Chapter 112: Cave Creatures
"I want a fortune cookie too."
Jiang Yu suddenly said.
The two circled to the back of the hotel, planning to check the south side first.
"Sure, but these are snacks I exchanged with a friend, so you'll have to recommend a snack to me too."
Lin Ye rarely ate snacks, so he decided to leverage the mature woman's expertise.
"Hmm... I quite like grilled offal. Let's catch some small animals in the forest later for fresh roasting."
Jiang Yu took out some homemade jerky and handed it to Lin Ye.
"That works... maybe we can provide some fresh ingredients for tonight's barbecue gathering."
Lin Ye took out a lion-shaped cookie and exchanged it with Jiang Yu.
If Yang Tao was a pitiful little dog, then this woman standing half a head taller than Lin Ye was a ferocious lion. Though lions are also feline, they're fundamentally different from gentle house cats. Though not moving at full speed, both maintained a brisk pace, soon stopping at the cliff's edge.
The cliff plunged deep, its bottom invisible.
"Want to go down? I brought a paraglider."
Jiang Yu was remarkably well-prepared.
"No, the situation below is unknown. Any accident would be troublesome. Let's check the northwest cave instead."
Though descending might yield more information, Lin Ye wasn't about to let his teammate take such risks.
"Actually we could split up. I'll go down while you explore other areas. We can communicate through the system if anything comes up."
Jiang Yu's intuition told her the cliff bottom held significant connections to this station mission.
"I can explore the other three directions, but the extra mission requires us to find the mastermind. That means someone's likely watching us. This is a four-person mission - if you go down alone, you probably won't come back. Are you sure about going down by yourself?"
Lin Ye would only offer suggestions, never make decisions for others.
"Then forget it."
Jiang Yu decisively abandoned her intuition.
"Let's head to the cave then."
Lin Ye turned away from the cliff. The company hadn't had Yang Tao promote the south side. If Public Security Bureau personnel really came to investigate, they'd definitely explore the south first, even checking the cliff bottom.
So the cliff bottom was likely extremely dangerous, possibly even a trap set by the mastermind.
About ten minutes later, the two found the mysterious cave Yang Tao had mentioned. Rather than a cave, it was more like an underground cavern system, with numerous entrances dotting the mountain wall, each leading in different directions.
"Feels like we'll get lost inside."
Jiang Yu produced two high-power flashlights, handing one to Lin Ye.
"Let's check inside first. If it's too complex, we'll abandon it."
Lin Ye took the lead with his flashlight. Mental perception and vision were different information gathering methods - Lin Ye could navigate normally using just mental perception, but seeing was more comfortable.
The cavern's internal structure proved extremely complex, with branching paths at regular intervals. As they walked, Lin Ye concentrated on mentally mapping the cavern layout.
The cavern walls could block mental perception, though not as effectively as the red maze.
Jiang Yu: I keep feeling something watching us nearby, but the sensation is faint. I can't pinpoint the location.
Jiang Yu grew increasingly agitated, frequently glancing back. Her perception was exceptionally sharp - shortly after entering, she'd sensed some faint yet unignorable 'gaze'.
Lin Ye carefully scanned their surroundings but detected nothing. His mental energy surpassed Jiang Yu's, so theoretically he should sense anything she could. But each person's mental signature was unique, with different sensitivities to various factors.
Lin Ye: Let's go deeper for a stretch. If we find nothing, we'll leave.
Jiang Yu: Okay.
They continued deeper into the cavern. No living creatures inhabited the space, and no matter how far they walked, no end appeared.
"Let's turn back."
After another ten minutes, Lin Ye decided to retreat.
"Okay... better make it quick."
Jiang Yu tightened her coat, feeling that 'gaze' growing increasingly intense.
Lin Ye led the way as they quickly passed through branching paths, but after several turns, he suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong?"
Jiang Yu had a bad feeling.
"The path's wrong. We came from here."
Lin Ye pointed at a stone wall.
"What do we do?"
Jiang Yu also remembered their route and had marked the turns, but she only recalled which direction to take at which junction, not the exact path. If Lin Ye was right, now even the branching paths were gone.
"Only one way - cut through and see if there's a path behind."
Lin Ye drew Red Blade and sliced through the stone wall.
As the wall shattered, Jiang Yu finally discovered the source of that 'gaze'.
Countless dark green tendrils covered with spikes and eyes erupted from within the stone wall, lashing toward the two standing before it.
Simultaneously, the entire cavern began shaking. Inside the stone walls, tendrils squirmed like blood vessels everywhere, with dense clusters of tendril tips sprouting from surrounding walls.
Lin Ye turned and ran while activating his mutated spiritual energy shield to block the mass of tendrils behind them.
"What do we do! If we can't find the exit, we'll be overwhelmed by tendrils soon!"
Jiang Yu had completely lost her sense of direction. The cavern's branching paths all looked similar, and with the stone walls shifting positions, finding their original route amid the chaos was impossible.
"Don't panic. I haven't completely lost direction yet. Let me find a spot closer to the outside, then we'll fight our way out!"
Lin Ye reconstructed the movement path in his mental map. The slightly shifting cavern walls had been misleading them for some time - without his strong mental energy, restoring the correct direction would have been difficult.
After determining the correct exit direction, Lin Ye led Jiang Yu through the cavern toward that bearing. As long as their direction remained correct, no matter which path they took, they were moving toward the outside.
But Lin soon discovered the cavern was actively guiding them off course.
Massive tendrils surged from all directions, quickly shredding the mutated spiritual energy shield to pieces.
"Right at the next turn! We fight our way out!"
Lin Ye prepared for a desperate struggle. He couldn't determine how far they remained from the outside - maybe just meters, maybe dozens of meters. If too distant, they'd be buried alive by the accumulating tendrils.
But the rapidly multiplying tendrils no longer permitted searching for better positions.
"I have a spiritual energy bomb! We could try blasting our way out!"
Jiang Yu produced a dangerously ominous bomb from her loot space.
"Use it! I'll cover you!"
Lin Ye threw out disposable spiritual energy protection items while simultaneously weaving spiritual energy shields around them.
Tendrils piled against the spiritual energy shields, instantly crushing layer after layer of protection.
"Ready! But detonating now will hit us too!"
The surrounding space was already filled with tendrils. Jiang Yu hesitated about detonating the bomb at close range.
"Detonate now! Then drop flat!"
In such moments, Lin Ye never hesitated.