Epoch of Twilight

What Luo Yuan could not understand was why there were no traces of his teammates in the vicinity. If not for the directions on the watch clearly showing that his destination was located near the sinkhole, he would have suspected that it was a mistake.

He paused and frowned for a bit while thoroughly exploring the massive sinkhole. Soon, he found a slope at the corner. It was a rather unusual slope as it was so steep that it was almost vertical. From Luo Yuan’s estimation, the steepness was around 70 degrees. The surface of the slope was wet with moss grown on strange-looking rocks surrounding it. It looked awfully slippery and dangerous and one would surely slip if they were not paying attention.

But to Luo Yuan, who could fly, the steep slope was nothing. What he needed was merely a place where he could land. Of course, he could choose to fly directly into the sinkhole but because it was dark and he had no clue of the terrain or mysteries that laid down there, he opted not to. If it were a common mission or even a Grade D mission, Luo Yuan would not be this cautious. However, this mission was extremely dangerous as it was the first ever grade D+ mission he had received which meant he might encounter a dark-green level super creature.

To enter rashly was to risk dying tragically if he was noticed by any super creatures. It was not unreasonable for Luo Yuan to be cautious under such circumstance with unpredictable enemies in the area.

Luo Yuan walked to the corner quickly. He focused his attention to the sinkhole, took a deep breath, and jumped into it. The path was very clear which allowed gravity to pull his body downwards very quickly. Three seconds later, he adjusted his body to help him slow down as he was traveling tremendously fast. In half a minute, he was in complete darkness.

It was a bottomless abyss which almost devoured all the light source. Even with Luo Yuan’s low-light vision, he could hardly see anything in there. If not for his ‘senses’, perhaps he could not go on.

Luo Yuan suddenly stopped. There was no clear way forward anymore but he could sense that there was massive space beneath his feet. The sinkhole resembled of a giant gourd made of one big and one small ball.

Luo Yuan did not jump right in. Instead, he closed his eyes to listen quietly. The silence was eerie, and he could hear flowing water coming from below. It seemed that the end of the sinkhole was not too far away. However, he did not hear anything else.

Around a minute later, he opened his eyes slowly. He noticed that the mosses on the rocks were gone. Also, the usual creepy crawlies were nowhere to be seen. It seemed like there was no sign of life at all which meant that there was no danger too. But this was just on the surface. Luo Yuan reminded himself that it was extremely dangerous here!

He thought for a long time and finally decided to proceed deeper into the sinkhole. He inhaled a deep breath of air and jumped right in! To his surprise, he landed lightly on the ground 10 seconds later. Strangely, it was not as dark as before when he had arrived at the bottom of the sinkhole. There were glowing rocks lighting up the place and they looked like fallen shining stars; it felt like he landed in the night sky.

Through the dim lights that lit the place, Luo Yuan realized that he seemed to be in a jungle. There were countless strange and crooked gray pillars standing high. They were so dense that the border was almost nowhere to be seen. It was inaccurate to call them pillars as they were more like fossils in the jungle. One of those fossils caught Luo Yuan’s attention as it was broken. Luo Yuan could see that there were rings glowing in a jade-green color. Perhaps this place was a jungle hundreds of million years ago. Through the years, the jungle probably drowned in flood and sank to become a stone forest made of silicified wood.

Luo Yuan continued to move forward. He could see fossils from the Carboniferous period- a dragonfly that was six meters long and a giant centipede that was more than 10 meters long. Suddenly, Luo Yuan realized that the Carboniferous period closely reflected his current reality in that they were encountering a plant outbreak that occupied 50 percent of the world’s reserve of coal as well as the gigantism of living creatures.

Luo Yuan gave it more thoughts but then scrapped off the idea as he realized they were incomparable in more ways than they were comparable. It did not matter if you were comparing the awfulness of living creatures or the prosperity of plants, the Carboniferous could never be compared to what was happening now. To say that Carboniferous was the era where different life forms were blooming was common but during the apocalypse, it was a transition period for many life forms. A common life form could be evolved to a super-evolved life form within a few years. It was a mysterious phenomenon that could not be explained by existing theories.

Luo Yuan then heard flowing water coming from ahead of him. The strange thing was that Luo Yuan did not see any rivers nearby. Perhaps he did not notice any or maybe it was further ahead. Luo Yuan noticed that Wu Qianru’s location was less than three kilometers away from him. He sent her a message but there was no response. It was totally understandable as the damn watch had no response or vibration when a message was received. If one did not look at it from time to time, it was impossible to notice any messages received. Though one thing was for sure, Wu Qianru was still alive as the mission had not been canceled yet.

The three kilometers distance was nothing to Luo Yuan and the super creatures. It was considered ‘nearby’ for them. Although Wu Qianru was ‘near’, Luo Yuan dared not put down his guard. According to the crappy system, there would never be any missions that could be completed by cheating. A Grade D+ mission would naturally have its own difficulty.

As time went by, the sound of flowing water was getting clearer. Suddenly, Luo Yuan stopped walking. Something shocking flashed in front of him that looked like mercury flowing towards him. It seemed to have a life of its own and slithered fast like a snake within the stone forest. Occasionally, it would hold up its head and move from left to right as if it was aware of what was happening in the surrounding.

It was enormous- around 15 meters long and half a meter wide. Wave-like ripples could be seen flowing on its skin. There was no clear anatomy to its body as it was not clear which was its head and tail; maybe it had none. If not for its lively appearance, Luo Yuan would not have suspected that it was a living creature.

Looking at the headless creature approaching him at a fast speed, Luo Yuan hid quickly. After the strange ‘snake’ passed by Luo Yuan, it did not stop and instead disappeared far away. Luo Yuan was stressed by what he had just encountered. This kind of creature was beyond his wildest imaginations. With its liquid-form body, a saber would prove useless against it. What stressed him more was the sound of water flowing. The closer he got to the ‘snake’, the louder the sound got. He climbed up on a giant silicified wood 10 minutes later and was slightly relieved.

A massive lake of a mercury-like-substance appeared 100 meters away! The lake was boiling like a pot of thick porridge and there were countless strange snake-like creatures that were detaching themselves from the border of the lake. There were also many more of those creatures that were coming back from all over the place and back into the lake. It seemed to be quite hectic there.

What gave Luo Yuan Goosebumps was a young lady that appeared to be sitting in the middle of the mercury lake. Perhaps the word ’sitting’ was not accurate as in fact, apart from her chest and head, the rest of her body was submerged inside the mercury-like substance. What was even more unbelievable was the fact that she was still alive despite the look of numbness and despair on her face. Her skin was pale but she did not show any sign of pain on her face. Countless beads of mercury were seen spreading slowly from her chest and with that speed, her entire body would be devoured by the mercury within a few hours.