth happened to jog forward a few steps. The ground beneath her feet suddenly bulged abnormally. When Hao Ren saw this, he quickly reminded her: “Be careful!”

But it was too late. The bulging ground suddenly erupted, and a powerful rock steam gushed out from the underground air pocket, instantly forming a huge column of air that shot straight into the sky. The little girl Elizabeth disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Lily couldn’t help but gasp and looked up at the sky, but she couldn’t see anything in the dark night sky. She was a little nervous: “Is she going to be okay?”

“She’ll be fine, at most a scare,” Yitzhak was calmer than the others. He laughed as he looked for the direction his daughter had flown out, “Although that kid is physically weaker than ordinary demons, she’s not afraid of this heat… oh, looks like she’s falling.”

Before he could finish speaking, everyone saw a flailing little figure in the air. Elizabeth was flapping her arms wildly in the air while shouting loudly into the communicator: “Catch me! Catch me!”

Everyone quickly stood in a circle and opened their arms, and then the little girl accurately fell outside the circle.

“Hiss…” Elizabeth rubbed her butt and climbed up from the ground, “What kind of eyes do you all have…”

Hao Ren looked at the little demon in surprise: “You can’t fly? Shouldn’t high-level demons be able to fly?”

“I haven’t come of age yet, my wings haven’t grown out yet,” Elizabeth hopped back while covering her butt, “By the way, I saw the entrance in the sky just now! It’s behind that little hill over there!”

With the help of the navigation map and Elizabeth, the group found the suspicious fissure.

It was a regular-shaped, almost perfectly circular hole, with a shaft that was nearly perpendicular to the ground below. Around the circular hole, there was a neat, raised structure resembling a crater, and judging from the protrusions remaining on those structures, there should have been something else here before.

Perhaps a device used to seal this entrance, such as a gate – but it must have been destroyed long ago.

“It’s been burned beyond recognition, but there’s no doubt it’s man-made,” Vivian peered into the shaft, “I can vaguely see the ground below, and it doesn’t seem to be melted. Should we go down?”

“There’s no other choice,” Hao Ren gritted his teeth, “My shield is the strongest, I’ll go down first, listen for my signal.”

Vivian pulled Hao Ren back and conjured a small bat: “There might be danger, I should use my little bat to scout… uh.”

As soon as the little bat came out, it quickly withered. In the blink of an eye, it was almost turned into dried bat. Vivian had to quickly put it away.

“I don’t have a life-support collar for it,” Hao Ren smiled, casually threw a probe with a camera into the shaft, and jumped down after confirming that the bottom was the ground.

The bottom of the shaft was solid ground, though hot, it did not show any signs of softening. Hao Ren landed on the ground with a thud. When he got up, he observed the surrounding environment and found that this was a place similar to a subway intersection.

Three wide, dark tunnels converged here, leading to unknown destinations.

He turned on the communicator: “It’s safe below – and the structure looks like an underground shelter, we should have found the refuge.”

The others quickly gathered in the underground tunnel. Lily looked at the dark corridor that stretched out in surprise: “…This place hasn’t melted?”

“After all, it’s not a natural product. Look at these walls, the people who made them should have had good materials science and technology,” Hao Ren pointed to the walls of the tunnel. Although the walls had completely turned black, and many parts were distorted and deformed, it could still be seen that the material was a precise and sturdy synthetic material, “But they won’t last long either. This planet is disintegrating and is about to reach the critical point. We’d better hurry.”

Vivian frowned and looked at the fork in the road: “Three roads, should we explore separately?”

“It’s best not to separate. There may be new forks in the road ahead. It’s useless to rely on splitting up to explore,” Hao Ren shook his head, “The radar shows that there is a larger cavity deep underground, which should be the main location of the shelter. As long as these forks are not blocked, they should all lead to the deeper layers. Let’s go in the direction of the navigation.”