Chapter 11

Chapter 11

We were chatting animatedly when Lu Lingzhu gave me an excited slap on the back. I stumbled a few steps to the side, and suddenly, the ground beneath me vanished. My entire body plummeted into the void.

A Flying Tiger Claw was still hanging from my pack. In a moment of desperation, I hurled it upward. It hooked firmly into the ground, halting my descent.

My body swung through the air, slamming hard against the stone wall.

I hurriedly switched on my head-mounted searchlight and looked down. What I saw nearly scared the soul out of my body.

Beneath my feet was a bottomless, pitch-black abyss.

“Oh my god! How is there such a deep trench here? Are you okay, Qiao Moyu-”

“Qiao Moyu- Qiao Moyu- Qiao Moyu-”

Lu Lingzhu was sprawled on the ground, peering down. Her voice bounced back and forth against the mountain walls, creating an echo that sounded like countless people calling my name. It was hair-raising.

“An abyss? The Middle Ages… Houska Castle… I’ve got it!”

Jiang Haoyan leaned over the edge in a panic and shouted down to me, “Qiao Moyu, get up here fast! This is the entrance to Hell!”

“Hell- Hell- Hell-”

Another terrifying echo followed, making my scalp tingle and a layer of goosebumps break out across my back.

Legend has it that in the 14th century, a bottomless crack suddenly appeared in the ground. Nearby residents claimed that flying monsters lived inside the rift and would eat people.

To investigate the truth, King Ottokar II decreed that any prisoner sentenced to death would be pardoned if they agreed to be lowered into the rift.

One prisoner was lowered down by a rope. Within minutes, he let out a blood-curdling scream. The guards quickly pulled him back up, but in that short time, his hair had turned completely white. He had gone mad, screaming incessantly that there were devils below.

The King ordered a castle to be built directly over the rift. It was constructed without guards, windows, or doors, solely to suppress this so-called Gateway to Hell.

Those Egyptian mummies were very likely sacrifices offered to the devils.

I was already spooked, but hearing Jiang Haoyan’s story made me shudder with even more dread.

I hung there alone in the abyss, surrounded by bottomless darkness. The thin beam from my searchlight was quickly swallowed by the gloom.

I didn’t dare look down again. Gripping the rope attached to my pack, I prepared to climb up.

Just as I looked up, I locked eyes with a pair of pitch-black orbs.

Set into a furry, dog-like face were two round eyeballs the size of lychees. They shimmered with an eerie light, staring at me without blinking.

My heart jolted. My hands instinctively loosened their grip. Fortunately, the rope of the Flying Tiger Claw was secured to my backpack; had I been holding it with just my hands, that slip would have sent me falling into the ten-thousand-foot abyss.

I pushed back a little to get a better look at the thing in front of me.

It was a giant bat, as tall as an adult man, with its wings folded as it hung upside down from the cliff face.

Disturbed by my presence, the bat unfurled its wings, bared its teeth, and let out a piercing screech.

That single cry was like a stone cast into a still pond, stirring up a thousand waves. The entire abyss seemed to come alive.

I turned my head and felt my heart sink halfway into my chest.

The cliffs on both sides were covered in a dense carpet of upside-down bats. Many were even larger than the one beside me.

“Pull me up! Quick!”

I gripped the rope with all my might, my feet kicking desperately against the rock wall.

A bat flapped its wings and lunged at me. Suspended in mid-air, I had no way to dodge. I could only brace myself as its sharp fangs slashed across my hand. Blood immediately began to pour from the wound.

“Lu Lingzhu! Use a Thunder Talisman from the Shenxiao Sect!”

Lu Lingzhu, that wealthy heiress, spent her years frequenting major auctions with Song Feifei and had a mountain of magical treasures. Yet there she was, foolishly swinging her Seven Star Sword at the bats surrounding her.

Hearing my shout, she froze for a second before hurriedly fishing a golden talisman out of her bag and tossing it down.

The golden paper drifted through the air, erupting into ten thousand streaks of lightning. My eyes nearly popped out of my head, and my heart ached as if it were being twisted. “What?! That’s a Thirty-Six Thunder Talisman! Why on earth would you use a Thirty-Six Thunder Talisman?!”

Three years ago, when I looked into buying a Thirty-Six Thunder Talisman from the Shenxiao Sect, they were already asking two million yuan per sheet-and that was only because of my master’s past relationship with them.

Two million yuan! Lu Lingzhu had just tossed it away like it was nothing.

In this situation, a Ten-Thunder Talisman would have been more than enough! I was fuming with rage, but as thunder crashed and lightning flashed around me, the bats were too busy to attack. I seized the opportunity and scrambled upward.