"Forty-seven degrees, 0.43 ters, indentation of 3.9, suitable for climbing."
"Twenty-two degrees, 0.21 ters, protruding by 5.5, suitable for stepping on. Prone to collapse, imdiate transfer needed."
In the silent, foggy valley, Lu Yunan’s guiding voice echoed.
Li Ang, with his eyes closed, gripped the rock crevices firmly with his fingertips, crawling up the nearly vertical cliff face.
Lu Yunan lay on his back, the two of them bound tightly together with an abundance of ropes and cloth.
Their teamwork was seamless. Initially, Lu Yunan had to ticulously describe the position and shape of each rock she saw. Later, she only needed to state the rock coordinates for him to climb steadily.
"Three, two, one."
Li Ang leaped forcefully toward the upper left, grabbing hold of a protruding rock with both hands to support their combined weight.
With a loud CLATTER, a mass of loose stones peeled away from the spot he had just vacated, tearing through the fog and plumting toward the valley floor. The faint sound of their shattering only reached them after a long delay.
Such heart-pounding monts, where the slightest misstep could an being smashed to pieces, had already occurred many tis.
Li Ang felt Lu Yunan’s breathing quicken suddenly at the side of his neck, her arms unconsciously tightening around him, yet he was still in the mood to joke, "Even with foreknowledge, you still get scared?"
"Foreknowledge isn’t omniscience. It’s like when everyone’s in an office eting and soone secretly lets out a damp fart; you know it’s probably not shit, but you can’t help worrying deep down anyway," Lu Yunan retorted, rolling her eyes. "Before the actual outco materializes, the predicted future is like Schrödinger’s cat—in a state of being half-shit and half-not-shit."
"..."
Li Ang winced. "Analogies are fine," he said with so annoyance, "but why do they always have to involve shit and farts?"
"Shit and farts are part of internet slang; if you don’t like it, don’t engage," Lu Yunan replied, wiping the sweat from Li Ang’s forehead with her sleeve.
Suddenly, a strange noise erupted from within the thick fog of the gorge, resembling the piercing howl of a wild beast.
Li Ang and Lu Yunan froze simultaneously. After the howling ceased, they waited in silence for several more minutes.
As they ascended further from the valley floor, Li Yuan grew increasingly abnormal—or perhaps, this was its true nature.
Strange noises frequently echoed within the gorge, and occasionally, vague, massive shadows flickered through the dense fog.
What was more deadly, however, was the fog’s density.
After climbing another two to three hundred ters, the surrounding temperature rose, humidity increased, and the fog beca even more... "viscous."
rely passing through the fog caused heavy dew to accumulate on their sleeves. With every breath, they could distinctly feel moisture pouring into their mouths and noses, moistening their lungs.
Moreover, more complex vegetation began to appear on the rock walls.
Sparse wild grass, upward-growing withered trees, and a hybrid plant resembling a fusion of sea anemones and willow branches—each branch swayed in the wind, emitting a dazzling light like a spinning barber pole.
Nurous insects, drawn by the light, sward the plant, flitting and circling in dark clouds as they reproduced.
Suddenly, all the plant’s branches snapped shut, ensnaring all the insects. The force of the branches snapping shut was so great it produced a sonic boom.
Li Ang and Lu Yunan had no desire to test whether the strange plant’s nu included humans. They first tore off a piece of Ink Silk Umbrella Cloth and wrapped it around their mouths and noses. (Li Yuan was ho to many unknown fungi, and prolonged breathing in such highly humid air could lead to respiratory infections). They then avoided all threats and continued their climb.
As it turned out, Lu Yunan’s decision to have Li Ang bring the Radiant Crossbow was correct.
With every segnt they climbed, the creatures seed to increase in size.
There were beetles the size of human heads, person-sized orchids, skyscraper-like trees, and birds with wingspans comparable to heavy bombers—the re passage of one such bird through the canyon stirred up a fierce gale.
Amidst all this, Li Ang and Lu Yunan felt like ants in a vast courtyard.
No wonder Li Yuan was listed as a forbidden territory. That bird, even in the outside world, would probably be a match for a Candle Cloud Cultivator, let alone in Li Yuan, where Spiritual Energy was prohibited and Cultivators’ abilities were Sealed.
Li Ang silently felt the strong wind. A soccer ball-sized mosquito seed to take an interest in them and, after the fierce wind subsided, it buzzed towards them.
Its mouthparts were nearly half a ter long, sharp as a blade.
Without hesitation, Lu Yunan pulled out the Radiant Crossbow strapped to Li Ang’s leg, pulled the trigger, and fired a bolt at the mosquito.
WHOOSH—
The mosquito’s swollen belly was pierced by the bolt, instantly bursting and splattering a mix of red and green, foul-slling fluid.
A swarm of tiny mosquitoes, bathed in the fluid, erupted from the mosquito’s ruptured abdon, flying about erratically.
As ti passed, these normal-sized mosquitoes began to attack and feed on each other, and the survivors’ bodies visibly swelled.
"..."
Lu Yunan watched the bizarre scene unfold and whispered, "We need to get out of here quickly."
Without her needing to emphasize it, Li Ang quickened his pace, climbing on in silence.
Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.
Even though his body had been enhanced by Mo Si, the high-intensity climb still accumulated fatigue in his muscles. The Ink Silk Umbrella Cloth covering their faces further increased their physical exertion.
Panting, Li Ang quietly asked Lu Yunan, "Have you gotten heavier?"
"Heavier? How could that be?"
Lu Yunan raised her palm and was stunned to find that, at so point, a layer of incredibly fine threads, almost invisible to the naked eye, had settled upon them.
These threads were normally invisible. Only when moving their hands and limbs, using the light from the luminous fungi on the cliffside, could one detect their existence through extrely faint changes in light and shadow.
"They’re like spiderwebs. When did they get on us?" Lu Yunan was exceedingly surprised and alard. Her foreknowledge hadn’t sensed any danger, unless...
She turned her head to look around at the dense fog. Casually swiping her hand through the air, she felt the sticky pull of the filants, like spider silk, between her fingers slightly intensify.
Instantly, a terrifying thought struck Lu Yunan.
Could it be that the dense fog enveloping the whole of Li Yuan was made up of spider silk?
She slowly exhaled, then held her breath and focused. Her mind raced, processing information gathered through sight, hearing, and sll, calculating and estimating.
Within a hundred ters of them, the variety and number of wild creatures had sharply declined. It was as if this area were a pre-spun spiderweb trap.
And they had walked right into it.
CLICK-CLACK. CLICK-CLACK.
A dense series of clicks and clacks emanated from the fog. Spiders of various colors and shapes were stepping on the fog—or rather, the spider silk that composed it—rapidly approaching to surround them.
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